Life without parole is tough enough

Newsweek reports on Marc Hyden who has been making presentations at conservative events about how banning the death penalty should be a conservative cause. Yeah, this is a big change for a party with a reputation for being tough on crime (and doing all the wrong things to show that toughness). So the conservative case is:

* Not everyone on death row is guilty. It takes time to find the evidence to exonerate the innocent.

* Death penalty cases are hugely expensive due to the prolonged appeals process.

* "If you can’t really trust government to fill a pothole, how can you trust government do the right thing on a life and death decision?"

* Life without parole is plenty tough. Tough on crime doesn't require execution.

The article has to turn to Obama about another side of the death penalty: there's a huge racial bias on who is given a death sentence. But another aspect isn't mentioned at all: the death penalty is cruel.



Since I'm reading Newsweek (at least for another month) on my netbook computer I'm not as prompt at writing about stories of interest. They tend to accumulate in the browser tabs. Here's one from a couple months ago.

Over the last 20 years the big internet providers have been collecting extra fees (or at least charging higher rates) so they would have enough cash on hand to extend high-speed internet to every corner of the country by 2020. That goal became part of the FCC's National Broadband Plan in 2010.

But instead of using that stash of cash to lay fiber optic cable in small towns these companies are using it to lobby legislatures to get them out of the obligation. They've decided that if a metropolis doesn't have a sufficient population density it simply isn't worthwhile for them to lay the optic cable. And if you live in such a town, too bad, you're stuck with dial-up. This applies to places like Montana, right? Nope, southern New Jersey is stuck too.

In most other developed countries the internet provider is a public utility. And most of them have speeds for everybody much faster than the fastest in America. Internet access is on my list of things that should not be privatized.