link Death penalty: Exhaustive study finds death penalty costs California $184 million a year – latimes.com.
Really? It costs an estimated $308 million dollars to carry out a single death penalty in the state of California? In essence, the cost of dying is thousands of times more than the cost of living there. This is certainly a business that can be performed more cheaply by off shore labor. In fact, an offshore company can charge half of what it ‘costs’ in that state, and still make a pretty good profit. They would only need about one contract every few years or so to stay in business. Heck, just across the border in Mexico, there are those practising the craft all the time for free. Come to think of it, why bother to execute them when for only the cost of a bus ticket, we can send them to Mexico wearing cartel gang colors.
Unable to convince the public on any given policy that they don’t agree with, the progressive left defaults to appealing to economic arguments to support their positions. In this particular case, that strategy backfires on them. As they break down the costs involved, it highlights the ridiculous maze of bureaucracy that must be navigated in order to carry out the state laws. The logic thread then goes, ‘why not abolish it altogether’ since it is so cost inefficient. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same argument for abandoning the war on drugs. Which is the same argument for not enforcing illegal immigration laws. Using the same logic, it must be an astronomical number for police to enforce any kind of laws. Then why have police? In fact, why have laws?
I wonder if that same argument could be used on the cost of medical care? Recently, a friend of mine had a small accident in the US where he was visiting. This required a trip to the hospital. The cost for fixing up a dented finger was over $4000. No rational person would then conclude that the cost of this procedure means that medical care should therefore be abandoned because of cost. It only makes sense to fix the root causes of why the system is the way it is. I wonder if lawyers are involved.
Clearly the cancer of bureacracy has infected all areas of public life. This cancer is hiding as a “cost of implementation” when progressives want to rationalize their agenda and when other arguments fail the sniff test of logic and morality. Soon, it will be too expensive to feed the kids…..
link To be a great, McIlroy must stay true to himself – USATODAY.com.
At the just concluded 2011 US Open , 22 year old Rory McIlroy’s prodigious talent burst him onto the world stage in dramatic fashion. Readers can refer to other sports sites for details of his on course exploits, but my discussion is the more compelling story of the kid himself.
Just 22 years of age and he already has been placed at the top of the sporting world as much for his character as for his athletic accomplishment. He is much of what most celebrity athletes these days are not. He is not brusque, arrogant or distant. He does not wear strange clothing, have tattoos or earrings. He does not hide behind aviator sunglasses and surround himself with surly bodyguards. He speaks humbly of his accomplishments, does so in complete sentences and is a filial son. Unlike many top name athletes today, his ego has yet to overwhelm him.
It’s almost too good to be true. He is like a Stepford wife. With an impossibly beautiful swing bordering on golf pornography and a disarmingly modest demeanor, it’s hard not to be drawn to this kid. In the golfing world at least, guys like Nicklaus and Palmer have always tended to their good guy image and may in large part explain their revered positions in golf. This is in contrast to Ben Hogan and recently Tiger Woods, both of whom were more prickly personalities but were tolerated because of their talents. A guy like Rory comes along and once again, people can pull for a hero without reservation. He has the same quality as did a young Phil Mickelson. Granted, he’s still young and much may happen, but the talent has been there since an early age and the grounding influence of his parents will keep him as a like-able person for years to come. It appears that a strong value system was instilled from the outset. Undoubtedly, his family and friends back in his hometown of Holywood, Ireland wouldn’t have rioted even if Rory had lost.
How many 22 year old kids go off to Haiti on their own volition without commercial intent to assess the conditions of the earthquake victims? How many young kids can take the crushing collapse that he experienced during this year’s Masters and brush it off with equanimity and without bitterness or recrimination? The kid has a maturity well beyond his years and this gushing fan hopes that he will be the new standard of celebrity athletes in the future. The world can use some genuinely nice guys.