Capital Punishment - An Alternative for Missouri?

Several inmates sit in Missouri prisons, awaiting a court ruling on if the new lethal injection drug is legal or not. According to this STLtoday article "Propofol has never previously been used as an execution drug, and a lawsuit filed by a death row inmate claims its use could violate the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment... Missouri has executed just two men since 2005 as courts have weighed constitutional challenges to the death penalty. Forty-six men are on death row."

While there are continuous debates and lawsuits over whether or not the death penalty is Constitutional, it seems a bit ridiculous that we would worry about if the method being used to deliver that punishment is cruel and unusual. The people facing this dilemma are people that have been convicted of such crimes that legally warrant such a harsh punishment.

So why all the debate over which drug might cause the least amount of pain to the convicted prisoner? While I am not for dragging out the punishment in any way, I do not believe that it is a requirement for said punishment to be painless. With that in mind, I submit another method that is, in most cases incredibly painless, efficient, quick and is ridiculously inexpensive to perform: hanging.

According to Wikipedia, in New Hampshire, correction officials can decide to hang a prisoner as the method of capital punishment and in Washington state, the prisoner can still elect to be hung as the method of choice. Is there any legal reason why this method could not be utilized by the state of Missouri to deliver the desired outcome of such rulings? The immediate obvious answer is "that's barbaric and we are more civilized than that". But is that true?

What we are talking about here is the predetermined killing of a person who, in most cases, was convicted of a crime by a jury of citizens that decided their punishment should be death. So does it matter if that person falls asleep after a few minutes of drug injections or a few seconds at the end of a rope?

Wouldn't the more human method be the quicker method? After all, who can say what thoughts or dreams may be caused by the drugs in the moments prior to them actually killing the prisoner? After all, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that in those final moments we could be subjecting the person to and incredibly terrifying and painful dream.

But what about the possibility of  a botched hanging attempt?
It appears that the variable drop method of hanging, where the prisoner's height and weight are used to calculate the drop distance needed to deliver enough force to snap the spine of the prisoner, has been used successfully for many years, many times, with few instances of a botched attempt. In most cases the prisoner is immediately either killed or knocked unconscious until the deprivation of blood to their brain kills them a few minutes later.

I am far from an expert in this area and am not outright endorsing such a maneuver, but wouldn't it be to every state's benefit to seek out all alternatives and offer cheaper ones to prisoners as a choice (as Washington currently does)?

It's puzzling to hear such rigorous debate on what constitutes a human killing, when the person being handed the judgement did something that was very much far from humane.

The Rams, the Renovation and the Blame Game

Let's say you are a professional sports team that has not had a winning season since 2003.
To be fair, in that time you had two years where you broke even (2004, 2006).
Suppose that your attendance has declined in 4 of the past 5 years.
Let's pretend that your lease agreement for the building you play in is at a point of negotiation.
What would you do?

I'm pretty sure that nobody in their right mind would counter a $124 million dollar renovation proposal with an estimated $700 million dollar proposal, regardless of what your current contract says you can do.

It would appear that the St. Louis Rams are absolutely insane and believe that the City of St. Louis and the taxpayers of the State of Missouri should do just that. I think it is safe to say that the Rams have a very inflated perception of their value.

What's a Rams Team Worth?
Last year, Forbes Magazine valued the Rams at $775 million dollars. That is down from 2009 when Forbes valued the team at $929 million. Given the fact that the Rams had another terrible season last year, it would seem reasonable to expect that this value might go unchanged or decline in this year's valuation. And yet, despite their pathetic on field performance, the organization feels it is entitled to a ridiculous renovation project that would cost almost more than what the entire organization is worth.

"But if we don't make them happy, they might leave!" people say.
In fact, the Rams silently threaten that every time the lease is discussed.
Shame on them for doing so.

The Rams were bought and moved into a brand new facility and given a fan base that was eager to adopt them as their own. The fans suffered through some terrible football and paid a high price to watch the pitiful product take the field. When the Super Bowl trophy made its way to the shadow of the Arch, the fans here were ecstatic. When "the best show on turf" faded, the fans continued to support the team. While the numbers may have dropped over time, the overarching support for the team had not.

And here's where we get into the blame game...

When Snake Handlers Die

Pentecostal pastor Mark Wolford died this past Sunday, after being bit by a poisonous timber rattlesnake in West Virginia's Panther Wildlife Management Area. Wolford was a snake-handler who believed that God calls them to engage in such a practice to show their faith in him.

"Anybody can do it that believes it," Wolford said. "Jesus said, 'These signs shall follow them which believe.' This is a sign to show people that God has the power." 

So, since he was bitten by the snake and later died, is it is a sign that God doesn't have the power? Or is it a sign that Wolford didn't believe it? Could it be that his followers didn't believe either, as they were unable to heal Wolford?

I'd say it is none of the above.
It's a poisonous snake.
It bit Wolford.
Wolford died from the event.
Wolford may have been sincere in his belief, but like his father before him, he was literally dead wrong.

The lesson here should be to leave poisonous snakes alone. And if you do happen to survive handling them for a time (for whatever reason), do not sit down next to them on the ground where they can still bite you.

There's no need for Christians to act like complete idiots.