I have literally hundreds of columns and newspaper clippings I collected up to about 1995. I don’t do it any longer, but I was going through the files the other day, and found about 35 columns, if I wanted to write about them, and I may do it. As an example, I found three, that may be of interest, and they are edited by me for briefness.
Killing With Kindness
This is from a National Review magazine of September 11, 1995, and it deals with capital punishment.
“Last October, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the 9th Circuit Court, ruled that execution in California’s gas chamber is a form of cruel and unusual punishment.” (Who cares? Persons deserving of the death penalty showed no mercy on their victims, so why should we care – Don). “On its face, Judge Patel’s ruling applies only to the gas chamber, but every method of execution in current use, involves toxic chemicals or physical trauma tp induce death, and every method can go awry.
“Early in the space shuttle program, a worker at the Kennedy Space Center walked into a room size external fuel tank to inspect it. He was not aware that it had been purged with pure nitrogen gas to prevent oxygen in the air from corroding its interior. Since nitrogen is the major component of ordinary air, it has no feel, smell, or taste. The worker had no indication that anything was wrong, walked a short distance into the tank, and collapsed. A fellow worker ran into the tank to rescue him, and both died painlessly. Another accident killed two people in the Bay area, and totally painlessly. They had stolen a gas cylinder from a hospital, which they thought contained laughing gas. It had nitrogen. They stopped their car to try to laugh a lot, and when sniffing the nitrogen, they died quickly and painlessly. Had they known, they could have rolled the windows down in their car and not died.
“Nitrogen asphyxiation is a unique way to die. The victim is not racked by a choking sensation, or a burning urge to breathe, because as far as his body knows, he is breathing normally. Carbon dioxide is not building up in his bloodstream, so he never realizes that anything is wrong, nor does he experience any discomfort. He simply passes out when his blood oxygen falls too low. Nitrogen asphyxiation, is therefore a perfect method of execution. It uses a cheap and universally available, working medium that requires no special environmental precautions for its storage and disposal. It involves no physical trauma, no toxic drugs, and the executed man’s organs will even be suitable for donation.”
“We Were Terribly Wrong”
Quotes of Robert Strange McNamara, and from a Rocky Mountain News story on McNamara’s book, “In Retrospect.” From April 9, 1995
“With the upcoming release of his memoirs, McNamara is breaking his quarter-century public silence on the war that left 58,000 Americans dead, and bitterly divided the country. McNamara, whose internal criticism led Johnson to replace him in 1968, is the highest ranking former U.S. official to say publicly and unequivocally that pursuing the war was a mistake
“We were wrong. Terribly wrong. We were wrong, both military and civilian leaders, in failing to recognize early on, that the strategy we were following, would not accomplish our objective. North Vietnam made a very specific peace offer in 1966, but withdrew it after the United States went ahead with bombing raids that had been delayed by bad weather. Johnson feared that rescheduling the raids would be interpreted as weakness.”
An Interesting Quote
“This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future” – Adolph Hitler, 1935
Just these three columns from 19 years ago, if noted by legislators, would solve the execution troubles, which shouldn’t exist in the first place, and prove what I have been writing about for over 20 years, and that guns are very important, and the Vietnam war was a sham. Korea was too, as are Afghanistan, and Iraq.
A Joke From 1988
“The mayor of Tel Aviv, the Honorable Schlomo Lahat told this one. A group was asked, “Excuse me, what is your opinion on the shortage of meat?” The American said, “What is shortage?” The Russian said, “What is opinion?” And the Israeli shrugged, “What is excuse me?”
Traffic? Here’s a quote from 1982
“In 1921, over 80,000 trolleys carried over 14 million people a year, on 44,000 miles of track. The trolley systems had over 500,000 employees. There were 9 million cars in the U.S., or one car per 11 people, and there were no traffic problems, or filthy air full of smog. The price of gasoline was 19 cents a gallon, there was $55 in currency per capita in circulation, and there was no inflation.” Today, it’s over $37,000 per capita, in circulation, and we certainly have inflation. In 1921, there was no need of having gold and silver brokers, such as Colorado Gold, because the coins were silver and gold, and paper dollars were backed by both. We wouldn’t exist in 1921, and there would have been no need for us. Today, there is a great need, but 99% of the populace, still thinks unbacked dollars, savings accounts, annuities, bonds, and CD’s are fine. The majority is usually wrong, and today it is unfortunately true. Throughout history, all unbacked currencies have gone to absolute zero, while holders of them watched helplessly as it happened. They should have gotten out of failing currencies and into tangible things that went up in price as the currency went down in value and purchasing power.