patrick.net

Randy, of course. If it is so easy it would have been implemented already. :)

Randy,

Yup, that's why I don't actually advocate capital punishment or a speedy trial process. I'm just arguing that if capital punishment was to exist, its deterrence aspect can be made much more effective.

Sadly, the ancient Chinese concept of punishing the family amounts to collective guilt. Exile or death or slavery are often punishments of families unfortunate enough to have an emperor upsetting member. These punishments are indeed only accorded upon perceived acts of treason. Punishment for ordinary crimes are cruel, but don't involve punishing the rest of the family.

well, it's not a question of 'it would have already been implemented already', it's a case of respecting basic human rights and the increasing appreciation of such. many more countries have continued to ban the death penalty than instate it as a mark of increasing civilisation. why is it OK for the state to murder someone who has committed murder? isn't there a paradox in there somewhere? apart from the possibility of corruption re short term or summary trials à la judge dredd -- US officials at all levels are already horribly corrupt and biased, they would start taking out their political enemies and anyone they didn't like with frame ups, where the victim would be dead before they could mount a reasonable defence. apart from the indecency of 'wild west' social conditions which create underclasses in the first place...

i got lots more...

hey, bap, the only countries where the death penalty is being brought back apart from the US are fundamentalist Muslim countries under sha'ria law...

you've got a lot more in common with yer mates than you realised ;)

let's see what's in common with both:
- fundamentalist religious populace and theocratic rulers who make frequent reference to allah or god as their guiding principle
- introduction of strong religious elements into secular life, e.g. the 10 commandments in schools and court houses, school prayer, banning stem cell research, banning gay marriages, etc
- strong proponents of the death penalty
- intolerance of other religions and fervent patriotism tending to irrationality
- monotheistic middle eastern religion with the old testament as the basis
- belief in prophets and saviours
- large numbers of ordinary citizens possess guns and use them
- leaders of both countries in bed with each other, e.g. 'Bandar Bush' the Saudi prince who is an honorary member of the Bush family, and the bin Ladens who were involved in Carlyle and have a trillion dollars in the US stock market and were about to get the green light to run US ports by Bush, hmm...

hell, bap, these guys are practically your cousins... you should step out on the porch and say howdy to yer kin when they come on by to visit with ya...

oops, did i step over the line that time? bap won't like me as much now...

DS,

The Bin Ladens are wealthy, but they don't have a trillion dollars by any measurement. The GDP of Saudi Arabia is less than half a trillion a year.

The Bin Ladens are wealthy, but they don’t have a trillion dollars by any measurement. The GDP of Saudi Arabia is less than half a trillion a year.

the saudis as a whole have invested a trillion into the US stock market over the years, by the report i've read. in round figures. given that their GDP is half a trillion a year, and much of it is oil revenue, they have to plough it somewhere. given that a handful of families control most of the wealth, it would only take a few years to invest it back into the US stock market to that amount. but i'm only quoting a figure i've read, you are free to double-check other sources... my sentence was perhaps a little prone to being read inaccurately, as i'm conflating the house of saud etc with the bin ladens in one line -- it was a quick sentence, but meant it to mean the wealth of saudi arabia.

DS,

When you say "and the bin Ladens who were involved in Carlyle and have a trillion dollars in the US stock market and were about to get the green light to run US ports by Bush, hmm…" it's hard to read it as something other than you surmising that the Bin Ladens have a trillion dollars in the US stock market. I'm not sure you can conflate the Bin Ladens directly with the Sauds. The Bin Ladens may have become extremely wealthy and influential with Saudi patrons, but they're not the rulers of Saudi Arabia.

I'm not familiar with Middleeastern finance but I would be interested to find out more, so please do post your source.

My general sense of the situation is that although the Sauds control the oil revenue, they plow much of the money back in charities and administrative budgets and shopping trips to UAE and such. Although they control the finances of the country, they have a big population (more than half of whom can't work and can't even drive to the grocery store by themselves) to support and no other industry but oil revenues. So I think $1 trillion invested in the US sounds a wee bit on the high side, especially when it makes sense for them to invest much of their surplus in the Middleeast or in Europe, rather than in the more distant and hostile US.

yeah, it's a poor and hastily written sentence -- my apologies...

more research actually suggests it's only half a trillion in the US, or $420 billion, and a total of about $760 billion, or 3/4 of a trillion, in the US and Europe combined.

(According to the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy, a pro-Saudi think tank which tries to emphasize the importance of Saudi money to the United States -- Tanya C. Hsu , “The United States Must Not Neglect Saudi Arabian Investment” Sept. 23, 2003.)

so only half a trillion. sorry.

one of the reasons many ordinary Saudis are so pissed off with things is that their real wages have been chopped by 2/3 since the 1980s.

note that 60% of overseas investment by saudi arabia is in the US, tho...

Hmm, I can't comment on the amount, though I guess the number could go either ways.

"one of the reasons many ordinary Saudis are so pissed off with things is that their real wages have been chopped by 2/3 since the 1980s."

For some reason, I thought it was much worse than that. My impression was that Saudi Arabia was once on par per capita with the US, but is now less than 1/2 of that. Also, given that need to desalinate their water and don't let their women drive, the cost of living would be a lot higher. Since their males are generally not trained in the sciences of making new stuff, their women can't even do anything outside of the home, and they have a huge population boom -- I will agree with you that the Sauds have gotten themselves into quite a situation.