–>Or so say many people in Maryland, who apparently agree with me that some people just need to be dead but lack my skepticism that the government is competent to make those kinds of choices with sufficient accuracy. It’s unfortunate that WTOP chose to report on this so uncritically and not point out that people like State’s Attorneys Doug Gansler and Joseph I. Cassilly are clearly more looking to thump their chest than accomplish anything.

After all, how seriously should we take seriously a complaint like “The longer we have a death penalty statute on the books but an inability to carry it out, the frustration will undoubtedly mount among prosecutors and families of victims of crime” when Maryland has executed five people in the twenty-one thirty-one years since the 1976 Supreme Court decision that re-authorized the death penalty? In light of that statistic it’s hard to understand the complaint against O’Malley wanting to wait till January to see what the legislature is going to do – they’d normally have managed to execute 1/9th 1/12th of a person by then!

[thanks for the catch, Ms. Tart, even if it means confronting the fact that it’s been 10 years since DMB put out “Crash” and that I ain’t 27 anymore…]

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Don Whiteside

Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.

Hmm, guess I just did.

My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.