I've just read an amazing article about the Death Penalty in India and like its author I'm totally against all forms of Capital Punishment. Still, I am interested in what my readers are thinking about this topic, so I made a poll where you can vote for or against the Death Penalty. Of course the voting is totally anonymous, so don't worry about me seeing your name/IP address or anything like that.
Please leave a comment here if you want to say something more about this issue. Below you can find "Reasons against the death penalty" with a few comments by me and also the article I mentioned above.
Reasons against the death penalty (by antideathpenalty.org)
1. Executions cost more than life in prison.
$2 million per person vs. $500,000 (4x as much!). Free counsel for defense, for appeals, maximum security on a separate death row wing.
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Vice mag has interviewed Darren Cullen from the Graffiti Kings about his recent arrest for criminal damage - an operation to clean the city off Graffiti (even legal one) during the Olympics.
Our Olympic dreams for London have already been soured by the roof-mounted rockets, VIP traffic lanes, and wandering gangs of "brand police." But it got even worse yesterday when the British Transport Police raided a number of homes and made a bunch of arrests, seemingly as part of a pre-emptive operation to crack down on graffiti in the capital during the 2012 Olympic Games.
One of the people arrested was Darren Cullen. Darren, who is also known by his graffiti tag “Ser,” has been involved in the graffiti and street art scene in the UK since 1983. But in truth, he's kinda legit—over the past 20 years, he's worked with local councils, companies like Microsoft, Red Bull and Adidas, disadvantaged kids, and, hilariously, Team fucking GB itself. He's also turned spraying paint on stuff into his own company, called Graffiti Kings.
I spoke to Darren about his arrest, and why he thinks the British Transport Police went after him.
VICE: Hi Darren. So, you were arrested yesterday? ...
In case you've asked yourself this, cause you've seen the name "Kony" float around the web during the last hours, you asked the right question! The answer is in this video, and I strongly recommend you watch the whole thing, because there is some really important information in it. Also, it's only 30 minutes, not 3 hours, so I bet you'll survive focussing your attention on this video for a while....
Juarez, Mexico is a war zone.
The war is being waged by two rival drug cartels, the Juarez and the Sinoloa, block by block for control of the city and its trafficking routes. The result is extreme levels of violence, corruption and intimidation. And for the past two years, photographer Dominic Bracco II has been covering the war’s effects on the border town’s residents. While he is working there as a journalist, Bracco can’t help but feel invested in the subjects that he’s become so familiar with....
There are horrible riots in Athens right now with several buildings being set on fire. News reports say that already 80 people were injured in the riots! My dear co-author Antigoni just tweeted these awful pictures:
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Last week the net and the media were ablaze with the news that Anonymous might be taking on the Zeta drug cartel in Mexico, a story that has morphed into a wider drug corruption story, and led to one American law enforcement official in North Carolina being named as a gang conspirator.
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Two days after the sight of flaming cars and anti-Semitic graffiti horrified a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, residents, elected officials and others took part in a march on Sunday against hatred and intolerance.
The police were still investigating the burning of three parked cars on Ocean Parkway and the spray-painting of swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs on benches and the initials “K.K.K.” on the side of a van. The police are treating the episode as a hate crime. No arrests had been made by late Sunday afternoon.
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