Ding dong, he's dead

Rumor has it that Saddam Hussein has been hanged from the neck until dead, dead, dead. I have something to say about that: Hurrah!

I am a reluctant supporter of the death penalty. By "reluctant" I mean that I'd rather there was a better way of dealing with sociopaths and psychopaths. Some day we may be able to do something a la Babylon 5, and just wipe their evil personality away and replace it with something useful to the community. But alas, that day is far, far in the future.

I laughed outloud earlier this year reading an article in the New York Times. To paraphrase the headline: "For more and more, life imprisonment means dying in prison." The gist of the article was to express shock and dismay that someone sentenced to life imprisonment would actually (gasp) remain in prison for the rest of their life. It's that shock that reminds me to support the death penalty, because the plain fact is that your typical left-leaning moonbat would, at some point, release anyone from prison. Ah, the joy of Charles Manson once more wandering California....

Frankly I despise incarceration, so I'd prefer that anyone who received the glorious LWOPP, life without the possibility of parole, just be sentenced to death. Better to have finality.

And so I'm happier to see Saddam shuffled off this mortal coil. Bye, don't bother to wave, don't go away mad, don't go away in a huff, just go away.

This morning's Sacramento Bee had an obituary (not one I could find online, drat) that just reeked of sympathy. My favorite bit, a one sentence paragraph: "In 1979, Saddam became president of Iraq."

"Became." Such a gentle way of telling what happened.

He was an evil man who lived by club, gun, and sword. He died by the rope.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. I will shed no tears, I will lose not a moment's sleep. Ever thus to dictators.