The Dismal Science

Around here there are plenty of jobs and no takers because they are making more by being unemployed. Food places are only open due to not enough help, just about all of them have a help wanted sign. Construction workers are about the same and so are truck drivers.

There are plenty of jobs around here that are either low skill like the food service and skilled like the construction workers. Not too many factory jobs as the factories have shut down and moved to China or other countries.

Alternatively, since the number of jobs added or lost is the difference between very two large numbers in the region of 140 million you could say that their forecast was accurate to better than 1/2%.

There are many parameters in electronics where it is not possible to predict whether values are even going to be positive or negative. For example, opamp offsets or FET threshold voltages can vary by huge amounts.

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I was shocked when NPR interviewed a guy who said that collecting extended unemployment was better than working. Not shocked by the guy, but that NPR would air it.

I guess contractors can hire illegals and pay them in cash.

The US economy is being systematically, and probably deliberately, destroyed. The people doing it are either very evil or very stupid, likely both.

Then don't predict them to the New York Times.

What a strange, strange person.

I dated a nurse at one point who mentioned in the psych ward they evaluated the patients every day in terms of how functioning they were. Sometimes they would talk about the doctors and after saying something about one of them they might add, "but highly functioning" as if they were a patient in the psych ward. I guess you can say Larkin is "highly functioning".

In between passing three dozen anti-abortion bills and bringing back the firing squad and electric chair I hope the citizen's fine elected officials can spare a few minutes to try to figure out who the stupid evil people ruining the economy are

Why not use nitrogen?

Yeah, we're 80% of the way there already!

I asked the same question. It is fast, only one or two breaths are needed.

However, there are a number of problems, such as getting the victim to wear a mask or putting them in a gas chamber, the victim can delay the process by holding his breath, protecting the attendees, getting a supply of nitrogen, and developing a suitable protocol.

Oklahoma passed a law enabling the use of nitrogen, but struggled to find a soltuion to the problems. They finally gave up:

TinyURL is a great program!

I don't believe in more "humane" methods of execution.

In states where elected officials believe the death penalty is required the firing squad should be the only allowable method. Elected officials and their families and kids would then be required to attend and observe the entire process and all the blood spattered all over the wall and so forth.

The sentences would be carried out on Sunday mornings prior to their usual church attendance.

Bullets and rope is cheaper. There is a big amunition shortage now so the price of bullets have risen,but still less than $ 2 each. So if a

The companies that make the chemicals do not want them used for execution as it will give the company a bad name that produces them. That s why states are looking into other methods.

I perfer the hanging method myself. Put the execution on at the 8 or 9 oclock prime time slot on TV.

That is wrong. The reference you provided does not say that. I can't find any reference that says, "one or two breaths". Nitrogen is not poisonous, it is the lack of oxygen that kills by suffocation.

Indeed.

We do hide executions. I expect this is to prevent a backlash from those who do not support the death penalty as well as changing the opinions of many who presently do not oppose it, but consider it a necessary evil.

So require executions to be public and we will see which states continue to kill people.

The US was also a holdout in abolishing slavery.

Yes, we'll see how many it takes before a head pops off or a neck is not broken and the victim does the writhing rope dance.

We have a nitrogen system for our pick-and-place. It's easy. Or buy it in tanks, for infrequent use.

The other problems are not real problems either.

It's not untested. Inert gasses kill people all the time.

We had a CO scare in the cabin yesterday. The Truckee fire departmant showed up in 5 minutes with lots of instruments and cleared the place.

I think we can be pretty sure. There was a TV program here about this some years back, primarily looking into N2 for humane animal slaughter, and it was tested on pigs who showed no signs of distress. The presenter also tried it, under medical supervision and not to completion, and he fell unconscious fairly quickly, later reporting no pain.

It was also suggested for executions in the US, but the interviewee - some judge possibly, it was a long time ago - didn't like the idea of making executions humane.

Oil tanks and the like are often purged with N2 when work needs to be carried out, I worked for a company doing some geophysical work inside a tank in the middle east. I wasn't particularly involved, but those who were had to use breathing apparatus of course, and were given dire warnings about what would happen if they were to breathe pure N2, because they wouldn't notice the difference.

The point is if you don't know that you are in an inert atmosphere and continue to breathe normally you will be unconscious in about 20s and brain dead in under 5 minutes. He is roughly right. A couple of breaths in a nitrogen atmosphere and you are in real danger of passing out.

It was a known hazard in several places where I worked. Buildings with Halon fire suppression systems and risk of bulk argon gas or LN2 leaks.

Normal air sets were strategically positioned around the site. You don't have long to act if you find yourself in an inert atmosphere. People have been died because they didn't realise how dangerous it can be. eg:

They would not notice the difference until it was too late anyway.