Rick Perry: The Air-Safety Candidate

So, I had previously linked to the story about how Texans are statistically more likely to be executed than to die in a plane crash. It kept rolling around in my mind, though, so here's this.

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For the record, I'm not actually personally opposed to the death penalty. What I am opposed to is the unequal treatment people receive under the justice system based on factors like race and wealth. Also, when the government is perfectly willing to execute someone whom they know to have been falsely accused in the name of not looking weak on crime.

The numbers I used were based on the 2009 Texas population and a generic American 1 in 11 million per year plane crash death rate, which I got from here.

Duane Edward Buck (whose guilt in a double homicide is not in question) is scheduled to be executed on September 15. Apparently in Texas, likelihood of committing future crimes is an important factor in applying the death penalty. The dubious part was that Buck's race was explicitly cited as a factor in his future dangerousness. You can read more here.

The Galileo bit is in reference to Perry's idiotic statement about Galileo and climate change, about which you should read this.