How about a fountain of smart?

I saw a bumper sticker the other day which made me laugh and say "Right on!". It said "We have enough youth, how about a fountain of smart?"

There's this guy in Texas who just killed someone while driving drunk. Everyone is asking "What should we do about drunk drivers?" Why all the attention on this one death? The guy was convicted of drunk driving about 20 odd times in his life. I think the solution to this is easy. Make drunk driving a felony, that way if you get convicted, you have a felony on your record, making it harder to get/keep a job, and if you kill someone while driving drunk, it's murder. Simple. Kill someone while driving drunk, go to jail for life, or in Texas, get the needle. Really simple. No problem anymore.

Which brings me to another subject near and dear to my heart. The death penalty. Here is an area where my views are not typical of most Liberals. I'm completely in favor of the death penalty. There are a couple of problems with the system right now which need to be fixed;

Problem 1: The appeals process. The appears process needs to be a lot smoother and quicker. We should enpanel two juries at the same time. One for the first case, the second for the required appeal. When the first trial ends, the second one starts, if convicted. Okay, maybe a week in between. A month TOPS. After the end of the first trail, a judge rules on an appeal within the week. If granted, the trial starts IMMEDIATELY. If denied, the convited gets the needle THAT NIGHT. Better yet, he gets a bullet in the brain right there in the court room.

Problem 2: "Corrections" versus "Penal": The prisons are called a correctional institutions. This implies that someone sentenced to prison is expected to get better sometime in the future. When someone comes up for parole, particularly a murderer or rapist, there's a huge hue and cry about him getting out early. Every time.

Look, if he's not there for correction, then he's there for penalty. If that's the case, then he's in there for the ENTIRE sentence. No parole. No "furlough". Punishment. Period. If there's no expectation that he'll get better, than admit it and put a bullet though his brain. I'm not interested in paying for a serial rapist's Ph.D. I'm not even interested in paying for his MEALS for the next 6 decades. Kill him and roll his corpse into a shallow ditch. Done with it.

Problem 3: It's not used on enough crimes. Here's the list of crimes that I think you should be put to death over:

Murder
Negligent homocide
Rape
Child abuse
Child molestation
Maybe a couple of others, but of course, IANAL.

More later.