Yeah, I'm working on a unified field theory of American craziness, a combination of porn, WWF, Jerry Springer, Jesus and grunge/rap hostility (none of it available in China) if people felt the need for revenge and retribution, they could just go to stomphisspine.com, and virtually experience the focus of their rage getting punished hundreds of ways, and they could run the video as often as they wanted. You want to see Timothy McVeigh get flayed, burned alive, drawn and quartered, fed to cro codiles, sodomized by a whole cell block while he screams for mercy-or have him in a Jerry Springer format trying to defend himself, while family members of the killed and injured try to assault him.? Have him grovel and beg for mercy while the audience hoots and jeers? Americans want to see the bad guy PUNISHED, not put to friggin' sleep like your best old sheep dog. Nobody wants to rub Tim's ears and say "it's okay, big guy." Just boot up, toot up, and U-PIC the PAIN! In China, it's not done this way. About once weekly, there is something on the news about someone who has received the death penalty. We see a man in shackles, his head bowed in shame. His family is in the background, weeping with shame and disgrace. After this, the prisoner disappears through a doorway and no more is heard about him. I think that he might get a bullet in the head ten minutes after the sentence, but I don't know enough about the Chinese criminal justice system to say that is a fact. But once the guards take him through the doors, it's over. this would never never work in the U.S., where it's hard to get anyone to say the are ashamed about anything.

Seth