Re: Not always joking, it seems

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:28:18 -0000, "Mike Stone" <mwstone@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:

>
>> > > jamesd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > We really need a system where in straightforward cases, in some
>large
>> > > > proportion of murders, if the murderer is arrested red handed
Friday
>> > > > night, he gets hanged in the public square at noon Saturday.
>> > >
>
>
>
>I think it's been done.
>
>Wasn't there a short in Analog where some young punk ran over and killed
a
>little girl about 9-30, was caught by traffic cops, immediately tried by
the
>robot judge thay carried in their van, and about 10-30 (?) the same
evening
>was vapourised in the execution chamber fitted in the back of the same
van?
>
>Can't recall the exact title, but iirc it was the time of the execution.

Something pretty similar happens at the start ofNeal Stephenson's _The
Diamond Age_.

	Cheers - Jaimie
-- 
"If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would
 have kept it for themselves."            - Joseph Lane Kirkland