As would be the regulators and judges that Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship has assiduously cultivated over the years.^*

They would have been tried, convicted, and had a bullet in the base of their skull.

As it is, the Upper Big Branch Mine, where 25 miners have died and 4 are still missing, has a long history of repeated violations, 1,342 since 2005, and 50 just last month is a case of a wealthy business owner buying off the local Mandarins, and then having a very public disaster.

This is classically a situation where the Chinese legal machinery rolls into action and does a few executions for PR.

They’ve done it to corrupt brokers, and it appears that in this case, the model would be to execute Blankenship, the judge, and a few bureaucrats in the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

All in all it would make the world a better place, particularly in the case of Blankenship, whose company has left a trail of avoidable mining disasters behind it.

And then the meds kick in, and I remember that I oppose the death penalty.

^*He quite literally bought a West Virginia Supreme Court justice some years back.