A North Korean diplomat named Ho Ung was executed by firing squad "after the North Korean government found his talks among the Korean nations to be a failure." Talk about getting fired! No, but seriously, someone died. [NYDN]

Well, murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by firing squad this morning in Utah. We just read all about it on Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's Twitter account. Please do not retweet.

Houston attorney Jerry Guerinot has a bad track record of defending capital murder cases in Texas: 20 of his clients have been executed. But he says judges give him the toughest cases: "The easy ones, somehow, never came to me."

Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murderer, will be executed by firing squad at Utah State Prison, in Draper on June 18th. Barring a final appeal to the State Supreme Court, he will be shot in the heart by four executioners.

A new Amnesty International report says China was far and away the world leader in executions last year, followed by Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and then the USA, with a measly 52 state murders. Europe had zero, though. Nerds. [Pic]

Hey, thanks for coming. Have a seat. We need to talk about what happened last night. We're not mad, we're just concerned. OK, we're sort of mad. Mad enough to kill.

You know what are always fun (well, mostly for us)? Commenter executions. Yeah, some of you nogoodniks have been running around with impunity for too long. So today eight of you are getting culled.

Back in miserable ole England, I didn't work every week. London had 8 hanging days a year, spaced every 6 weeks or so. This is because the city of London had far fewer criminals than the Gawker readership. At Tyburn, where the hangings took place, heads and corpses were preserved and then put on display as advertisement that London was a city where law and order reigned supreme. I've asked Denton to install a vat of formaldehyde on the Gawker HQ rooftop, but there is not enough room amidst the beer pong tables and antiaircraft guns. Instead of embalmed cadavers, I have these posts. Do they work? Not really. If anything, as Gawker's readership has grown, more and more unworthies have managed to sneak in. Blame it on the Montauk Monster. So take this as a warning to stop being such sniping, off-topic, oversharing whiners. You're embarrassing yourselves. And now, as a result of our little discussion earlier, several of you are dead. Executed: La Cieca TheHonJudgeSmails they live Christ Sabo TheIvar Yawn Unfun Jerilyn International Lespionage intothelight To those remaining, remember the faithful departed. Then don't fucking act like them.

You may have noticed that our widely feared commenter executioner, Jack Ketch, has been absent for the past few weeks. We're not exactly sure what is going on with him—maybe he's overwhelmed by the position (there are so many of you now!)—but he'd like to come back and roll a few heads today. Because he's been absent for the past month or so, he needs your help. Who really irks you? Who is needlessly contrary and unhelpful? Who is hideously self-promoting? You can tell us in the comments below or, if you prefer the coward's way out (I'd totes take this option), you can send a private email right to Mr. Ketch! So have at it, and we'll kill some fools later on today.

Hey! Remember a couple weeks ago, when I warned that anyone commenting "slow news day?" would be executed? (I'll handle the editorial direction of this website, thank you.) Well, not all of you were listening. That's unfortunate. Goodbye.

Sometimes, when I have absolutely nothing else to think about, I worry about this business of commenter executions. I consider whether publicly recognizing the horribly witless may be construed as a tacit endorsement of jackassery. I fear that an attention-starved dullard or two may quite wrongly perceive these execution posts as a way to garner recognition. But, I always come to the conclusion that I am doing more harm than good. By highlighting the mistakes of a few, I (hopefully) provide a sort of how-to-stay-alive-guideline for the many wonderful and levelheaded commenters on Gawker. This is all a way of explaining, for the few of you who read the intro, why there is only one execution after the jump, but several examples of his or her chicanery. Think of it as a sort of Gawker auto de fé (Or, as my friend King Ferdinand II called it, a weenie roast.) Executed: American Dreamer (duh) Crimes: Repeated Probably False Self-Aggrandizement Rank Abusiveness Tactlessness A disturbing obsession with this not funny joke And many others too numerous to list here. Farewell, American Dreamer.

Remember last week, when I expressed a belief that you were all doing much better? Well, this week, not so much. I've learned a valuable lesson: Don't count your chickens while the maniacs are throwing eggs at each other. Or, as a friend put it earlier in the week, "if some of them learned how to read it wouldn't be such a problem." I agree with this sentiment, and would add a request that those of you who cannot refrain from being boringly vicious at least be more funny. Oh well, on to the death and circuses. Executed: Public Relations Crime: This is like a Bill O'Reilly monologue as performed by a drunken Pollyanna. But worse. Executed:DushkuFan3000 Crime: If only you could have torn yourself away from Dollhouse promo interviews long enough to email Richard, you might have been saved. Executed: Dfkdave Crime: Dfkdave is a whiny whiny dorkface. That is the proper spelling of dorkface. Happy? Executed: Johnny_boy Crime: Sigh. Also sigh. Executed: JamieDemon Crime: Richard killed Jamie earlier this week, but I'd just like to request that any would be NTJ-impersonators simply not bother. If anyone is just actually like this then you're sort of just basically screwed when it comes to Gawker commenting, everyone will assume you are playing a part. Sorry. Have fun at the commenter meetup, nerds.

Executions started with the goal that commenters would come to be respected. A part of me hoped that Gawker commenters could rise above the scene of thoughtless vitriol spewed by anonymous office drones and 12-year-olds, to not be mentioned in trend pieces that try to co-opt what it means to be mocked on the internet. Because these days, everyone hates anonymous bile, unless it's funny. I hoped to force the Gawker commenters into the former category. And it seems to be working. Maybe too well.

Every so often, usually on Fridays, I see someone post a comment along the lines of, "This is execution bait," or "Ketch hasn't filled his quota yet," or "I am allowed to behave like a feckless prat in the comments because the subject matter of this post is sensitive." I don't really have a problem with the first two sample quotes, but I think that they lead to the third. In a way, I am thankful. Anyone addled enough to believe that their racist/sexist/stupidest thoughts are welcome simply because the subject matter of a post deals with someone else's racist/sexist/stupidest thoughts is clearly not long for this commenting world. However, I worry that some of the soon-to-be-deceased see the suggestion of "baiting" as their invitation to be annoying. And that is, well, really annoying. To clarify: no one is asking you to be offensive, ever. Anyways, on to the bloodshed!

Do you like the new site design? The black? I think it's lovely. Reminiscent of DEATH. This is step 1 in my plan to turn Gawker into Jack Ketch's Blog of Commenter Executions and Pictures of Medieval Siege Weaponry. It's a new direction for the site, but think of the pageview counts when Gawker is the number 1 result for "Trebuchet" Google searches! None of this is true, really. I actually have no power. Which should be obvious, as most of my victims just return a few days later and continue the schtick they died for in the first place. It's a hard life, but a just one. After the jump, you shall find a few more victims to mourn until they return in 5 hours.

shilohcool: Misuse of quotation marks, misuse and misspelling of "esoterica."

This weekend marks the official beginning of summer. People will be celebrating in various ways. Some of you have been celebrating this summer's eve in a, heh, literal manner, meaning you've been unnecessarily rude or crude or just plain dead wrong—we're trying to raise the level of discourse here—this week, you'll meet your warm, sunny doom after the jump.

From our official Commenter Executioner, Jack Ketch: See the title? Get it? Because it's Friday the 13th and now you are dead! I was going to start this post with a history of Friday the 13th, why it's considered unlucky, and what a typical English Friday the 13th consisted of in my time. But then I realized I don't know anything about this day, and have been living here in the future for so long that I'm basically a lazy, ignorant, and slovenly American by this point. I can't even be bothered to write my posts in old timey English. I'll probably have to execute myself soon. So, it's Friday the 13th, which is bad if bad things happen to you today. Look both ways before crossing the street, don't stand near out of order elevator shafts, and make sure to wear your hat really low if you go wilding. They have cameras everywhere now. Fucking cameras. Let us jump, and please be careful not to slip, to the fun part.

Whatnottowear for not getting a "joke" so old and obvious that we're embarrassed every time we make it, which is like daily. And Durannie, not for the sexism so much as for the telegram-like use of broken English. Nothing personal! Just been one of those weeks.

Well, so, I got a little tiny bit pissed off earlier today. And while I was sinking into bleakly brooding, instead of swimming and frolicking, I pondered what on earth I could do about it. Almost everyone here is totally cool and funny, and we all appreciate that. But for those of you who seriously just cannot chill, I've come up with a new, special death for you. I call it, Weekend Death.