It was this week in 1986 that the first computer virus appeared. "Brain" is considered pretty benign compared to things plaguing us today like keyloggers and rootkits.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Thoughts on an execution tonight
In a few hours over at the state prison in Raleigh, Perrie Dyon Simpson is going to be brought into a small room with a gurney and a window, on the other side of which will be several witnesses. Simpson will be placed on the gurney, strapped down and have needles inserted into the veins of his arms. Upon being given a signal from the warden, unseen technicians will push a button that will deliver three intravenous injections into Simpsons's body: Sodium thiopental to render unconsciousness. Pancuronium causing muscle paralysis. And then potassium chloride to stop his heart.
I've had mixed feelings about capital punishment over the course of my life. I used to be strongly supportive of it. But the path my spiritual life has taken me, especially in the past decade, has led me to believe that it's wrong to take life, that it's left only for God to do that. The only exception being in situations of self-defense, when killing someone is not only the right thing to do but the moral one also, however terrible one may find the idea of taking another's life.
That said, I can't see how Perrie Dyon Simpson deserves anything but death. And it would have been wrong for Governor Mike Easley to grant him clemency. Easley denied Simpson's request earlier today, clearing the way for execution after midnight tonight. Had Easley granted it, he would have nullified the decision of the jury that sentenced Simpson more than twenty years ago. If capital punishment had been abolished in North Carolina by act of legislation, Simpson could have received life in prison. But that never happened... and it would be wrong to decree otherwise by decision of the executive when there is no possible mitigating circumstance in this affair. It may be one of the few things about having a system of checks and balances that we still have in our government, and that has to be respected and upheld. And unfortunately for Simpson, he's going to reinforce that tenet of republican government with his life.
But it was his choice over two decades ago that led him to this night, and no other's. And call me "hypocrite" if you wish but in spite of the part of me that hates the thought of another man dying, justice has to be served, and punishment for evil meted out if there is to be any semblance of law in a society. And if capital punishment is the route that the people of this state have chosen, then few paid for their ticket more than Perrie Dyon Simpson. More than twenty-one years later and this is still something that literally sickens me to think about. It was on a summer night in 1984 that Simpson and his girlfriend Stephany Eurie came to the house of 92-year old retired preacher Jean E. Darter in Reidsville, my old hometown. The day before Darter had given Simpson and Eurie four dollars, some food and use of his home's telephone. When they came back the following night Simpson repaid Darter's kindness with quite possibly the most gruesome murder that anyone in this area ever heard of. I was ten years old when this happened, and I'll never forget the stories I heard about how they found Darter's body... stories that turned out to be all too true. Someone I came to know several years later served on the jury that sentenced Simpson to death: he said that he was against capital punishment too. But the things - like the crime-scene photographs - that he saw in the courtroom shivered his blood too much that he had no choice but to hand down the death penalty... said he would have felt guilty to not have given it to Simpson.
You know, to take the life of anyone, for any reason, is the most terrible failure of all. It means that despite everything you could have possibly done, and despite every desire you had to avoid bloodshed at all costs, you have failed to convince another person of the wrongfulness of their actions. And depleting every other course of action, the only action left to take... indeed, the only action demanded... is to deprive that person of mortal life. That's the core of the belief in the "just war", I think: war is something to be abhorred above all other things on this earth, but sometimes the corruptness of human nature leads to war without alternative. We just have to make damned sure that there is no other option left but to go to war, and for the right reasons: none of which have to do with political or financial gain. But I digress...
Perrie Dyon Simpson is going to die tonight. This society failed to utterly convince him that the brutal murder of his fellow man is wrong. But he failed us by refusing to live by rules that are above worldly jurisdiction: the same rules that most of us do abide by. And tonight he's going to pay for that failure with his life.
Maybe capital punishment is a moral thing after all: maybe this is one way how we defend the right for each of us to live as God would have us do so. But necessary though it may be, I still do not enjoy the thought of another man being deprived of that life for any reason...
...but then, that it has to be this way isn't really God's fault, is it?
What the... Venom and Bryce Howard as Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3?!
Ain't It Cool News was first with the scoop and I'm also just now reading at JoBlo.com that not only is Bryce Howard playing Gwen Stacy (?!?!?) in Spider-Man 3 but that Topher Grace is apparently definitely playing Venom. So the next Spidey flick will not only have more on the complicated relationship between Peter and Mary-Jane, but also Harry's vendetta possibly leading him to become Green Goblin II or Hobgoblin, the Sandman, some way of figuring out how to explain Venom without taking up an extra two hours screen time, and Gwen Stacy thrown into the mix?! This is either going to be the greatest superhero movie of all time... or it's gonna be WAY too much too fast and maybe ruin a great franchise. But I'll be there opening day to buy a ticket... if for no other reason than to see how the heck they run with the Gwen Stacy story.
Wicked Wilson Pickett dead at 64
Just heard about this a little while ago. A heckuva talent. His "Mustang Sally" is one of my all-time favorite songs. Pickett also did "In the Midnight Hour" and "Land of 1,000 Dances".
More info on Idol: Maybe a fair shake after all. Plus: Transgendered singers and the new Lost
The other day I posted some thoughts about American Idol, wondering if it's even a fair competition at all anymore, because some contestants seem to be given an inordinate advantage over others in terms of coverage and visibility. I cited last year's winner Carrie Underwood as an example, noting that even at the audition stage the Idol execs were giving her a bio video and everything.
Well, good journalist/commentator that I try to be, if new information comes in that reasonably disputes something I've written then I've no problem with passing that along too, and let the reader judge for him/herself. And yesterday I was given some new information all right, straight from a source very close to one of the previous winners of the American Idol competition (I ain't saying which one though). According to the source, the producers of American Idol make videos - like the one for Carrie Underwood last year - for everyone who is in the top twenty or so contestants after they've all been sifted from the scores who get brought to Hollywood. At this point in real life although we're seeing the auditions that were taped months ago, the two-dozen or so from which will come the finalists that perform live for the cameras have already been tapped out, and have been for some time. Everyone who's in that semi-finalist group gets to be followed by cameras for background videos to be made of them. But with only so much time to focus on all the good ones (even if the bad ones weren't spotlighted so heavily) not everyone can get zeroed-in on. Which does make sense. And I'm assuming that the nervous cowboy guy last night is going to wind up being one of the top singers because they ran his bio video as well.
Speaking of which, we watched the last 20 minutes or so of American Idol last night, after going through two more episodes from the Lost Season 1 set (the backstories for Charlie and Sawyer) before the new Lost episode aired at 9. So we saw nervous cowboy kid and the "cosmic coaster" inventor. And we also watched this... person... perform:
New Lost was pretty good though: I watched the "orientation" film afterward and couldn't help but think that the leader of the Others looks a LOT like an older vesion of DeGroot, the grad student who started the Dharma Project. Just wanted to throw that out there.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Whole new meaning to "pinching pennies"
The world is running out of copper. Fifty years from now the richest men on Earth will be the ones who stocked up on plenty of those 100-feet of CAT 5 cable at Best Buy.
Churches now targets for Kelo seizure
Never thought the day would come in America when the government would start closing down churches, did you?
This past summer the Supreme Court handed down their Kelo decision, in my mind the worst thing the court has done since Roe v. Wade more than thirty years ago. According to the ruling, government can now use the power of eminent domain to condemn private property and give the land to another private party if it's determined that doing so would be financially advantageous (i.e. more tax money coming into the city or state). In other words if you've been living in the same house for the past forty years, with everything on it paid up, and if the town decides that it could make a lot more money by kicking you off your land and putting a Wal-Mart there instead, it can legally do that now.
Some people's houses have already been condemned under Kelo, and now it looks as though not even the house of God is safe. National Review Online is reporting about a church in Oklahoma that is being told it has to vacate its property, so that the site can be cleared for a Home Depot and other retail development.
I wrote about this a month ago, after hearing some Christian legal quisling on the radio say that Christians should do whatever government tells them to do so that government officials won't "get mad" and take their churches away. And after thinking a lot about it, I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing morally wrong at all for Christians in this country to start defying our government openly and brazenly on some things, especially when it comes to our rights... which God has established, not the state. Our elected officials have by and large failed us miserably, and it's once again falling to the common man (and woman) to draw the line and say "to this point and no further". Better we do that sooner than later, if for no other reason than because forestalling initiative now will mean a far harder task at setting things right down the road.
If we don't do that, well... Welkome to Amerika, komrade.
