Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

I am against the death penalty.  I don’t think it’s necessary, for one thing.  As long as the person is locked up, not out in the world among the general population, that is enough.  That fulfills the obligation of the justice system, which is, as I see it, to keep the criminals away from the general population and vice versa.  Also, I think it’s just giving too much power to the state.  I suspect they would have loved to execute Chelsea Manning, if they thought they could have gotten away with it.  There have definitely been politically motivated executions in American history: the Rosenbergs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Joe Hill, probably a few others.

But, I’ve never been tempted to stand outside the prison walls holding a candle, because in most specific cases, even though I object to the practice, it’s hard to have any sympathy for the person being executed.  They are, in the majority of cases, horrible people.

The guy that just got executed to death in Arizona is no exception.  He’d been found guilty of two murders and his death will probably not affect anybody in the world adversely.   Even his family and loved ones, if he has such, will probably be just as well off with him dead.

But why does it have to be so complicated?  Why does it take two hours to kill somebody?  Police in Arizona, and elsewhere across the U.S., seem to be quite efficient, usually, at killing people quickly.  It can happen in an instant, at a traffic stop, during a marijuana raid on your house, which may not have even been intended for your house, but all houses look pretty much alike, or while peaceably rolling down the street in your wheelchair.

There are many methods of death which don’t take two hours.  You could thrown them from a high building.  It might take a few seconds to reach the bottom, but that’s not two hours.  You could use the guillotine.  Ugly symbolism, but nobody ever said that guillotines were ineffective.  Certainly, it does  not take two hours to die after your head has been severed form your body.

If the vet has to put down a wounded horse, or other animal, they just get out a gun and put a bullet through it’s head.  It’s quick, problem solved.  Thousands, maybe millions of animals are killed in the U.S. every day, generally in swift and humane circumstances.

No, it does not take two hours to kill somebody.  It makes me wonder if the authorities in Arizona really had a hard time killing this guy – or were they actually enjoying themselves.

My new favorite TV program is a thing on Discovery Channel called “Prophets of Science Fiction.”  I have no idea if this is a new program or not.  Discovery Channel recycles the shit out of their programming.  This morning I was watching a thing about a new Metro Station being built in Singapore and they said “But, it won’t be open until 2012,” and the tone of voice implied that that was still a couple of years in the future.

Arthur C. Clarke 1917-2008

It doesn’t matter.  It’s a new show to me.

Tonight they are doing Arthur C. Clarke,  one of my favorites.  The thing about Arthur C. Clarke is he was not just a great science fiction writer, he was also a brilliant scientist, and an all around cool guy.  He invented the radio satellite so, when you use a mobile phone, you very much have him to thank.  He predicted the space elevator, which we haven’t got yet but when we do, space is going to open up for us big time, like the way railroads opened up the west, but even more extreme.  And, of course, he wrote 2001, A Space Odyssey.  One thing that I really like about Clarke, though, was a lifestyle choice.  After he was rich and famous, and everybody expected him to just stay focused on space and write more books, he moved to Sri Lanka, because he was as interested in the world under the sea as he was in outer space.

Just an all around cool guy with a wide range of interests.

A couple nights ago, they focused on Philip K. Dick.  Of course I’m a fan but I must admit, I think both Blade Runner and Total Recall were improved by being turned into movies.  Like Asimov and Heinlein,  you can read Clarke’s books without being a genius yourself.  Dick is a bit harder.  He’s like the William Faulkner of science fiction.  It was a really interesting program.  I hadn’t realized just how insane he was, for one thing.

The show raised an interesting question in ethics.  When Ridley Scott was making Blade Runner, the studio approached Dick and said “It’s going great but we want to change the name.”  Dick said no way.  It’s my book  (“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”) and I want you to keep the title.  They said “We’ll pay you an extra $400,000.”  He still said no.

Then he up and died before the film was completed, and they went ahead and changed the name.

On the one hand, I think Blade Runner is a much better name for the movie, so, if it were just an argument over the name, I’d agree with them.

But ignoring the author’s last wish was pretty tacky.

Writing a list is a cheap way for a journalist to fill up space which, as we all know, is the main purpose of journalism, two or three levels above ‘informing the public about events that matter which are currently happening in the world,’ and responding to that list is an even more pathetic way for a blogger to fulfill his self-imposed goal of writing a blog every day, but it’s late and I don’t have a better idea, so here you go. The list is from the Guardian, of the 5 greatest threats to the continued existence of the human species.

The writer started off fine.  Nuclear War and some kind of bio-engineered pandemic are definitely threats to human existence.  I don’t know if I’d have put them in my top 5, but I’d certainly put them in my top 10.

But then the author talks about superintelligence and nanotechnology.  These are not, by themselves, threats.  Superintelligence may, indeed, lead to the creation of a cyberspecies which supplants the human race, but not in a hostile sort of way.  It is not  extinction, unless you think that a parent becomes extinct when their child is born.  It is passing the torch, and there is an important distinction.

Nanotechnology could be used to develop powerful, and extremely insidious weapons, but it could also be used in medicine, in computers, in a whole bunch of other useful stuff.  Like nuclear technology, it is a double edged sword.  There’s a threat there, but also a promise.

Then came #5, which was a huge cop-out even by the standards of listicle writing: Unknown unknowns.  Way to cover your ass, psuedo-journalist dude.

There are many more things which could go on a list of greatest threats to the survival of mankind: a meteor strike, global warming, the extinction of the honey bees, environmental degradation, a supervolcano, or an alien invasion (a real one, from outer space, not the kind the teabaggers are always bitching about).

There are also some things which did not appear on the author’s list and which could not appear on any similar list written by a sane person of normal intelligence: gun control, abortion, marijuana, immigration,  and the overall poor quality of television programming.

We can just stop worrying about those.

The difference between liberals and conservatives, essentially, is that liberals believe “we’re all in the same boat,” and conservatives believe that everyone is responsible for themselves.  Liberals believe that everyone should have access to clean water, breathable air, a decent home, health care and a shot at a decent education.  Conservatives believe that nobody should get anything unless they are willing to work for it.

It’s possible to find a compromise between these two positions.  It’s not possible  to find a compromise with the extreme right wing nut jobs who have control of American politics at the moment, and who are making inroads in  some other countries.

Those people are just mean and vindictive and want people to suffer, and will never compromise with anybody, as a matter of principle.  But if you define the positions as I have above, it’s possible to reach a compromise.

Give everybody who doesn’t have a job a job.  There is work that needs to be done.  Building or restoring homes so that everyone has a place to live.  Covering all the roads of the world with solar panels.  Planting trees.  Establishing urban gardens.  Recycling absolutely everything.  Digging canals and laying pipe and setting up desalination facilities.  Creating the world of the future.

Of course, everybody needs to get paid and the question is “Where is all that money coming from?”  First, money is an abstraction.  When you have a jobs program like this going, you actually would be creating wealth.  But, back to the short term – where is the money going to come from?

Well, it’s the government that prints the money so they would just have to print enough to pay everybody.  That’s not quite as crazy and inflationary as it sounds, because almost all of the money would be poured straight back into the economy.  Some would be withheld from paychecks to pay for the houses which the homeless would be building for themselves.  Some gets taken out for health insurance, making health care affordable for everybody.  Some, of course, is going to be spent on alcohol, drugs, and junk food, but that’s going into the economy as well.

Vendors of alcohol, drugs and junk food have families to feed, too.

It wouldn’t eliminate poverty right away, or completely.  But it would eliminate the lowest level of poverty, the desperation poverty.  And, as it does that, it also makes the world a better place.  Physically, structurally, a better place.

Does anyone disagree with that?