Take A Real Pledge

The ACLU is asking people to take a pledge to refuse to surrender their freedoms:

http://www.aclu.org/refusetosurrender

They've been doing this for a while now and they have close to 70,000 pledgers. I just took the pledge. I'd been thinking about it for about 2 months now and I finally did it this evening. It was easy.

I don't know why I waited to take this pledge and whether or not the pledge makes any difference, but I did it anyway and I think you should too. If anything, it helps the ACLU keep their mailing lists up to date. So, even if you don't donate anything to them, they can still make a little bit of money off of you by selling your email address to the Sierra Club, Americans United for Seperation of Church and State, the DNC, and the Girl Scouts. Also, I think it helps the Dept. of Homeland Security identify and classify you as a potential subversive just a little bit more quickly. And really, doesn't it make life just a bit more exciting to know that somewhere, someone besides you also knows when your library books are due and which ones you checked out? :-)

God Speaks to U.S. Troops

Standing in line at the checkout tonight, I saw the stupidest headline on a tabloid. Obviously some morons somewhere are buying this shit or I wouldn't have to be offended by them when I just wanna pay for my diet cream soda. I refuse to believe that everyone who buys a copy of the "Sun" or the "Weekly World" news is buying them because they think they are absurdly funny. That ought to be the only reason anyone purchases one but, sadly I think that there are those among us for whom these are "real" or "real good" news sources. Sometimes when I stand and look at the supposed reading material that is being purveyed at the checkout in my local groceries, I wonder if I wasn't born on the wrong planet entirely.

Isn't Death Being Too Merciful?

A jury recommended the death sentence for Scott Peterson today. I heard this on the radio as I was driving home. They mentioned how he had drowned his wife who was 8 months pregnant at the time. Her body, and then his unborn son's body washed up on the shore within a day of each other. Apparently, there really was no question about whether or not he did it- he did. What he committed is gruesome, cruel, cowardly... evil. I think I understand the almost visceral reaction that says he should be put to death. But, then I begin to wonder if he deserves the mercy that the death penalty presents to him. Isn't putting him to death, in some way, giving him the easy way out? I think that maybe he should have to spend the rest of his days locked up in a prison. Wouldn't he be punished more by having to live with the horror and shame of what he did? Also, I don't completely trust the state when they prosecute people. There have been too many people wrongly convicted and sentenced to die. It seems like life imprisonment is better for two reasons. One, the guilty actually suffer more for their crimes and two, in the event that the government has wrongly accused and convicted someone, life in prison isn't completely irreversible like the death penalty is.