Wednesday, October 21, 2009

What have we come to?

Texas is preparing to execute someone who is quite possibly, even probably, innocent. They're getting good at executing innocent people.

What's perhaps more disturbing is Scalia's recent dissent in the Troy Davis case:
This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent.
Read that again. Fundamentally, Scalia is questioning whether once convicted in a fair trial, an innocent person has a Constitutional right to be freed, or even spared execution.

I think he's gone completely round the bend. Read the preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Now read it again. This is the core, defining sentence for the Constitution. This justifies its very existence, and the existence of the government which it authorizes. We create and authorize the government to act on our behalf.

The Constitution is not a weapon against us. It is our best defense against tyranny, against injustice. Can there be a greater injustice than our government killing innocent people when there is an extremely simple alternative?

This is not collateral damage from a missile strike in Baghdad. This is a conscious decision to kill someone rather than commute a sentence when there are clear signs of a failure in the judicial system.

What madness is this?

Sunday, October 18, 2009

And Another Thing

I was quite surprised to discover that one of my favorite authors was continuing the work of another of my favorite authors. Eoin Colfer has written a 6th book in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.
I'm looking forward to reading And Another Thing, although I really need to go back and read the 5th book in the series again. Maybe even the 4th book, since I found the 5th difficult to grok the first time around.

If you've never read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or its (now 5) sequels, I highly recommend checking out Life, the Universe and Everything. Read chapter 16 (Arthur Dent's encounter with Agrajag) and if you don't laugh out loud...check your pulse.

Douglas Adams, wherever you are, I hope you get a chuckle out of Colfer's book. We miss you.