There are two ways that you can commit a sin. The first is a sin of commission.

For example, according to a report on Boston's most excellent Universal Hub (disclosure: UH is run by a good friend of mine), a genius by the name of Brian Hopkins got snockered while barhopping one night in 2006 and, for reasons that aren't clear, decided, when he got to Boston's South Station, that he needed to climb on top of an Acela high-speed train.

Now, the Acela trains are electrically powered so when Mr. Einstein reached up he was "promptly zapped with 27,000 or so volts, leading to serious burns and injuries, including the loss of his left arm."

[legal digression] Of course, you can guess what comes next: Yep, Hopkins is suing Amtrak "for gross negligence, because it failed to do enough to keep idiots from climbing on top of trains and grabbing hold of electrical wires." Sigh.

I'm sure Hopkins will be a candidate for the next Darwin Awards , but what matters here is that what Hopkins did was a sin of commission, a willful act that had grave consequences.

The other way you can commit a sin is by omission, by not doing something. What brought all this type of sinning to mind was an e-mail I received a few hours ago from the Institute for Liberty (IFL) which argued that "the FCC should acknowledge that network neutrality regulations are a solution in search of a problem." [more ]