When a prominent politician steps down, whatever party, whatever country, there's always a back story. No matter what prompted them to seek high office in the first place - money, power, or perhaps just pride - they never voluntarily get off the gravy train, and nobody believes the standard lame excuses like "wanting to spend more time with the family". The more public the official, the more the public interest. Ms Palin's back story will emerge in due course, and her misguided attempts to suppress speculation are only fanning suspicions that she has something juicy to hide. A more astute politician would shut up and lay low until the media loses interest.
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing." (Macbeth)
"your last question displays a certain level of ignorance and/or exaggeration that flies in the face of what is actually going on in the country."
Really? When half the House and Senate stand up to be recognized at the AIPAC conference? When the Vice-President gives a keynote speech? When half the members of the previous administration, and several members of this one, are dual citizens? When an elected representative is caught on tape offering to interfere with an espionage investigation in return for personal preferment, and not only gets away with it, but gets a standing fucking ovation from AIPAC? You've got to be blind not to know what's going on in the country, or a partisan AC to deny it. Scalia is of course at liberty to attend any kind of conference he wishes, but since he is a public official, and since what he says on the record is likely to be taken as nascent judicial policy, the context in which he chooses to speak is significant. I would have said much the same thing had he made his remarks at a 700 Club event, but that it was a Talmudic conference, taken with everything else, makes it just that much more egregious.
Too right his time passed, right about the time I saw the creep on TV sitting near a pile of burning books, calling for Salman Rushdie to be murdered. In f*king England, too, not the Northwest Frontier.
I'm surprised he's dirtying his hands with infidel law - I would have expected him to invoke Sharia law on Coldplay and demand to have their hands cut off. But of course that wouldn't get him any filthy infidel cash.
Hold on a sec - what's this "Institute of American and Talmudic Law conference"? What's a Supreme Court judge doing talking about laws that may affect me, at a religious conference? Is there anything in this country that isn't directly or indirectly related to Israel?
It's the paranoia capital of the USA, where they shut down the city on a 3-alarm terror alert over a bunch of LED signs, and nearly shot a girl for wearing a lighty-up shirt. Clearly anyone using a black screen with white letters must be up to no good.
Maybe they'll extradite him to Salem, where they know how to deal with his kind.
In another interesting twist, Wyoming County PA is adjacent to Luzerne County, of which it was formerly a part. So what, I hear you ask. Well, in February, two judges in Luzerne County pleaded guilty to running a scam from 2003 to 2008 whereby they sentenced juveniles for trivial offenses to lengthy terms at private juvenile detention facilities, in return for kickbacks from said facilities.
Maybe a few more facts about the case would guide the discussion better.
1. The naughty pics were discovered by school officials last October during a search of personal property which in itself might be violate the 4th Amendment.
2. Within a couple of weeks, the DA involved, George Skumanick Jr., announced at a public meeting that the minors involved could be prosecuted for "sexual abuse of children" and "criminal use of a communication facility", felonies worth 7 years and sex offender registration. He repeated these threats to reporters and tv interviewers at every opportunity.
3. In February, he wrote to the parents stating that their child "has been identified in a police investigation involving the possession and/or dissemination of child pornography", telling them about the rehab program, and stating that any that did not attend would be prosecuted.
attend. When the parents objected, he told them "these are the rules, if you don't like them, too bad." All but three of the families caved to the threats.
4. It is the mothers of the three holdouts who brought the case, not the ACLU. It claims that what the girls did was in no way participating in child pornography and that the photos are protected by the First Amendment. Finally it claims that "Skumanick's insistence that the plaintiff parents force their children to attend a re-education course interferes with the parents’ right to direct and control their childrens upbringing."
5. Skumanick is up for re-election next November in rural Wyoming County.
Weird Harold, what is your problem, and how come you know so much about Child Pornography?
Sampling is a bad example. It's neither derivative nor transformative - a sample is the work of the original artist. In visual arts it's like a collage, and in written works it would generally be called plagiarism unless it's an attributed quote. In any case, if the original artists don't care for the way their work is cut and reused, they have every right to complain. I don't have much sympathy - the ability to operate a recorder doesn't qualify as creativity in my opinion.
I think you mean "speculators", not investors. Investors are in the market for the long term, making their money off dividends, while speculators are in it for a capital gain, the bigger and quicker the better. The problem we've had since the 1980s is that companies have been too focused on generating capital gains for their stockholders, rather than managing their business for the long term. This is of course encouraged by paying executives in their own stock.
It's not so much that we need to create incentives for companies to make long term investments, as much as that we need to remove the incentive to increase the stock price at the expense of everything else. This pretty much means breaking the hold of the financial sector on the industrial. I don't know how one would go about that, but paying executives in actual money instead of stocks might be a good start.
So, AC, if the new administration suspects you have dangerous right wing sympathies and decides to record all your calls, secretly open your mail and track all your friends and contacts, that would be ok with you, right? You've done nothing wrong, so why should you honestly care?
The fact is, governments change, and everything they do is subject to mission creep and abuse. What today you think nothing of, may tomorrow be used against you by a malicious prosecutor and ruin the rest of your life. In the end, only the Constitution gives you the freedom and safety you enjoy. That's why you should care when it's violated.
On the post: Palin Threats To News Organizations Seem Misguided
Speculation is only to be expected
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing." (Macbeth)
On the post: Supreme Court Justice Scalia Given Lesson In Internet Privacy
Re: Re: What institute again?
Really? When half the House and Senate stand up to be recognized at the AIPAC conference? When the Vice-President gives a keynote speech? When half the members of the previous administration, and several members of this one, are dual citizens? When an elected representative is caught on tape offering to interfere with an espionage investigation in return for personal preferment, and not only gets away with it, but gets a standing fucking ovation from AIPAC? You've got to be blind not to know what's going on in the country, or a partisan AC to deny it. Scalia is of course at liberty to attend any kind of conference he wishes, but since he is a public official, and since what he says on the record is likely to be taken as nascent judicial policy, the context in which he chooses to speak is significant. I would have said much the same thing had he made his remarks at a 700 Club event, but that it was a Talmudic conference, taken with everything else, makes it just that much more egregious.
On the post: Cat Stevens Claims Coldplay's 'Viva La Vida' Was Copied From His Song, Not Satriani's
Re: Yusuf
I'm surprised he's dirtying his hands with infidel law - I would have expected him to invoke Sharia law on Coldplay and demand to have their hands cut off. But of course that wouldn't get him any filthy infidel cash.
On the post: Supreme Court Justice Scalia Given Lesson In Internet Privacy
What institute again?
On the post: Use A Command Line At Boston College... Have Your Computer Equipment Confiscated
It's Boston, godammit.
Maybe they'll extradite him to Salem, where they know how to deal with his kind.
On the post: Prosecutor Who Threatened Teens With Child Porn Charges For Taking Pics Of Themselves Gets Sued
How they do things in PA
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?ref=us
I wonder whether a private company provided the counseling service the teens in this case were coerced into. I think we should be told.
On the post: Prosecutor Who Threatened Teens With Child Porn Charges For Taking Pics Of Themselves Gets Sued
A few explanatory notes
1. The naughty pics were discovered by school officials last October during a search of personal property which in itself might be violate the 4th Amendment.
2. Within a couple of weeks, the DA involved, George Skumanick Jr., announced at a public meeting that the minors involved could be prosecuted for "sexual abuse of children" and "criminal use of a communication facility", felonies worth 7 years and sex offender registration. He repeated these threats to reporters and tv interviewers at every opportunity.
3. In February, he wrote to the parents stating that their child "has been identified in a police investigation involving the possession and/or dissemination of child pornography", telling them about the rehab program, and stating that any that did not attend would be prosecuted.
attend. When the parents objected, he told them "these are the rules, if you don't like them, too bad." All but three of the families caved to the threats.
4. It is the mothers of the three holdouts who brought the case, not the ACLU. It claims that what the girls did was in no way participating in child pornography and that the photos are protected by the First Amendment. Finally it claims that "Skumanick's insistence that the plaintiff parents force their children to attend a re-education course interferes with the parents’ right to direct and control their childrens upbringing."
5. Skumanick is up for re-election next November in rural Wyoming County.
Weird Harold, what is your problem, and how come you know so much about Child Pornography?
On the post: Yes, Artists Build On The Works Of Others... So Why Is It Sometimes Infringement?
Sampling
On the post: A Love Of Competition, Not Protectionism
@Conflicted
It's not so much that we need to create incentives for companies to make long term investments, as much as that we need to remove the incentive to increase the stock price at the expense of everything else. This pretty much means breaking the hold of the financial sector on the industrial. I don't know how one would go about that, but paying executives in actual money instead of stocks might be a good start.
On the post: NSA Whistleblower Claims US Journalists Were Regularly Spied On: Everything Collected
Re: Whatever it takes..
The fact is, governments change, and everything they do is subject to mission creep and abuse. What today you think nothing of, may tomorrow be used against you by a malicious prosecutor and ruin the rest of your life. In the end, only the Constitution gives you the freedom and safety you enjoy. That's why you should care when it's violated.
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