StrangeSox

The first criminal charges over the BP oil spill were filed today.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 12:02 PM) Where the hell are the fathers/brothers/uncles/other family members of these women? Oppressing women.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012...ate_us?page=0,3 It's not exactly a fun read, but it's a great article illuminating how far women still have to go in these cultures to be treated as even close to fully human.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 11:58 PM) It's so hard not spoiling these threads when you already know all the answers.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 09:59 AM) More than anything, they featured a lot of things I had never heard of., which made it interesting I guess to be fair, the episode I saw was the first one of the series. Maybe later ones were less of a wild goose chase.

Apparently Mrs. Romney is as prone to sticking her foot in her mouth as her husband: This doesn't matter, and, in context of the next two sentences, it's clear what she meant. But the Romneys aren't making it easy on their campaign staff with statements like "I 'm not concerned about the very poor" and "I love the fact that there are women out there who don't have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise kids."

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 09:46 AM) I can't quit watching Decoded. I saw one episode of that last week in the hotel. It was about free masons stealing the corner stone of the white house. Or maybe the Capitol too?! And it might even contain a hidden, alternate Constitution!!!! It's like a lesson in logical fallacies.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 09:43 AM) Hey, if it's turning a profit, then it's not obviously a mistake. I didn't say it was a programming mistake.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 09:07 AM) It infuriates me that these channels have stopped producing actual documentaries and rely almost solely on reality TV. Watching 4 annoying Las Vegas guys in a pawnshop is not an interesting way to learn about the past. They're all following the MTV model. Their reality shows are terrible but so are all of their conspiracy shows.

Yeah, it's best for older TV series and documentaries. Luckily, that works well since we don't have cable/satellite and when we did, we watched Discovery, History etc. before those channels turned to garbage. The Netflix/Hulu/Broadcast HDTV is still working well for us. The only downside, and it is a major one, are sports. But that's what Eastern European streams are for...

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 08:25 AM) These are the reasons I want to smack anyone who talks about how great of a commish Bud is. Who the hell says that and why aren't they admitted for in-patient psychiatric care immediately?

Sigh. Another SS Trustee report, another round of people claiming SS will be "bankrupt" in a couple of decades. Eliminate the regressive tax cap and SS is fully-funded through any of our lifetimes.

Netflix Doing Just Fine Without Disney/Starz despite the optimistic tone of the rest of the article, the last line is:

It's clearly established in the book that Stannis views Robb Stark as another rebel challenging the authority of the Iron Throne. I believe Stannis and Davos had this exchange in the TV series as well.

The Michigan Hutaree militia that was arrested a couple of years back on conspiracy to commit murder charges and weapons charges were all acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charges. These people discussed plans to kill local law enforcement to draw in federal agents. These people were charged with a different crime and not under a terrorism statute. Still, the bulk of the government's evidence was speech by the militia members regarding their plans to kill both local and federal LEO's. The other evidence was militia-style training exercises that some members attended. These actions are not illegal, but unsuccessfully traveling to Yemen for training and then posting some translated documents and videos is.

Contrast that with numerous politicians who actively support the MEK and get paid to advocate on their behalf, a group officially listed as a terrorist organization by the US government. Why is this not considered material support of a terrorist organization if posting video and translating documents widely available online is? ok have to add this from a Greenwald article:

Here's Brandenburg v Ohio, a case of a KKK member advocating for acts of terrorism against minorities. The holding:

Georgetown law professor David Cole has an article on this case here: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/...it-free-speech/

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 02:48 PM) Coupled with his actual travel to Yemen with intent to join a group and fight insurgents in Iraq (the reason it didn't work out wasn't stated in the article, i'd imagine it was in the trial). Sort of a key piece of evidence there. But he failed in trying to get training. That wasn't in dispute. The Brandenburg test requires that some sort of imminent threat must exist before speech is criminal. The government never argued that such a threat existed and never drew any links between the translations and actual violent acts. They've essentially made stating Jihadist views a crime. Not plotting, not acting, but simply speaking.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 02:22 PM) In some scenarios this makes sense - you want to be able to stop a guy from bombing a building before he goes through with it. But at the same time I agree that this is opening the door (at least hypothetically) to some thoughtcrime type stuff. I think this case can be distinguished though given the amount of facts that sort of build the picture of who this guy is/what he was doing. The FBI's ability to lure desperate loners into extremist plots is a different issue. This guy very explicitly did not fall for one of the FBI's fake bomb plots. The only thing he did was post videos and translate stuff to English on the internet. Tarek Mehanna was never involved in any actual plots to harm anyone or anything. He advocated extreme views on the internet, and this now amounts to material non-violent support of a terrorist organization.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 02:23 PM) Prostitution and drunk driving are the same way. But it's not like they lured him into a plot to blow something up like many of the recent FBI "busts." He was convicted of posting pro-Jihadist propaganda on the internet.

I don't think conspiracy to distribute narcotics by agreeing to do so really is analogous to the political speech criminalized in this case. He wasn't actively conspiraring in a plot to harm Americans. He posted vile pro-Jihadist stuff on the internet. For that he was convicted of material support of a terrorist organization. That seems in direct contradiction of Brandenburg v Ohio. eta:

I'm going to go with one of the commenters on my original link and say that, while it's good that legally you can defend yourself, it's probably generally a really dumb idea to do so against police. You can google up any number stories of police SWAT teams raiding the wrong house and citizens being killed by police because they were defending themselves from unknown intruders. Even in less dramatic cases it's probably safer to assume you're not going to get the benefit of the doubt and any claims of police brutality likely go out the window once you start resisting.

I know I posted about the Indian Supreme Court ruling that you can't resist unlawful police conduct, but damned if I'll be able to find it. Anyway, the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled the opposite. And apparently the Indiana legislature changed their laws.

The SCOTUS had an important free speech ruling: Thoughtcrime now appears to be a reality. I don't mean this in some over-the-top hyperbolic way, but this ruling does mean that you can be convicted of a crime through speech alone. edit: this is in the Democrat thread as a default catch-all. The Obama administration/Eric Holder advocated for criminalizing this sort of speech and deserve to be criticized for it.