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Melbourne Trial Aborted Due To Crime Web Site
Chatz writes: "The jury in a murder trial in Melbourne was dismissed because the
details about a previous trial of the accused are available on
CrimeNet (www.crimenet.com.au). There was no evidence that any of
the jurors had seen the information and the information is publicly
available in newspaper archives. Here is a link to the story." This sets an odd precedent, to say the least. Perhaps criminals would benefit by describing their crimes in excruciating detail as soon as they're apprehended. What do y'all think down under?
I'm surprised this didn't get a higher mention, that the judge rejected this trial because CrimeNet was likely to mislead the jurors, after rejecting a CrimeNet mention as ground for dismissing a trial earlier in the week.
Considering CrimeNet openly state they rely on newspaper reports, I'm not too surprised. I remember several years ago, a house near my parents was destroyed, because a (homeless)pedophile, when arrested, gave his home address as that of the relatives who had turned him in. The court reports mentioned that he hadn't lived there for several years, but the newspaper reports only mentioned "Mr X, of 42 Blah Rd....". Self appointed vigilantes made sure that the family paid for turning him in.
Personally, I stopped believing that bad things only happen to bad people a long time ago. I find the idea that I could find my life getting shafted because of what someone typed into a web site fairly repugnant. I've been falsely accused of a crime, and it amazed me how many people just assumed that 'only criminals get arrested'. One of the things that these people seem to forget in their 'get tough on crime' stances, is that every wrong conviction they get, leaves a criminal free to start again with a clean slate, because someone else is paying for his crimes.
Melbournite.
One is that this might actually be a valid use for censorware. You can use a keyword-based system that only blocks web pages which contain the full name of persons involved in the trial. It's not perfect, but if there's a web page a juror really needs to see, it seems to be a simple matter of asking the judge to have it specifically whitelisted.
Of course, since you'd need to be able to install that software on any platform, that means you'd need to develop censorware for Linux/BSD. (I'm assuming nobody runs IRIX or OSF or any of that stuff on a machine which they'd actually be using while stuck on jury duty.)
To me, barring jurors from reading info about the accused isn't true censorship, because they always have the option to read it once the trial is done. If you go to the library to get a book and someone else has checked out that book, that's not censorship --- you just have to wait.
Also, can some lawyer/historian type person explain what's up with this particular way of preventing jury bias? It seems to me that a defendant's past history is very relevant. If he's got multiple murder convictions, it probably is more likely that he did the one he's on trial for now. Yes, there will be bias, but that's what happens when you violate social contracts --- people stop trusting you. I think that's fair, and it's probably one of the better incentives not to commit crimes.
Yes. The system is similar in all Australian States and Territories that a "Jury Roll" is established every few years from people on the electoral role (that is, Australian citizens eligible to vote). People are selected at random, and are advised that they are likely to be called in for selection to a jury panel. You can ask for an exemption (religious beliefs, medical, etc). If you name is selected, you have to turn up to court on the nominated day (again, if you have a reasonable excuse you may get out of it), where you are one of a pool of potential jurors for all trials that day even tho the trial may last a long time). Both the prosecution and the defence may challenge a jurors selection (the defence in a drug case may challence a older man), they need no reason, but they have a limited number of challenges. The jury - normally 12 - are then empaneled.
Point 2. It is not a precedent. Australian courts are very strong on "contempt" issues regarding any publication of the criminal history of an accused during a trial. The usual targets of their attention, tho are the talkback radio hosts (who usually pander to the more extreme elements who woudl pring back public executions, floggings and the pillories if they could).
Ken
If a jury selection is based on finding people who know absolutely nothing about a case, don't watch TV News, listen to radio news, read the newspaper or even surf the 'Net, who does that leave to make decisions regarding the life (or even death in some places) of someone accused of a crime?
Simply, perhaps over-simply, this selection process only leaves the ignorant, the isolated and the uninformed to make these major, onerous decisions.
What kind of justice is that?
Uncle Sam sent me to the Persian Gulf, and all I got was this lousy Syndrome!
Just a point of clarification: In the great state of Oregon, where I find myself (usually), jury rolls are pulled from DMV registrations, not from voter registrations. They've been doing it this way for two years to increase the jury pool.
Uncle Sam sent me to the Persian Gulf, and all I got was this lousy Syndrome!
The CrimeNet ppl had been claiming how the information they were posting on ppl was harmless because it was obtained thru public records.
Well, now we have concrete proof of the damage such a database can cause. Not only does it ruin ppls' lives by posting old crimes committed by them, but now, it even obstructs the justice system trying a person on a new crime.
So, what exactly is this site good for then? Reformed ppl are victimized, and repeat offenders are protected!
---
Thad
Thad
and indeed a trial with a jury is not by definition fair, either.
But one of the great strengths of the jury system is that it can allow some much valued flexibility. The jury's verdict is their own, and is binding. This is one of the ways junk laws get altered. Juries allow debugging of the legal system.
The most obvious examples have tended to be in cases with political overtones - here in the UK juries have refused to convict, despite unarguable factual evidence:
- Civil servants breaking the Official Secrets Act to whistleblow on criminal activities by their departments
- Protestors who vandalised a shipment of Hawk aircraft about to be sent to Indonesia for use in 'policing' East Timor
- Women who finally snapped after decades of abuse and killed their husbands - since these jury decisions the laws have been changed so that other charges can be used instead of murder in these cases
In general, the whole point of a jury is that it is a jury 'of one's peers' - not selected because they are in any way specially qualified for the case, or rejected because they are specially disqualified (excepting direct vested interests)TomV
and of course the notion that !Christian==Imoral.
This is fact, as substantiated in the Bible.
Uh oh! Big slip up here!
Since you seem to think that programmers are all satan worshippers, and it would take someone with programming knowledge to know what "!Christian==Immoral" means, that brings us to the conclusion that you, yourself, are a satan worshipper.
Have a nice day.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
What about people who never heard of Jesus, or the Bible? Are they automatically condemned? If so, what was the point in them living in the first place?
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
I hate to be drawn into this classic Good vs Evil argument, but I have given in to temptation!
7days - God gave you a brain, so that you may think. Please, for all our sake's use it. Understand this : your entire belief system and way of living your life is based upon the contents and interpretation of a book. A very old book granted, but a book nonetheless. Now that book may have been written, as you believe, by the disciples of Christ, around the year 0. And it may contain the word of God, telling us how to live our lives. All of that MAY be true - and if you (and millions of others) wish to believe that and follow those teachings then fine, far be it from me to interfere in how you choose to live your life.
BUT (and it's a big but), the majority of the world's population (myself included) choose not to believe that the book in question was written by God (directly or indirectly). Some people believe in other deities, or "forces", but as a whole the Christian population of the world is a minority. Personally, I don't believe that God (or Satan, or Chiba, or Krishna, or etc...) exists. Simple as that. Can you understand that your argument (and I am paraphrasing) that "if you don't worship God you worship Satan" means nothing to me...in the root of my being I do not believe either of those concepts have any basis in reality. Likewise your argument that basically "it is so, because it says so in the bible" is equally meaningless. Have you ever heard the phrase "it's in the newspaper, so it must be true" ?? Tounge-in-cheek I know, but the idea holds. If I have no faith in the source of information, then what faith do I have in the information itself?
Morality is an inheriently personal thing. My morality is governed and defined by my beliefs and my experiences. It is not governed by what someone else has told me to believe.
I believe it is immoral to kill, it is immoral to steal, it is immoral to torture. I guess you believe the same. I also believe it is (deeply) immoral to pre-judge someone on grounds of their religion (or lack of it). I believe it is immoral to invade another land and attempt to force your belief system on the inhabitants, and when that fails, kill them all. I believe Hitler was immoral.
Do you believe those things?
On another note - look back in history. How many examples can you find of people or groups who were utterly convinced they were right. Until they were proved wrong. With so many different people in the world with so many different religous belief sets - how can you possibly be so sure you are right...and they are all wrong? Either you hold to your convictions (which I admire) or your mind is closed to other possibilities (which I pity). Which is it?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Once selected, jurors are sworn in, and the trial gets underway.
seeing that post makes me glad i am not christian any more. and trust me, i was brought up 'more' christian, than you would ever come close to - a roman catholic in a country where the estimated population consists of 97% roman catholics. why do christians often seem to be so ignorant and full of themselves?
--- d'oh
ROFL
Even the 80,000^H^H^H^H^H^HMillion Morons had that figure vastly inflated with their claim of 13 children per day (They include 19-year-old gang members as "children").
The real figure is much, much lower.
--
As an Australian who now lives in Atlanta, this story attracted my attention. This evening on the local news, it was announced that Cobb County (in Atlanta) had been publishing court documents on the internet for anyone to read. In the past people had to go to the court house in person to read these documents. People may have to go back to the old ways again if a magistrate here has his way. It was decided that internet access to court documents was too dangerous, since it was too easy to search for specific information on people or cases. Whilst the Atlanta website isn't exactly along the same lines as Australia's CrimeNet, it does provide similar information. Combined with information gathered from the PeopleSearch website, jurors in Atlanta could be just as biased as jurors in Australia if they want. Perhaps the same sort of thing will happen in Atlanta before long. Food for thought.
Fucking journalists... The reason the jury was dismissed was that, even though they may not have seen the defendants priors on CrimeNet, the fact was that, due to discussions within the court room, those jurors are now aware that the defendant does appear on CrimeNet (which they also know is a public database of criminal records) which could unfairly bias their opinions in the case at hand.
It should also be pointed out that the case hasn't been tossed... its merely that the jury has been let go.
The question on CrimeNet's ability to bias a jury still stands however and needs to be addressed. In Austrlia, a defendants prior convictions can only be disclosed for the purposes of sentencing *after* the defendant has been found guilty.
'sapientia potestas est'
And just what makes you the expert on how we apparently post our opinions about anything and everything whether or not we have the slighest clue about? How do we know that you actually have the credentials to make a statement like that. Or are you just posting your opinions about anything and everything whether or not you have the slighest clue about what you are referencing? Either way I think it's safe to say that if we use any /. information for anything important, as it says on the polls, you're insane. :)
would you be so nice, and get out a freaking dictionary, and look up the word 'morality'? or anything associated with it. see if you can find word 'christianity' anywhere in the definition.
thank you dork
--- d'oh
Basically the jury pools end up being 12 of the folks who weren't sharp enough to get out of jury duty. I'm being a little sarcastic but there is some truth to it. Putting the detail on the net wouldn't have all that much of an impact and most crimes of this type get pleaded down prior to jury trial anyway.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
When it comes to high-profile cases that get lots of media attention how can they really find a jury who has never heard of the case? Is hearing of the case so terrible, its not like people can't dismiss information.
I'd hate to tried by a jury of shut-in's and weirdo's who think TV, Computers, and newspapers are the devil's work. I would rather have a bunch of liars.
Then again, it did seem to work out for OJ.
Actually, you've got a nice point. If we did get rid of juries it would expidite things but then we have juries to make things "more fair" not faster.
// Zarf //
So I propose that when your number comes up for jury duty you get whisked off into a giant plastic bubble to serve your term of jury duty with only the company of other jurors. You will live blind-folded with oven mitts on your hands at all times; as well as large balls of cotton stuffed into, and taped onto, your ears.
This will be inconvenient at first... but that will all be solved once we begin cloning jurors. We'll find the perfect jurors from our initial population and mass produce the most fit of them in great vats. The result will be an entire race of jurors.
It will be glorious. An entire population of perfectly blank slates. Ofcourse we'll need BladeRunners to terminate the 'jurors' after they gain a certain level of awareness. We'll give our artificial jurors a limited life span to compensate... say 3 years... then boom!
-
[signature]
Two things.
First, does the Australian judicial system have jury selection? Certainly the US doesn't, but the US system isn't the pattern used in most of the world. A lot of countries base their judicial system on the Britsh judiciary, which (thankfully) doesn't have jury selection. And as Australia is a member of the Commonwealth and former part of the British empire...
Secondly, it is not 'a precedent'. A precedent is a legal decision reached at the end of a trial for a legal appeal. This is just a very stupid decision, which may (as someone else in this thread insightfully points out) may be politically motivated in the current situation where the Australian government is trying to gain popular support for Internet censorship.
In most cases that require a jury trial the jury pool folks answer the questions honestly, but selection is a pretty complicated science and very specialized. The Lawyers look at race, religion, class, etc. not to get an even crossmix but to get folks that will empathise with their side of the story.
I don't remember the details, but I seem to recall an incedent recently where a well known pervert was "assasinated" by vigalanties. The only reason he was out in the first place was because they couldn't find a jury who handn't heard about his previouse convictions.
If the jury didn't know his name then it wouldn't have mattered. Perhaps courts should do more to protect the identity of a defendant, perhaps the jury shouldn't even get to see them. That would prevent accusations of bias based on race or grotesque uglyness.
Thad
Thad
I may get the same info about past run-ins with the law - whether or not the case came to court (or even to prosecution).
Looks like this is just the Oz govnmt ganging up against this site.
You make a very good point that the information available on the Internet could (and almost certainly does) taint trials. However, you do not follow this line of thinking through to it conclusion.
"Do you own a computer?" or "Do you have an internet connection?" could be the new basis for sequestering a jury/juror, or dismissing one entirely.
What's wrong with this? Whatever is necessary to protect the objectivity of the jurors and the fairness of the trials.
So called Non-techs could wind up being the ones making decisions on increasingly technical crimes.
Implying that this is a bad thing is nothing less than elitism. What makes you think a programmer is any better qualified to make a decision on DeCSS or Napster or a website hacking than a farmhand from Kansas? I can almost guarantee you that the farmhand has had a more moral upbringing and goes to Church more than the programmer.
Another angle we should take a look at is the possibility of a law being passed amending a jurors rights and duties to include not being able to connect to the internet either at home, or at work, once notified of jury duty.
You don't go far enough on this. It should be mandatory to ask whether this juror has ever illegally downloaded any copyrighted materials, or visited any pornographic websites. Any questions about the veracity of the juror's answers should be taken care of by an inspection of his home computer. While the Internet can be used for good, it has far more potential to taint the minds of the public than any other invention since the dawn of mankind, and we should not hesitate to keep our justice system (justice system) free of such influences.
a single juror gaining knowledge of the crime ahead of time could taint the trial
Just as a single amoral or immoral juror could. These need to be screened for too.
Sometimes she sees things a bit too clearly.
Justice can never be clear-sighted enough.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
You should have the right to fair treatment in society until you forfeit it. As the man you speak of did.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
But I do know a lot about the U.S. judicial system. I do not think this ruling will have any effect in the U.S. It probably will not spread elsewhere, either.
What ruling was that again?
The judge threw out the jury... not the case!
They hit reset button and start again.
'sapientia potestas est'
When I was going to tech school there was another David Maxwell and I was getting apprehensive. I was EXTREMELY relieved when we finally got into the same class and I was able to see that he was black. I told him that I kept expecting to bump into my long lost Evil Twin. He didn't look anything at all like me!! As I say, I was most relieved.
How does the decision of a court in Victoria amount to persecution by the government of Australia?!
I can almost guarantee you that the farmhand has had a more moral upbringing and goes to Church more than the programmer.
Indeed. Those evil non-Christians have destroyed our country. What we need to do now is overthrow the government and set up a Christrian monarchy. There will be no juries, because all trials will be settled by Judges, who will also be executioners. I think you have what it takes to be a Judge, so please join us at http://www.shadowgov.com/
You are deluding yourself. You are an atheist, you do not love and worship God out of the fullness of your heart, and therefore you, knowingly or not, worship Satan. You are immoral. I find it quite amusing that those who support your religion consider not believing in God immoral, yet they hold no regret for the damage their beliefs have done to our world over the course of history. The Crusades account for more deaths than all of the wars in all of history, combined. To put it in perspective, Christianity has killed more people than anything else. When a religion can justify killing masses of people simply for not agreeing with them, I must admit I have serious reservations about their current motives. I also find it disturbing that some people feel they can absolve their 'sins' simply because they sit in a stone building listening and singing once a week. (and on holidays) But, if your sense of morals is so handicapped that you need support on a weekly basis, then perhaps it is better that you dwell with your own. I apologize in advance for the flame-bait.
Why pay for sex when you can buy the cow and get it for free?
Yes, some potential jurors can be dismissed. As you said, lawyers often get a certain number of dismissals without reason. They also can request dismissal of anyone for whom they have a reason (such as a friend of the accused, or being David "Everyone Accused Is Guilty" Letterman).
With the advent of the home PC, and internet based news coming in faster than stories can be edited, perhaps this will help set a new standard for Jury Selection. I'm pretty sure similar ideas have been rolling around in US judges/attorneys heads for a while.
It is indeed, a precedent. But is it a good one? Think about it. As a citizen, you could lose your right (It's not really a duty, you know) to be considered a "peer" of the accused.
"Do you own a computer?" or "Do you have an internet connection?" could be the new basis for sequestering a jury/juror, or dismissing one entirely. So called Non-techs could wind up being the ones making decisions on increasingly technical crimes.
Another angle we should take a look at is the possibility of a law being passed amending a jurors rights and duties to include not being able to connect to the internet either at home, or at work, once notified of jury duty.
While I don't completely agree with the Melbourne decision to dismiss the jury, I understand it. The availability of knowledge on the internet IS phenomenal, and a single juror gaining knowledge of the crime ahead of time could taint the trial.
Justice, though she is blind, does not appear to be deaf, or dumb. Sometimes she sees things a bit too clearly.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
Read the article on the train this morning (gotta love people who let me look over their shoulders - never have to pay for a newspaper myself..)
Well, if no members of the jury had seen the article, then why did they dismiss them? Unless we take jurors without internet access..
I'll remember that next time I decide to kill someone.
bah. Melbourne is a weird place.
-tsg
That's beside the issue. Web sites can be just as inaccurate, if not more so, than newspapers. The root issue remains controlling juror action.
At 45.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I wonder how they can keep this policy in the future? Its either close sites like crimenet or disallow any potential juror who may have had access to the net since the story was discussed....
This internet-thingy turns law-abiding citizens and innocent youths into soul-less shells that can no longer distinguish between right and wrong.
Dang. You're right.
I'll go delete all those illegal MP3s now.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
So what's the fuss about?
.,@
The info could have been printed on paper and then distributed. It's not as easy, but if someone threw a lot of dough against it I guess you could get some coverage.
So, theoretically the jury should have been able to get the info via other media or means...
So if you're not sequestering the jury somewhere away from all outside influences, you're doing something wrong anyway, right?
xchg
xchg
jmp emailMe
That's the sticky point in all of this, isn't it?
The last time that this site was mentioned ( crimenet ), someone else made the same point. Just out of curiosity, I did a search on the Internet to see how many people have the same name as me.
The answer is - rather a lot.
It seems that I have been *very* busy on the internet over the years. I seem to have spent considerable time in Scotland, France and the USA.
I also seem to be knowledgeble on a whole range of things that I know nothing about and have discussed these things at considerable length with people that I have never met ( on or off-line ).
Like the old song goes, "I've been eveywhere man, I've been in Japan man... " and apparently without even knowing it.
In this respect, while I think that the court has over-reacted in a knee-jerk way, it's understandable. The possibility of being mistaken for someone else with the same name out here on the net is pretty high and it's one of the reasons why I am becoming more and more inclined to annonynimity.
Though that has problems of it's own, but that's another article and another thread...
You might be strangling my chicken, but you don't want to know what I'm doing to your hampster.
I can almost guarantee you that the farmhand has had a more moral upbringing and goes to Church more than the programmer
Sorry? Are you implying that programers and people who don't go to Church are immoral? I don't see how you arrived at that conclusion.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Not all programmers are immoral. Many are, however. I only said that it's almost certain that the farmhand has had a good, traditional, American, Christian, moral upbringing, while it's much more likely that the programmer grew up with atheist parents and many more evil influences. And yes, those who do not go to Church are immoral. There is no morality without God.
I don't think it's a reasonable decision.
.,@
Let me also state right here that I'm not fully clear on my own stand regarding these types of "vigilante" sites. I agree that these sites could cause a lot of unjust situations and a lot of pain for some people not deserving it.
On the other hand, I quote: CrimeNet offers details on 4000 convicted criminals gleaned from newspapers and court records.
So what's next? No more jurors who have been known to read the paper, watch the news, follow court decisions, etc.? Because in theory, everyone could get the information on the site by doing their own (albeit extensive) research.
xchg
xchg
jmp emailMe
Ignoring the obvious possibility of flaming you until you go away and stop telling me i am immoral, i shall again ask the question:
How did you arrive at the conclusion that (paraphrased) many programers are imoral?
Syllable : It's an Operating System
I can't imagine with Judge actually uses the Internet. I know what I'm about to say is prejudice, but i think I'm right none the less. The Judge is an educated man, probably over 40 and doesn't know a whole lot about how the Internet, or web sites work. it's human nature to distrust and be wary of things we do not understand. So i completely agree that this is a double edged sword.
This ruling probably won't amount to much in the ong term, but has been seen as a token of how the Internet and the world wide web at one point was not simply considered another media for information.
-Jon
this is my sig.
OK kiddies, let's all CALM DOWN and take a DEEP BREATH.
.uk. Random. You get called up, and unless you can prove that doing it would cause financial loss, that you would be an incompetent juror or are in professions including, but not limited to, teachers, lawyers, etc.
I went to my local library and did a quick search on a few broad keywords relating to criminal cases in the computer newspaper index.
Between that and the archive, I was able to find as much info as probably was on CrimeNet on criminals.
All CrimeNet are doing is making it easier to access. Agreed, that is a bad thing, but don't get all hyperactive because it's new and different. It's not.
All they did is scour newspapers and get articles relating to criminals.
I am not affiliated with CrimeNet, nor do I agree with what they are doing. There are cases where people have been "checked out" by neighbours and the like, and just because they shared a name with a criminal, they've virtually been run out of town, to use the old adage. A couple of people who have had minor convictions have had a lot of job applications automatically refused because of said convictions.
It's not entirely good. But it's not new. It's not different. Read the newspapers, guys, and ease off on the red cordial. Calm down.
d
PS: Our jury selection is exactly like
-
-
I rather like cows.
The information posted on the website has always been public information, it's just that in the past it's been difficult to get.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
I sure would like someone to be on my side if I went to court. However, a board is quite predictable. Either the evidence is enough to convict me or it is not. A jury could find me guilty cause they don't like my appearance or set me free cause they feel sorry for me.
While I certainly don't like the fact that everyone except me works for the government (which is only really a problem if some official is involved in the case) uncertainty is not a good protection of my rights.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Yes. Thats commandment 0Ah.
Of course there were actually 10h commandments, with commandments 0Ah 0Bh 0Ch 0Dh 0Eh and 0Fh being specifically related to computers.
The old testament is an intresting document indeed. Unfortunately it is more of an autobiography than a historical document. Every event is described so that the jewish people is glorified. Nothing unusual, every people has compiled history readings to show their greatness. However that is something one must consider when reading the bible (just like any other document) in a historical sense.
Regarding the morality of Country folk and christians: Remember that both of these communities (in their traditional sense) are close knit and everyone knows everyone else. This makes the raising of children in a moral fashion quite a bit easier
That makes raising conforming children easier. Wether they are more moral or not is a different question. I dont consider xenofobia to be a moral thing...
All opinions are my own - until criticized
First, I feel like an ass for responding to you, because there's a good chance you're a troll. If your first post didn't state that obviously enough, each of your subsequent ones have served to prove it. However, if it is the case that you are serious, which I fear, then I will try to respond as such.
>and of course the notion that !Christian==Imoral.
This is fact, as substantiated in the Bible...you, knowingly or not, worship Satan.
I haven't read the bible in a while, but last time I checked, Jesus wanted you to love everyone, and spread the love of your God to the rest of the world. You obviously don't love any of us. You'd rather accuse us of unwitting Satan worship instead of trying to love and understand us. Way to follow the ways of your saviour.
Christians have an obligation to set right the wrongs of the world, and if this leads to violence...
I thought they had an obligation to spread love and compassion. And turn the other cheek. Violence? A true christian would not consider it. Look towards your savior. He never struck back, even at his crucifiers.
Your words are riddled with hypocrisy. You make me proud to have abandoned your religion years ago to search for one that doesn't inspire hate. You, and people like you, have lost yet another, by convincing me that any God that would use you as a tool of His word is a God I want nothing to do with.
Currently a proud, albeit confused, athiest,
MalSyned
P.S. I'd be your friend. You wouldn't be mine. Ask Jesus how he feels about that. He was perhaps the only Christian who ever understood what He was talking about.
Exactly my point on a previous post.
The root issue remains controlling juror action.
How can you achieve this without having them locked up in rooms 24hours for the duration of a trial? Lets not forget some trials go on for years.
One of my reflections when I sat down and actually read it was how single persons are never gloryfied: It is the *people* that is. You get the notion that every people has their god(s). Jahve is by no means the only god around. The moral is that a) You should never betray your *own* god. b) Stick with Jahve, cause he's the strongest.
Exodus is a fine example. Pharao's magicians get aid from *their* gods. It is just that Mose has a stronger ally.
And, yes there are many ways to read the Torah (as well as the new testiment)
Ever tried to read Exodus as a comedy? If you don't fint it heretical, I really recomend it.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Just as a single amoral or immoral juror could. These need to be screened for too. ' Maybe the rack.. no signature required
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
I have never read the bible, nor do i believe a word of it.
dude. I was totally with you through this whole (admittedly offtopic) thread. But you just went to the other side. If someone said to you "I've never studied C++, but it's a slow, crappy language," or, "I've never listened to industrial music, but it's all about sex and killing," you'd be on top of the dogpile pointing out the terrible logic flaws behind the statements.
Come on, man. It's people who condemn without understanding that fuel hate, in the name of a God, against one or all Gods, and without regard to any deity.
The original poster made the mistake of not understanding his position. You have just confimed that you don't understand the other position. Niether of you are in the position to debate.
Other than that, though, I agree with you, even though you don't know what you're fighting.
MalSyned
Part of legal doctrine is that only the facts that are immediately relevant to a case should be presented. Any law court anywhere that is based on the Westminster system of justice will try and exclude eveidence about a criminal's previous convictions, regardless of the gyrations of lawyers on TV.
True a penal colony was started in Australia, but the crimes of the forfathers have no bearing on the offspring (unless they take up the trade of the parents...)
Also the original inhabitants of Australia (as a whole) were not criminals. They are aboriginal.
As for the morality of country folk; We're talking about people whose idea of christian morality is beating queers to death, dragging black folks to death behind their pickups, and burning crosses in the yards of anyone whose religous beliefs don't march lockstep with theirs. Screw country folk, they don't read the bible they just listen to hate mongering TV preachers. Thus the community standards that are strengthened by the close-knittedness of said community are themselves unenlightened and therefore they are making sure their children are just as ignorant and intollerant as they are.
Your definition of moral matches my definition of enlightened. Religion is not required to live ethically.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Jeez, some people will try to impose political correctness on any topic... :-) "Equating gentile neighbors with "dogs" is hardly how one follows the Golden Rule." Funny how this went from a topic about jury selection in a trial to religion in about 4 posts... A little advice: Religion is crap, FAITH is the real deal. Whatever that faith is in is your own business. End of discussion.
This is the core issue about CrimeNet, and what is more this invasion of privacy is criminogenic itself ... ie. if you can't get a job you are unlikely to get out of crime, in effect CrimeNet prevents the reformation of offenders.
The big problem with nuking CrimeNet is this: The information they collate is in the public domain, and necessarily so, given the imperative of maintaining public transparency of judicial process. While the expanding access to information is usually a big positive, examples like this suggest there might also be a downside.
This is a classic case for sequestering jurors from the moment they are assigned to a certain trial.
Then, the chances they are aware of previous criminal record against the defendant is the same as with common media.
In the U.S. this is common practice on high-profile cases. The only difference is that this lowers the rack for what is considered a 'high-profile case'.
-Tal
-Tal
"Ars Gratia Artis"... When will we see that on a Metalica T-shirt?
Some farmhands might have difficulty following the technical issues. E.g. they may not have enough understanding to decide whether or not the recording industry made a "reasonable effort" to make DeCSS secure. (Dunno if that decision would be neccessary for that trial, it's just an example of something hard to understand if you're not technical).
If you believe in separation of church and state, then this should count for nothing. The job of the jury is to decide whether [it's overwhelmingly likely that] the law has been broken. It is *not* to decide if the defendant has broken the Christian moral code, or the juror's own moral code.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
"Patience is a virtue, afforded those with nothing better to do." - I don't remember
"Patience is a virtue, afforded those with nothing better to do." - I don't remember
I don't think that one can make decision on something he doesn't understand.
What the hell does porno have to do with being able to make good decision in court.
When you smile, the world laughs at you.
Contemporary mainstream Christianity would say that someone who has never heard of Jesus or Church can still go to heaven (if they do, in fact, live by and with God, whether they know the word "God" or not). This is offtopic, and probably irrelevant to all programmers; I just wanted to ensure that people didn't take the above sentence to speak for Christianity as a whole.
However, I still suggest that a jury decision should be based upon the law and not Christian morals; else people will be behaving outwardly Christianly by compunction and not by choice, which is not desirable whether or not you are Christian.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Also, judges can set aside a conviction (but not an acquital) if they beleive that the evidence is insufficient. It's a 13-input AND gate.
And if you don't like that, in most cases you can elect to go before just a judge, no jury, and have him or her decide your fate; you're not mandated to accept a jury trial.
I ought to note that the courts, once again proving their illiteracy (what part of "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury" do they not understand?), have decided that the right to a jury trial doesn't apply to crimes carring a sentence of less than six months - even if you're facing twenty counts and could be put away for ten years. Trial by jury, another casualty of the War on (Some) Drugs.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
There is no morality without God.
Feh. Christianity teaches that you should obey God's rules, because otherwise you will be punished. Truly moral people Do The Right Thing because it is the right thing, because they care about their fellow human beings, and strive to make the world better for one and all.
How many pints of blood have *you* given to the Red Cross?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I'm not going to state my opinion because my faith is no ones business but my own But I like this quote:
... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means
The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as
the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much
radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that
radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed
that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
-- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972
(This is on-topic, bare with me. :)
...).
"There is no morality without God."
I'm going to take 'morality' to mean 'conformity to ideals of right human conduct', per m-w.com. I think it's safe to measure right and wrong as judged with the intent to extend the survivability of all involved: the individual his or her family, his friends, his country, the entire human race, animals, plants, the planet, the universe, etc.
In short, "you can't know what's right without God".
Why must your definition of God be limited to what the Bible contains? Yes, the god I learned about in gradeschool fits this definition, but the god that I created for myself when I rejected Christianity also fits this definition.
It is difficult to know what choices favor the entire universe regardless of whether you believe in a Christian god, Jesus, Satan, Allah, or just The Tao. No matter what belief system you subscribe to, you still have to think for yourself and make hard decisions. Christians do not have the only right answers. Like all humans, they even have a lot of wrong answers, like The Crusades, racism (in some cases), and any number of issues where there are Christians on both sides (alternative lifestyles, the role of government, abortion,
There are a lot of people in the world who see Christianity as an overly restrictive lense to view the world through. When you take it for granted that your point of view is the only correct way, you do yourself a great disservice both in degrading the strength of your rhetoric and in limiting your opportunities for learning.
I'm agnostic. I don't care what happens after I die because I can't use that information right now. I would be just as much a fool if I assumed there was a heaven and hell and was wrong, as if I assumed there wasn't and was wrong. If any fanatic tries to tell me they know the things that cannot be known, I am not going to listen to them. If they tell me they think they have some insight into how to make better decisions in life, then I'll keep listening.
So, to bring this back around to the topic at hand, technical people are not better than non-technical people, and neither is the opposite true either. Technical experience has no correlation with a person's ability to know what is the most pro-survival choice. One's choice of religion also does not dictate how well they will make a choice.
I think the problem is that you define morality to be whatever God says, and I define God to be whatever morality says.
How about "there is no morality without self-awareness, responsibility, intelligence, compassion, and love?"
Yes, I like that much better.
Next time you download an MP3 and don't pay the royalty,
I don't believe in screwing artists. I listen only to music that I paid for.
Next time time you "copy" an OS onto your PC without paying Mr Gates,
I don't believe in screwing programmers. I buy the software I use, when required. I register my shareware. And I don't give legitimacy to Mr. Gates by running his OS on computers I own.
Next time you smoke a dooby,
I don't do that shit. If I did, I'd do it prepared to accept the consequences of getting caught in that act, just like when I drive over 65 MPH.
just remember that for the sake of a little bad luck, an enthusiastic crackdown by your local promotion starved Police chief, or a mistake,
YOU could end up on a database such as this and as a result be condemned for life.
In the eyes of society, if you are convicted of a crime you didn't commit, you are just as guilty as if you had committed it, until proven otherwise. If you're innocent but the jury was convinced of your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, you didn't get a good enough defense. It's a fact of life.
At least the system is good enough that a false conviction is unlikely to happen. Why don't you try scaring me with the likelihood that I'll get into a bad car accident? The odds are better, and the effect is a lot worse.
fuckwit. a
Now you've hurt my feelings. Here I thought I had a reasonable response to your arguments, but now you've gone and totally destroyed my sense of self worth.
Oh, silly me. That was your .sig, wasn't it? You should log in; that Anonymous Coward byline confused me.
I agree that impartial justice is a modern phenomenon, but unfortunately, it is also an obsolete one. We have moved beyond that to ignorant justice. This decision is just like many here in the US, where a juror is removed just because of the possibility that they may have knowledge.
For those who support this decision: I would like to know at what point knowledge (about anything, not just the crime being tried) became a sign of bias.
But I do know a lot about the U.S. judicial system. I do not think this ruling will have any effect in the U.S. It probably will not spread elsewhere, either.
As a general rule, the more a law applies to, the more flexible it is made. Jury selection certainly qualifies, and it is indeed very flexible in the U.S. In the U.S., if a case draws strong passions, there is often a change of venue, to avoid selecting impassioned jurors for the panel.
The change of venue is obviously ineffective at controlling pre-trial publicity if the case makes national news, but there are other ways of dealing with this.
1) Jurors are selected from the voter registration rolls. This means that the people selected tend to have an interest in the course of government, and will take their duties seriously.
2) Potential jurors are interviewed thorougly to determine whether or not they have formed opinions about the case. Sometimes it may take 100 interviews to come up with 12 impartial jurors, but they get a jury eventually.
3) The experience of a trial, with all its formality and deliberation, is a deeply involving experience, much more so than reading a newspaper or watching the evening news or visiting a website. Jurors form very strong opinions from the facts presented at trial, and tend to ignore outside evidence.
4) If there is extensive publicity and speculation during the trial, the jury may be sequestered. In the past, this has involved sheriff's deputies cutting out stories about the case from the paper, and sometimes even listening in on phone calls. Having a deputy nearby while they are using the internet would not be an innovative measure. Sure, this is hard on the jurors, but that's a discussion for another time.
5) In the U.S., at least, it takes a unanimous verdict to end a trial. If the jurors cannot agree, the judge will declare a mistrial and a new one will begin. It is extremely unlikely that one jurors, influenced by an outside source, will convince the rest to change their verdict. In addition, since it is unlikely that an influenced juror to get on the panel in the first place, it is very unlikely that you'd ever have more than a couple make it on, even in extreme cases.
So, I know the U.S. system is safe. I would imagine that many countries already have similar systems in place. Maybe even Australia does, but this was a bad ruling. I'm not worried about bad precedents hitting me. Australians, you've got to take your courts back.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
The Bible very clearly lays out what is good and right and moral and what is not. The Torah and the Koran are, at best, incomplete and ridden with contradictions.
The Torah is the Old Testament, which is part of the Bible! So if I were you I wouldn't say it's ridden with contradictions ;).
And btw, the Qur'an has absolutely no contradictions or flaws whatsoever, so when you make such a claim be prepared to back it up.
This
You probably mean Jews not Muslims. :)
Nope... He got it right.
Do they not consider the Qur'an (with care)? Had it been from other Than Allah, they would surely have found therein Much discrepancy. [Qur'an 4:82]
This
The jury is already entering the courtroom with its own load of preconceptions and opinions. You have to trust the jury is capable of re-evaluating the situation fairly based on evidence provided in the courtroom. That's the only important issue.
If not, you're not going to get a fair trial even if you do lock the jury up and blindfold them and plug their ears and keep them out-of-touch with the outside world.
The court should stop fooling itself and accept that jurors enter the courtroom knowing things they're not supposed to, and accept that it's fighting the impossible fight.
This has got to be a troll, but in case someone actually believes this argument...
Many events in Sparticus have been verified by independant historians. Doesn't mean the whole movie is true, it just means that it got some things right.
There are also many events in the bible that haven't been, and many that can't be, proven. For example, 10,000 people wandering around in the desert for 40 years seen to have left no trace of camps or waste dumps. Because it gets some things wrong doesn't mean its all false.
I thought the difference between Jews and Christians was that the Christians think that Jesus is the Son of God and Jews think Jesus was a false profit.
Aww - alright, yeah a quick bash in google seems to indicate that Muslims and Christians do share a God. Interesting. Historicly speeking, where did the divide occur?
Thad
Thad
The meaning of this passage is that you are a foolish meatbag and that Qube will trample your soul with boots spiked with #2 pencils.
It's obviously true since the 1st book of the Lodge in Birdman 7:11 it clearly states,"This is the shit and woe unto the pedestrian who walketh the street of the lodge and believith not our shit."
"All these great truths I am about to show you are nothing but shameless lies" -Introduction, The Book of Bokonnen
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Does that answer your question?
Not really, because you seem to have based your argument on presumption, imagination, a limited experience with programers, and of course the notion that !Christian==Imoral.
I'm an atheist, and i am certain i am not imoral. I don't steal, cheat, engage in violence, i love my mother and the rest of my family etc. etc.
By all means, practise a religion. Just don't tell me i am wrong because i don't practise your religion too. That way do wars lie.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
In Sweden, cases are decided by a board instead of a jury (except in freedom of press cases) While that system also has its problems it avoids the uncertainity of jury trials.
Now as a law abiding non-lawyer citizen, I don't have much experience with our courts, and my "knowledge" of american courts come mostly from TV and slashdot, so I don't feel very qualified comparing the systems.
What do you say. Is the whole concept of an uninformed peer jury flawed or is it worh preserving?
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Judge Hampel is, of course, correct. Justice in Australia, the U.S., and the U.K. must rely on the ignorance of the jury to function properly.
Why is it unacceptable to let the jury in a murder trial know that the defendant has been convicted of murder before, for example? Shouldn't a jury know all the facts? If we trust a jury to make the decision of guilt or innocence, shouldn't we also be able to trust them with the truth?
Geeky modern art T-shirts
If I believed in Her, I'd pray to God that your are a troll, and don't really believe what you just said
That is not the issue being decided, though - this is a court of law, not of religion. The question being answered by the jury is not `did this person stray from righteousness?', but `did this person break this law?'
The jury is not enforcing God's law, but the law of man. The two are completely distinct.
If I cannot trust a man to make good decisions (not sin against God and demean his fellow men and women) in private, how can I trust him to make good decisions in a court of law?
How is the viewing of (legal) pornography related to deciding whether someone has broken the law or not? I believe that criminals should be excluded from jury service - but pornographic material is, generally, legal; as such, viewing it should not (and does not) disqualify you from jury duty.
I can almost guarantee you that the farmhand has had a more moral upbringing and goes to Church more than the programmer.
On what do you base this assumption, and what difference does it make anyway? Why do you think exposure to technology makes people less moral? Why do you think going to church makes someone more moral?
You don't go far enough on this. It should be mandatory to ask whether this juror has ever illegally downloaded any copyrighted materials, or visited any pornographic websites.
I agree that illegally downloading copyrighted materials is wrong. However, if someone downloaded an illegal mp3 five years ago, when they were still growing up, how does this make them unsuitable for jury duty?
As for visiting pornographic websites - so what? The only time this might be relevant is in a sex related case, and even then I find it to be a weak argument. Extending this only slightly further than you already have, why not disqualify everyone who has ever seen some bare breasts on late night cable tv?
Any questions about the veracity of the juror's answers should be taken care of by an inspection of his home computer.
So, jury duty would also include having your home, and your privacy, violated by lawyers? Personally I find this completely unacceptable.
While the Internet can be used for good, it has far more potential to taint the minds of the public than any other invention since the dawn of mankind, and we should not hesitate to keep our justice system (justice system) free of such influences.
Please substantiate this remark. You could replace the word 'Internet' in this sentence with virtually anything, and someone proably believes it. Try 'alcohol', 'tobacco', 'drugs', 'chocolate', 'religion', 'politics', 'communism', 'capitalism', etc.
a single juror gaining knowledge of the crime ahead of time could taint the trial
I agree completely. But why blame the internet. Newspapers, television, and radio can all be blamed for this as well.
Just as a single amoral or immoral juror could. These need to be screened for too.
How would you suggest we do this, without violating the potential jurors' rights?
I don't think that one can make decision on something he doesn't understand.
Then how can a non-Christian decide whether a man has strayed from righteousness or not?
What the hell does porno have to do with being able to make good decision in court.
If I cannot trust a man to make good decisions (not sin against God and demean his fellow men and women) in private, how can I trust him to make good decisions in a court of law?
Wow, and this at a time when official crime statistics are falling througout the OECD. I guess you know something the official sources don't
It's by far the worst in the European nations, most of which, in a truly backwards and barbarous move, have banned the death penalty. thorities don't.
No I think, you're a little confused here, it is state sponsered murder which is barbarous and backwards. While the US nearly made it into the ranks of the civilsed nations (ie. those with human rights including the renunciation by the state of the use of murder against its citizens), sadly the US has slipped backwards into barbarism.
What are criminals supposed to fear
Clearly they don't fear the death penalty. Just compare the levels of violence in countries like Nigeria, the US etc., with those of most civilised nations. The use of murder by the state has proven a most ineffective way to demonstrate to its citizens the sanctity of human life. On the other hand, the use of state murder does seem to be a pretty effective electioneering tool.
Yes, on average, 312 children are shot and killed in the US every day
And, no country which has abolished the death penalty even comes close to that ...
Only christians are moral? Who is being Elitist now? Actually the first wasn't Elitist because the fact is the majority of the population does not understand technology, and therefore is not really in a good position judge it. As for the reaction to Christianity on /. I think you need look no further than posts like yours that condemn those that think differently than you to figure out why you are greeted with scorn. I mean what a closed view of the world. I should feel sorry for you, but I can't bring myself to. Besides your probably a troll. -wyn
Are we not innocent until proven guilty? If we lose this right why do we need a Justice System. Allowing the flow of this kind of information jeopardizes that crucial right which one day YOU or I may need and are entitled to. Many criminals, do end up living a normal life after they have served their time and they should be allowed to live that life undisturbed. This easliy retrievable information from crimenet could prevent that. Lets us not forget how easy it is to simply click a few buttons on the PC and get information in a matter of seconds. It isn't as easy to get this information if you have to go to a library and physically retrieve this information manually. It would be too time consuming for most people. Let us also not forget that the accused in the Melbourne case had incorrect or inadequet information on him placed in the database of crimenet. How many more inaccurate listings are there? and how many more will there be in the future. Maybe YOURS or mine huh ?? If this information needs to be published on the web, then maybe it should be left up to the Legal Profession such as the Courts to do and NOT some wacko who thinks he is doing everyone a favour by listing every criminal's profile when he gets his hands on some bit of information. (most times whats published in news papers is also incorrect). Something to stop and think about huh!
You would like to believe that I am, it would support your deeply flawed worldview.
," And even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
Support for my previous assertion:
2 Corinthians 4:3
The meaning of this passage is that those who do not understand the Bible or believe that it has contradictions are the unrighteous or the evil who are damned and lost to God.
Do you believe me now?
There was a complex fraud case a couple of years ago where one of the jurors asked to be removed because she couldn't understand the trial. IIRC, the judge found her in contempt of court.
- Blah blah blah, missing scientist. Blah blah blah, atomic bomb. -
Yknow that the abortion rate in Kansas is fast approaching 1 per woman-lifetime?
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
I think, more importantly than love thy neighbour, would be the passage "judge not, lest ye be judged." Isn't that in the bible somewhere? It seems to me that our fine Christian disciple has taken it upon himself to encroach upon two of the bible's most basic ideals. Open heart - open mind.
I love the hypocrisy that seems to follow Christianity. Having attended private Christian school for a good portion of my upbringing, it is that mindset alone which has kept me 'out of God's grace'. I don't want to associate myself with a group that is so adept at preaching something, yet so ill-adept at following their own preachings.
I do not find Christians immoral, nor do I find atheists immoral. I judge not, lest I be judged. I do tend to find more hypocrites acting on God's behalf than the other way around, however. I have some VERY righteous family members, who wholly believe in God, and are very active in the church, but it's not Christianity that makes them good people.
For the record, I DO believe that a religion that teaches love thy neighbour, do not steal, etc. is a good thing for people willing to accept that. However, I don't feel that excluding yourself from said group, for WHATEVER reason, makes you any more immoral than anyone else, including members of the church.
Fair treatment is a concept which cannot be taken away. You can take away rights, but never "fair treatment", unless you are a barbaric nation. As I clearly pointed out, that man paid for his crimes with an incredible gaol sentence, and felt remorse and sorrow for what he did. This was an old man, living in the shadow of what he did in his younger days. If an advanced civilisation such as ours (that's debatable) cannot ever forgive people under any circumstances, then we can hardly deserve to call ourselves "human".
No, I mean Moslems. The god is the same, but the prophet (Jesus vs Mohammed) is different.
Psalms 97:10 says, "Hate evil you who love the Lord."
My neighbour is only he who is truly righteous and loves God. I hate those who direct themselves against our Lord, in accordance with Scripture.
But didn't Jesus Himself say to 'Love one another as I have loved you'. Jesus didn't have any biases towards people. He forgave sinners - he didn't shun them. He didn't give off to them for being sinners. In fact, he loved them as much as he loved those who followed him.
For someone who says that he is Christian, you certainly do not live the life the Jesus (who is God, don't forget) said to live. One of love for all man, not just the few who you select to be loved.
Jesus also said 'let he who is without sin caste the first stone'. I'm sure you will remember the context of this. I'm sure you also remember the result - nobody threw a stone. Why? Because everyone is a sinner. There is not a single person in this world who, in the eyes of God, is not a sinner. And yes, that even means you. This means that Jesus, and God, loves you as much as he loves everyone else. He doesn't love you any more than anyone, nor any less. He loves all people, of all colours, of all religions, of all nationalities, or all beliefs, equally. Unconditionally. Whether or not these people believe in Him, or whether or not they even love Him back.
And before you go saying that I am a Satan worshipper just because I read Slashdot and happen to be a programmer, I am not. I too am a Christian. Roman Catholic. I go to Church once a week. I believe that God exists. I have difficulty with these beliefs sometimes, but after all I am only human. God knows this too. I pray when I feel the need to pray, whether it is to ask for help, or to say Thank You.
Feel free to condemn me, but remember that in Jesus's eyes, you are also condemning yourself...
"What you do to the least of my breathern you do to me"
Again, just like every time before, he means everyone. Even the murderers in our jails. The rapists. The pediaphiles. And the worst of the lot, us programmers!
Remember, "Christians" != "Christianity".
...
No, it's more like
public class Christian implements Christianity {
}
T.
There wasn't really a divide.
Mohammed (who wasn't a Jew or a Christian) lived in Saudi Arabia. He had a series of revelations from 'Allah' which form the basis of Islam. He claimed that 'Allah' was the same god asthat of the Christians & the Jews (who were both quite important in the region).
However the Qu'ran (his holy book) is inconsistent with both the Torah/Old Testament & the New Testament.
Most importantly he claimed that Jesus was a prophet & not the Son of God (something that is theologically impossible in Islam & Judaism).
From an Islamic perspective, God is Allah but from a Christian perspective he isn't.
Allah = Yahweh = Christian God
The main dispute is who the hell (pun intended) is the prophet (Mohammed vs. Jesus vs. Nobody Yet)
I'm not sure why the divide occured, only that while the Moslems acknowledge Jesus, they regard Mohammed as the (last) true, son of god prophet. (I too was suprised, but I had a Moslem friend with whom I had many discussions!)
Damnit, i post as an AC because i think it'll get moderated down, and it gains 4 points! Now this one will get moderated down because it's OT and redundunt. Whats a Karma whore to do? ;)
Syllable : It's an Operating System
But that kind of selection is not allowed in Australia AFAIK. (Or most places that aren't the US)
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
"Patience is a virtue, afforded those with nothing better to do." - I don't remember
"Patience is a virtue, afforded those with nothing better to do." - I don't remember
Turning your argument on it's head, what right does a Christian have to decide if say, a Muslim, a Jew, an atheist etc. has commited a crime?
Syllable : It's an Operating System
While the odds of a juror using it may be microscopic, and so on a case-by-case basis not enough to cancel a trial, somewhere along the line, in one of the many cases in a year, someone will use it.
While some portions of Crimenet may be useful, the only possible result of having past convictions available is to set people against the person convicted.
Many Australians may remember the child molesterer Luthwaite who was release approx 1 year ago, after an incredibly long gaol sentence, and he was certainly incapable of being a danger to society. When the public found out about this, he was hounded into hiding, harrassed and attacked at every turn. Do we really want to place the so called "rights" of Freedom of Speech or Freedom of Information above the rights of a person to fair justice and treatment in society?
Simply, put yourself in the shoes of someone who was once picked up for a crime (whatever it is), and has spent their time in gaol. When you move back into society, what could be worse than someone finding out and then making your life unbearable.
The costs of these records being on Crimenet infinitely outweigh the benefits, and so it should certainly not be allowed to continue publishing these sorts of records of people.
Please. If 1 Christian is worth flaming, it doesn't mean you should use flames which attack Christians in general.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
If you are an average citizen, and commit a crime, chances are that you have the right to be judged by a jury of your peers. Is that to mean that the concept of peers includes whether or not you own a computer? What about a SUV? Rent or Own a home? Have a Condo? Boxers or Briefs?
The computer is a tool, and it does not, nor should it define whether a person is fit for jury duty or not. Being judged by your peers means being judged by the same melting pot that makes up society.
The notion of keeping a jurors mind clean is absurd. Whether or not a person did one thing or not has nothing to do with their ability to judge fairly. That's like asking a juror if they ever speed, or blow a stop sign, when screening for a rape trial. Unnecessary and idiotic. (Unless a car chase was involved and will be presented.)
Jurors are (In the US, today) asked prepared questions based around the case they are involved with.
Remember, a jury of your peers does not include the statement of "Wholly lawful abiding citizens."
Tilting the scales of justice to your line of thinking would sway the favor of the trials towards that of the prosecution.
The Justice system is not supposed to "SEE" whether a person is guilty or not. That is what a jury is there for.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
And, next time you troll, you might want to stay with the good ol' "stupid opinion" method, and not mix it up with incorrect statistics. I mean at least not dead wrong numbers.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
It's no different than any other forms of media in Australia. When anyone gets arrested here, until they either pleed guilty or get found guilty, all information concerning them is concidered sub-judicy & cannot be mentioned by the media. If a newpaper had mention any past arrests a mis-trial would also have been called & th newspaper would have been found in contempt of court. We've actually had radio personalities in Australia, that have gone to jail for contempt, for breaking the laws concerning sub-judicy. Maybe all of you should study up & get your facts right before posting comments on subjects you know nothing about.
All of your beliefs seem to based entirely on what other people have taught you, and what you have read, and not at all based upon your own observations of the world we live in.
You're a very good troll if that's what you are, but alas, I fear the worst.
Jeff
stty erase ^H
What right do I have? The Bible. The Bible very clearly lays out what is good and right and moral and what is not. The Torah and the Koran are, at best, incomplete and ridden with contradictions.
Many unbelievers do see contradictions in the Bible, but this is only because they are evil and bent on confounding God's holy word. The truly righteous see no such contradictions and are able to ascertain God's true meaning.
Link: Managing Director of Crimenet says visitors to the updated site must state if they are jurors on a trial before they can access information.
Link: "Queensland has joined New South Wales and Victoria in expressing concern about the impact of an Internet site which contains details on criminals."
Link: "Australian attorneys-general will consider ways to protect the jury system, after an Internet site forced a murder trial to be aborted."
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
When Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read went to jail he started writing. He has written a number of books about his exploits. They have sold fairly well. William Gibson acknowledges Read (and his books) as the basis for "Blackwell" in Idoru.
But hey, some of us prone to unpopular opinion will also say the judicial system is whack. All too frequently injustices occur in jury verdicts because past criminal records (i.e., chronic conduct) was suppressed by the judge under the pristine notion that past conduct has no bearing on a person's present day actions. Imagine if the business world operated that way (not checking references, not caring about previous job performance).
You've blown it troll boy. You had me up until that last post. You should have quit while you were ahead. You were doing quite well.
...contempt of court for publishing stuff about pending court cases (would at least move sites to another country)
Or not disclosing the names of any people in the court case (defendant, witnesses), including to the jury, until after the case...
Theres already too much stuff in the press...Craig Charles was accused of rape, held on remand (in prison) for months, eventually found not guilty, but its not like the doctrine of `innocent until proven guilty` was uphelp there, was it?! Plus you get vigilante type idiots who believe anything the police say as an excuse to get all hot and bothered about stuff...
Being the anti-social cinspiracy theorist that I am, here is my take.
Certain elements *sic* of the western democracies want desperately to gain a stranglehold on the
net, both in terms of access and content. In the US, the very size of the connected community
coupled with the chaotic nature of our culture leads to conflict in the area of online rights.
Australia has recently been a testbed in which several experimental attacks have been launched
against the rights of citizens to freely associate and communicate online.
In a democracy, if you can't persuade an elected legislator to take up your cause, you get a
non-elected judge to legislate through the courts. Scare tactics (free a likely murderer into your
community), often sway public opinion. It is much easier to get an elected official to do the wrong
thing (or the right thing)when you gain control of the hearts, minds, and/or wallets of his
constituancy.
-- "It was as if the paint factories had decided to deal direct with the art galleries." - Thursday Next
Not to nit-pick or anything, but...the Torah is remarkable for how it *shies away* from glorifying either the Jewish people as a whole or individuals. Moral failing is a key theme--just some examples: King David and Bathsheva; Moshe dying outside Israel; the Golden Calf; and of course practicaly the whole of Nevi'im (the Prophets). The first chapter of Mimesis by Norman Auerbach discusses some of this from a literary perspective.
That said, I agree that you need to read the Torah historically--among other ways of reading it.
Do you wish to pay with your reputation of others entertainment. CrimeNet is propably mostly entertaining, but how about privacy... the article noted that people on CrimeNets 'blacklist' had had a hard time getting jobs etc.
I admit that the ciminals must be punished but not with eternal mark on their foreheads.
Parents Against Kuro5hin
BWAAAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
ROFLMAO
HAHAHAHAHA HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHA
A HAHAH HA AHAAHAAAHAHHA
Ohh, that hurt *wipes tears from eyes*
Okay, *several deep breaths* Okay, I'm better now.
I would like to commend you 7Days. That was truly a beautiful troll. Your responses in all their bigoted illogic have everyone going.
Your efforts have near single-handedly derailed this whole thread.
Bah, no rewards to all the uninventive trolls talking about hot grits or Natalie, this guy here is brilliant. He rants onwards in a way designed to get the goat of just about any reader, including good christian ones.
7Days, you are outstanding. I hereby award you "Troll of the Year", *hands statuette over*, for you brilliant work in suckering us all in.
I will now stand back and let you make your acceptance speach. I'm sure you have some nasty verbiage to aim at me.
Unfortunately for you I am now done with this thread, it's amusement potential has gone and I'm marching onwards towards things that actually matter, unlike you.
Absimiliard
This is just another excuse for Austalia (its government) to censor the Net down under.
There was no evidence that any of the jurors had seen the information, so why dismiss the jury?
Answer: to scare the public that the Internet will make it so crimes go unpunished. Thus, to further scare the public into accepting Net censorship.
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
I thought the difference between Jews and Christians was that the Christians think that Jesus is the Son of God and Jews think Jesus was a false profit.
putting aside any financial jokes for the time being, the difference is that Christians now think Jesus was the One True Savior (tm) Son of God (c), etc. Jews instead see Jesus as a wise prophet, but not The Savior.
Lea
That poor, poor fellow who is afraid he's sentenced to a life of crime because his prior conviction is listed on CrimeNet.
WAKE UP!!!
Prior convictions are and have always been a matter of public record. CrimeNet does nothing to change this. In the US (don't know about Australia), EVERY JOB APPLICATION asks the applicant if they have any criminal convictions. It's a quaint little principle we have called disclosure. Also known as honesty. CrimeNet does nothing to change this, either.
In other words, the capability has always existed for motivated ordinary folks to find out if their neighbors, coworkers, or employees are ex-cons. CrimeNet does nothing to change this.
IN SUMMARY:
If this fellow didn't want to be forever branded a criminal and discriminated against... if he wasn't prepared to accept the NATURAL and PROPER CONSEQUENCES of being convicted of a crime...
THEN HE SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE HE COMMITTED THE CRIME!!!
It is perfectly legal and ethical to take information that is in the public domain (such as court records, old books, etc.) and sell it without recompense to the public.
Timothy - I don't think it's an odd precedent at all. I think the judge has acted in the spirit of the law. Due process necessitates that you will have a fair and unbiased jury. While there will always be bias, while jurors are human, we are still better off in trying to consciously overcome our own shortcomings.
Secondly, you seem to be under the impression that CrimeNet is police-operated. The fact is that CrimeNet gathers its material from publically available sources - newspapers, what information police will provide, and so forth.
Thirdly, the criminal's decision to describe his crime would - should other evidence support the case - likely have him found guilty by trial.
I believe that there are two critical items here:
Taken together, these mean that there is a real chance that jurors will hold pre-judgement - prejudice, in other words. And there is stacks of research that shows you that prejudices have tangible affects on trial outcomes.
The judge has set a good precedent here. Let's not tear him down for it.
be well;
JC.
ps - Timothy: some of us may find "y'all down under" just a teensie bit patronising. Not all. Some.
--
"Don't declare a revolution unless you are prepared to be guillotined." - Anon.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
isn't there some lion you should be providing sustanence for?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Sorry, but if he is an atheist he does not believe in (S)satan either.
So much hurt and pain has been caused in the name of religion, you should at least understand why so many do not share your beliefs.
BTW, do you think Moslems are immoral - after all, both you and they worship the same (G)god
As I Understand It, previous trials and convictions are inadmissable *unless brought up by the defence* - so if a criminal ran his own information site, that's ok, it would be admissable (it would also be a confesssion :) - it's the independence of the site that would be the crux under English law.
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
This is fact, as substantiated in the Bible.
I have never read the bible, nor do i believe a word of it. Your argument holds no weight for me there.
therefore you, knowingly or not, worship Satan. You are immoral.
I should take this personally. But i won't. Because a) I don't believe in Satan, so why should that worry me in the slightest? b) If i am a glowing example of a Satan worshiper, i think there should be more of us in the world.
Christians have an obligation to set right the wrongs of the world
Translation "I am better than you. I shall stick my nose into other peoples business and tell them what to do. I do not beleive in individuality."
and if this leads to violence
Yeah, violence is great in the name of God, perfectly alright. Oh, doesn't the Bible say something about "Love thy neighbour", or are you allowed to ignore that bit if it suits you?
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Example one as toilet a from drains water how look .Hemisphere that in down backwards is everything because that's
I call myself a Christian. And I see hundreds of other so called "Christians" everyday cut people off, speed agressively, yell at waitresses because of this or that. They show no love. Quite often I am ashamed to call myself Christian because I don't want to be associated with these people. How do you justify your 4 assumptions? Since when is working on the Sabbath a sin? Question, what day is Sabbath? You are calling upon the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law. Could it be that God was trying to tell us to make sure we take a day off every week to rest, relax and enjoy ourselves? The bible also says that women shouldn't speak or sing in church. Oh, and about middle america, did you know that the "Bible belt" has the HIGHEST divorce rate in the nation? (I'm trying to find the story, cnn.com posted it last fall I think) Can you explain that one? Oh, and please tell me again why I have to attend church twice a week?
O.K, you've got to be Trolling now.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
To 7days - Well trolled troll boy, you got 'em good.
To an active moderator - Mod it down, and perhaps people will stop getting so exited about it.
To everyone else - IGNORE IT. Its nonsense.
PS Perhaps I'm wrong. I might be.
Thad
Thad
www.eFax.com are spammers
As much as I feel the decision to dismiss the case was pretty dubious, I think you're clutching for straws a bit to accuse a judge of conspiring with the government to send chills down the spines of the Australian public.
More likely, the judge has no real understanding of the Internet medium and perhaps more thought and correspondence was needed before he made his decision to dismiss the case. One feels he dismissed the case since he wasn't quite sure how the avaialbility of this sort of information on the net could impact a jury, not to further any secret agendas in the censorship of the Net down under.
The same sort of "Oz Government are evil, freedom strangling scum" vibe have been flowing freely since the "censorship" laws was introduced a bit back. While it's arguable whether or not they're scums, I doubt very much that they are actively trying suppress freedom on the internet.
The fact is, John Howard (the PM) and his cronies wouldn't know the Net if it ran him over on an Autumn Sunday morning. As much as the net does pose a threat to the establishment, I doubt Howard understands its potential well enough to even be scared of it. Basically, I doubt Howard is clever enough to come up with such a plan to censor the net. Pretty much everybody in Oz knew that the censorship laws that were passed were just a big Political stunt in order to gain support of an independent, no more, no less. Apart from telstra shutting down a couple of teenies porn newsgroups, i've heard no cases of the effects of the legislation, and definitely no ISP being shut down because of it.... it was a law witout any bite.
Basically, the Oz government and the legal system is about 7 years behind the world in the technology stakes. They are so far behind the eight ball that they don't even seem to be trying to catch up. It will have to take a new generation of politicians with some technological awareness to bring them up to speed. Until then, for little Johnnie Howard and his boys, the Internet is merely this one enormous porn site that needs to be kept in check once in a while ; )
Crimenet isn't giving opinions on the current case. Its just an archive. You might as well say that the jurors could look up references to a criminal in newspaper back issues.
Surely in this case it would be simpler to just ensure that the Jurors had no internet access during the trial. Even thats a bit extreme. Its not like they might accidentally stumble on it like they would if the information was published in a newspaper.
Ummm... Hate to break it to ya, but dismissing the jury is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from dismissing the case.
When a jury is dismissed, a NEW jury is selected.
Other than that slight misunderstanding... (Only 16 lines of text were wacked, you still have your sig...doh!)
I found your baiting, I mean writing to be quite interesting.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
O.K, so even if one of the jurors did read the website, i'm sure the court could have found a replacement. After all, if a US court could manage to find an entire jury for the OJ Simpson trial, i'm sure it would have been many orders of magnitude easier to find a jury who hadn't even heard of the website.
Reporting crime in the media is nothing new at all, it just seems that the court took a knee-jerk action because the details were on the internet this time.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
If a jury are dismissed just for the possibility of having seen the site... surely this means that there are no valid jurors, worldwide? Or do we now resort to jurors from countries with no widespread internet access? Or do we just let them go now, since there's apparently no way to try them...?
Personally, I'd say string 'em up... but that's just me...
Considering that the material was available in newspapers, which the jurors are much more likely to have seen, this all seems too much like the typical panic of the ignorant - "The Internet's going to take over the world!!!" I think not...
One reason I try to avoid getting ticketed these days -- that's when you're most likely to be flagged as someone they want to bring in and question, and bear in mind that in the USA at least, they can hold you for up to 48 hours (?) without any charges.
This is also a reason I regularly monitor police dispatch frequencies
(Case in point: an LAPD officer in West Hollywood, I believe, sees a driver acting 'suspicious' and calls in the car's plate number. Dispatch reports the plate number as being registered to a completely different make and model. Cop says 'Right!!' and stops the car, calls backup, and they do the whole high-incident stolen-car get-out-with-your-hands-up-and-lie-down-on-the-pa
Yeah
73 de N5VB (ex-KD5BIV) AR SK
Quoted from the article:
>She said Mr Williams and federal Justice
>Minister Amanda Vanstone had grave concerns
>about issues like privacy and vigilantism that
>were raised by such web sites.
Vigilantism? I thought they got rid of all the guns in Australia.
"I can't wait 'til we can blame accidents on Computer Error, because it will mean we've got A.I." - Dominic
I went into my classroom,
Ready for another year at school.
I didn't want the work,
Just wanted to hang and be cool.
I had on new clothes,
New sneaks on my feet.
I was there for class on time,
Went to the back and took my seat.
Yeah, I'm moving up,
I'm already grown.
Soon I'll be graduating,
And out on my own.
I talked to some of my friends,
We were all having fun.
Said some things I shouldn't have said,
Did stuff I shouldn't have done.
I knew I was different.
I felt God touch my heart,
I knew I should set a standard,
But then I'd be set apart.
Walking to the bus,
I was not looking for strength.
I heard the car tires screeching,
But now it's too late.
I'm standing in this room,
And I can see the heavenly gate.
Oh no! I never prayed.
I thought I had time to get it straight.
An angel walked to me,
He had a book in his hand.
I knew it was the Book of Life,
When would this dream end?
I told him my name,
And he began to look.
Then he looked at me sadly and said,
Your name is not in this book.
Angel, this is a dream,
No, I can't be dead!
He closed the book and turned away,
He whispered - You cannot proceed ahead.
No...no this can't be real,
Angel, you can't turn me away.
Let me talk to God,
Maybe he'll let me stay.
He led me to the gate,
Jesus came to me.
He did not let me in but said,
Beloved what is your need?
Jesus, I cried, please,
Don't cast me away from you.
Tears ran down his face as he said,
You knew what you needed to do.
Lord, please I'm young,
I never thought I would die.
I thought I'd have plenty of time,
Death caught me by surprise.
Lord, I went to church,
Please Jesus, I believe.
He said you would not accept me,
My love you would not receive.
Lord, there were too many hypocrites,
They weren't being true.
He took a step back and asked,
What does that have to do with you?
Lord, my family claimed to be saved,
They weren't real. You know.
He said, I died for you,
Now I have to go.
I fell to my knees crying to Him,
Lord, I planned to be real tomorrow.
I couldn't, make Him understand,
I had never-felt such sorrow.
Then it hit me hard, I said,
Lord, where will I go?
He looked into my eyes and said,
My child you already know.
Please Jesus, I begged,
The place is so hot.
It seemed to trouble and grieve him,
He whispered, DEPART FROM ME, I KNOW YOU NOT.
Lord, you're supposed to be love,
How can you send me to damnation?
He replied, With your mouth you said you
loved me,
But each day you rejected my salvation.
With that in an instant,
Day turned into night.
never knew such torture could be,
Now too late, I know the Bible is right.
If I can tell you anything,
Hell has no age.
It is a place of torture,
Separated from God and full of rage.
You know, I thought it was funny-a joke,
But this one thing is true.
If you never accept Jesus Christ,
HELL IS WAITING FOR YOU!
So please, ask Him into your heart.
>Is my verbal agreement to not read any websites dealing with the case somehow inherently less believable than my word to not research the case at the library?
;) (sarcasm, for humor-impaired)
It is because the internet has the evil ability to circumvent your morals and good intentions.
Haven't you been paying attention? This internet-thingy turns law-abiding citizens and innocent youths into soul-less shells that can no longer distinguish between right and wrong.
You don't even have to voluntarilly visit bad web sites. Just having internet access and going within 10 feet of your computer is enough for the vile internet to take over your being. Beware! Don't let your young children near this internet menace! God we can only hope the government can protect us from this unholy scourge!
pah!
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
-- H. L. Mencken
Fortunately Jesus does not agree with you.
I could post a number of bible quotes here, but if you are really a christian I wont have to.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
most people that are Christians are not true Christians. They do not attend Church twice a week and pray every night
A 'true Christian' (your term, not mine) would go to Church more frequently than twice a week (how about twice a day?), and would pray more regularly than every night. A true Christian would praise God with everything he says and does.
A place where Christianity is taboo has a much larger proportion of programmers than almost any other website I know of.
Christianity is not a taboo on Slashdot, what rubbish. However, Slashdot is a Linux website and discussions of Christianity would be off-topic. In fact, Slashdot gives a free platform from which Christians (such as myself) are able to air our views. Try Advogato and The Stile Project for even less coverage of Christian issues. You will then realise how tolerant Slashdot is to the discussion of Christianity and Christian issues.
Fourth: a farmhand is likely to have grown up in Middle America, a place of strong moral fiber, and to be free from many of the evil influences that the city brings.
Utter nonsense, trollboy. Middle America is a place of very poor moral fibre - it is an inherently racist region and a region ruled by violence. Guns (the tools Satan uses to turn man against his fellow man) are widespread in America, and the majority of Americans worship the ideals of consumerism rather than God. It is down to individual choice whether or not to follow Evil, and in this respect no region is better than any other. As far as "evil influences" of cities, surely cities have more churches per area than small less densely populated villages, therefore cities are intrinsically holy?
Most people with a Computer Science degree are lucky to remain with the slightest few sheds of religion that have not been indoctrinated out of them.
Hello? Computer Science degrees make no attempts influence people's religious views. While they may indoctrinate people that Python is better than Perl, Solaris is better than BSD, vi is better than EMACS and Microsoft is better than everything put together, these are not religous arguments. They are trivial.
Please, think before you post next time.
Exactly - good reasons why we don't want them in a jury.
Elitism, yes - so?
it's in my head
I assume that the Aussies also have a similar convention. So, my confusion is over why it is okay for me to say... "no, I've never heard of this case nor will I go look it up in the library." Yet my disavowing any readership of CrimeNet is not just as valid a claim.
____________________
Prior to last month or last week ( or whenever it was) I would have denied seeing the source code for a certain proprietary extension to a well-known security utility. However, I did see the source code and I have been permanently altered by the experience (at least in the sense that I cannot in good conscience - legalities aside - produce a clean-room working implementation of said utility).
Granted, I was reading an article about the utility at the time.
More recently, I have found myself reading articles about black and brown footware, before discovering that they were actually discussing monopoly power.
Similarly, I read gulliver's travels long before I thought I knew anything about the British Parliament.
I read what I understood to be a wonderful book about agricultural management (gone awry) by George Orwell.
Of course, I am not so dense that I did not see the symbolism of Gulliver's Travels or Animal Farm, and I understand the other arguments to which I alluded.
I also understand that EE Cummings was not describing his zest for automobiles.
The problem is that someone may fail to realize until late into "the story" what parallels are being drawn. This is not always due to the observer's density, but can also be attributed to the author's technique.
It is quite difficult to guarantee that you will *not* see something on the internet.
neat address. i never knew you could write an ip address straight up as a decimal number.
normal ip: 198.186.203.20
198*256^3 + 186*256^2 + 203*256^1 + 203*256^0 =
3334130452
You said:
/-&-lE/ adverb
There is no morality without God
To which, I rely:
Show me where in this definition of "moral" from Merriam Webster says ANYTHING about church, god, or any other deity.
Main Entry: 1moral
Pronunciation: 'mor-&l, 'mär-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin moralis, from mor-, mos custom
Date: 14th century
1 a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ETHICAL b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior c : conforming to a standard of right behavior d : sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment e : capable of right and wrong action
2 : probable though not proved : VIRTUAL
3 : having the effects of such on the mind, confidence, or will
- morally
Lest you think I didn't look, here's "morality":
Main Entry: morality
Pronunciation: m&-'ra-l&-tE, mo-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Date: 14th century
1 a : a moral discourse, statement, or lesson b : a literary or other imaginative work teaching a moral lesson
2 a : a doctrine or system of moral conduct b plural : particular moral principles or rules of conduct
3 : conformity to ideals of right human conduct
4 : moral conduct : VIRTUE
What about if he's a sheep farmer?? What then smarty??
Also remember that even if you don't believe in Satan, HE believes in YOU! (sorry to preach, I just love that phrase)
Regarding the morality of Country folk and christians: Remember that both of these communities (in their traditional sense) are close knit and everyone knows everyone else. This makes the raising of children in a moral fashion quite a bit easier since the kids are never able to get away with anything. Anyone who sees them doing what the community sees as wrong can say "I know who your mother is!" This is simply a system of accountability in which you cannot escape the consequences of your actions.
This I believe is what the poster is refering to as immorality. People who do not feel they are responsible for their own actions consistantly disregaurd the rights of thos around them in order to fulfill their own aims. The poster sees the internet as annother environment that encourages this.
Whew, quite a mouthfull
<This .sig left intentionally blank>
It's a good job it wasn't Larry Flint on trial. Try finding a jury who hadn't seen a porn website...
Last time I was on Jury duty, we were on the honor system to not discuss or research our case in the intrest of a fair trial. From the article I gather this is virtually the only concern aborting this retrial. When screened for jury duty last time I was asked a series of questions to determine my bias. I was also asked on the honor system to not do any research, visit crime scenes, or discuss the case...
// Zarf //
I assume that the Aussies also have a similar convention. So, my confusion is over why it is okay for me to say... "no, I've never heard of this case nor will I go look it up in the library." Yet my disavowing any readership of CrimeNet is not just as valid a claim. Is my verbal agreement to not read any websites dealing with the case somehow inherently less believable than my word to not research the case at the library?
Shouldn't I still be honor bound and even under some sort of threat of perjury to not research the case? If something is published on the internet, does this make it inherently more dangerous than something published in a periodical?
I am very suspect of this Judge's reasoning. Jurors are supposed to operate under instruction from the judge anyway. If a juror does violate thier agreement to not research, ect... then the juror should be penalized. This course of action seems to punish the defendant.
As for the bit about CrimeNet ruining lives... That's another article isn't it? You can seek legal action against a site defaming you right? CrimeNet might be getting a law suit or two eh?
-
[signature]
I'll start this post with a quote from the article:
:)
"CrimeNet offers details on 4000 convicted criminals gleaned from newspapers and court records"
It says it all right here, the info on CrimeNet isn't to blame. It's not like they are the only ones to have had the information publisized. The problem is that this is just bad judgement from the Judge and his/her consorts.
Problem is that most people are not going to see it "the right way" and are going to scream hell on earth and down with the internet. It's just too easy to blame internet (and computers in general) for the things that go wrong.
What could have been done different?
Before trial the judge tells the jurors what to do and what not to do. I think a judge says something like "thou shalt not investigate in prior offenses of this person" at the jury selection. Why should a website be anything different?
Reading the article I couldn't help but feeling like the judge thought the same thing, therefore he refused to abort the trial at first. Problem is that other people got wind of the case and started meddling, after which the judge suddenly did abort the trial.
<disclaimer>
Ahwell, as you can guess, this is just IMHO so don't blame me if I'm wrong...
</disclaimer>
Socrates
When you look at the details of the trial issues, at the end of the article, it makes a lot of sense.
Beyond that, the article raises a lot of intersting AND frightening point. What if an offender has the same name as *you*? Shit, I know there was another guy with the same name AND same age as I in my university, although I never met him -- I discovered that when I applied for a library card: "oh you are already registered". Not me!
Even more crazy, when I was 10 or something, I was living in an appartment, and in the same building there was two married women of the same age and same names!
So this is quite a common situation. Now what happens if one those people is convicted? The legal system sometimes fucks up. But ... if it's a sex-related offense (rape?), it's not even a problem with the legal system, but also with well-thinking vigilante ...
IANAL and my experience is UK based.
.oO0Oo.
It is only really since people became estranged from each other that this sort of thing became important.
As justice evolved the accused and accusers would often be known to each other. This, like everything, was both good and bad and the legacy of that system still lives with us.
A defence and prosecution try to establish either the good character or evil nature of an accused person in order to colour the jury's or judge's opinion of the accused. Indeed these days "a man of good character" is one who has no previous criminal convictions.
In times gone by your actual reputation would follow you in to the courtroom. Revenge might be taken for your previous behaviour in the community or you might be let off for being an otherwise good person who just let off steam or behave out of character due to external pressure.
Nowadays because people are estranged from each other, the mitigating circumstances are written in to our statute. The law decides in advance why you might be let off for something and it is up to you to prove it, if that is your course of action.
This case seems to highlight a flaw in human nature. Negativity seems to linger longer than positivity (is that a word?). It's hard to imagine a way of balancing. How does someone with a previous killing under their belt gain any sort of positive reputation? Nothing in the world seems as positive as murder is negative so such revelations obviously bias opinion. There is no GoodDeedNet where a list of people who have made positive contributions can be searched.
To attempt to be fair society must err on the side of caution. That is why trials can be dismissed in this way. Information might want to be free but some information manages to get publicity for itself too.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter