Slashdot Mirror
Judge Doesn't Know What a Web Site is
An anonymous reader writes "A British judge admitted on Wednesday he was struggling to cope with basic terms like "Web site" in the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the Internet.
Judge Peter Openshaw broke into the questioning of a witness about a Web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals.
"The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is". he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws.
Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms "Web site" and "forum." An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts.""
Have Ted Stevens explain it to him
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Thank god I'm not the only one...
"Heh. Totally pwned that prosecutor. ZOMG! Ponies!"
website: noun: a doorway to a series of tubes
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Nah he shoulda just gone back to sleep.
What? Stories of questionable value? How can this be? This is blasphemy! This is madness!
the end she was asking really clever questions I couldn't answer.
Dude. You got pwned by a girl.
liqbase
Madness?
THIS!
IS!
SPARTA!
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
What?? A government official makes comments that shows he knows nothing of a particular technology that is vital to him performing his job? Wow....good thing this kinda stuff never happens in the USA!
Ride the skies
Is it possible for me to just say "DUH" and not have my karma changed to negative or worse?
Secretary: "Sir, you got slashdotted." Judge, with curiosity: "Slashdotted?" Secretary: "Yes sir, it's a news website" Judge: "A website? um...?"
BA
When I was in college, I took an environmental law class. The guy teaching it used to work county public health or whatnot and had a few good stories.
One of the stories was to show how judges are sometimes in the position to interpret laws and regulations that are outside their scope of knowledge. One story goes that a case was about dumping of hazardous waste. The waste wasn't specifically listed as hazardous, but there are other procedures to test the compound's toxicity - such as exposing a certain species of fish to the compound for X days and seeing how they are doing at the end. If the fish are dead, then it's pretty obvious that the compound is toxic.
In this case, the fish toxicity testing data was presented to the judge and it went something as follows:
Judge: And do we have any of these fish in our county?
Answer: No, we don't have any of these fish in our county.
Judge: Then what do we have to worry about?
Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Hydrogen is lighter then air you know!
Eventually it will all fuse to Helium which is still lighter then air, so we'll be OK.
But when it fuses further it will all come crashing down, sometime in 2037 or so.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Yeah, but laws usually run deeper recursions. If x then y, unless z, except when a, provided that b, unless c and d, but only when based on e and not f, with...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Another good one:
Barrister [to witness]: "In fact, wouldn't it be fair to say that you were drunk as a judge."
Judge: "Would you care to rephrase that?"
Barrister: "I do apologise; I mean't drunk as a lord, my lord."
I hear there's more than one nowadays.
Wow.. I can"t believe I could read that within a few seconds of seeing it for the first time. It says: I Am Not A Lawyer But I Have Studied Law And Work In The Field.
A sign I have been readin Slashdot too much
OMG, I can't believe that McGyver is over 70 !
OMG, I'm providing a link to McGyver for everyone who isn't as old as I am, and wouldn't be familiar with the cultural reference.
No, that's not it...
Karma police, arrest this man. He talks in math. He buzzes like a fridge. He's like a detuned radio.
Best way to protect yourself from speeding tickets is to ruthlessly interrogate the officer who gave you the ticket in an attempt to get him to admit he's unsure of something. If you can do that, or show some doubt somewhere else, you can get your ticket overturned.
But if you decide to do that with math, be forewarned: you can really bone yourself in front of the judge if you don't know your trigonometry.
SRSLY.
You consider it high praise to be told you think like a lawyer in training? I'm scared of you now.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
from 'Not the Nine O'Clock News'
Lawyer: I intend to prove that my client is completely innocent of the charges of theft of which he is accused.
In evidence, I shall produce receipts given to me by my client as proof of purchase for the three articles allegedly stolen.
This one for the digital watch...
Judge: A digital watch? What on earth is a digital watch?
Lawyer: Sorry, m'lud. A digital watch is a watch worked by microelectronics.
I will also be producing a receipt for the automatic video recorder...
Judge: Automatic video recorder?
Lawyer: It's a machine that records television programmes on special tapes.
Judge: How fascinating. What will they think of next? Proceed.
Lawyer: Thank you m'lud. Finally, I will produce in this court a receipt for my client's "deluxe model inflatable woman" -whatever that is.
Judge: The deluxe is the one with the real hair and the lifelike sister!
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
"We've all read some of the overlong slashdot replies/nerd emails that go to great lengths and painstaking detail, dismantling every aspect of the parent poster's point. Usually these posts include specific references to higher authority - textbooks, articles, past examples and other random websites."
I do not know what you mean. I've never seen anything like the things you describe, and even a more in-depth analysis of your claims show no signs that the point you make has any validity. Painstanking detail? Dismantling every aspect of a post? I would like to refer you to the researchpaper "On the origin of debating posts on slashdot" by Anonymous Coward, where it is clearly proven that what you describe has never been substantiated, nay, not even an example could be found to demonstrate...
oh...wait...
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Wow, that sounds an awful lot like the requirements the customer gave us for that big software project last week.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Of course, in the old days there was GOTO as well. Of course no-one writes laws like that these days...
-1 not first post
Oh yeah? Prove it.
What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? One is a scum-sucking bottom feeder... The other is a fish.
Beware the fury of a patient man
- John Dryden