Jack Thompson Sends Subpoena to Bush

Ariastis writes "Jack Thompson has filed documents with a federal court in Florida requesting to subpoena President George W. Bush for a deposition to retain Thompson's license to practice law. Ah, and Jeb Bush too, for good measure."

Comments

Re:Subpoena as evidence?

[MightyMartian]

Ok, now that I've trolled in another post, I'm wondering if the folks trying to get him kicked out of the Bar could enter the subpoena ITSELF as evidence of JT's unfitness to practice law.

I don't know if it can be directly referenced or not. Is it necessary? The guy's record speaks for itself. This delicious piece of irony is just icing on the cake.

I'm more concerned about his fitness to walk down the street. I really do think Thompson is completely out of his mind. I think what's needed after the disbarment is a 30 day psychiatric review in a closed facility. Maybe there's some meds they can give him.

Re:WORST ... SLASHDOT ... STORY ... EVER

[eln]

That's a really nice rant, and I agree with you somewhat in your general assertion that Slashdot has drifted pretty far away from being a nerd site (WTF is up with the Politics section, for example). However, I have some issues:

1.) I haven't been around quite as long as you have, but I don't recall the slogan ever being "News for Nerds on the Stuff that Matters". That may have been the original intent, but I don't think that was ever the actual slogan. The oldest page from Slashdot I could find on web.archive.org is from November, 1998, which was prior to the Andover.net buyout (thereby presumably before the major corporate influence began). On that page, the slogan is "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters."

Now, I grant you, prior to maybe 5 or 6 years ago, the "stuff that matters FOR NERDS" was sort of implied, but that hasn't really been the case for a long, long time.

2.) Jack Thompson has been going after the gaming industry for a long time. Seeing his long, slow descent into madness is of great interest to gaming nerds, even if not to you particularly. Even if you decide that the site should be limited only to things that the typical nerd would care about (not your decision or mine to make), this still would fit that category.

So, even though I agree with you that Slashdot in general has strayed pretty far from its roots (but what site this old hasn't), I disagree with you about this particular story.

It makes me wonder, though

[Moraelin]

It makes me wonder, though. Schizophrenia quite often starts mild, debatably sane, and progresses over time to padded-room calibre. Just because at some point you might look like just a bit eccentric or slightly bizarre or a bit of a bad case of cognitive dissonance, doesn't mean that 17 years later you can't be diagnosed with proper schizophrenia.

And this guy's delusions started from half-way between mildly annoying and mildly funny, and progressed to outright bizarre. I can't diagnose him anyway, but it makes me, you know, wonder. Maybe a second examination would find it a bit worse than the one almost 2 decades ago? It's a possibility.

Plus, to the best of my knowledge, a lot (most?) doctors tend to prefer to err on the conservative side, especially when it would bury someone's career. If slapping a "yup, he's schizophrenic" label on him would terminate his right to act as a lawyer, even temporarily, they'll give him a lot of benefit of the doubt. He'd pretty much have to be at the raving lunatic stage to get that. It's just a different standard. Even if you'd consider giving him neuroleptics in a private consultation, you'd have to be convinced that he's to deranged to do his job to actually slap that on his dossier.

Plus, in that kind of context, I figure it's hard to diagnose anyway. Noone will start telling you about the voices in his head, when he's sent there to determine whether he's fit to keep working and doing his crusade. Being insane carries a major stigma. So unless they're deranged past the point of hiding it, a lot of people _will_ try to hide it, if you just send them to a psychiatrist. They might admit stuff to their therapist if it was their idea to go there, and it's going to be kept secret. But not to the guy who has to determine whether they're fit to keep their job, and whose conclusion will probably be public record.

What I'm trying to say is that it's entirely possible that he just slipped through the cracks the first time. (_If_ he's indeed nuts.) There's no telling if he'd still pass after all this time.