Three cheers for Randy Pausch!
I don't have any mod points, and you don't have the room to take them if I did - but +1, friend. From everything I can tell about the man, that's exactly the spirit he would have wanted people to have when he passed.
I can't imagine the multi-national I now work for having enough of a sense of humor to retire a system like this. Not without a cost analysis, risk assessment, and at least three consultants.
"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
-Ernest Hemingway
That's art, my friend, and its lack of length only adds to its status as such. You don't have to craft an entire galaxy to strike a chord with your audience.
Yep, just one,a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/04/na tional/main542678.shtml">case. Sure, there have been (and probably will always be) bad cops, just like bad judges, bad pilots, bad programmers, bad bankers, and bad politicians (although in that case, the exception may be 'good politicians'). Quite simply, there are shitty people in the world. Come on. Do you truly believe that the majority of sting operations are corrupt?
Then, you go on to acknowledge that my flawed argument is in fact, in part, correct: All good strawmen have a grain of truth somewhere.
Would you think this would make their testimony more or less reliable? I originally planned to dismiss this as irrelevant, but upon further consideration, I have something better. If the testimony isn't reliable, then there will be no sting, since they made up the drop/buy/hit/what have you. Of course, if that was the case, our theoretical snitch would find that the judge in his or her own case would throw the book at him/her come sentencing, I'd imagine.
No, entrapment means that the criminal commits a crime that he would not have otherwise committed. Many of us are willing to buy drugs and wouldn't have to be forced to do so, but the undercover officer has to be careful to use specific words and not to use other words. That's because offering drugs to someone is creating a crime from thin air. Were you not there, no crime would have been comitted. Creating crimes is not the job of the police. http://dictionary.law.com/: (Emphasis mine)
entrapment
n. in criminal law, the act of law enforcement officers or government agents inducing or encouraging a person to commit a crime when the potential criminal expresses a desire not to go ahead. The key to entrapment is whether the idea for the commission or encouragement of the criminal act originated with the police or government agents instead of with the "criminal." Entrapment, if proved, is a defense to a criminal prosecution. The accused often claims entrapment in so-called "stings" in which undercover agents buy or sell narcotics, prostitutes' services or arrange to purchase goods believed to be stolen. The factual question is: Would Johnny Begood have purchased the drugs if not pressed by the narc? If the runner is arrested before he gets you your trunk full of blow, and replaced with the undercover cop no entrapment has occurred. Granted, if the cop comes to your front door, rings your doorbell, and asks if you'd like to pay him for this kilo of coke, you would probably have a case (with a good enough lawyer). But I'm making certain assumptions in the argument, one being that we both know, at least at a rudimentary level, how stings are run.
So, selling cocaine is great police work, but buying it is a crime. Interesting that you have gotten that all straight in your head somehow. Stop being pedantic. You would be arrested the moment you gave the sting officer the money, and you're perfectly aware of that.
In all honesty, I see no problem with legalizing 'victimless' crimes, if for no other reason than taxes. You could probably fund Social Security, Welfare, AND a national healthcare system with the tax money from legal marijuana alone. Of course, the money would most likely go to porkbarrel crap, corporate welfare and/or bombing some poor fucker's sand hut, but that argument is neither here nor there.
So one case is the basis of your entire (flawed) argument? Informants are most often criminals, yes. From there you wandered off into fantasyland. In most cases, the informants are rolling on someone to negotiate a reduced sentence for themselves. Further, the "entrapment line" is not exactly thin: to be considered entrapment, an accused criminal has to be forced to commit a crime that they were unwilling to commit, e.g. "Buy this weed or I shoot you." If you willingly give an undercover cop a suitcase full of money for a trunk full of cocaine, it's not entrapment - it's good police work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment:
In jurisprudence, entrapment is a legal defense by which a defendant may argue that he or she should not be held criminally liable for actions which broke the law, because he/she was induced (or entrapped) by the police to commit said acts. For the defense to be successful, the defendant must demonstrate that the police induced an otherwise unwilling person to commit a crime. Entrapment is an issue that must be considered in designing sting operations. If you were willing to commit the crime, but you had the bad luck of committing said crime with/near an undercover agent, that's not entrapment. (See: prostitution stings.)
Hey, I found an emulator!
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Videogames Turn 40
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· Score: 3, Informative
Re:I had a Magnavox Odyssey growing up
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Videogames Turn 40
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· Score: 1
We had an Odyssey2, complete with the rudimentary text-to-voice module "The Voice". No one ever knows what I'm talking about when I give my most robotic "That is cor-nect." Ah, good times. Who's up for some Quest for the Rings?
Do politicians treat God the way heavy metal bands treat Satan, some kind of marketing device? Maybe my sarcasm detector is calibrated incorrectly this morning... but if that was a serious question, I'd answer it with an unqualified yes.
Why don't you care?
I'm going to assume "you" meant 'all of you' and respond accordingly.
We care - when we know something's wrong. I think that in the long run, the greatest disservice done the people during the Dubya years will not be done by the administration, but by the "journalists" covering the administration. When Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are the only real journalists left, brother, somebody's feeding somebody a lot of shit. The Patriot Act isn't the lasting legacy of this administration - Bill O'Reilly and his ilk are. Sadly, that's where most of us get our news from now.
Re:I would rather have....
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Beginning Ruby
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· Score: 1
So, would you say you were tired of this MF'ing ruby on these MF'ing rails?
Yeah, you got me - mine's the digital one. Still... it works fine for what I want, and I haven't been roped into a new contract in YEARS, so why upgrade?
(Yeah, I know... I just committed/. heresy. I'll turn in my nerd card on my way out.)
8. Motorola StarTAC (1996) And still going strong, baby... just replaced my battery and antenna at a flea-market cellphone shop last month. You can have my phone-that's-just-a-phone when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!
how do you suggest i avoid that drunk driver.. by hitting the ditch or the car in front of me
Actually, from a motorcyclist: Pay attention to your surroundings even when you're sitting still, and yes, always be ready to hit the ditch if you see someone's coming up behind you too fast. On a bike, at fault vs no fault is a moot point, since a biker loses both arguments.
From the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SealandWiki:
According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, there is no transitional law and no possibility to consent to the existence of a construction which was previously approved or built by a neighbouring state. This means that artificial islands may no longer be constructed and then claimed as sovereign states, or as state territories, for the purposes of extension of an exclusive economic zone or of territorial waters.
The only prospect for successful assertion of sovereignty would be to show that there was de facto sovereignty prior to 1982.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason is if you buy oil, you have to take delivery of that oil.
Negative. The whole argument for "speculation is driving up prices" is based on "paper oil," or oil futures. Read on.
Three cheers for Randy Pausch!
I don't have any mod points, and you don't have the room to take them if I did - but +1, friend. From everything I can tell about the man, that's exactly the spirit he would have wanted people to have when he passed.
...cut Chuck in for a good portion of the proceeds. Five to one says it settles out of court with just such an arrangement.This is simply politics as usual. All the more reason to impose mandatory two-term limits for all elected officials.
Are you still there?
I can only point you to this short story:
"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
-Ernest Hemingway
That's art, my friend, and its lack of length only adds to its status as such. You don't have to craft an entire galaxy to strike a chord with your audience.
Meow, I'm gonna have to give you a ticket on this one. No buts meow. It's the law. Not so funny meow, is it?
MEOW!
In all honesty, I see no problem with legalizing 'victimless' crimes, if for no other reason than taxes. You could probably fund Social Security, Welfare, AND a national healthcare system with the tax money from legal marijuana alone. Of course, the money would most likely go to porkbarrel crap, corporate welfare and/or bombing some poor fucker's sand hut, but that argument is neither here nor there.
So one case is the basis of your entire (flawed) argument? Informants are most often criminals, yes. From there you wandered off into fantasyland. In most cases, the informants are rolling on someone to negotiate a reduced sentence for themselves. Further, the "entrapment line" is not exactly thin: to be considered entrapment, an accused criminal has to be forced to commit a crime that they were unwilling to commit, e.g. "Buy this weed or I shoot you." If you willingly give an undercover cop a suitcase full of money for a trunk full of cocaine, it's not entrapment - it's good police work.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/o2em/ Well, there goes the afternoon...
We had an Odyssey2, complete with the rudimentary text-to-voice module "The Voice". No one ever knows what I'm talking about when I give my most robotic "That is cor-nect." Ah, good times. Who's up for some Quest for the Rings?
The way I see it, ladies, you owe me for one jelly doughnut! Now, get on your faces!
Bottom-of-page quote: If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will.
One. Is. Too. Damn. Many.
Why don't you care?
I'm going to assume "you" meant 'all of you' and respond accordingly. We care - when we know something's wrong. I think that in the long run, the greatest disservice done the people during the Dubya years will not be done by the administration, but by the "journalists" covering the administration. When Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are the only real journalists left, brother, somebody's feeding somebody a lot of shit. The Patriot Act isn't the lasting legacy of this administration - Bill O'Reilly and his ilk are. Sadly, that's where most of us get our news from now.
So, would you say you were tired of this MF'ing ruby on these MF'ing rails?
Yeah, you got me - mine's the digital one. Still... it works fine for what I want, and I haven't been roped into a new contract in YEARS, so why upgrade?
/. heresy. I'll turn in my nerd card on my way out.)
(Yeah, I know... I just committed
(Now get off of my lawn.)
Actually, from a motorcyclist: Pay attention to your surroundings even when you're sitting still, and yes, always be ready to hit the ditch if you see someone's coming up behind you too fast. On a bike, at fault vs no fault is a moot point, since a biker loses both arguments.
...Myspace joke in here somewhere, I just KNOW it!