Changing would cost billions (probably 10s or hundreds of billions) and take a decade or more. Its not a problem you can just sweep under the rug.
When the Saturn EV1 hit the roads, thousands of charging stations popped up all over the Southern California area. They were relatively inexpensive -- run a power line and put the charger with its paddle in place -- and were made even less costly with some subsidies. Power was available near to the parking spaces either from the main buildings or parking lot illumination. The spots were delegated solely to electric vehicles, and were in place in some cases for years after the EV1 was withdrawn.
Your complaints may well be relevant for your situation, but dismissing the concept by plastering your requirements across the entire market makes no sense. I live 8-12 miles from where I work, depending on whether I take the freeway or streets, so something like this would work well for me. What also works for me is my Camaro; if someone with a wife and three kids had your general attitude, he would dismiss the car as pointless and impractical because it only has four seats and little cargo space, but would be similarly missing the point.
Been there, done that. Mid-summer Los Angeles traffic near the 405/101 interchange with two nearby accidents a few years ago (one of the events that scarred me enough to stay out of LA whenever possible). Temps were right around the 100-degree mark, and all of those exhaust vapors made breathing even more difficult. The engine was overheating, so I had to kill the A/C to reduce the load, and rolled down all of the windows. It wasn't a pleasant scenario, but even though there was little wind, it was not the deadly oven that you're describing.
That only works in criminal cases. In civil cases, the court (which includes the jury) is allowed to make adverse inferences -- and judging by the words of Justice Brandeis is perhaps expected to do so -- when a defendant refuses to answer. Therefore, a refusal to answer seems to be just shy of providing the answer that the opposing attorney wants.
CentOS is in production use on more than three dozen servers where I work, and I have friends at IT support companies that support hundreds of CentOS servers across dozens of clients. It has made it into mission-critical environments, and it's quite popular there because relatively few people want to pay Red Hat's prices, and because most third-party companies write for RHEL.
I knew about Schneier being involved from early on, but I just noticed Bernstein made the last cut. Considering Bernstein's thoroughness (64-bit timestamps in his programs, and didn't he once talk about writing his own filesystem to address an external limitation that slowed down qmail?), I am very intrigued at how well CubeHash will do. He apparently admits that it suffers from some performance problems, but also says that he over-engineered it, and that it can be scaled back to improve speed while losing little in the way of security.
Of the 14 candidates going into this round, his is one of only six that hasn't had to be revised so far. Of course, that he seems to have designed it completely on his own may work against him.
I grew tired of listening to them about a decade ago. Back when they were in the thick of things (like getting rammed by a French warship or bombed by French intelligence), I had some respect for them. But over the years, they began to look more like the Luddite fringe groups that would seem to rather see the collapse of civilization than to harm a single insect. I think much of the world has come to agree with what they were talking about 25 years ago, but as the radicals have gained power, they have been more willing to bend the truth (or outright lie) and so many people no longer trust what the organization has to say. Thus, by attempting ever harder to push their agenda, they may be doing more to derail it than any corporation could do.
There's almost no way that anyone will back down. The US Navy does not intend to have fewer than ten carriers in service at any one time in the next five decades. A new understanding of what it takes to fight two wars simultaneously has been learned in the last six years, and that will probably be adapted to actual ability in the next five years or so.
The US has not worked on the basis of existing belligerents for some time now. China and India are growing in their military power. Not only are both nations nuclear-armed, but both are working to integrate carriers into their navies. India already has a blue-water navy, and China wants one. Both are also learning to use AWACS, a major advantage currently enjoyed by only a handful of countries. And we don't know what their leadership will look like in 25 years.
I did question the ability of the F-22 to provide mission fulfillment. However, on some reflection, the ability of the F-22 to come out with 100:1 or 200:1 kill ratios in exercises suggests that except for re-armament, they're going to have very similar capabilities in pairs or quads that F-15s currently have around the squadron size. Any aircraft that can be vectored using AWACS is going to have an advantage, but when AWACS is present all around, the least visible combat aircraft are going to have the decisive edge.
I suppose the constitutionality can be debated. However, icebike's contention was that contempt of court was something made up, used, and found constitutional by judges and judges alone, and that no one else had a hand in it.
That said, it has been found to be constitutional. I just can't find the exact case just yet (I spent about 30 minutes looking for it yesterday).
It's not moving on to the F-35. The two planes have been intended to be complementary for some time now. Basically, the F-22 would be tasked primarily to air superiority, and the F-35 would handle airstrikes, CAP, and backup air superiority. The F-22's performance in exercises has been far beyond what was expected, but I don't know that enough will be available to provide proper mission fulfillment, given that the US is expected to procure nearly 3000 of them over the program lifetime, replacing the F-16, F-18, A-10, and a host of other combat aircraft. The B-2s that were purchased barely fulfill their mission, and then only by flying horrendously long distances, either from their primary base in Louisiana or from Diego Garcia; in either case, missions are 18+ hours without factoring in loiter time. However, it requires far fewer heavy bombers to complete their mission than it does fighters to maintain air superiority.
We have an ever-growing dependency on a computerized-only storage monoculture
I'm more concerned about the corporate/government insistence on deleting data older than some period of time, be it seven or five or three years, or even 60 days. It makes me ponder the possibility of limiting the admissibility of certain evidence in civil cases where the evidence is older than a particular timeframe. Otherwise, we risk intentionally deleting data that could be used by future generations to understand how our civilization works.
Why wouldn't the 13th appeal be just as convincing as the one that finally succeeded?
Maybe the last one shouldn't have succeeded. On multiple occasions, the courts found his ex-wife's evidence more compelling than his own. Let's say that the money really is gone. Maybe he's got a fraud case against his ex-wife if he can prove that her evidence was forged. But what if the money isn't gone, and is waiting for him, perhaps to show up overseas and start living large off the interest that $2 million (plus whatever the stock is worth) racked up in that time? Some people really must win at any cost, and 14 years in prison is what he was willing to give up to prevent his wife winning in the divorce case.
And your argument that "The ability for a judge to summarily punish someone in direct contempt has been upheld for a very long time" does nothing to resolve the constitutionality of the procedure. Upheld! By who? Congress? The Executive branch? A vote of the people? Who? Judges!
All three branches, actually (the people don't get to vote on federal legislation or rules). As the following is part of statute law, it must have been passed by Congress, signed by the president, and enforced by the courts.
United States Code Title 28 (Judiciary and Judicial Procedure), Part III (Court Officers and Employees), Chapter 43 (United States Magistrate Judges):
Section 636. Jurisdiction, powers, and temporary assignment (e) Contempt Authority.- (1) In general.- A United States magistrate judge serving under this chapter shall have within the territorial jurisdiction prescribed by the appointment of such magistrate judge the power to exercise contempt authority as set forth in this subsection. (2) Summary criminal contempt authority.- A magistrate judge shall have the power to punish summarily by fine or imprisonment, or both, such contempt of the authority of such magistrate judge constituting misbehavior of any person in the magistrate judgeâ(TM)s presence so as to obstruct the administration of justice. The order of contempt shall be issued under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. (3) Additional criminal contempt authority in civil consent and misdemeanor cases.- In any case in which a United States magistrate judge presides with the consent of the parties under subsection (c) of this section, and in any misdemeanor case proceeding before a magistrate judge under section 3401 of title 18, the magistrate judge shall have the power to punish, by fine or imprisonment, or both, criminal contempt constituting disobedience or resistance to the magistrate judgeâ(TM)s lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command. Disposition of such contempt shall be conducted upon notice and hearing under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. (4) Civil contempt authority in civil consent and misdemeanor cases.- In any case in which a United States magistrate judge presides with the consent of the parties under subsection (c) of this section, and in any misdemeanor case proceeding before a magistrate judge under section 3401 of title 18, the magistrate judge may exercise the civil contempt authority of the district court. This paragraph shall not be construed to limit the authority of a magistrate judge to order sanctions under any other statute, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
It is absolute unfettered power of one judge over any individual who pisses him off (inside or outside of his courtroom).
Contempt of court cannot be used by a judge on someone who is not violating a court order or disrupting court proceedings. A judge can't like the taste of his drink and find the server in contempt. If you're referring to indirect contempt (ignoring a court order outside of the presence of the judge), someone accused of contempt must be served and provided a hearing during which rebuttal evidence can be presented.
The ability for a judge to summarily punish someone in direct contempt has been upheld for a very long time. It's the only manner in which a judge can attempt to force the compliance of someone who would otherwise subvert the course of justice. It may have been abusive in this case, but calling it unfettered completely ignores the very widely-covered appeals to other judges and to appellate courts of contempt findings against journalists that withhold information.
I did go looking for information pertaining to this case, though. I found the following background from a ruling from the US District Court of Maine in 2003 (citations and mid-paragraph line breaks have been removed). In short, he moved money out of the country, it was returned, and then he fled the jurisdiction when told by the court that he had to turn over the money that had been shown to have been available to him. His accounts were then seized, he was arrested and imprisoned six months later, and his 14 attempts at appeal (at the time of the ruling) seeking his release have apparently all been turned down. (There goes the rest of your "unfettered" argument. Fourteen appeals is a significant quantity.)
In November of 1992, Defendant Barbara Jean Crowther Chadwick filed for divorce from Plaintiff H. Beatty Chadwick in the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. During an equitable distribution conference in February of 1993, Plaintiff revealed that he had unilaterally transferred $2,502,000 of the marital estate to a partnership in Gibraltar, allegedly to satisfy a debt. After it was discovered that the Gibraltar partnership had returned approximately $2,000,000 to an American bank account and a Swiss bank account, both in Plaintiff's name, 2 and that $550,000 in stock certificates that Plaintiff claimed he had transferred to an unknown barrister in England to forward to the Gibraltar partnership were never received, the Pennsylvania divorce court determined that Plaintiff had transferred the money in an attempt to defraud Defendant and the court. In an order dated July 22, 1994, the state court ordered Plaintiff to return the approximately 2,500,000 to a court-administered account to be held in escrow pending further order of the court. The court further ordered Plaintiff to pay $75,000 to Defendant in attorney's fees and to surrender his passport; and the order enjoined him from further assigning and dissipating marital assets and from leaving the jurisdiction until further order of the court.
When Plaintiff did not comply with the July order, Defendant filed a Petition for Contempt and for Writ of Ne Exeat or Writ of Capias Ad Satisfaciendum. Plaintiff was personally served with a subpoena directing his appearance at a hearing on the petition, as was his attorney. Plaintiff failed to appear at the hearing, but he was represented by counsel. By order dated November 2, 1994, Plaintiff was found to be in contempt for willful violations of the order of July 22, 1994, and the judge issued a warrant for Plaintiff's arrest. Because Plaintiff had fled the jurisdiction, a hearing was held in Plaintiff's absence on August 29, 1994, after which the state trial court ordered his bank accounts frozen and directed all funds held in his name to be held in escrow pending final resolution of the divorce proceeding. In addition, Defendant successfully sought the attachment of two spendthrift trusts from which Plaintiff, as a life incom
It was an opinion poll asking about if they would want a referendum to change the constitution.
The change would have included allowing more than one term for the president. Roughly translated, Article 239 says that any person who has held executive authority may not become President or Designee. An executive that violates this or proposes its reform, as well as those that support it directly or indirectly, will immediately cease the duties of their respective positions, and are disqualified from holding any public office for ten years.
The poll was to determine if there should be a referendum regarding allowing the president to serve more than one term. Zelaya himself has said this on numerous occasions. I don't see how that's not effectively a proposal to change the portion of the constitution which he is not even allowed to discuss changing. Even if that weren't the issue, the law states that no referendum may be held within 180 days of an election, and holding it on election day falls within that +/-180 days.
200 Honduran soldiers arrived at President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya's residence, reportedly fired four shots, and detained the President.
They had an arrest warrant from the Supreme Court. A second one had been filed a day earlier by the attorney general. Both contained similar charges.
The crisis in Honduras began when the military refused to distribute ballot boxes for the opinion poll in a new Constitution.
They were ordered not to by the Supreme Court, which ruled the poll unconstitutional.
President Zelaya fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, who refused to step down.
He was reinstated by the Supreme Court, which ruled his firing illegal.
the ballot boxes were stored on an Air Force base until citizens accompanied by Zelaya rescued them.
Citizens who overwhelmingly had nothing to do with the electoral officials, and yet were going to handle all the election activities. This doesn't strike you as problematic?
Your concern over who attended the School of the Americas ignores that Zelaya had been increasingly taking pages out of Hugo Chavez's playbook, who is no paragon of virtue.
Let's leave aside the forced deportation for a moment. Considering that he was pressing ahead with a poll that by all accounts except his was illegal, and that there seems no explicit method of removing the president specified in the Honduran Constitution, how were they supposed to handle it other than by arresting him? He'd already made it clear that he believed he had the mandate of the people behind him and therefore the actions of the Congress (and probably Supreme Court) didn't matter to him. He was going to ignore anything that the Congress and Supreme Court said or did.
Under the old system, we'd have had people able to better work together, and we would be less likely to have had the stupid budget increases that we've had, because the old Democrats knew that you couldn't always tax your way to your goals, and the old Republicans knew that you couldn't always cut your way to your goals.
Gridlock has its good and bad points. It works well for laws, but not so well when it's the budget that's locked up. I work at (not for) a county government, and I can tell you that this gridlock makes life hell for us, stalling needed upgrade projects (including the replacement of a great deal of EOL equipment) because no money is coming down yet, or because we're not sure if they're going to be "borrowing" from us, reducing expected revenues.
And just in case you wonder, I'm very much behind the Republicans in their refusal to sign off on any additional taxes. I want the Democrats to accept that significant cuts have to be made, and they can play again in a few years when revenues are actually going up. I also support just about any redistricting measure for when the new census results are available.
It may well have been an opinion poll (I've read that Zelaya changed what he was calling it just days before it was to happen as Congress started to seriously protest that it was illegal), but it was about a referendum to change the constitution. Based on the translation of phantomfive above, Zelaya immediately lost the right to the presidency when he merely proposed the possibility of reforming that part of the Constitution.
Aside from that, how is it a military coup if members of the civilian leadership took control -- with the next in line of presidential succession taking that office -- and the two arrest orders were issued against Zelaya by civilian offices. The Supreme Court issued its arrest warrant directly to the military, which presumably was duty-bound to carry out the warrant. A military coup results in the military taking control. We see this periodically in Thailand and Turkey, where new laws (and occasionally constitutions) are issued from the military high command, and that's not what's happening here.
As for those wounded and killed, when riot-control forces are called out in almost any country, someone gets hurt. It's unfortunate, and if they were targeted or abusive, then the perpetrators should be brought up on charges. Martial law was declared, though, and that frequently means curtailing of rights in just about any country.
The level of backing from the populace is a matter of some debate. Poll results were erratic, but it seems that his approval rating may have been as low as 26%. The highest support numbers that I've seen have been right around 50% -- a far cry from a supermajority. He may have been elected with such a result, but that doesn't mean that he still has that level of support.
I used to think the same thing. Then I started doing an inventory of my data. Scrapping the ISOs, movies, music (which for me actually will fit on one DVD), games, and all the rest, I need two DVDs to do a backup of the data that I have a real need to keep: e-mail, personal documents, and photos that I've taken, plus a few extra files like encryption keys. It totals up to about 7GB -- easily backed up on a regular basis. Once Windows 7 hits RTM and I can get a final installation of it in place off of Technet, then my backup mechanisms will be further streamlined to include regular backups not only to a local drive, but also to a NAS as well as regular backup to DVD. I'm also considering getting another 1TB drive for the NAS, and periodically powering down the unit, removing a drive to store it off-site, and then rebuilding the array with that drive, cycling them around to minimize the chance of catastrophic damage to the home causing loss of data. I'm also working with a friend, so that we can backup the connections to each other over the Internet via IPSec VPN across the country in case a large-scale disaster causes sufficient destruction that both my home and the storage site for the backup drive are lost.
Paranoid? Yep. But then, the possessions that matter most to me are the memories stored on these drives, and aside from an hour or two of initial setup (plus whatever time it takes to replicate the drive, should I go that route), there's not really much to it on a running basis.
Unfortunately, that's not how term limits work in California. Members of the Assembly can be elected for three two-year terms, and senators can be elected for two four-year terms. But what happens is that they basically flip houses, running the most left-wing or right-wing campaigns possible, promising things that cannot be achieved in the limited terms they have because they're too busy adhering to the platform to compromise with the other party. Under the old system, they knew that incumbents generally were re-elected, and that the people that they saw across the aisle stood a good chance of being there for many years, maybe even decades, and thus had to be treated with some level of respect. It wasn't a great system, but it was a damned sight better than what we have now.
Term limits are a spiffy idea when it comes to executives. Legislators are a completely other issue, provided that gerrymandering isn't a significant issue. I would happily have Willie Brown back to lead the California Assembly if the path got rid of the ideologue yahoos in the Legislature right now. I voted in favor of term limits, and now regret doing so more than anything else I've ever supported.
This was different from what one normally thinks of as a junta. I don't know if the Honduran constitution has a mechanism to remove a sitting president from office, but it was pretty clear that he was absolutely on his own. His own party told him to back off, and that they didn't support the referendum. As was reported by the media, the legislature had passed a law banning referenda within the 180 days prior to an election. The Supreme Court ruled the pending referendum illegal, and issued an injunction preventing the military from making preparations for it. The military was clearly ready to comply with the Supreme Court, but Zelaya was pushing ahead with the referendum anyway, and fired the head of the military. This action was reversed by the Supreme Court the next day. The attorney general issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya, and the day after, the Supreme Court ordered Zelaya's arrest; whether or not that is constitutional, I don't know. Wikipedia's article on the matter suggests that by even trying to hold the referendum, the constitution required that he was to be removed from office.
Presumably, much of this could have been handled better, particularly the removal of Zelaya from the country. But Zelaya seemed to be intent on doing things in a way that is at best gray; that the original ballots were taken possession of by Zelaya and his backers, and would be issued and counted by the same, shows that he had no intentions of having a fair election. If these election computers can be absolutely tied to him, it will at least complicate negotiations for his return.
I use a 5-button mouse for just this purpose. Ever since Half-Life, I've mapped crouching to Mouse 2. Weapon special functions like zoom or firing mode changes get mapped to Mouse 4 and 5. I'm not opposed to throwing in a few other mouse buttons as well, with perhaps Mouse 6 going below Mouse 5 (relative to a Logitech 500 series), and maybe Mouse 7 under the little finger.
Back on the keyboard, moving the control keys to the right makes for many more usable keys to the left of the control keys. Using WASD, only five keys (Q, tab, caps lock, shift, and control) are easily reachable, and I don't know if caps lock is mappable in most games. Using ESDF, you get that same list, plus W and A (and arguably Z). Using TFHV (or TFGH if you want to keep the same shape), you lose tab, caps lock, shift, and control, but have QWERASDZX (and arguably C) to work with. That moves from five usable to as many as ten.
I use S for sprinting (or walking, depending on the game's standard movement mode), which makes it an intentional choice but close enough to be easily used. Weapon drop is mapped to Q -- again, not too far away, but also not accidentally hit. Leaning is mapped to D and J, reload to R, use item to E. These are all either usable with the little finger, or are momentary uses that can be done without affecting movement too much.
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When the Saturn EV1 hit the roads, thousands of charging stations popped up all over the Southern California area. They were relatively inexpensive -- run a power line and put the charger with its paddle in place -- and were made even less costly with some subsidies. Power was available near to the parking spaces either from the main buildings or parking lot illumination. The spots were delegated solely to electric vehicles, and were in place in some cases for years after the EV1 was withdrawn.
Your complaints may well be relevant for your situation, but dismissing the concept by plastering your requirements across the entire market makes no sense. I live 8-12 miles from where I work, depending on whether I take the freeway or streets, so something like this would work well for me. What also works for me is my Camaro; if someone with a wife and three kids had your general attitude, he would dismiss the car as pointless and impractical because it only has four seats and little cargo space, but would be similarly missing the point.
Been there, done that. Mid-summer Los Angeles traffic near the 405/101 interchange with two nearby accidents a few years ago (one of the events that scarred me enough to stay out of LA whenever possible). Temps were right around the 100-degree mark, and all of those exhaust vapors made breathing even more difficult. The engine was overheating, so I had to kill the A/C to reduce the load, and rolled down all of the windows. It wasn't a pleasant scenario, but even though there was little wind, it was not the deadly oven that you're describing.
That only works in criminal cases. In civil cases, the court (which includes the jury) is allowed to make adverse inferences -- and judging by the words of Justice Brandeis is perhaps expected to do so -- when a defendant refuses to answer. Therefore, a refusal to answer seems to be just shy of providing the answer that the opposing attorney wants.
CentOS is in production use on more than three dozen servers where I work, and I have friends at IT support companies that support hundreds of CentOS servers across dozens of clients. It has made it into mission-critical environments, and it's quite popular there because relatively few people want to pay Red Hat's prices, and because most third-party companies write for RHEL.
4. Didn't realize the batteries on my beeper died.
You put batteries in yours?
It's closer to having a front yard give-away of paintings that you copied off of work you recently saw at an exhibit for current artists.
Maybe the scar is the aliens.
"Hey, Flrknorpt! I bet I can buzz that big planet closer than you!"
I knew about Schneier being involved from early on, but I just noticed Bernstein made the last cut. Considering Bernstein's thoroughness (64-bit timestamps in his programs, and didn't he once talk about writing his own filesystem to address an external limitation that slowed down qmail?), I am very intrigued at how well CubeHash will do. He apparently admits that it suffers from some performance problems, but also says that he over-engineered it, and that it can be scaled back to improve speed while losing little in the way of security.
Of the 14 candidates going into this round, his is one of only six that hasn't had to be revised so far. Of course, that he seems to have designed it completely on his own may work against him.
I grew tired of listening to them about a decade ago. Back when they were in the thick of things (like getting rammed by a French warship or bombed by French intelligence), I had some respect for them. But over the years, they began to look more like the Luddite fringe groups that would seem to rather see the collapse of civilization than to harm a single insect. I think much of the world has come to agree with what they were talking about 25 years ago, but as the radicals have gained power, they have been more willing to bend the truth (or outright lie) and so many people no longer trust what the organization has to say. Thus, by attempting ever harder to push their agenda, they may be doing more to derail it than any corporation could do.
There's almost no way that anyone will back down. The US Navy does not intend to have fewer than ten carriers in service at any one time in the next five decades. A new understanding of what it takes to fight two wars simultaneously has been learned in the last six years, and that will probably be adapted to actual ability in the next five years or so.
The US has not worked on the basis of existing belligerents for some time now. China and India are growing in their military power. Not only are both nations nuclear-armed, but both are working to integrate carriers into their navies. India already has a blue-water navy, and China wants one. Both are also learning to use AWACS, a major advantage currently enjoyed by only a handful of countries. And we don't know what their leadership will look like in 25 years.
I did question the ability of the F-22 to provide mission fulfillment. However, on some reflection, the ability of the F-22 to come out with 100:1 or 200:1 kill ratios in exercises suggests that except for re-armament, they're going to have very similar capabilities in pairs or quads that F-15s currently have around the squadron size. Any aircraft that can be vectored using AWACS is going to have an advantage, but when AWACS is present all around, the least visible combat aircraft are going to have the decisive edge.
I suppose the constitutionality can be debated. However, icebike's contention was that contempt of court was something made up, used, and found constitutional by judges and judges alone, and that no one else had a hand in it.
That said, it has been found to be constitutional. I just can't find the exact case just yet (I spent about 30 minutes looking for it yesterday).
It's not moving on to the F-35. The two planes have been intended to be complementary for some time now. Basically, the F-22 would be tasked primarily to air superiority, and the F-35 would handle airstrikes, CAP, and backup air superiority. The F-22's performance in exercises has been far beyond what was expected, but I don't know that enough will be available to provide proper mission fulfillment, given that the US is expected to procure nearly 3000 of them over the program lifetime, replacing the F-16, F-18, A-10, and a host of other combat aircraft. The B-2s that were purchased barely fulfill their mission, and then only by flying horrendously long distances, either from their primary base in Louisiana or from Diego Garcia; in either case, missions are 18+ hours without factoring in loiter time. However, it requires far fewer heavy bombers to complete their mission than it does fighters to maintain air superiority.
I'm more concerned about the corporate/government insistence on deleting data older than some period of time, be it seven or five or three years, or even 60 days. It makes me ponder the possibility of limiting the admissibility of certain evidence in civil cases where the evidence is older than a particular timeframe. Otherwise, we risk intentionally deleting data that could be used by future generations to understand how our civilization works.
Maybe the last one shouldn't have succeeded. On multiple occasions, the courts found his ex-wife's evidence more compelling than his own. Let's say that the money really is gone. Maybe he's got a fraud case against his ex-wife if he can prove that her evidence was forged. But what if the money isn't gone, and is waiting for him, perhaps to show up overseas and start living large off the interest that $2 million (plus whatever the stock is worth) racked up in that time? Some people really must win at any cost, and 14 years in prison is what he was willing to give up to prevent his wife winning in the divorce case.
All three branches, actually (the people don't get to vote on federal legislation or rules). As the following is part of statute law, it must have been passed by Congress, signed by the president, and enforced by the courts.
United States Code Title 28 (Judiciary and Judicial Procedure), Part III (Court Officers and Employees), Chapter 43 (United States Magistrate Judges):
Section 636. Jurisdiction, powers, and temporary assignment
(e) Contempt Authority.-
(1) In general.- A United States magistrate judge serving under this chapter shall have within the territorial jurisdiction prescribed by the appointment of such magistrate judge the power to exercise contempt authority as set forth in this subsection.
(2) Summary criminal contempt authority.- A magistrate judge shall have the power to punish summarily by fine or imprisonment, or both, such contempt of the authority of such magistrate judge constituting misbehavior of any person in the magistrate judgeâ(TM)s presence so as to obstruct the administration of justice. The order of contempt shall be issued under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
(3) Additional criminal contempt authority in civil consent and misdemeanor cases.- In any case in which a United States magistrate judge presides with the consent of the parties under subsection (c) of this section, and in any misdemeanor case proceeding before a magistrate judge under section 3401 of title 18, the magistrate judge shall have the power to punish, by fine or imprisonment, or both, criminal contempt constituting disobedience or resistance to the magistrate judgeâ(TM)s lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command. Disposition of such contempt shall be conducted upon notice and hearing under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
(4) Civil contempt authority in civil consent and misdemeanor cases.- In any case in which a United States magistrate judge presides with the consent of the parties under subsection (c) of this section, and in any misdemeanor case proceeding before a magistrate judge under section 3401 of title 18, the magistrate judge may exercise the civil contempt authority of the district court. This paragraph shall not be construed to limit the authority of a magistrate judge to order sanctions under any other statute, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Contempt of court cannot be used by a judge on someone who is not violating a court order or disrupting court proceedings. A judge can't like the taste of his drink and find the server in contempt. If you're referring to indirect contempt (ignoring a court order outside of the presence of the judge), someone accused of contempt must be served and provided a hearing during which rebuttal evidence can be presented.
The ability for a judge to summarily punish someone in direct contempt has been upheld for a very long time. It's the only manner in which a judge can attempt to force the compliance of someone who would otherwise subvert the course of justice. It may have been abusive in this case, but calling it unfettered completely ignores the very widely-covered appeals to other judges and to appellate courts of contempt findings against journalists that withhold information.
I did go looking for information pertaining to this case, though. I found the following background from a ruling from the US District Court of Maine in 2003 (citations and mid-paragraph line breaks have been removed). In short, he moved money out of the country, it was returned, and then he fled the jurisdiction when told by the court that he had to turn over the money that had been shown to have been available to him. His accounts were then seized, he was arrested and imprisoned six months later, and his 14 attempts at appeal (at the time of the ruling) seeking his release have apparently all been turned down. (There goes the rest of your "unfettered" argument. Fourteen appeals is a significant quantity.)
The change would have included allowing more than one term for the president. Roughly translated, Article 239 says that any person who has held executive authority may not become President or Designee. An executive that violates this or proposes its reform, as well as those that support it directly or indirectly, will immediately cease the duties of their respective positions, and are disqualified from holding any public office for ten years.
The poll was to determine if there should be a referendum regarding allowing the president to serve more than one term. Zelaya himself has said this on numerous occasions. I don't see how that's not effectively a proposal to change the portion of the constitution which he is not even allowed to discuss changing. Even if that weren't the issue, the law states that no referendum may be held within 180 days of an election, and holding it on election day falls within that +/-180 days.
They had an arrest warrant from the Supreme Court. A second one had been filed a day earlier by the attorney general. Both contained similar charges.
They were ordered not to by the Supreme Court, which ruled the poll unconstitutional.
He was reinstated by the Supreme Court, which ruled his firing illegal.
Citizens who overwhelmingly had nothing to do with the electoral officials, and yet were going to handle all the election activities. This doesn't strike you as problematic?
Your concern over who attended the School of the Americas ignores that Zelaya had been increasingly taking pages out of Hugo Chavez's playbook, who is no paragon of virtue.
Let's leave aside the forced deportation for a moment. Considering that he was pressing ahead with a poll that by all accounts except his was illegal, and that there seems no explicit method of removing the president specified in the Honduran Constitution, how were they supposed to handle it other than by arresting him? He'd already made it clear that he believed he had the mandate of the people behind him and therefore the actions of the Congress (and probably Supreme Court) didn't matter to him. He was going to ignore anything that the Congress and Supreme Court said or did.
Under the old system, we'd have had people able to better work together, and we would be less likely to have had the stupid budget increases that we've had, because the old Democrats knew that you couldn't always tax your way to your goals, and the old Republicans knew that you couldn't always cut your way to your goals.
Gridlock has its good and bad points. It works well for laws, but not so well when it's the budget that's locked up. I work at (not for) a county government, and I can tell you that this gridlock makes life hell for us, stalling needed upgrade projects (including the replacement of a great deal of EOL equipment) because no money is coming down yet, or because we're not sure if they're going to be "borrowing" from us, reducing expected revenues.
And just in case you wonder, I'm very much behind the Republicans in their refusal to sign off on any additional taxes. I want the Democrats to accept that significant cuts have to be made, and they can play again in a few years when revenues are actually going up. I also support just about any redistricting measure for when the new census results are available.
It may well have been an opinion poll (I've read that Zelaya changed what he was calling it just days before it was to happen as Congress started to seriously protest that it was illegal), but it was about a referendum to change the constitution. Based on the translation of phantomfive above, Zelaya immediately lost the right to the presidency when he merely proposed the possibility of reforming that part of the Constitution.
Aside from that, how is it a military coup if members of the civilian leadership took control -- with the next in line of presidential succession taking that office -- and the two arrest orders were issued against Zelaya by civilian offices. The Supreme Court issued its arrest warrant directly to the military, which presumably was duty-bound to carry out the warrant. A military coup results in the military taking control. We see this periodically in Thailand and Turkey, where new laws (and occasionally constitutions) are issued from the military high command, and that's not what's happening here.
As for those wounded and killed, when riot-control forces are called out in almost any country, someone gets hurt. It's unfortunate, and if they were targeted or abusive, then the perpetrators should be brought up on charges. Martial law was declared, though, and that frequently means curtailing of rights in just about any country.
The level of backing from the populace is a matter of some debate. Poll results were erratic, but it seems that his approval rating may have been as low as 26%. The highest support numbers that I've seen have been right around 50% -- a far cry from a supermajority. He may have been elected with such a result, but that doesn't mean that he still has that level of support.
I used to think the same thing. Then I started doing an inventory of my data. Scrapping the ISOs, movies, music (which for me actually will fit on one DVD), games, and all the rest, I need two DVDs to do a backup of the data that I have a real need to keep: e-mail, personal documents, and photos that I've taken, plus a few extra files like encryption keys. It totals up to about 7GB -- easily backed up on a regular basis. Once Windows 7 hits RTM and I can get a final installation of it in place off of Technet, then my backup mechanisms will be further streamlined to include regular backups not only to a local drive, but also to a NAS as well as regular backup to DVD. I'm also considering getting another 1TB drive for the NAS, and periodically powering down the unit, removing a drive to store it off-site, and then rebuilding the array with that drive, cycling them around to minimize the chance of catastrophic damage to the home causing loss of data. I'm also working with a friend, so that we can backup the connections to each other over the Internet via IPSec VPN across the country in case a large-scale disaster causes sufficient destruction that both my home and the storage site for the backup drive are lost.
Paranoid? Yep. But then, the possessions that matter most to me are the memories stored on these drives, and aside from an hour or two of initial setup (plus whatever time it takes to replicate the drive, should I go that route), there's not really much to it on a running basis.
Unfortunately, that's not how term limits work in California. Members of the Assembly can be elected for three two-year terms, and senators can be elected for two four-year terms. But what happens is that they basically flip houses, running the most left-wing or right-wing campaigns possible, promising things that cannot be achieved in the limited terms they have because they're too busy adhering to the platform to compromise with the other party. Under the old system, they knew that incumbents generally were re-elected, and that the people that they saw across the aisle stood a good chance of being there for many years, maybe even decades, and thus had to be treated with some level of respect. It wasn't a great system, but it was a damned sight better than what we have now.
Term limits are a spiffy idea when it comes to executives. Legislators are a completely other issue, provided that gerrymandering isn't a significant issue. I would happily have Willie Brown back to lead the California Assembly if the path got rid of the ideologue yahoos in the Legislature right now. I voted in favor of term limits, and now regret doing so more than anything else I've ever supported.
The leader of that big northern neighbor also immediately denounced the coup, and supported suspending Honduras from the OAS.
This was different from what one normally thinks of as a junta. I don't know if the Honduran constitution has a mechanism to remove a sitting president from office, but it was pretty clear that he was absolutely on his own. His own party told him to back off, and that they didn't support the referendum. As was reported by the media, the legislature had passed a law banning referenda within the 180 days prior to an election. The Supreme Court ruled the pending referendum illegal, and issued an injunction preventing the military from making preparations for it. The military was clearly ready to comply with the Supreme Court, but Zelaya was pushing ahead with the referendum anyway, and fired the head of the military. This action was reversed by the Supreme Court the next day. The attorney general issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya, and the day after, the Supreme Court ordered Zelaya's arrest; whether or not that is constitutional, I don't know. Wikipedia's article on the matter suggests that by even trying to hold the referendum, the constitution required that he was to be removed from office.
Presumably, much of this could have been handled better, particularly the removal of Zelaya from the country. But Zelaya seemed to be intent on doing things in a way that is at best gray; that the original ballots were taken possession of by Zelaya and his backers, and would be issued and counted by the same, shows that he had no intentions of having a fair election. If these election computers can be absolutely tied to him, it will at least complicate negotiations for his return.
I use a 5-button mouse for just this purpose. Ever since Half-Life, I've mapped crouching to Mouse 2. Weapon special functions like zoom or firing mode changes get mapped to Mouse 4 and 5. I'm not opposed to throwing in a few other mouse buttons as well, with perhaps Mouse 6 going below Mouse 5 (relative to a Logitech 500 series), and maybe Mouse 7 under the little finger.
Back on the keyboard, moving the control keys to the right makes for many more usable keys to the left of the control keys. Using WASD, only five keys (Q, tab, caps lock, shift, and control) are easily reachable, and I don't know if caps lock is mappable in most games. Using ESDF, you get that same list, plus W and A (and arguably Z). Using TFHV (or TFGH if you want to keep the same shape), you lose tab, caps lock, shift, and control, but have QWERASDZX (and arguably C) to work with. That moves from five usable to as many as ten.
I use S for sprinting (or walking, depending on the game's standard movement mode), which makes it an intentional choice but close enough to be easily used. Weapon drop is mapped to Q -- again, not too far away, but also not accidentally hit. Leaning is mapped to D and J, reload to R, use item to E. These are all either usable with the little finger, or are momentary uses that can be done without affecting movement too much.