I doubt a chemistry or a nuclear physics degree would be useless.
You didn't go to a school with a nuclear engineering or nuclear physics department, did you? I did (Georgia Tech), and the job market for those skills is ridiculously tight according to what I heard. Try to think of jobs for that degree. Think real hard, and you'll probably come up with a list of tightly regulated industries that aren't seeing much expansion or much in the way of fundamental research.
As for a chemistry degree, you're looking at poor job prospects unless you go on to grad school or at the very least do a lot of undergraduate research. I know from experience. When I was a chemistry major my freshman year, and I was seeking a job to help pay through school, the market for those jobs was super tight as well. That was a small part of what convinced me to switch to computer science. (The larger part was my clumsiness in the lab.)
You can get a well-paying job in Marketing or Business right out of undergrad as long as you don't screw around and manage to get low grades in super easy classes. Music can be tough unless you've got boatloads of talent, but I'd hardly expect someone who's regretting college to have majored in something as marketable as Marketing or Business.
Now, English or Philosophy or History might land you in no-job-land, but your examples are all really bad for showing degrees that are or aren't "useless."
Not a single thing you said applies specifically to CC licenses that do not apply to licenses in general. Not a single thing. All licenses that grant rights to others fail to account for situations in which the person assigning the license does not have rights to do so.
Thus, singling out the CC licenses for containing "a trap" is nothing more than spreading FUD.
Requiring due dilligence largely makes CC's existence largely moot.
Not really. This is the same as trying to GPL code that isn't fully yours. No license can account for for its misapplication to property that that person applying it does not have full rights over. Calling this a "trap" in the CC ignores this fact.
The first thing their lawyer is going to do is file a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim -- or whatever the equivalent is in Texas; I'm not sure if Texas uses the FRCP rules or not, but an equivalent rule should be present. Creative Commons can get their part in this case removed easily since they had absolutely nothing to do with the alleged wrong acts.
Now the photographer on the other hand may have a more difficult fight if the photographer didn't get a model release, and Virgin may be in trouble for not doing due diligence on that -- I don't know the rules of this at all, so I don't know how much trouble Virgin's in for.
In fact, think about this: the most logical camouflage colour would be green, right? That's the colour we dress our soldiers in, right? Well, in practice mammals are coloured anything but green.
This is because most non-primate mammals (prey animals for most of the flashiest predators) are red-green colorblind. Many shades of orange or red look the same as shades of green or yellow, and as you point out with undersea creatures, reddish pigments are metabolically cheap.
The edge detection theory you put forth is fascinating though. Are you aware of any studies that support the concept, or is this just an educated guess?
Now that's important. The UCC allows you to waive certain warranty rights, but only if they're explicitly waived in an explicit contract or if the goods are sold "as is" or using other language that explicitly notes that it may be defective.
I kind of like the UK's rules better for buying goods at a store, but I'd hate to be seller on eBay or their equivalent of craigslist.
How is this any different from the Uniform Commercial Code Article 2, which covers contracts over the sale of goods?
2-314. Implied Warranty: Merchantability; Usage of Trade.
(1) Unless excluded or modified (Section 2-316), a warranty that the goods shall be merchantable is implied in a contract for their sale if the seller is a merchant with respect to goods of that kind. Under this section the serving for value of food or drink to be consumed either on the premises or elsewhere is a sale.
(2) Goods to be merchantable must be at least such as:
(a) pass without objection in the trade under the contract description;
(b) in the case of fungible goods, are of fair average quality within the description;
(c) are fit for the ordinary purposes for which goods of that description are used;
(d) run, within the variations permitted by the agreement, of even kind, quality and quantity within each unit and among all units involved;
(e) are adequately contained, packaged, and labeled as the agreement may require; and
(f) conform to the promise or affirmations of fact made on the container or label if any.
(3) Unless excluded or modified (Section 2-316) other implied warranties may arise from course of dealing or usage of trade.
2-315. Implied Warranty: Fitness for Particular Purpose.
Where the seller at the time of contracting has reason to know any particular purpose for which the goods are required and that the buyer is relying on the seller's skill or judgment to select or furnish suitable goods, there is unless excluded or modified under the next section an implied warranty that the goods shall be fit for such purpose.
UCC Article 2 unifies contract law for the sales of goods across all states with the exception, as always, of Louisiana. (In this case, Louisiana's hybrid French/English system already had statutes on the books governing contracts.)
I do this too when I can't see something; I can identify people I'm familiar with standing behind me without looking at them. It's a fun parlor trick to pull -- lets you pretend you're some sort of psychic/chi master when it's really just the difference in the way sounds reflect around you and the stillness of the air combined with subtle, subconscious queues like the sound of them breathing.
It's partially because of this that I take such great amusement in walking into the cubicles of co-workers who are absorbed with some task and seeing how long it takes them to notice me.
Of course, I wish the trick worked as well with my feet as it does with my hands and upper body and that it worked when moving quickly; that would save me a lot of stubbed toes.
Actually, what Congress did is create a bunch of new military courts under federal system and repeal the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction. This is extremely familiar with what happened during the Reconstruction in Ex parte McCardle (1868).
The relevant clause you want is Article III, Section 2, Paragraph 2:
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
Ex parte McCardle did rule that Congress had the power to strip the Supreme Court of the ability to review habeas corpus petitions from military courts created to try people accused of supporting the Confederacy.
The decision is frightening, and in my opinion a strong argument for a Constitutional amendment to strip Congress of that power. Fortunately, the Court may still be able to hear appeals on whether the tribunal system meets the test of due process on the grounds that the 14th Amendment overrides the excessively broad court stripping in the act which does not even allow appeals on the grounds of due process.
Now whether the Roberts Court will rule that way is another question entirely.
Yeah, but it's the rest of you people with guns that keep voting for the politicians that support these policies. So, I'm glad you seem to think you have the solution for the problems you keep creating.
Considering that he was trying to answer the question, that he said it was an important question, it's a huge stretch to assume the contrary.
I've already addressed this. He couldn't simply ignore the question without looking bad, especially as an incident had just started. Give five seconds thought to the alternative of Kerry choosing to just go onto the next person while the guy was dragged away.
Of course he wasn't going to answer his implied accusations -- he was merely going to use the same pat answer he gave for the past 3 years to anyone about why he conceded. It's the standard politician's dodge. You don't ignore a question; you just give a half-answer that allows to change the subject. Pay more attention to politics, and you'll be more familiar with this.
And, no, it's not a huge stretch to assume the opposite. Imagine that if he gave a normal speech, 10 people would get to ask questions. Now assume that he gives double that time. Is he really expecting 10 people to be given a chance to get up on a soapbox or for 20 people to get to ask questions? Just think for two seconds about that.
And since you're arguing that asking a question that is longer than 15 seconds is an offense worthy of police intervention and arrest, I don't think you're in a position to lecture anyone about how to interpret events.
There's no gold medal award for selective interpretation of what you read. Stop trying to compete for it. The "give people more time" thing was bad enough. You do nothing but reveal your lack of intellectual integrity by trying to twist what I said to mean that 15 seconds is a hard limit. This is debate tactic used by people that have no logic to support their own arguments.
Geez, you sound like a right-wing radio show host.
The Federal government is there for four reasons: to PROTECT the inherent rights of individuals from any government or State, to coin money in gold or silver only, to call up militias of individuals in order to defend against a real attack within the borders of any State, and to defend against piracy on the high seas.
Gosh. What about laying taxes and tariffs, borrowing money; regulating commerce with foreign nations, between states, and with Indian tribes; establishing rules on naturalization and bankruptcies, fixing standards of weights and measures, providing punishment for counterfeiting, establishing post offices and post roads, promoting the progress of sciences and useful arts, declaring (national) war, granting letters of marque, raising and maintaining a national army and navy, and to make the laws for DC? You know, all those other powers you skipped over just in Article I, section 8.
By the way, the Constitution grants Congress the power to "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." Article I, Section 10 states "No State shall... coin money;... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts..." Nowhere in there is your assertion that money issued by the federal government has to be in gold or silver -- they could coin money from plastic or bubble gum or specially stamped hamsters if they chose to. See the legal tender cases. Otherwise, you're just asserting gold-standard crackpot theories of the law.
The Federal Government also exists to keep the states from coming into conflict. This is why section 10, mentioned above, also contains language to constrain the states from several other actions such as signing treaties, levying their own duties and tariffs, and maintaining their own armies and navies. Article IV also ties some states' hands to prevent conflict.
In other words, that's some pretty selective reading there for you to pull out only a handful of Congress's powers and claim that that's all the government is there for.
Kerry's opening statement: "To make sure that is really is a dialogue, I'm gonna try to shorten my comments up front and see if we can't lengthen the amount of time that you all get to ask some questions."
Are you assuming that he meant so that each individual got longer to ask questions instead of that more people should get to ask questions? If so, it's not supported by what he said there, and the behavior of the moderators and the crowd should make pretty clear that that's not how they interpreted it. It's a huge stretch to argue that that's what he meant.
The official position of the host of the event is that the microphone was cut due to use of profanity, but you can listen carefully to the video I already provided to see and hear that no profanity was used. Also, the host and the police are both saying that they're "not it" when it comes to initiating the removal of the student.
Yeah, that's not surprising. They're trying pathetically to cover their own asses in the face of the controversy. The profanity bit is obvious nonsense, and was probably put out by some idiot in their administration who didn't have all the facts and thought that they could eliminate debate with that. They should've just simply stuck to the facts of the event since they're strong enough to give probable cause for taking him away.
The university does not think that this is a fine example of allowing an activity to continue, their official position is that civil discourse and dialog did not occur, and that this is regretfull for them. They will review their protocols, which they wouldn't do if they were confident that they were clear of any wrongdoing.
Of course they're not confident of that. They've got a blue bajillion people who are viewing these events in the same light as you, right or wrong, howling for their jobs to be taken. Chances are, they're not familiar with the rule of law on this situation; they're administrators, not attorneys. With that kind of uncertainty combined with numerous people shouting that they were wrong, is it any wonder that they're essentially cringing in a corner before public anger?
I doubt that they had the sense to consult with an attorney before putting out press releases; they just went with their gut instinct which told them that all this negative publicity means that they're in trouble. Don't take the scrambling of bureaucrats to cover their rear ends as any sort of evidence of anything.
That's a key false assumption. Where do you get the idea that he has two minutes to ask a question? Have you ever been to a Q&A session? Most actual questions instead of rants should take less than 15 seconds to ask.
Go ahead. Think of a question you might ask John Kerry, and speak it out loud while timing it. This guy could've asked any one of his three questions in a few seconds if he was really interested in the answer:
"Why did you concede the election on election night when reporters like Greg Palast have reported on the massive election fraud that was going on that night?" "If you're opposed to war in Iran, why aren't you pushing for the impeachment of the President before he send us to war there?" "Were you a member of the Skull & Bones society that Bush belonged to?"
Of course, he wasn't really interested in getting an answer -- he was interested instead in suggesting that Kerry threw the election because he didn't really want to win -- perhaps because he and Bush were both Skull & Bones members. That's why he somewhat tauntingly said, "And he says you won the 2004 election. Isn't that amazing?" The reason he was asking three questions was basically to accuse Kerry of not opposing Bush being in office because they are members of the same secret society.
Anyone with the ability to actually read a situation would see the same. You're deliberately pretending that this was a simply conversation between a concern citizen and John Kerry completely outside of the context of what the forum was for to shore up a weak argument that has no basis in the actual reality of the situation. He was abusing the mike during a Q&A to put forth an agenda, and he behaved poorly when he was asked to do what he was given the mike for and when he was cut off by the moderators. End of story.
Seriously, get your head out of your ass and consider for a second that your prejudice in favor of the police is making you ignore reality.
Consider that your ignorance of the law and your bias against police have put you in the position of supporting behavior that should not be allowed to become the rule of thumb for how forums must be run because it would destroy them. You're so intent on blaming the cops that your honestly being an apologist for someone who was abusing the forum.
Try thinking for two seconds about the ramifications of what the world would be like if it worked the way you think it should instead of how it does. Try thinking about the idea of preventing the enforcement of rules of how to fairly share the mike and facilitate all people getting a chance to ask a person questions. What would even be the point of having a Q&A session if it became nothing but a vehicle for people to rant and hog the mike?
The law usually weighs on the balance of allowing an activity that benefits the community to continue. This is a fine example of it doing so.
In what sort of "insane bizarro world" do all actions occur in a vacuum independent of context? You seem to believe in very black and white rules that have no real reflection in reality, which is messy and complicated.
How was he disruptive to begin with? By asking a question to a person who was asking for questions and who plainly states that it is an important question and that he wants to answer it?
A) He wasn't asking questions that he wanted answered so much as he was preaching/"informing." B) He wasn't really interested in Kerry's answer. "He's been talking for two hours. I think I can have two minutes." C) He wasn't yielding the mike when asked to and was belligerent with the person asking him. (See B) D) He was asking more questions than he was allotted and blocking the ability of others to speak.
What sort of "insane bizarro world" is this NOT being disruptive? This is a Q&A session, not a city council meeting. Getting on your soapbox and refusing to yield the mike is not playing by the rules.
Note that he was mostly likely going to simply be led out and barred from the premises instead of being arrested before he started to resist. The police frankly don't want to waste their time arresting someone for being a bit of a jerk; they're just there to keep the peace. I've worked election rally events before, and people who were just noisy protesters didn't get arrested; they just got kicked out (like when two of our guys dressed up in Disney character suits to draw attention to our governor's shady land deal in Florida). This guy made his own mess by being a pain.
Looks worse for him than I'd thought. His body language and facial expressions more clearly show that he was not prepared to yield the floor, and this video actually captures the voices of the people asking him to stop. It also gives a clearer view of his expression when the mike is cut at 1:40. He clearly gets agitated and speaks angrily to the officials behind him while waving the book. It's pretty clear from this video that he was going to continue to be disruptive, so the officers did not err in leading him out.
Now look around the 2:44 mark. You get a pretty good view of how difficult he was making it for three people to put his arms together. You can clearly see the other half of the cuff is still free a couple of seconds before the taser hits him. (There's a reflection from the cuffs at 3:06 right before the shock at 3:08.) You can hear the ratcheting sound of other cuff being secured at about 3:17.
As far as I'm concerned, this is only more favorable to the police. It shows more clearly how he intended to continue to be disruptive by better showing his body language and his immediate reaction to the mike being cut, and it gives a far better view of how he was struggling against being cuffed.
At what point exactly did they tell him he was under arrest?
An officer can detain you without formally arresting you pretty much at will if they have a reasonable suspicion that you are in the middle of committing a crime. They can even perform a limited search (such as a pat-down but no looking inside your belongings) without violating Fourth Amendment rights. This is known as a Terry stop.
A stop turns into an arrest the moment that the officer attempts to restrain you such that you cannot flee, either verbally or by physical force. "You are under arrest," is one way to do it, but physically restraining the suspect is another. You don't have to be told anything if they're actually trying to handcuff you -- you are already being arrested at that point. Note that despite what TV may have taught you, you don't usually get your Miranda rights read to you until you're about to interrogated.
In short, don't disobey an officer, and for God's sake don't try to wiggle your way of the grasp of one or six of them. Speak with an attorney if you want to know more, or look up info on the ACLU's, NLG's, or any number of protest groups' websites. Most of what I said should be accurate for most jurisdictions, but it may or may not be for your own, so don't take what I say as legal advice for your situation.
So if someone says something a cop disagrees with, the cop has all the rights to stop the person from expressing his opinions freely, and then subject that person to frivolous legal procedures?
Morally no; legally yes. Effectively, you can be arrested for just about anything. However, the law sanctions cops who abuse this power. That's what the courts are for -- to sort the mess out later, and the courts take a very dim view of those who attempt to settle the matter without the involvement of the courts (by, say, trying to avoid arrest in the first place).
If an officer comes to arrest you on a frivolous charge, you better comply if you don't want to end up on the bad side of laws that give the cop the benefit of the doubt like laws against resisting arrest which are genuinely designed for both the protection of the officer, of the suspect, and of bystanders.
Later, if it turns out that you've been unlawfully detained (such as for simply expressing an opinion that an officer didn't like), then you stand a chance of winning in court. That's where civil rights organizations step in, and that's why they try to provide "legal observers" with video cameras at political events and protests. Unfortunately for this guy, I think the video evidence strongly favors the police.
What's wrong with you?
What's wrong with me is that I've got a bit better of a perspective of what the law actually is instead of what a lot of people wish it was.
I also have the maturity to recognize that society has a legitimate need to keep this sort of nonsense from happening. People shouldn't be allowed to be disruptive (especially when they've already been given an ample and fair chance to air their grievances without preventing others from exercising their right to have their say), and they shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves whether they should be arrested or not since people are notoriously unobjective about the matter.
If those programs can track muggers, they can also track you and that's why I wouldn't trust them. The best way to handle this is to encrypt all your data and insure your laptop against theft. Oh, and daily backups of your data on trusted media which you lock away in a safe.
Essentially, only your data is worth something. The hardware can be covered by insurance.
Agreed. Hands down, this is the best solution, and it will save you in many cases other than theft where you lose data. Modern laptops come with support for hardware acceleration of crypto (those blasted TPM chips) that can be turned in your favor.
While it's nice to maybe one day find your thief, it's not worth the security and privacy trade-off in my opinion. Besides, you should be encrypting a laptop anyway just as a matter of policy.
Given it is on a college campus and these are college cops, maybe they technically have the authority to intervene, but how would you feel if this was your college/university? Is the next step to have cops in the classroom to arrest people with dissenting opinions?
I would have a major problem if he were arrested for having a dissenting opinion. He was instead arrested for being disruptive by refusing to follow the rules of the forum which had little to do with his opinion. He abused the mike as an opportunity to get on a soapbox instead to ask a question, he asked multiple questions instead of one, he went over time, and he continued to try to speak after his mike was cut.
Please do watch both videos before commenting further, and do try to come up with an analogy that has something to do with what he actually did instead of leaping straight into speaking about arresting people for having controversial opinions. You serve no purpose in engaging in such non sequiturs.
For how long? The guy spoke out of turn by breaking in the line and started using the mike as a platform to "inform people." Should the rule of law be balanced in favor of obnoxious actors by preventing forum organizers from having enforceable rules?
And the charge of "resiting arrest" is also crap. If a group of cops walks up and begins surrounding you and you back away, asking them what they want, should they now be able to take you down and restrain you for "resisting arrest"?
That's not what happened here, but I'd have to answer, "No." What happens in such a situation when the cops do want to detain a person is that they order them not to move and/or attempt to seize them. If you attempt to continue backing away at that point, you're definitely resisting arrest by attempting to flee.
Now what this guy was doing went a little beyond that. They already had a hold on him when he attempted to break free and flee. That's textbook resisting arrest right there. When an officer detains you, you do NOT attempt to get out of detention without permission. Your magic words are, "Am I free to go now?" If they do not answer in the affirmative, then you do not attempt to leave unless you wish to be guilty of resisting arrest. The crime is on the books to discourage chases and fights with the police, and it's meant for both the safety of the officer and the safety of the perpetrator.
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I doubt a chemistry or a nuclear physics degree would be useless.
You didn't go to a school with a nuclear engineering or nuclear physics department, did you? I did (Georgia Tech), and the job market for those skills is ridiculously tight according to what I heard. Try to think of jobs for that degree. Think real hard, and you'll probably come up with a list of tightly regulated industries that aren't seeing much expansion or much in the way of fundamental research.
As for a chemistry degree, you're looking at poor job prospects unless you go on to grad school or at the very least do a lot of undergraduate research. I know from experience. When I was a chemistry major my freshman year, and I was seeking a job to help pay through school, the market for those jobs was super tight as well. That was a small part of what convinced me to switch to computer science. (The larger part was my clumsiness in the lab.)
You can get a well-paying job in Marketing or Business right out of undergrad as long as you don't screw around and manage to get low grades in super easy classes. Music can be tough unless you've got boatloads of talent, but I'd hardly expect someone who's regretting college to have majored in something as marketable as Marketing or Business.
Now, English or Philosophy or History might land you in no-job-land, but your examples are all really bad for showing degrees that are or aren't "useless."
Windows Me.
No need to use profanity.
Not a single thing you said applies specifically to CC licenses that do not apply to licenses in general. Not a single thing. All licenses that grant rights to others fail to account for situations in which the person assigning the license does not have rights to do so.
Thus, singling out the CC licenses for containing "a trap" is nothing more than spreading FUD.
Requiring due dilligence largely makes CC's existence largely moot.
Not really. This is the same as trying to GPL code that isn't fully yours. No license can account for for its misapplication to property that that person applying it does not have full rights over. Calling this a "trap" in the CC ignores this fact.
The first thing their lawyer is going to do is file a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim -- or whatever the equivalent is in Texas; I'm not sure if Texas uses the FRCP rules or not, but an equivalent rule should be present. Creative Commons can get their part in this case removed easily since they had absolutely nothing to do with the alleged wrong acts.
Now the photographer on the other hand may have a more difficult fight if the photographer didn't get a model release, and Virgin may be in trouble for not doing due diligence on that -- I don't know the rules of this at all, so I don't know how much trouble Virgin's in for.
In fact, think about this: the most logical camouflage colour would be green, right? That's the colour we dress our soldiers in, right? Well, in practice mammals are coloured anything but green.
This is because most non-primate mammals (prey animals for most of the flashiest predators) are red-green colorblind. Many shades of orange or red look the same as shades of green or yellow, and as you point out with undersea creatures, reddish pigments are metabolically cheap.
The edge detection theory you put forth is fascinating though. Are you aware of any studies that support the concept, or is this just an educated guess?
Now that's important. The UCC allows you to waive certain warranty rights, but only if they're explicitly waived in an explicit contract or if the goods are sold "as is" or using other language that explicitly notes that it may be defective.
I kind of like the UK's rules better for buying goods at a store, but I'd hate to be seller on eBay or their equivalent of craigslist.
UCC Article 2 unifies contract law for the sales of goods across all states with the exception, as always, of Louisiana. (In this case, Louisiana's hybrid French/English system already had statutes on the books governing contracts.)
I never knew that they ever appeared in the same short -- what's the name? Who was the missing Stooge to make it three or were there four?
I do this too when I can't see something; I can identify people I'm familiar with standing behind me without looking at them. It's a fun parlor trick to pull -- lets you pretend you're some sort of psychic/chi master when it's really just the difference in the way sounds reflect around you and the stillness of the air combined with subtle, subconscious queues like the sound of them breathing.
It's partially because of this that I take such great amusement in walking into the cubicles of co-workers who are absorbed with some task and seeing how long it takes them to notice me.
Of course, I wish the trick worked as well with my feet as it does with my hands and upper body and that it worked when moving quickly; that would save me a lot of stubbed toes.
The relevant clause you want is Article III, Section 2, Paragraph 2:
Ex parte McCardle did rule that Congress had the power to strip the Supreme Court of the ability to review habeas corpus petitions from military courts created to try people accused of supporting the Confederacy.
The decision is frightening, and in my opinion a strong argument for a Constitutional amendment to strip Congress of that power. Fortunately, the Court may still be able to hear appeals on whether the tribunal system meets the test of due process on the grounds that the 14th Amendment overrides the excessively broad court stripping in the act which does not even allow appeals on the grounds of due process.
Now whether the Roberts Court will rule that way is another question entirely.
Yeah, but it's the rest of you people with guns that keep voting for the politicians that support these policies. So, I'm glad you seem to think you have the solution for the problems you keep creating.
(Oh yeah, and Smith & Wesson answers to Colt.)
Considering that he was trying to answer the question, that he said it was an important question, it's a huge stretch to assume the contrary.
I've already addressed this. He couldn't simply ignore the question without looking bad, especially as an incident had just started. Give five seconds thought to the alternative of Kerry choosing to just go onto the next person while the guy was dragged away.
Of course he wasn't going to answer his implied accusations -- he was merely going to use the same pat answer he gave for the past 3 years to anyone about why he conceded. It's the standard politician's dodge. You don't ignore a question; you just give a half-answer that allows to change the subject. Pay more attention to politics, and you'll be more familiar with this.
And, no, it's not a huge stretch to assume the opposite. Imagine that if he gave a normal speech, 10 people would get to ask questions. Now assume that he gives double that time. Is he really expecting 10 people to be given a chance to get up on a soapbox or for 20 people to get to ask questions? Just think for two seconds about that.
And since you're arguing that asking a question that is longer than 15 seconds is an offense worthy of police intervention and arrest, I don't think you're in a position to lecture anyone about how to interpret events.
There's no gold medal award for selective interpretation of what you read. Stop trying to compete for it. The "give people more time" thing was bad enough. You do nothing but reveal your lack of intellectual integrity by trying to twist what I said to mean that 15 seconds is a hard limit. This is debate tactic used by people that have no logic to support their own arguments.
Geez, you sound like a right-wing radio show host.
The Federal government is there for four reasons: to PROTECT the inherent rights of individuals from any government or State, to coin money in gold or silver only, to call up militias of individuals in order to defend against a real attack within the borders of any State, and to defend against piracy on the high seas.
... coin money; ... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts ..." Nowhere in there is your assertion that money issued by the federal government has to be in gold or silver -- they could coin money from plastic or bubble gum or specially stamped hamsters if they chose to. See the legal tender cases. Otherwise, you're just asserting gold-standard crackpot theories of the law.
Gosh. What about laying taxes and tariffs, borrowing money; regulating commerce with foreign nations, between states, and with Indian tribes; establishing rules on naturalization and bankruptcies, fixing standards of weights and measures, providing punishment for counterfeiting, establishing post offices and post roads, promoting the progress of sciences and useful arts, declaring (national) war, granting letters of marque, raising and maintaining a national army and navy, and to make the laws for DC? You know, all those other powers you skipped over just in Article I, section 8.
By the way, the Constitution grants Congress the power to "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." Article I, Section 10 states "No State shall
The Federal Government also exists to keep the states from coming into conflict. This is why section 10, mentioned above, also contains language to constrain the states from several other actions such as signing treaties, levying their own duties and tariffs, and maintaining their own armies and navies. Article IV also ties some states' hands to prevent conflict.
In other words, that's some pretty selective reading there for you to pull out only a handful of Congress's powers and claim that that's all the government is there for.
Kerry's opening statement: "To make sure that is really is a dialogue, I'm gonna try to shorten my comments up front and see if we can't lengthen the amount of time that you all get to ask some questions."
Are you assuming that he meant so that each individual got longer to ask questions instead of that more people should get to ask questions? If so, it's not supported by what he said there, and the behavior of the moderators and the crowd should make pretty clear that that's not how they interpreted it. It's a huge stretch to argue that that's what he meant.
The official position of the host of the event is that the microphone was cut due to use of profanity, but you can listen carefully to the video I already provided to see and hear that no profanity was used.
Also, the host and the police are both saying that they're "not it" when it comes to initiating the removal of the student.
Yeah, that's not surprising. They're trying pathetically to cover their own asses in the face of the controversy. The profanity bit is obvious nonsense, and was probably put out by some idiot in their administration who didn't have all the facts and thought that they could eliminate debate with that. They should've just simply stuck to the facts of the event since they're strong enough to give probable cause for taking him away.
The university does not think that this is a fine example of allowing an activity to continue, their official position is that civil discourse and dialog did not occur, and that this is regretfull for them. They will review their protocols, which they wouldn't do if they were confident that they were clear of any wrongdoing.
Of course they're not confident of that. They've got a blue bajillion people who are viewing these events in the same light as you, right or wrong, howling for their jobs to be taken. Chances are, they're not familiar with the rule of law on this situation; they're administrators, not attorneys. With that kind of uncertainty combined with numerous people shouting that they were wrong, is it any wonder that they're essentially cringing in a corner before public anger?
I doubt that they had the sense to consult with an attorney before putting out press releases; they just went with their gut instinct which told them that all this negative publicity means that they're in trouble. Don't take the scrambling of bureaucrats to cover their rear ends as any sort of evidence of anything.
He has two minutes for his question
That's a key false assumption. Where do you get the idea that he has two minutes to ask a question? Have you ever been to a Q&A session? Most actual questions instead of rants should take less than 15 seconds to ask.
Go ahead. Think of a question you might ask John Kerry, and speak it out loud while timing it. This guy could've asked any one of his three questions in a few seconds if he was really interested in the answer:
"Why did you concede the election on election night when reporters like Greg Palast have reported on the massive election fraud that was going on that night?"
"If you're opposed to war in Iran, why aren't you pushing for the impeachment of the President before he send us to war there?"
"Were you a member of the Skull & Bones society that Bush belonged to?"
Of course, he wasn't really interested in getting an answer -- he was interested instead in suggesting that Kerry threw the election because he didn't really want to win -- perhaps because he and Bush were both Skull & Bones members. That's why he somewhat tauntingly said, "And he says you won the 2004 election. Isn't that amazing?" The reason he was asking three questions was basically to accuse Kerry of not opposing Bush being in office because they are members of the same secret society.
Anyone with the ability to actually read a situation would see the same. You're deliberately pretending that this was a simply conversation between a concern citizen and John Kerry completely outside of the context of what the forum was for to shore up a weak argument that has no basis in the actual reality of the situation. He was abusing the mike during a Q&A to put forth an agenda, and he behaved poorly when he was asked to do what he was given the mike for and when he was cut off by the moderators. End of story.
Seriously, get your head out of your ass and consider for a second that your prejudice in favor of the police is making you ignore reality.
Consider that your ignorance of the law and your bias against police have put you in the position of supporting behavior that should not be allowed to become the rule of thumb for how forums must be run because it would destroy them. You're so intent on blaming the cops that your honestly being an apologist for someone who was abusing the forum.
Try thinking for two seconds about the ramifications of what the world would be like if it worked the way you think it should instead of how it does. Try thinking about the idea of preventing the enforcement of rules of how to fairly share the mike and facilitate all people getting a chance to ask a person questions. What would even be the point of having a Q&A session if it became nothing but a vehicle for people to rant and hog the mike?
The law usually weighs on the balance of allowing an activity that benefits the community to continue. This is a fine example of it doing so.
In what sort of "insane bizarro world" do all actions occur in a vacuum independent of context?
You seem to believe in very black and white rules that have no real reflection in reality, which is messy and complicated.
How was he disruptive to begin with? By asking a question to a person who was asking for questions and who plainly states that it is an important question and that he wants to answer it?
A) He wasn't asking questions that he wanted answered so much as he was preaching/"informing."
B) He wasn't really interested in Kerry's answer. "He's been talking for two hours. I think I can have two minutes."
C) He wasn't yielding the mike when asked to and was belligerent with the person asking him. (See B)
D) He was asking more questions than he was allotted and blocking the ability of others to speak.
What sort of "insane bizarro world" is this NOT being disruptive? This is a Q&A session, not a city council meeting. Getting on your soapbox and refusing to yield the mike is not playing by the rules.
Note that he was mostly likely going to simply be led out and barred from the premises instead of being arrested before he started to resist. The police frankly don't want to waste their time arresting someone for being a bit of a jerk; they're just there to keep the peace. I've worked election rally events before, and people who were just noisy protesters didn't get arrested; they just got kicked out (like when two of our guys dressed up in Disney character suits to draw attention to our governor's shady land deal in Florida). This guy made his own mess by being a pain.
Looks worse for him than I'd thought. His body language and facial expressions more clearly show that he was not prepared to yield the floor, and this video actually captures the voices of the people asking him to stop. It also gives a clearer view of his expression when the mike is cut at 1:40. He clearly gets agitated and speaks angrily to the officials behind him while waving the book. It's pretty clear from this video that he was going to continue to be disruptive, so the officers did not err in leading him out.
Now look around the 2:44 mark. You get a pretty good view of how difficult he was making it for three people to put his arms together. You can clearly see the other half of the cuff is still free a couple of seconds before the taser hits him. (There's a reflection from the cuffs at 3:06 right before the shock at 3:08.) You can hear the ratcheting sound of other cuff being secured at about 3:17.
As far as I'm concerned, this is only more favorable to the police. It shows more clearly how he intended to continue to be disruptive by better showing his body language and his immediate reaction to the mike being cut, and it gives a far better view of how he was struggling against being cuffed.
At what point exactly did they tell him he was under arrest?
An officer can detain you without formally arresting you pretty much at will if they have a reasonable suspicion that you are in the middle of committing a crime. They can even perform a limited search (such as a pat-down but no looking inside your belongings) without violating Fourth Amendment rights. This is known as a Terry stop.
A stop turns into an arrest the moment that the officer attempts to restrain you such that you cannot flee, either verbally or by physical force. "You are under arrest," is one way to do it, but physically restraining the suspect is another. You don't have to be told anything if they're actually trying to handcuff you -- you are already being arrested at that point. Note that despite what TV may have taught you, you don't usually get your Miranda rights read to you until you're about to interrogated.
In short, don't disobey an officer, and for God's sake don't try to wiggle your way of the grasp of one or six of them. Speak with an attorney if you want to know more, or look up info on the ACLU's, NLG's, or any number of protest groups' websites. Most of what I said should be accurate for most jurisdictions, but it may or may not be for your own, so don't take what I say as legal advice for your situation.
So if someone says something a cop disagrees with, the cop has all the rights to stop the person from expressing his opinions freely, and then subject that person to frivolous legal procedures?
Morally no; legally yes. Effectively, you can be arrested for just about anything. However, the law sanctions cops who abuse this power. That's what the courts are for -- to sort the mess out later, and the courts take a very dim view of those who attempt to settle the matter without the involvement of the courts (by, say, trying to avoid arrest in the first place).
If an officer comes to arrest you on a frivolous charge, you better comply if you don't want to end up on the bad side of laws that give the cop the benefit of the doubt like laws against resisting arrest which are genuinely designed for both the protection of the officer, of the suspect, and of bystanders.
Later, if it turns out that you've been unlawfully detained (such as for simply expressing an opinion that an officer didn't like), then you stand a chance of winning in court. That's where civil rights organizations step in, and that's why they try to provide "legal observers" with video cameras at political events and protests. Unfortunately for this guy, I think the video evidence strongly favors the police.
What's wrong with you?
What's wrong with me is that I've got a bit better of a perspective of what the law actually is instead of what a lot of people wish it was.
I also have the maturity to recognize that society has a legitimate need to keep this sort of nonsense from happening. People shouldn't be allowed to be disruptive (especially when they've already been given an ample and fair chance to air their grievances without preventing others from exercising their right to have their say), and they shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves whether they should be arrested or not since people are notoriously unobjective about the matter.
If those programs can track muggers, they can also track you and that's why I wouldn't trust them. The best way to handle this is to encrypt all your data and insure your laptop against theft. Oh, and daily backups of your data on trusted media which you lock away in a safe.
Essentially, only your data is worth something. The hardware can be covered by insurance.
Agreed. Hands down, this is the best solution, and it will save you in many cases other than theft where you lose data. Modern laptops come with support for hardware acceleration of crypto (those blasted TPM chips) that can be turned in your favor.
While it's nice to maybe one day find your thief, it's not worth the security and privacy trade-off in my opinion. Besides, you should be encrypting a laptop anyway just as a matter of policy.
Given it is on a college campus and these are college cops, maybe they technically have the authority to intervene, but how would you feel if this was your college/university? Is the next step to have cops in the classroom to arrest people with dissenting opinions?
I would have a major problem if he were arrested for having a dissenting opinion. He was instead arrested for being disruptive by refusing to follow the rules of the forum which had little to do with his opinion. He abused the mike as an opportunity to get on a soapbox instead to ask a question, he asked multiple questions instead of one, he went over time, and he continued to try to speak after his mike was cut.
Please do watch both videos before commenting further, and do try to come up with an analogy that has something to do with what he actually did instead of leaping straight into speaking about arresting people for having controversial opinions. You serve no purpose in engaging in such non sequiturs.
And yes, the Russian word for "wormwood" is Chernobyl.
Or maybe not.
Let the guy ramble on and make an ass of himself.
For how long? The guy spoke out of turn by breaking in the line and started using the mike as a platform to "inform people." Should the rule of law be balanced in favor of obnoxious actors by preventing forum organizers from having enforceable rules?
And the charge of "resiting arrest" is also crap. If a group of cops walks up and begins surrounding you and you back away, asking them what they want, should they now be able to take you down and restrain you for "resisting arrest"?
That's not what happened here, but I'd have to answer, "No." What happens in such a situation when the cops do want to detain a person is that they order them not to move and/or attempt to seize them. If you attempt to continue backing away at that point, you're definitely resisting arrest by attempting to flee.
Now what this guy was doing went a little beyond that. They already had a hold on him when he attempted to break free and flee. That's textbook resisting arrest right there. When an officer detains you, you do NOT attempt to get out of detention without permission. Your magic words are, "Am I free to go now?" If they do not answer in the affirmative, then you do not attempt to leave unless you wish to be guilty of resisting arrest. The crime is on the books to discourage chases and fights with the police, and it's meant for both the safety of the officer and the safety of the perpetrator.