We should change the patent system so that it works more like how you imagine it works, namely that patent examiners only do some simple sanity checks, and that validity only gets established through court challenges. But that's not the patent system we have right now.
Those systems exist in other countries, and they're uniformly terrible. Remember all those stories about someone patenting the wheel in Australia? That was a registration-only system.
They're also much more expensive for people accused of infringement, since the trials are much more involved, with having to first examine every aspect of patentability.
The USPTO can (and does) award patents for almost anything. The patent examiners aren't experts in every field and if they receive advice that an item, method, or process is unique and non-obvious, they will award a patent.
Nope, they're experts in their own field. The USPTO is divided up into several thousand art groups, and Examiners only review applications that are in their field. You don't have chemists examining crypto any more than you have computer scientists looking at a new drug formulation.
Some victims are reluctant to report assaults because they aren't sure whether a crime occurred
If as an adult, even a young one on a college campus, you don't KNOW if you were sexual assaulted, than I would argue you were NOT sexually assaulted. You just another special little snow flake that wants to blame someone else for the outcome, even if its nothing more than hurt feelings or shame, for your own poor choices.
Either something happened forcibly and against your will or it did not. You were coerced in some way or not. Its really pretty f'ing simple.
I am going to get accused of victim blaming here but I strongly feel the 'I was to drunk to consent' thing should not fly.
No, you're not going to get accused of victim blaming - you're going to get accused of drugging women to rape them. Bill Cosby didn't use force, so by your logic, all of those women consented.
If you are conscience enough to stand and speak you are conscious enough to consent, with proviso you have not been given an intoxicant without your knowledge.
Fortunately, the law doesn't work that way. The law also understands that there may be multiple intoxicants at play, some of which may be with the victim's knowledge, like alcohol; and some of which may not, such as GHB.
Its unfair to expect your 'attacker' to be able to evaluate your sobriety when they are also more than likely highly intoxicated as well.
Multiple studies with confessed rapists show that they are typically not intoxicated, while seeking out victims that are substantially intoxicated.
People simply have to be accountable for their own actions. If you knowing compromise your ability to make good decisions in a situation that isn't entirely safe, that includes only people you know well and trust completely you run the risk of making bad decisions.
First, men can be the victims of rape and sexual assault too, and can use this app to report it.
Not only are men victims of rape and assault, according to CDC they are *more* victims of rape than women are.
No - according to the CDC, 18.3% of women and 1.4% of men experience rape. Roughly equal numbers experience other sexual violence - 5.6% and 5.3% respectively.
We already know that the typical Mac users is naive "there are no viruses for Mac!" and we also know there's a whole niche market of Apple users with more money than brains. I expect these people to haul in more money than the Windows ransomeware guys.
One potential problem - those Apple users with more money than brains also probably bought a Time Capsule backup device (because it's shiny and Apple says you need one and here's my credit card!), which means they've got constant incremental backups of all their files. Ransomware pops up, just roll back to pre-encryption.
Depends. Did she do the reviews of the games after playing them or not?
Or is gaming so super special that someone who's not a gamer isn't allowed to start playing, form an opinion and then write about it?
Well no one knows if she's played the games she's supposedly writing on. Though she has had people play them, in order to choreograph specific things in order to make up a talking point. The hitman section in the stripclub dressing room would be a good instance of that.
Perhaps it's just me, but if I was writing on a subject, I'd actually turn around and learn about it before writing about it. Especially if I want to have what I'm writing, be used as an academic source and for teaching materials. But who knows, maybe you have a much lower standard than most people, and are perfectly okay with that.
It's amazing how, in the space of two sentences, you go from "I don't know if she played the games" to "she didn't play the games".
Anita Sarkeesian reviewed a bunch of games, or more accurately started a kickstarted to make "Tropes versus women in videogames" and got a shitstorm of harassment. Are you claiming she wasn't in fact a victim of harassment?
Would that be, before or after she said she doesn't play video games?
Well after, but you already know that. You also know it's about the most inane criticism possible: she didn't play video games until starting her research project, at which point she played a lot of video games. The fact that she hadn't done the research before she started doing her research is not merely irrelevant, it's obvious to anyone who thinks about it for half a second.
Oh she got some harassment, of course in her world criticism = harassment. She even said as much in front of the UN. And of course one can't forget that she refuses to debate anyone, or anything she says. But wants her garbage to be put in place in schools, and used as teaching material. Well that seems great, how'd that work out for Jack Thompson and his "games cause people to become psychopaths" bit.
Was that Jack Thompson, or was that Christina Hoff Sommers? There's also Milo Yiannopolous, who calls gamers "overgrown manchildren" and "terminally beta".
And Zoe Quinn got a shitstorm of harassment over a review allegedly paid for by sex, except the review doesn't exist. So she got a shitstorm of harassment for something that never happend. Still going to claim she wasn't a victim of harassment?
You still can't figure it out huh? It wasn't a review, it was favorable coverage.
It was still two words, as the GP pointed out, in an article providing favorable coverage to 49 other games. But at least you admit it wasn't a review.
She got mentions over a pile of other indie games, not once but several times. Those articles were written by the same person, without disclosure.
Several implies what, three at least? Let's see your links.
It is a trademark case, not a patent case. They wouldn't have complained if they had used another word to describe it. By the way, fair use relates to copyright, so the court almost certainly didn't rule it was fair use, they probably ruled that "pinning" is a generic word.
Both trademark and copyright have fair use doctrines, though I agree with you that I believe Subby meant the copyright one, in error. At the least, it's somewhat misleading because it implies that the court ruled that putting a snippet of something online was fair use from copyright infringement, which wasn't an issue.
In trademark, fair use is what allows us to say "Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy, noted anti-vax denier" - we're using Playboy's trademarks, but only to name the source and in a minimal way.
Here, this was really about whether "pinning" is a merely descriptive term for providing links and snippets. And yeah, it goes back to scrapbooking and certainly is just a descriptive term.
I'm not really convinced that Apple evaluate patents properly. They have had this problem before, e.g. with standards essential patents that they didn't want to licence under the usual RAND terms.
The only case I can think of like that was Motorola v. Apple and that went very, very badly for Motorola. Their "usual RAND terms" were "give us a license to every patent you own, 20% of gross revenues, your firstborn son, and a pound of flesh" and were flabbergasted when that was found to be not reasonable at all.
Because they're not much of an innovator. This is not a troll. They've never been terribly good at inventing brand new things. What they do very well, arguably better than anyone else is taking a bunch of existing but not very popular technologies and producing an implementation which doesn't massively suck before anyone else.
I don't believbe I'm doing them a disservice with that, doing such a thing is clearly very hard else they wouldn't be the first people to do it after others have tried and failed. But it's not generally protectable with patents.
In actual fact, I think claiming Apple has made innovations where they haven't is actually doing them a disservice because it detracts from what they are uniquely good at.
Look at the history of things they're well known for:
The iPod: the canonical MP3 player. Not the first, afterall we know it had no wireless and less space than the Nomad (lame!) but by far the most popular and became synonymous with MP player. Due in large part because all the ones before had horrendous interfaces and other awful misfeatures.
One might say that the iPod was successful because of its excellent and intuitive interface. One might even say that it was an innovative interface. One that's patentable.
I think you're assuming that user interfaces and designs are not patentable, but that's not true at all.
By US standards, he was charged, then dismissed of the crime, and is now being tried a second time for the same crime. Almost nowhere else in the world has the strict double jeopardy laws the US has, but if we apply US standards, the charges and process are invalid many times over for many different reasons.
But this argument pales next to the stupidity of the argument that a creature with a higher hearing range wouldn't be able to perceive our audible communications. Really? That's so stupid, I can't even stupid how stupid it's stupid. We have pets with higher hearing ranges, and they can literally understand what we are saying in some cases as their brains are sufficiently developed. They're claiming a smarter entity with more advanced senses won't be able to understand us? That's nothing short of idiotic.
Not to mention the fact that the article posited incredible hearing all the way up to 100kHz! Of course, that's really less than two and a half octaves higher than normal human hearing.
If you can't walk upright, you can't free your hands for masturbation.
Nope. The only monopolies the fashion industry has is their Trademark. This is why many brands include their trademark in the design. You can make an exact copy of a Nike sneaker with the exception of their Logo.
What accounts for the difference in punishments is that criminal procedure requires a much higher standard of evidence than the junky stuff allowed under civil procedure, and subject to an overall "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, rather than "preponderance of evidence." Then to arrive at a judgment requires a unanimous jury, not just a majority.
And they had all that and this guy was convicted, so the punishments are equal, right? No. What accounts for the difference is that this guy faced jail time and is now a convicted felon, while Thomas-Rasset did not and is not. And, as others noted, this guy could still be sued and face the same penalties as Thomas-Rasset did.
You can make up whatever excuse you need to feel like the little boy who cried rape, but the sad fact is all you are doing is trivializing all those women who actually have been raped.
... says the guy who says "if she's passed out naked in your bed, then anything is 'acceptable'." The sad fact is that you've defined "rape" so narrowly, probably to excuse your own actions, that you dismiss the vast majority of rapes. What's your next step: "it's not rape if it's by Jack Griffin"?
Are you really trying to pretend that penetrating someone while they're asleep is perfectly acceptable?
Maybe you don't sleep with many women, but the fact she is naked in your bed makes the acceptability a little more convincing.
Maybe in your hometown of Steubenville, but everywhere else, no, just because a naked woman passed out in your bed doesn't make it "acceptable". I'm seriously wondering how many women you've raped now.
she subsequently “consented to continuation” of the act of intercourse,
How is it rape is she consented?
What part of "He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes" do you not understand? Are you really trying to pretend that penetrating someone while they're asleep is perfectly acceptable? How many rapes have you committed that you're trying to now excuse?
Raping someone while they're asleep and unable to resist tends to be frowned upon in civil society.
Sure, but what does that have to do with this case?
That is this case. From the UK High Court Opinion:
[Assange's lawyer] Emmerson went on to provide accounts of the two encounters in question which granted — at least for the purposes of today’s hearing — the validity of Assange’s accusers’ central claims. He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently “consented to continuation” of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.
Where does all this anti-Assange fluster come from? How could you know any more about it then anyone else that follows the media?
I've read the UK High Court opinion, which goes into significant detail about the events, including the ones that Assange confessed to having done. Specifically, from the opinion:
[Assange's lawyer] Emmerson went on to provide accounts of the two encounters in question which granted — at least for the purposes of today’s hearing — the validity of Assange’s accusers’ central claims. He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently “consented to continuation” of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.
His own statements have done him in.
it is equally obvious that these "rape" claims are dubious.
Again, from the high court:
Plainly this is a case which has moved from suspicion to accusation supported by proof...
In England and Wales, a decision to charge is taken at a very early stage; there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged and thus criminal proceedings would have been commenced.
Just to emphasize that - "there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged."
You have not debunked anything. If you could actually produce decent references to a few ground facts that would be most helpful.
The lobster dinner is obviously absolutely relevant.
Absolutely not, unless he was farking her during the salad course. The only question is whether he had consent at the time he penetrated her. Not when he had lobster. This is the same reason why any "regret" she had later is also irrelevant, as I'm sure you'd insist.
In these consent rape cases the question is whether the woman actually gave consent or not, i.e. who is telling the truth.
In typical ones, yes. But fortunately, here, we have Assange confessing to penetrating a woman, while she was asleep, knowing that she had told him no to sex. There is absolutely no question about facts or who is telling the truth, because everyone, from the victim to Assange to his lawyer to the prosecutor agrees on what happened: she said no sex without a condom; she went to sleep; he penetrated her while she was asleep, without a condom, knowing that she wouldn't consent and that she couldn't resist. That's rape.
A woman that thinks she was violated, raped, does not normally then have a pleasant dinner with her attacker.
Your turn: [citation needed], please. Many, manystudies have debunked your claim. In particular, in the vast majority of rape cases in which the victim knows the rapist (including sometimes friends, family members, trusted advisors, etc.), the reactions are all over the place.
But more importantly, this is all irrelevant. Assange confessed to raping her. Whether she acts appropriately in your eyes the next day is irrelevant, because it doesn't magically travel back in time and wake her up before he stuck his dick where he shouldn't have. Got it? She was asleep. He did not have consent and knew it. He did it anyway, and has admitted it. The end. She could bake him a farking cake the next day and it wouldn't change what he did at the time.
No, he's facing PROSECUTION for RAPE.
There's a big difference.
No, he's facing QUESTIONING for RAPE.
There's a big difference.
No, he's facing a final round of questioning prior to being CHARGED for RAPE, which occurs right before being TRIED for RAPE. Sweden's legal system has been discussed here often enough.
That "Sweden's legal system has been discussed here" does not somehow turn into, "there is no investigative process in Sweden and 100% of people questioned are tried." That is just absurd.
Oh, and specifically, in support of my post above, the following is from the UK High Court opinion:
Plainly this is a case which has moved from suspicion to accusation supported by proof...
In England and Wales, a decision to charge is taken at a very early stage; there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged and thus criminal proceedings would have been commenced.
Investigation is complete. They're ready to charge. In Sweden, the very last stage before charging is interrogation, which is what he's wanted for. It gives him an opportunity to confess - essentially, pleading guilty.
Also add the STD issue (which was Assange being an arse hole that got him into this mess!) and the lobster dinner after.
While the post you're supporting has been debunked already, I'd also like to point out something here. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you would take issue with the concept of a woman "having regrets" after sex and deciding, a day later, that what was consensual sex was actually rape. "That's outrageous," I'm sure you'd say. "How can her regrets - or anything else the next day - travel back in time to somehow make consent disappear?!"
And you'd be entirely correct. Consensual sex or non-consensual sex is determined at the time sex occurs, and not based on what happens the next day.
... but then you bring up a lobster dinner. As if that lobster dinner somehow travels back in time to make lack of consent disappear.
What happens later is irrelevant. In this case, the woman told Assange no to sex. She then went to sleep. She woke up with him inside her. He admitted to all of that during his appeal to the UK High Court. Anything that happened later - lobster dinners, demands for HIV tests, etc. - do not change the fact that, knowing he did not have consent and taking advantage of an opportunity when she could not resist, he penetrated an unconscious victim.
No, he's facing PROSECUTION for RAPE.
There's a big difference.
No, he's facing QUESTIONING for RAPE.
There's a big difference.
No, he's facing a final round of questioning prior to being CHARGED for RAPE, which occurs right before being TRIED for RAPE. Sweden's legal system has been discussed here often enough.
That "Sweden's legal system has been discussed here" does not somehow turn into, "there is no investigative process in Sweden and 100% of people questioned are tried." That is just absurd.
No, rather, it's like the investigative process here. The police don't rely on interviews with suspects, because - and this may be a shock to you - suspects always claim they're innocent. So, unless his story is amazingly credible, then interviewing him is merely a formality.
Emmerson went on to provide accounts of the two encounters in question which granted — at least for the purposes of today’s hearing — the validity of Assange’s accusers’ central claims. He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently “consented to continuation” of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.
That right there is everything they need to proceed with charges, even if the "interview" consists of them saying "did you do it" and Assange smirking and staying silent.
So, yeah, as I said, he's facing the final round of questioning prior to being charged and tried. Calling it merely questioning disingenuously attempts to hide the fact that he's already confessed.
Slashdot Mirror
We should change the patent system so that it works more like how you imagine it works, namely that patent examiners only do some simple sanity checks, and that validity only gets established through court challenges. But that's not the patent system we have right now.
Those systems exist in other countries, and they're uniformly terrible. Remember all those stories about someone patenting the wheel in Australia? That was a registration-only system.
They're also much more expensive for people accused of infringement, since the trials are much more involved, with having to first examine every aspect of patentability.
The USPTO can (and does) award patents for almost anything. The patent examiners aren't experts in every field and if they receive advice that an item, method, or process is unique and non-obvious, they will award a patent.
Nope, they're experts in their own field. The USPTO is divided up into several thousand art groups, and Examiners only review applications that are in their field. You don't have chemists examining crypto any more than you have computer scientists looking at a new drug formulation.
Some victims are reluctant to report assaults because they aren't sure whether a crime occurred
If as an adult, even a young one on a college campus, you don't KNOW if you were sexual assaulted, than I would argue you were NOT sexually assaulted. You just another special little snow flake that wants to blame someone else for the outcome, even if its nothing more than hurt feelings or shame, for your own poor choices.
Either something happened forcibly and against your will or it did not. You were coerced in some way or not. Its really pretty f'ing simple.
I am going to get accused of victim blaming here but I strongly feel the 'I was to drunk to consent' thing should not fly.
No, you're not going to get accused of victim blaming - you're going to get accused of drugging women to rape them. Bill Cosby didn't use force, so by your logic, all of those women consented.
If you are conscience enough to stand and speak you are conscious enough to consent, with proviso you have not been given an intoxicant without your knowledge.
Fortunately, the law doesn't work that way. The law also understands that there may be multiple intoxicants at play, some of which may be with the victim's knowledge, like alcohol; and some of which may not, such as GHB.
Its unfair to expect your 'attacker' to be able to evaluate your sobriety when they are also more than likely highly intoxicated as well.
Multiple studies with confessed rapists show that they are typically not intoxicated, while seeking out victims that are substantially intoxicated.
People simply have to be accountable for their own actions. If you knowing compromise your ability to make good decisions in a situation that isn't entirely safe, that includes only people you know well and trust completely you run the risk of making bad decisions.
The majority of rapists know their victims.
Basically, everything in your post is incorrect.
First, men can be the victims of rape and sexual assault too, and can use this app to report it.
Not only are men victims of rape and assault, according to CDC they are *more* victims of rape than women are.
No - according to the CDC, 18.3% of women and 1.4% of men experience rape. Roughly equal numbers experience other sexual violence - 5.6% and 5.3% respectively.
We already know that the typical Mac users is naive "there are no viruses for Mac!" and we also know there's a whole niche market of Apple users with more money than brains. I expect these people to haul in more money than the Windows ransomeware guys.
One potential problem - those Apple users with more money than brains also probably bought a Time Capsule backup device (because it's shiny and Apple says you need one and here's my credit card!), which means they've got constant incremental backups of all their files. Ransomware pops up, just roll back to pre-encryption.
Depends. Did she do the reviews of the games after playing them or not?
Or is gaming so super special that someone who's not a gamer isn't allowed to start playing, form an opinion and then write about it?
Well no one knows if she's played the games she's supposedly writing on. Though she has had people play them, in order to choreograph specific things in order to make up a talking point. The hitman section in the stripclub dressing room would be a good instance of that.
Perhaps it's just me, but if I was writing on a subject, I'd actually turn around and learn about it before writing about it. Especially if I want to have what I'm writing, be used as an academic source and for teaching materials. But who knows, maybe you have a much lower standard than most people, and are perfectly okay with that.
It's amazing how, in the space of two sentences, you go from "I don't know if she played the games" to "she didn't play the games".
Anita Sarkeesian reviewed a bunch of games, or more accurately started a kickstarted to make "Tropes versus women in videogames" and got a shitstorm of harassment. Are you claiming she wasn't in fact a victim of harassment?
Would that be, before or after she said she doesn't play video games?
Well after, but you already know that. You also know it's about the most inane criticism possible: she didn't play video games until starting her research project, at which point she played a lot of video games. The fact that she hadn't done the research before she started doing her research is not merely irrelevant, it's obvious to anyone who thinks about it for half a second.
Oh she got some harassment, of course in her world criticism = harassment. She even said as much in front of the UN. And of course one can't forget that she refuses to debate anyone, or anything she says. But wants her garbage to be put in place in schools, and used as teaching material. Well that seems great, how'd that work out for Jack Thompson and his "games cause people to become psychopaths" bit.
Was that Jack Thompson, or was that Christina Hoff Sommers? There's also Milo Yiannopolous, who calls gamers "overgrown manchildren" and "terminally beta".
And Zoe Quinn got a shitstorm of harassment over a review allegedly paid for by sex, except the review doesn't exist. So she got a shitstorm of harassment for something that never happend. Still going to claim she wasn't a victim of harassment?
You still can't figure it out huh? It wasn't a review, it was favorable coverage.
It was still two words, as the GP pointed out, in an article providing favorable coverage to 49 other games. But at least you admit it wasn't a review.
She got mentions over a pile of other indie games, not once but several times. Those articles were written by the same person, without disclosure.
Several implies what, three at least? Let's see your links.
Not according to the MPAA and RIAA; it's per act of distribution.
Nope, it's per work infringed, both according to the statute and according to the RIAA.
If SONY loses the license, then every view from then on is an instance of copyright infringement. That's stupid amounts of money.
Aside: copyright infringement damages are per work infringed, not per view.
It is a trademark case, not a patent case. They wouldn't have complained if they had used another word to describe it. By the way, fair use relates to copyright, so the court almost certainly didn't rule it was fair use, they probably ruled that "pinning" is a generic word.
Both trademark and copyright have fair use doctrines, though I agree with you that I believe Subby meant the copyright one, in error. At the least, it's somewhat misleading because it implies that the court ruled that putting a snippet of something online was fair use from copyright infringement, which wasn't an issue.
In trademark, fair use is what allows us to say "Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy, noted anti-vax denier" - we're using Playboy's trademarks, but only to name the source and in a minimal way.
Here, this was really about whether "pinning" is a merely descriptive term for providing links and snippets. And yeah, it goes back to scrapbooking and certainly is just a descriptive term.
I'm not really convinced that Apple evaluate patents properly. They have had this problem before, e.g. with standards essential patents that they didn't want to licence under the usual RAND terms.
The only case I can think of like that was Motorola v. Apple and that went very, very badly for Motorola. Their "usual RAND terms" were "give us a license to every patent you own, 20% of gross revenues, your firstborn son, and a pound of flesh" and were flabbergasted when that was found to be not reasonable at all.
Because they're not much of an innovator. This is not a troll. They've never been terribly good at inventing brand new things. What they do very well, arguably better than anyone else is taking a bunch of existing but not very popular technologies and producing an implementation which doesn't massively suck before anyone else.
I don't believbe I'm doing them a disservice with that, doing such a thing is clearly very hard else they wouldn't be the first people to do it after others have tried and failed. But it's not generally protectable with patents.
In actual fact, I think claiming Apple has made innovations where they haven't is actually doing them a disservice because it detracts from what they are uniquely good at.
Look at the history of things they're well known for:
The iPod: the canonical MP3 player. Not the first, afterall we know it had no wireless and less space than the Nomad (lame!) but by far the most popular and became synonymous with MP player. Due in large part because all the ones before had horrendous interfaces and other awful misfeatures.
One might say that the iPod was successful because of its excellent and intuitive interface. One might even say that it was an innovative interface. One that's patentable.
I think you're assuming that user interfaces and designs are not patentable, but that's not true at all.
By US standards, he was charged, then dismissed of the crime, and is now being tried a second time for the same crime. Almost nowhere else in the world has the strict double jeopardy laws the US has, but if we apply US standards, the charges and process are invalid many times over for many different reasons.
No - in the US, double jeopardy rights attach after voir dire, when the jury is empaneled and sworn in. There are plenty of times that charges are brought, amended, dropped, re-added, etc. before trial, and that's all irrelevant. There is nothing about Assange's case that remotely resembles double jeopardy.
That's not how things work here. The police typically interview you before charges are file. Assange has refused the interview.
No he hasn't. The Swedes are refusing to interview him in the Embassy. Now, why would that be? Think, think...
Because in Sweden, the defendant investigation is the last thing that happens before trial, and by law, trial must occur within one week?
But this argument pales next to the stupidity of the argument that a creature with a higher hearing range wouldn't be able to perceive our audible communications. Really? That's so stupid, I can't even stupid how stupid it's stupid. We have pets with higher hearing ranges, and they can literally understand what we are saying in some cases as their brains are sufficiently developed. They're claiming a smarter entity with more advanced senses won't be able to understand us? That's nothing short of idiotic.
Not to mention the fact that the article posited incredible hearing all the way up to 100kHz! Of course, that's really less than two and a half octaves higher than normal human hearing.
If you can't walk upright, you can't free your hands for masturbation.
Which is why the Tyrannosaurus Rex was always so sad.
Nope. The only monopolies the fashion industry has is their Trademark. This is why many brands include their trademark in the design. You can make an exact copy of a Nike sneaker with the exception of their Logo.
That's probably news to Nike.
What accounts for the difference in punishments is that criminal procedure requires a much higher standard of evidence than the junky stuff allowed under civil procedure, and subject to an overall "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, rather than "preponderance of evidence." Then to arrive at a judgment requires a unanimous jury, not just a majority.
And they had all that and this guy was convicted, so the punishments are equal, right? No. What accounts for the difference is that this guy faced jail time and is now a convicted felon, while Thomas-Rasset did not and is not. And, as others noted, this guy could still be sued and face the same penalties as Thomas-Rasset did.
You can make up whatever excuse you need to feel like the little boy who cried rape, but the sad fact is all you are doing is trivializing all those women who actually have been raped.
... says the guy who says "if she's passed out naked in your bed, then anything is 'acceptable'." The sad fact is that you've defined "rape" so narrowly, probably to excuse your own actions, that you dismiss the vast majority of rapes. What's your next step: "it's not rape if it's by Jack Griffin"?
Are you really trying to pretend that penetrating someone while they're asleep is perfectly acceptable?
Maybe you don't sleep with many women, but the fact she is naked in your bed makes the acceptability a little more convincing.
Maybe in your hometown of Steubenville, but everywhere else, no, just because a naked woman passed out in your bed doesn't make it "acceptable". I'm seriously wondering how many women you've raped now.
she subsequently “consented to continuation” of the act of intercourse,
How is it rape is she consented?
What part of "He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes" do you not understand? Are you really trying to pretend that penetrating someone while they're asleep is perfectly acceptable? How many rapes have you committed that you're trying to now excuse?
Raping someone while they're asleep and unable to resist tends to be frowned upon in civil society.
Sure, but what does that have to do with this case?
That is this case. From the UK High Court Opinion:
[Assange's lawyer] Emmerson went on to provide accounts of the two encounters in question which granted — at least for the purposes of today’s hearing — the validity of Assange’s accusers’ central claims. He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently “consented to continuation” of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.
Where does all this anti-Assange fluster come from? How could you know any more about it then anyone else that follows the media?
I've read the UK High Court opinion, which goes into significant detail about the events, including the ones that Assange confessed to having done. Specifically, from the opinion:
[Assange's lawyer] Emmerson went on to provide accounts of the two encounters in question which granted — at least for the purposes of today’s hearing — the validity of Assange’s accusers’ central claims. He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently “consented to continuation” of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.
His own statements have done him in.
it is equally obvious that these "rape" claims are dubious.
Again, from the high court:
Plainly this is a case which has moved from suspicion to accusation supported by proof...
In England and Wales, a decision to charge is taken at a very early stage; there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged and thus criminal proceedings would have been commenced.
Just to emphasize that - "there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged."
You have not debunked anything. If you could actually produce decent references to a few ground facts that would be most helpful.
Done. Here's the link for you, too.
The lobster dinner is obviously absolutely relevant.
Absolutely not, unless he was farking her during the salad course. The only question is whether he had consent at the time he penetrated her. Not when he had lobster. This is the same reason why any "regret" she had later is also irrelevant, as I'm sure you'd insist.
In these consent rape cases the question is whether the woman actually gave consent or not, i.e. who is telling the truth.
In typical ones, yes. But fortunately, here, we have Assange confessing to penetrating a woman, while she was asleep, knowing that she had told him no to sex. There is absolutely no question about facts or who is telling the truth, because everyone, from the victim to Assange to his lawyer to the prosecutor agrees on what happened: she said no sex without a condom; she went to sleep; he penetrated her while she was asleep, without a condom, knowing that she wouldn't consent and that she couldn't resist. That's rape.
A woman that thinks she was violated, raped, does not normally then have a pleasant dinner with her attacker.
Your turn: [citation needed], please. Many, many studies have debunked your claim. In particular, in the vast majority of rape cases in which the victim knows the rapist (including sometimes friends, family members, trusted advisors, etc.), the reactions are all over the place.
But more importantly, this is all irrelevant. Assange confessed to raping her. Whether she acts appropriately in your eyes the next day is irrelevant, because it doesn't magically travel back in time and wake her up before he stuck his dick where he shouldn't have. Got it? She was asleep. He did not have consent and knew it. He did it anyway, and has admitted it. The end. She could bake him a farking cake the next day and it wouldn't change what he did at the time.
As far as I can determine this is enti
No, he's facing PROSECUTION for RAPE. There's a big difference.
No, he's facing QUESTIONING for RAPE. There's a big difference.
No, he's facing a final round of questioning prior to being CHARGED for RAPE, which occurs right before being TRIED for RAPE. Sweden's legal system has been discussed here often enough.
That "Sweden's legal system has been discussed here" does not somehow turn into, "there is no investigative process in Sweden and 100% of people questioned are tried." That is just absurd.
Oh, and specifically, in support of my post above, the following is from the UK High Court opinion:
Plainly this is a case which has moved from suspicion to accusation supported by proof...
In England and Wales, a decision to charge is taken at a very early stage; there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged and thus criminal proceedings would have been commenced.
Investigation is complete. They're ready to charge. In Sweden, the very last stage before charging is interrogation, which is what he's wanted for. It gives him an opportunity to confess - essentially, pleading guilty.
Also add the STD issue (which was Assange being an arse hole that got him into this mess!) and the lobster dinner after.
While the post you're supporting has been debunked already, I'd also like to point out something here. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you would take issue with the concept of a woman "having regrets" after sex and deciding, a day later, that what was consensual sex was actually rape.
"That's outrageous," I'm sure you'd say. "How can her regrets - or anything else the next day - travel back in time to somehow make consent disappear?!"
And you'd be entirely correct. Consensual sex or non-consensual sex is determined at the time sex occurs, and not based on what happens the next day.
What happens later is irrelevant. In this case, the woman told Assange no to sex. She then went to sleep. She woke up with him inside her. He admitted to all of that during his appeal to the UK High Court. Anything that happened later - lobster dinners, demands for HIV tests, etc. - do not change the fact that, knowing he did not have consent and taking advantage of an opportunity when she could not resist, he penetrated an unconscious victim.
No, he's facing PROSECUTION for RAPE. There's a big difference.
No, he's facing QUESTIONING for RAPE. There's a big difference.
No, he's facing a final round of questioning prior to being CHARGED for RAPE, which occurs right before being TRIED for RAPE. Sweden's legal system has been discussed here often enough.
That "Sweden's legal system has been discussed here" does not somehow turn into, "there is no investigative process in Sweden and 100% of people questioned are tried." That is just absurd.
No, rather, it's like the investigative process here. The police don't rely on interviews with suspects, because - and this may be a shock to you - suspects always claim they're innocent. So, unless his story is amazingly credible, then interviewing him is merely a formality.
But here's the thing - Assange has already admitted to everything he's accused of during his appeal to the UK court:
Emmerson went on to provide accounts of the two encounters in question which granted — at least for the purposes of today’s hearing — the validity of Assange’s accusers’ central claims. He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently “consented to continuation” of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.
That right there is everything they need to proceed with charges, even if the "interview" consists of them saying "did you do it" and Assange smirking and staying silent.
So, yeah, as I said, he's facing the final round of questioning prior to being charged and tried. Calling it merely questioning disingenuously attempts to hide the fact that he's already confessed.