Agreed - it's perfectly reasonable to put wiretaps on people suspected of involvement in terrorism. It's even legal, you just go to a judge and explain your reasons and he gives you a warrant. So why would you break the law by wiretapping illegally instead? Perhaps because wanting to wiretap someones lawyer in the hope you'll get something you can use against them is not acceptable (for good reason) and you'd never be granted a warrant.
But that's just that pesky human rights stuff again and in the post 9-11 era we can't afford to be respecting human rights.
If you're looking for a really suspicious death try: David Kelly. I'm not normally a believer in conspiracy theories but this one just screams out at you.
I mean if were going to censor every image which could possibly turn on a pedophile we'll have to outlaw pictures of children altogether. You've got to draw the line somewhere and say that what some pervert gets out of a picture is not the defining principle of what should be legal.
It reminds me of SCO. You've got child porn on your site but we won't tell you where it is! You'd think it's fairly obvious that (if they believed what they said) the Swedish Police had two proper courses of action:
Ask for Piratebay's help in trying to track down the real source of the material or arrest and prosecute someone at Piratebay for criminal offenses.
That they've done neither means:
a) They know nobody at Piratebay had anything to do with this and they could never successfully prosecute them.
b) They don't really care about tracking down producers and distributors of child porn and are more interested in protecting business interests than children.
Of course the most reasonable explanation for their complete failure to properly carry out their jobs would be - they were lying to begin with.
It seems pretty damning of the Swedish Police whatever way you look at it. It's a shame that this sort of behaviour tarnishes the reputation of all the good officers along with the despicable ones.
"Some of the things that jurors have to consider are: is this story realistic? Is this guy telling the truth or lying?"
Actually no, that's not what jurors are supposed to be doing - what jurors have to consider is: has the prosecution provided sufficient evidence to establish beyong reasonable doubt that this person committed a crime. Considering things like "he looks shifty to me" as reason for finding someone guilty is stupidity.
"There could absolutely be a very innocent reason why he removed the passenger seat of his car, hosed down the upholstery, and had a bunch of heavy duty trash bags. So why won't he tell police?"
Maybe he had a gay gangbang in the car and the passenger seat and footwell got covered in semen and shit. Maybe at some time his wife cut herself and bled all over the seat and he thought it would be used against him. Maybe he was trying to solve his financial problems by smuggling mexican brown hidden in the seat and one of the packages burst . . . and so on and on, I can think of hundreds of explanations somebody might not want to pass on to the police (some illegal some not).
Who knows, but it doesn't matter - he doesn't have to explain it, and the 'if you've got nothing to hide' argument is just an excuse for fascism.
Going off on some weird tangent IS NOT the same as admitting guilt - it may raise red flags to you but I know some people are pretty weird, being pretty weird IS NOT the same thing as being guilty. Jumping to conclusions on an unsupported emotional reactions IS NOT what jury members are supposed to do.
I stand by my statement - you are a fucking idiot.
There was an interesting case in the town where I live a few years ago where a girl got prosecuted though nobody really believed she was guilty.
The girl and her boyfriend went out for the night, got completely plastered and ended up having a row outside a nightclub. Things got pretty heated and in the resultant pushing and shoving the boyfriend tripped over and fell into the road - right in front of a fast moving car.
After much prevarication they eventually decided to prosecute the girlfriend for manslaughter, as much to definitively settle the matter as anything else - she was found not guilty.
"not with saying it didn't happen, or it was self-defense, or any other legit defense, but instead starts talking about "appropriate" or "inappropriate" violence, it's pretty obvious they're saying they did it"
I've got to go with the GP: You are a fucking moron!
There really ought to be an IQ requirement for jury duty (and voting).
You should be careful when you read these kind of stories because judges sometimes "play dumb"; it's called "judicial ignorance".
Remember that any court case might turn out to be important and end up getting cited for years (Salomon v Salomon for example was a case heard in 1896 which is still imporant today). So the judge has to bear in mind that people reading the transcript in hundreds of years time won't have the assumed knowledge that all the rest of us have. When they ask dumb questions like "who are these Rolling Stones?" it may not be that they really don't know, it may be for the sake of making sure the explanation is in the record.
Not that I'm necessarily saying that's what happened in this case.
That's a bit suspect. There is evidence of global warming on Mars even if (admittedly) it's far from conclusive.
Also, why would you "expect some [planets] to be showing signs of warming and others to be showing signs of cooling" - other than seasonal variations I would expect them to show stable temperatures (or all be moving in the same direction). Well perhaps that's a bit strong to say "expect", "consider more probable" might be closer to the mark.
The fact that two planets appear to be undergoing global warming at the very least "suggests" there might be a connecting factor - surely worth some investigation?
Further, if all the planets in the solar system were currently undergoing global warming would we be able to detect it? That's not a rhetorical question, I don't know and would be genuinely interested in the answer.
OK so "polar bear populations are rising" appears to be a position which is rather weakly supported by the evidence but there doesn't seem to be very conclusive evidence against the proposition either. Does that establish that it's a "myth" - that word (in scientific) circles is usually used to describe something pretty conclusively disproven and I really don't think that's the case here.
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Agreed - it's perfectly reasonable to put wiretaps on people suspected of involvement in terrorism. It's even legal, you just go to a judge and explain your reasons and he gives you a warrant. So why would you break the law by wiretapping illegally instead? Perhaps because wanting to wiretap someones lawyer in the hope you'll get something you can use against them is not acceptable (for good reason) and you'd never be granted a warrant.
But that's just that pesky human rights stuff again and in the post 9-11 era we can't afford to be respecting human rights.
If you're looking for a really suspicious death try: David Kelly. I'm not normally a believer in conspiracy theories but this one just screams out at you.
Oh please.
Fully clothed kids in "provocative" poses?
I mean if were going to censor every image which could possibly turn on a pedophile we'll have to outlaw pictures of children altogether. You've got to draw the line somewhere and say that what some pervert gets out of a picture is not the defining principle of what should be legal.
What's next . . . outlaw search engines?
It reminds me of SCO. You've got child porn on your site but we won't tell you where it is! You'd think it's fairly obvious that (if they believed what they said) the Swedish Police had two proper courses of action:
Ask for Piratebay's help in trying to track down the real source of the material or arrest and prosecute someone at Piratebay for criminal offenses.
That they've done neither means:
a) They know nobody at Piratebay had anything to do with this and they could never successfully prosecute them.
b) They don't really care about tracking down producers and distributors of child porn and are more interested in protecting business interests than children.
Of course the most reasonable explanation for their complete failure to properly carry out their jobs would be - they were lying to begin with.
It seems pretty damning of the Swedish Police whatever way you look at it. It's a shame that this sort of behaviour tarnishes the reputation of all the good officers along with the despicable ones.
Not true, at least not in the UK. A woman can be guilty of rape through an innocent agent - unlikely perhaps but nevertheless . . .
You or I would be in deep shit. Powerful corporations with lots of money get a token slap on the wrist (Sony for example).
Your naivety amuses me.
"Some of the things that jurors have to consider are: is this story realistic? Is this guy telling the truth or lying?"
Actually no, that's not what jurors are supposed to be doing - what jurors have to consider is: has the prosecution provided sufficient evidence to establish beyong reasonable doubt that this person committed a crime. Considering things like "he looks shifty to me" as reason for finding someone guilty is stupidity.
"There could absolutely be a very innocent reason why he removed the passenger seat of his car, hosed down the upholstery, and had a bunch of heavy duty trash bags. So why won't he tell police?"
Maybe he had a gay gangbang in the car and the passenger seat and footwell got covered in semen and shit. Maybe at some time his wife cut herself and bled all over the seat and he thought it would be used against him. Maybe he was trying to solve his financial problems by smuggling mexican brown hidden in the seat and one of the packages burst . . . and so on and on, I can think of hundreds of explanations somebody might not want to pass on to the police (some illegal some not).
Who knows, but it doesn't matter - he doesn't have to explain it, and the 'if you've got nothing to hide' argument is just an excuse for fascism.
Going off on some weird tangent IS NOT the same as admitting guilt - it may raise red flags to you but I know some people are pretty weird, being pretty weird IS NOT the same thing as being guilty. Jumping to conclusions on an unsupported emotional reactions IS NOT what jury members are supposed to do.
I stand by my statement - you are a fucking idiot.
There was an interesting case in the town where I live a few years ago where a girl got prosecuted though nobody really believed she was guilty.
The girl and her boyfriend went out for the night, got completely plastered and ended up having a row outside a nightclub. Things got pretty heated and in the resultant pushing and shoving the boyfriend tripped over and fell into the road - right in front of a fast moving car.
After much prevarication they eventually decided to prosecute the girlfriend for manslaughter, as much to definitively settle the matter as anything else - she was found not guilty.
"not with saying it didn't happen, or it was self-defense, or any other legit defense, but instead starts talking about "appropriate" or "inappropriate" violence, it's pretty obvious they're saying they did it"
I've got to go with the GP: You are a fucking moron!
There really ought to be an IQ requirement for jury duty (and voting).
"I'm curious to hear where you feel it lies"
Pretty middle stream generally, although individual productions may of course veer wildly from this.
"This is a physical place - actual brick and mortar"
Jeez dude - that's soooo 20th century.
"this will have to the Supremes I think?"
Could the verdict be: "Stop In The Name Of Love".
Or you need to reconsider your definitions of left, right and center in politics.
Not right wing does not necessarily equal left wing. Try not to believe everything right wing politicians would have you believe.
But it's nice to see such a perfect example of the fallacy of the excluded middle.
"The actual problem is the competence of the police, or lack thereof."
I recommend you read Wasting Police Time by David Copperfield ISBN:0-9552854-1-0
Since that's pretty much what's happening at Guantanamo then I guess we have a lot more to worry about than a few MP3s on our hard disks.
OK, you're right. I skimmed the article and missed this particular point of *exactly* what it was they were claiming to be a myth. I am in error.
Another good one:
Barrister [to witness]: "In fact, wouldn't it be fair to say that you were drunk as a judge."
Judge: "Would you care to rephrase that?"
Barrister: "I do apologise; I mean't drunk as a lord, my lord."
"Jazz musicians . . . of some notoriety my Lord"
For those that don't know this was a famous exchange in a bank robbery trial.
You should be careful when you read these kind of stories because judges sometimes "play dumb"; it's called "judicial ignorance".
Remember that any court case might turn out to be important and end up getting cited for years (Salomon v Salomon for example was a case heard in 1896 which is still imporant today). So the judge has to bear in mind that people reading the transcript in hundreds of years time won't have the assumed knowledge that all the rest of us have. When they ask dumb questions like "who are these Rolling Stones?" it may not be that they really don't know, it may be for the sake of making sure the explanation is in the record.
Not that I'm necessarily saying that's what happened in this case.
That's a bit suspect. There is evidence of global warming on Mars even if (admittedly) it's far from conclusive.
Also, why would you "expect some [planets] to be showing signs of warming and others to be showing signs of cooling" - other than seasonal variations I would expect them to show stable temperatures (or all be moving in the same direction). Well perhaps that's a bit strong to say "expect", "consider more probable" might be closer to the mark.
The fact that two planets appear to be undergoing global warming at the very least "suggests" there might be a connecting factor - surely worth some investigation?
Further, if all the planets in the solar system were currently undergoing global warming would we be able to detect it? That's not a rhetorical question, I don't know and would be genuinely interested in the answer.
"it's not even remotely right"
Absolutely.
"and not even remotely funny"
Hey, humour's kind of a personal thing - don't worry, I'm not giving up my day job.
OK so "polar bear populations are rising" appears to be a position which is rather weakly supported by the evidence but there doesn't seem to be very conclusive evidence against the proposition either. Does that establish that it's a "myth" - that word (in scientific) circles is usually used to describe something pretty conclusively disproven and I really don't think that's the case here.