Right. Some tight skinny jeans and a bottle of vodka... well, I suppose they should wait till she turns 21 for the vodka.
In all seriousness, if she has the mental age of a 5 year old, she is probably quite content being treated as one, and it would be highly innappropriate to treat her as older than she "really" is.
I cam across this very long, very interesting story about Scientology last night which details how with diminishing membership, it is trying to squeeze the very last dime out of those remaining and accelerating its die-off.
But inside the church, the Ideal Orgs are sparking insurrection. Across the country, donors and high-ranking executives say that the aggressive fundraising and construction scheme is used to enrich the central church at the expense of the rank and file, helping to grow the Scientology war chest to over a billion dollars. Two former members, Mike Rinder and Mark Elliott, went so far as to call the project a "real estate scam." To some of these defectors, the structures are metaphors for the religion itself: garish on the outside, empty on the inside. The irony is that the very expansion that Scientology lauds as its renaissance is actually a symbol of internal dissent and decline.
***
And the ranks of the faithful are dropping. In 2008, there were 25,000 self-identifying American Scientologists, down by over a half from 55,000 in 2001, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. (Over the same time period, the number of Wiccans more than doubled from 134,000 to 342,000.) The 2011 British census showed a total of 2,418 Scientologists across England and Wales; about 73 times as many Brits identified themselves as "Jedi."
Do you see what happened here? Charge with 35 years offer 6-24 mos. In the context of the trial, sounds like a great deal. In the context of reality --- WTF? Two years in prison for what?
Americans are becoming enslaved -- quite literally -- to the special interest groups that can afford to buy legislation. Welcome to fascism -- government for the benefit of the mega-corporation.
And the problem is that it's becoming nearly impossible to know what the law actually is. The U.S. Constitution outlines just three federal crimes -- treason, counterfeiting, and piracy. Various projects have tried to count the number of federal criminal laws passed since, and many have simply given up. But by most estimates, there are at least 4,000 separate criminal laws at the federal level, with another 10,000 to 300,000 regulations that can be enforced criminally.
In his most recent book, the civil libertarian and defense attorney Harvey Silverglate argues that most Americans now unknowingly commit about three felonies per day.
The Federal criminal system is designed to give the Feds total power and control. A government can take such control in several ways. The transparent manner is for a government to just do what it wants without explanation. Such governments are rightly despised as despotic. The US Federal government has chosen a different method. It has made so many crimes of such a vague nature, that everyone commits them without even knowing it. As a result, the Feds have no difficulty figuring out how to persecute a person should they decide they don't like that person for one reason or another. They just shuffle the deck and "pick a crime, any crime."
Now, whether Swartz committed a crime or not is sort of beside the point. Even assuming that he did, how does a 35 year prison term fit into what he did? It doesn't. It lacks all proportionality. What this lack of proportionality does do howver, is give the Feds absolute despotic control over people's lives, a power which they can exercise at will, with total immunity, against any person they decide to hate.
And worse, despite its ruthless disproportionate persecution, a signficant portion of the population will respond like you by blaming Swartz for being a crook. Problem is, with so many laws on the books -- you too are a crook. You just don't know it and not knowing the law is not a defense (except for police and prosecutors). That's a nice catch 22. You can't use lack of knowledge to defend yourself, but the code is so vast, vague, and disorganized, you can't know the laws.
Interesting. Perhaps a bar complaint is in order. I don't think it would realistically result in any consequences -- the Feds are just untouchable -- but maybe it would be a hassle for Ortiz. Anything to make her life difficult would be worth it.
Do we really want a world where a person could face 35 years for trespassing (normal max: 30 days in jail and $100 fine) (1) but merely have to defer a portion of their bonus for laundering money for drug kingpins and terrorists (2)?
You mean the scum who have no power and influence. And of course the innocent who get railroaded. Those are the people prosecutors go after. But in our two-tiered justice system, the type of scum with vast sums of money and political friends -- slap on the wrist.
Wow. So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment? The government's negotiators couldn't hold firm on forcing HSBC officials to completely wait to receive their ill-gotten bonuses? They had to settle on making them "partially" wait? Every honest prosecutor in America has to be puking his guts out at such bargaining tactics. What was the Justice Department's opening offer â" asking executives to restrict their Caribbean vacation time to nine weeks a year?"
A lot of words to say that the Feds don't need to have any sense of perspective.
A bank can money launder terrorists' and drug producers' money, and face no time (HSBC) or can almost single handedly cause a nationwide mortgage crises (Angelo Mozillo), and face nothing but a small (on a percentage of income basis) fine. A kid can trespass and face virtually the rest of his life in jail.
About 30 days in jail and a hundred bucks for trespassing. That'd be the going rate.
Timothy Lee wrote the definitive article in 2011 explaining why, even if all the allegations in the indictment are true, the only real crime committed by Swartz was basic trespassing, for which people are punished, at most, with 30 days in jail and a $100 fine, about which Lee wrote: "That seems about right: if he's going to serve prison time, it should be measured in days rather than years."
I get that, but think about it for a minute. It basically means that everything the government can't tax, can be forbidden. Not because it is something evil --- just because they can't tax it. Maybe instead of worrying about the ability of the government to get a cut of every damn thing in the world, we should worry about human integrity, the notion that people should be able to live their lives in ways they see fit. And sometimes, the government won't be able to tax that, and it should be OK anyway.
No -- cheating would be telling everyone the odds are even when they are not. Anyone who plays at a casino game is totally aware that the house has an edge. Those people aren't being cheated -- they're gambling. Now it would be different if the casino advertised something along the lines of "players have a 5% edge over the house" but the truth was the opposite. Casinos don't do that though so nobody is being deceived (and if one did, then yes, they'd be cheaters and liars).
I get that you don't like that setup, but your personal feelings don't change the character of the act of gambling when the odds don't favor you. It's still gambling, just not the smartest type. Secondly, how would the house stay in business and pay staff if the games were completely even? Statistically speaking, that business would be a bad bet, and under your thinking, it would be the customers that were cheaters and liars because the customers would have a much higher expectation of profit than the casino that had to pay staff, electricity, maintenance and capital costs -- and yet would only break even on bets over time. Plainly that's a recipe for losing money, so a totally 50/50 game in that sense would be totally unfair.
Why not address the larger issue of why the government has to be everyone's mom? People will gamble. Some people enjoy it. Some people get hurt. The identical thing can be said for anything: mountain biking, ice cream, jogging, or french fries.
How's the saying go? Canada got the French. Australia got the cons. And we got the Puritans.
That the banks were forced to lend to low income people and that caused the problem is more of a tale than anything else. Certainly it wasn't helpful, but it was at worst a tiny percentage of the problem.
Nobody was twisting Countrywide's arm from making loans and crappy CDOs (*), but the real problem was Credit Default Swaps on the CDOs. These are a type of insurance a lender can take out on a loan (didn't even have to be a loan the lender made) wherin the insurance company would pay the loan off if the creditor defaulted. Back in the Clinton administration, it was decided that this type of insurance did not need to be regulated, i.e., there were no standards for how much the insurance company had to have on hand to cover obligations.
No regs. So what happened? The insurance companies sold policies willy nilly and when the subprime mortgages started going bad, they had no money to cover those costs. This started a domino effect.
And what was the problem? No regulations requiring adequate funds to backup to the swaps. So the whole idea that businesses will act rationally in the absence of regulation is crazy. Or maybe not really -- they made obscene profits by selling bogus insurace and then got bailed out. Win/Win I guess, if you are a greedy asshole.
The guys who do Planet Money had a very informative show about Credit Default Swaps. You should listen to it (particularly acts 2 and 3):
I'm sure you were way far away. Read the article though. It was set at $45k in 1969 and not indexed for inflation. Every year, congress has to manually adjust it. If they don't it reverts to the 1969 figure. It's insane, but true.
While I tend to agree with you that taxes need to rise and spending needs to fall, but there were some real consequences (or still are actually) if the deal doesn't go through. The Alternative Minimum Tax, which was once upon a time designed to make sure the wealthiest Americans would pay at least some taxes, is not indexed for inflation and has to be reset manually every year. If it doesn't get reset right now, couples who earned $45k per year in __2012__ (this means this coming tax bill, not next years (there is not a whole year to fix it)) will get hit with the AMT. That's $33750 for you slashdotters (filing single).
You also don't get use your standard deduction or other deductions when calculating your income subject to the AMT. Plus, if you're expecting a refund to pay for Christmas, you might not even be able to file your taxes till March because the IRS has to mess around with its computers.
Slashdot Mirror
Right. Some tight skinny jeans and a bottle of vodka ... well, I suppose they should wait till she turns 21 for the vodka.
In all seriousness, if she has the mental age of a 5 year old, she is probably quite content being treated as one, and it would be highly innappropriate to treat her as older than she "really" is.
I cam across this very long, very interesting story about Scientology last night which details how with diminishing membership, it is trying to squeeze the very last dime out of those remaining and accelerating its die-off.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexklein/is-scientology-self-destructing
The Feds are nazier than the nazis.
Do you see what happened here? Charge with 35 years offer 6-24 mos. In the context of the trial, sounds like a great deal. In the context of reality --- WTF? Two years in prison for what?
Americans are becoming enslaved -- quite literally -- to the special interest groups that can afford to buy legislation. Welcome to fascism -- government for the benefit of the mega-corporation.
No it isn't. Start with this: https://secure.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/myths-of-the-criminal-justice-system_n_879768.html
link to the book referenced: Three Felonies a Day, how the Feds target the innocent: http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.aspx
The Federal criminal system is designed to give the Feds total power and control. A government can take such control in several ways. The transparent manner is for a government to just do what it wants without explanation. Such governments are rightly despised as despotic. The US Federal government has chosen a different method. It has made so many crimes of such a vague nature, that everyone commits them without even knowing it. As a result, the Feds have no difficulty figuring out how to persecute a person should they decide they don't like that person for one reason or another. They just shuffle the deck and "pick a crime, any crime."
Now, whether Swartz committed a crime or not is sort of beside the point. Even assuming that he did, how does a 35 year prison term fit into what he did? It doesn't. It lacks all proportionality. What this lack of proportionality does do howver, is give the Feds absolute despotic control over people's lives, a power which they can exercise at will, with total immunity, against any person they decide to hate.
And worse, despite its ruthless disproportionate persecution, a signficant portion of the population will respond like you by blaming Swartz for being a crook. Problem is, with so many laws on the books -- you too are a crook. You just don't know it and not knowing the law is not a defense (except for police and prosecutors). That's a nice catch 22. You can't use lack of knowledge to defend yourself, but the code is so vast, vague, and disorganized, you can't know the laws.
Interesting. Perhaps a bar complaint is in order. I don't think it would realistically result in any consequences -- the Feds are just untouchable -- but maybe it would be a hassle for Ortiz. Anything to make her life difficult would be worth it.
http://www.mass.gov/obcbbo/complaint.htm
Do we really want a world where a person could face 35 years for trespassing (normal max: 30 days in jail and $100 fine) (1) but merely have to defer a portion of their bonus for laundering money for drug kingpins and terrorists (2)?
(1) http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/feds-go-overboard-in-prosecuting-information-activist/
(2) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213
The prosecutors should be stabbing themselves in their heartless chests for all the good that would do.
You mean the scum who have no power and influence. And of course the innocent who get railroaded. Those are the people prosecutors go after. But in our two-tiered justice system, the type of scum with vast sums of money and political friends -- slap on the wrist.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213 :
I second that mod-up motion.
A lot of words to say that the Feds don't need to have any sense of perspective.
A bank can money launder terrorists' and drug producers' money, and face no time (HSBC) or can almost single handedly cause a nationwide mortgage crises (Angelo Mozillo), and face nothing but a small (on a percentage of income basis) fine. A kid can trespass and face virtually the rest of his life in jail.
You: Gotta love the Feds. More power to them!
About 30 days in jail and a hundred bucks for trespassing. That'd be the going rate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/12/aaron-swartz-heroism-suicide1
not the one for sale at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B002WK22TS/ref=dp_image_0/185-2815768-3876139?ie=UTF8&n=3375251&s=sporting-goods
Well, after the Mayan apocalypse comes, where are you going to get the electricity. ... oh wait, nevermind.
makes sense, it also shows this in the also viewed category:
Sharp, Provolone Piccante Cheese (Whole Wheel) Approximately 60 Lbs
What better to cut a whole wheel of cheese with than a sword?
I get that, but think about it for a minute. It basically means that everything the government can't tax, can be forbidden. Not because it is something evil --- just because they can't tax it. Maybe instead of worrying about the ability of the government to get a cut of every damn thing in the world, we should worry about human integrity, the notion that people should be able to live their lives in ways they see fit. And sometimes, the government won't be able to tax that, and it should be OK anyway.
No -- cheating would be telling everyone the odds are even when they are not. Anyone who plays at a casino game is totally aware that the house has an edge. Those people aren't being cheated -- they're gambling. Now it would be different if the casino advertised something along the lines of "players have a 5% edge over the house" but the truth was the opposite. Casinos don't do that though so nobody is being deceived (and if one did, then yes, they'd be cheaters and liars).
I get that you don't like that setup, but your personal feelings don't change the character of the act of gambling when the odds don't favor you. It's still gambling, just not the smartest type. Secondly, how would the house stay in business and pay staff if the games were completely even? Statistically speaking, that business would be a bad bet, and under your thinking, it would be the customers that were cheaters and liars because the customers would have a much higher expectation of profit than the casino that had to pay staff, electricity, maintenance and capital costs -- and yet would only break even on bets over time. Plainly that's a recipe for losing money, so a totally 50/50 game in that sense would be totally unfair.
No, gambling is gambling no matter what the odds. Some gambles are more favorable than others, but it is still gambling.
Kinda like cards, dice, and poker chips. You can find these in practically every store in America, even in places where gambling is illegal.
Why not address the larger issue of why the government has to be everyone's mom? People will gamble. Some people enjoy it. Some people get hurt. The identical thing can be said for anything: mountain biking, ice cream, jogging, or french fries.
How's the saying go? Canada got the French. Australia got the cons. And we got the Puritans.
fucking puritans.
That the banks were forced to lend to low income people and that caused the problem is more of a tale than anything else. Certainly it wasn't helpful, but it was at worst a tiny percentage of the problem.
Nobody was twisting Countrywide's arm from making loans and crappy CDOs (*), but the real problem was Credit Default Swaps on the CDOs. These are a type of insurance a lender can take out on a loan (didn't even have to be a loan the lender made) wherin the insurance company would pay the loan off if the creditor defaulted. Back in the Clinton administration, it was decided that this type of insurance did not need to be regulated, i.e., there were no standards for how much the insurance company had to have on hand to cover obligations.
No regs. So what happened? The insurance companies sold policies willy nilly and when the subprime mortgages started going bad, they had no money to cover those costs. This started a domino effect.
And what was the problem? No regulations requiring adequate funds to backup to the swaps. So the whole idea that businesses will act rationally in the absence of regulation is crazy. Or maybe not really -- they made obscene profits by selling bogus insurace and then got bailed out. Win/Win I guess, if you are a greedy asshole.
The guys who do Planet Money had a very informative show about Credit Default Swaps. You should listen to it (particularly acts 2 and 3):
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/365/another-frightening-show-about-the-economy
(*) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/angelo-mozilo-former-countrywide-ceo-claims-he-doesnt-know-what-verified-income-is-20121228
Chain mail body suit as farady cage?
They did, I remember when I was in grade school in the 70s seeing road signs on the freeway marking distance in miles and km.
I'm sure you were way far away. Read the article though. It was set at $45k in 1969 and not indexed for inflation. Every year, congress has to manually adjust it. If they don't it reverts to the 1969 figure. It's insane, but true.
While I tend to agree with you that taxes need to rise and spending needs to fall, but there were some real consequences (or still are actually) if the deal doesn't go through. The Alternative Minimum Tax, which was once upon a time designed to make sure the wealthiest Americans would pay at least some taxes, is not indexed for inflation and has to be reset manually every year. If it doesn't get reset right now, couples who earned $45k per year in __2012__ (this means this coming tax bill, not next years (there is not a whole year to fix it)) will get hit with the AMT. That's $33750 for you slashdotters (filing single).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324731304578191863373273492.html
You also don't get use your standard deduction or other deductions when calculating your income subject to the AMT. Plus, if you're expecting a refund to pay for Christmas, you might not even be able to file your taxes till March because the IRS has to mess around with its computers.
So, kind of a big deal.