Weekly Open Thread
Sarah Palin is no longer governor of Alaska. Palin resigned suddenly a few weeks ago...a move which shocked and confused many pundits.
The "swine flu" has made its way to the middle east -- Israel and Saudi Arabia
.
Have a good 1st half of the week...and a good rest of the week. Let's reuse this one since it only has 6 posts.
Submitted by stinerman on Mon, 2009-07-27 09:06
Tags:
Comments :
Close to home
http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/article/20090729/NEWS01/907290315
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2903.04
another source for
proximate cause If after a defendants act, there was an intervening act, and the response was foreseeable and normal, the defendant remains culpable.
I'm not 100% if how broad Ohio's "proximate cause" is.
But I'm fairly certain that all the people I know who did them, don't do shrooms by themselves if they are taking a more powerful kind, or take them by themselves if they never did them before.
ASFAIK, just because there is a death of a person that used "illegal" drugs, doesn't mean there was almost automatically involuntary manslaughter as Athens county prosecutors seem to believe.
-----------------
Same county
http://www.athensnews.com/news/local-news/28575-as-expected-boler-to-appeal
<blockquote>Wallace argued that the way the jury instructions defined the "proximate cause" of a death was so broad, it left no real possibility that Boler could be acquitted.</blockquote>
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
That's a very blurry line
That's a difficult line to find, legally speaking, when talking about the proximate cause. I agree that the mere fact that Mr. Wagers allegedly provided a hallucinogenic substance to the deceased does not immediately become the proximate cause.
Was Mr. Wagers reckless if indeed he did provide mushrooms to the deceased? Maybe. These are all questions for a jury, in theory. Of course, juries are made up of people and people are stupid ... but I'm getting off track. However, the deceased knew full well the properties of the mushrooms he procured through whatever means.
I've butted heads with others, especially females, when I share my beliefs on statutory rape of inebriated women. In many jurisdictions, someone can be prosecuted for statutory rape of someone who had a high enough BAL that they can be considered to not have the requisite control to be able to properly consent to any sexual activity. It is not a defense to say that the impared person gave written or oral consent (pun intended).
Point being is that people know drugs and alcohol impair their abilities to make good decisions. Getting so drunk that you sleep with the nerd who plays 3rd chair trumpet is a possible consequence when drinking. Obviously those who were impaired without their knowledge is a different story.
Getting back to the case at hand, this isn't the same thing as a Bugatti dealer selling someone a Veyron, knowing full well they'd go out and attain dangerous speeds with the car, but it is the same ballpark, and certainly the same sport. I think you're right that they're drawing the line at illegal drugs.
I never broke the law; I am the law! --
George W. BushJudge DreddI'm listening to...
Art Linkletter's son did the same thing at BU in the early 70's
Took some acid, thought he could fly out his window. It was a real short trip sadly. Linkletter was a daytime talk/variety show host & it made national news. The authorities..they're always trying to blame somebody.
Shrooms never made me want to jump out windows though. Too bad for the kid & too bad for the kid they arrested.
Since you're our local
Since you're our local expert:
Suicide by fake trip sound plausible?
Because from every place I'm hearing, people haven't known anyone that has gone on that bad of a trip while on them.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Na, it could happen. I've talked more than one freind
down from being too high on hallucinogens. It was part of the deal back then.
Still, don't you think it's just slightly conspiratorial to think that they set it up to 'look' like a drug induced death? Shades of Vince Foster even.
Didn't Art Linkletter's daughter do that?
The song "She's Come Undun" by the rock group Guess Who, which came out in 1969, is about Art Linkletter's daughter who took some LSD and jumped out a window, believing that she could fly. It was a sad, short trip, which received national attention.
The competing Health Care bills.
I'm struck by a quote recently that seems more and more true. Elected officials aren't there to protect their constituents from business', Elected fficials are there to protect business' from their constituents...or something like that. Sure rings true now.
Who here hasn't had there insurance double in the last 10 years? Some folks, it's quadrupled. Lotsa folks don't have any at all and guess what? We are the ones who pay for them. One thing I was hoping for with what ever version of Universal Coverage came out was that at least everyone would be covered in one form or another, just like every single other first world country on the planet.
The Senate with those 6 yahoos acting like they can dictate the whole show is driving me insane. Senator Reid sucks as a leader. At least Pelosi has gotten some slim form of 'Government Option' out of the House. The Senate....not so much. Just a bunch of douchbags who think they are way more important than they are. They don't need 60 votes, just 51. The need to get more to appease the 3 Republicans that might vote for their anemic version is bullshit. Republicans were against Social Security in the 30's and against Medicare in the 60's. Both times they used the exact same lines against the proposed plans....Socialization, Communism, government control, no choice or freedom. They're doing it again. Who needs 'em?
It'll be cheaper for America and American business for a government plan. All our competitors in the world don't have to fund what American business' have to fund. It's ridiculous.
It was Taibbi
The biggest asshole in the world, but he's usually right
:
I never broke the law; I am the law! --
George W. BushJudge DreddI'm listening to...
They're using the Republicans as an excuse
Tis a very handy one, too. They can bend to the will of the folks who fund their campaigns while publicly wringing their hands about the need for bipartisanship.
They have the majorities. They can make this happen if they want to. They simply don't want to.
I agree. Important Democrats are on the doll too.
I'm not sure if a shitty bill is worth fighting for though. I know I'm not going to get the full loaf (Single Payer National Health with the opportunity to buy additional insurance if you wanted it). I'd be OK with some form of Universal Coverage or Government Option, but I really can't support the Co-op lameness that the Senate Finance Committee is pushing. If that's the final bill I'd vote against it. You don't spend your cred buying something that's guaranteed to fail. That's just plain dumb. Unless the plan is available to cover anyone who wants it, doesn't blow a hole in the low income subsidized programs, I won't support it.
The Police Report
and the 911 call don't match re: the arrest of the Harvard professor, friend of the President.
The 911 caller mentions nothing about black people, while the police report mentions two black men with pack backs. (!)
Crowley's police report mentions screaming and yelling by Gates, but that is not in evidence on the 911 tapes.
Why are people so eager to believe the police report over what is heard on the actual phone call?
I'm only half stupid
A different perspective.
This:
is not true at all. The woman who called the police did, in fact, mention two black men with backpacks that were presumably breaking into the house. This woman, who's lived and worked on the same street that Prof. Gates lives on, for a long, long time, should've known better and asked if there was some sort of a problem before calling the cops onto the scene. She, imho, was the root cause of that whole brouhaha, and, imho, was a bigger A-hole than Ofcr. Crowley and Gates put together. The so-called beer-fest at the White House between Obama, Crowley and Gates, was utter BS, and the fact that Obama presented the woman who'd called the police with flowers was equally dumb.
Ofcr. Crowley may not have behaved properly, but Gates kind of acted like an idiot. ("don't you know who I am?". I'll meet your momma out on the porch").
Have you listened to the call? You have your facts wrong
I'm only half stupid
However, since the woman has lived and worked on the same street
However, since the woman has lived and worked on the same street that Prof. Gates lives on for a very long time, she could've at least gone up to Gates and the cabdriver, who were both trying to get the door of Prof. Gates's house open because it was jammed, undoubtedly due to the wood being swollen as a result of the humid weather and simply asked "Hello. Is there a problem?" instead of calling the cops to the scene, which was a stupid thing to do, on the face of it. Had the woman displayed more tact and diplomacy and refrained from calling the police, this whole brouhaha wouldn't have happened in the first place.
All these other so called quotes
are not facts.
The woman who called had every right to call.
The operator was the first to ask about ethnicity.
The officer in question was flat wrong on his police report. There were no black men with backpacks. We heard no yelling in the background. An officer was in a home without a warrant even after he knew that it was Gates home.
You are assuming that Gates acted like an idiot, without any sourcing to prove it.
The sourcing from the actual call and the actual police report tell two different stories. It does in fact look like the officer filed a falsified arrest report.
I'm only half stupid
I just gave you some sources, honeybabe, and I stand by my words
Not to excuse Ofcr. Crowley's behaviour at the scene, but the fact that Prof. Gates hollered "Don't you know who I am?" and "I'll meet your momma on the porch" didn't indicate such smart behaviour on the part of Prof. Gates, either.
Also, the woman clearly knew Prof. Gates, because she's ived on that same street for years. No, I say she had no business just simply calling the cops. I still think she didn't use good judgement.
You are completely off base
and you gave me no sources. It was just your biased version of events with zero evidence.
We have two sets of hard core evidence. The 911 tapes and the police report. Neither one gives your version of events any credence.
In a court of law with the evidence you have presented you lose, honeybaby, sweetie pie.
There is no evidence that Gates hollered what you claim he holltered. That is all just an assumption based on nothing.
You can stand by your words all day, but without facts they are meaningless.
I'm only half stupid
You ain't even the next thing TO sweet, missliberties.
There is no court of law here, I gave some facts that I read,
[redacted]
Edited by me
To remove unnecessary use of colorful metaphors/
Frankly, missliberties,
I don't give a damn what you think. This whole thing was bullshit. The woman shouldn't have called the cops, and the so-called beer-fest involving Obama, Biden, Ofcr Crowley and Prof. gates was bullshit also. A big P. R. thing which won't get anywhere.
More to the point, missliberties, although I didn't vote for the McCain/Palin ticket in the last election, people like YOU make me almost wish that I had!
On second thought, missliberties, if it will satisfy you,
Here's a link on the Ofcr. Crowley-Prof. Gates incident:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Henry_Louis_Gates
Incidentally, missliberties, the operator pressed the woman who the police about the ethnicity of the two men, she didn't ask if t he men were a certain race/ethnicity. There's a huge difference there, honeybabe.
That's fair....
This whole incident is a fascinating glimpse into so many stereotypes.
It seems like there were an awful lot of folks willing to jump on the bandwagon before they knew all the facts in the case.
First off, the charges were dropped. Why? Because the police acted 'stupidly'. Gates should never have been arrested.
Secondly, the woman who reported the incident worked in the neighbor hood. She did not live for years in the neighborhood. She was concerned because there had been a number of reported burglaries in the area recently.
Thirdly she reported two men with suitcases. She did not refer to any ethnicity. It was the operator asked if the suspects were black/white/hispanic.
Whalen who made the 911 call did not speak to Crowley when he arrived at the scene, other than to say she was the 911 caller, which is not what Crowley asserted.
What is clear is that the instant reaction and uproar this incident has sparked, tells us that there are a lot of unresolved feelings around race and the police abusing their authority.
OH, and the very first thing Crowley said into a camera after the Presidents press conference, was that he "didn't vote for the guy" referring to Obama. That says to me that it IS possible that Crowly's arrest of Gates could have had a political bias.
If we could agree on something here, it might be that testosterone played more of a role in this than race or ethnicity at the scene of the original incident. The public at large and the newsmedia turned this into a racially tinged incident, loaded with bias.
The link below provides more info.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/07/gates-neighbor-says-911-cal...
I'm only half stupid
Just leave me alone....
so sez the anti-tax crowd.
They want the free markets to work, and the government to stop interferring in their business. Some of these folks have even gone to the lengths of taking their profits off shore and putting them in Swiss Bank accounts to avoid taxes.
These folks want all of the protections that go with being a US citizen for free!
I'm only half stupid
The government wants to kill granny
This bald faced lie is being spread like wild fire by those who insist that the self determining act of signing a living will, means that the government wants to kill old people.
Are we really supposed to take these people seriously? Well we should, because they make up 58% of the Republican party.
These are the same folks that engineered the hysteria over Bill Clinton, turned a blue dress into a museum piece so they could impeach the President for a blow job. It sounds ridiculous now doesn't it. But that's what happened.
The birther crowd is in their full glory. Let's hope someone in the Republican party has the decency to stop this madness. I trust it won't be Liz Cheney since she has already legitmized the birthers on TeeVee.
I'm only half stupid
Hey now
Bill being in a full blown consensual relationship with some women other than his wife, is apparently very important to whether or not Bill would go [all] out to make unwanted sexual advances.
A defendant's history of speeding in a car they own, is very important to whether someone would try to borrow a car from someone without asking.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
I can't stand it
We laugh, but these people believe this stuff and they vote. And no they aren't just limited to the South. There is no shortage of stupid in America.
Will someone please stop these liars who are presenting this garbage as if it's truth! (See Glenn Beck, who now claims that clicking on car dealer sites, is actually a government spy program. I guess they let paranoid schizophrenics host their own television shows these days.)
I'm only half stupid
...Glenn Beck should be doing
...Glenn Beck should be doing more important stuff, like getting busy searching out his family tree.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Glenn Beck
belongs in a mental institution. He can research his family tree from the safety of a padded cell.
I'm only half stupid
Stupid people
are often easily led. A successful politican can either attempt to educate them (hard) or con them into voting the right way for the wrong reasons (easier).
You don't even have to pretend to be on their side either. I thought about walking around suburban Columbus, OH in 2004 with a sign saying "only fags vote Democratic" in bright red letters, so as to annoy right-leaning moderates into voting D out of spite and disdain for blatant homophobes. Never went through with it, but sometimes you have to use underhanded appeals to emotion.
vOvGioyqtrZAgf
life insurance
hoej cheap life insurance 
qhx home insurance 
zizhl cheap health insurance 
184
God forbid that the stimulus might actually work
The cash for clunkers is a rousing success, releasing the urge to spend and stimulate the economy on thousands of car dealers around the country.
The program is so successful, that the web site is having a hard time keeping up with the demand, and the Congress is going to allocate more money to keep it going.
Yet, when my husband went to a chevy car dealership today, a man that would not have a job, except for government stimiulus to GM, had the brains to complain that the government can't do a 'damn thing right'. The markets do it better, he claimed.
My husband gently reminded him that the free market is actually what caused the government to have to intervene in GM in the first place because their loan dept got caught up in the equities scam.
They guy wouldn't have a job if not for government intervention, yet he can't bash the government enough. Idiot!
This cash for clunkers deal is a hot success, promising to rid car lots of cars, make room for the newer models, let care salesman make some cash, keep third party vendors in business, and generally stimulate the economy. Yeah!
Cash for Clunkers is a success, and Drudge is trashing it.
Obama is a US citizen and 58% of Republicans think he might be an 'other'.
Signing a living will where you determine your own fate has now been exposed by Republicans as genocide on the elderly.
A policemen going into your home without a search warrant is now considered 'justifiable' to the freedom lovers, because the man that owned the home is an elitist, who resented the intrusion.
What is this? A mass hypnosis of stupid? Let me remind you that 58% of Republicans believe this kind of garbage, and these people vote. Yes it is cause for concern.
I'm only half stupid
Dont tuch mah medeecare
said the caller from Oklahoma.
Obama wants to cut off my medicare benifits, said the very frightened woman.
She calls into CSPAN her voice quivering with fear, and implores and begs Obama and the dihmicrats to stop the socialist government takeover of health care, scared to death that they will take away her medicare.
The Republican representative from Nebraska, stokes her fears, stating that the states would go broke and would have no choice but to cut funding of medicare IF Obama's plan goes through.
The implication is that medicare is best left in the hands of the federal govt (!?) even though the GOP is campaigning on the slogan that you don't want the government between you and your health care. Talk about having it both ways.
What is most pathetic, is that this poor woman was truly frightened, and the Rep. did nothing but stoke her fears, for pure political posturing. How sad. Have they no decency?
I'm only half stupid
I see 3 likely scenerios for people like that women
Socialism-Lite is ok, Reinforced-Socialism is dangerous in their minds.
They are oblivious to the fact that medicare is a socialist program because it was started a while ago, the man went behind the green curtain awhile ago and they have yet to notice the giant speakers on the wall.
They don't care that medicare is a socialist program, because they think it helps them out. ie gov't programs are only abhorrent if they don't directly help you out.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
That's not right either
"It isn't socialism when the beneifts go to me." That's the line.
There are a good many people who believe that Medicare isn't a government program.
I never broke the law; I am the law! --
George W. BushJudge DreddI'm listening to...