Snow Wreaks Havoc on East Coast, McConnell Asks for Vote on ISIS War, FBI Ran Child Porn Site: P.M. Links

• 

  william couch/Flickr

  More than 6,200 U.S. flights have been canceled and nearly 30,000 people in North Carolina are without power as the mid-Atlantic greets a winter snow storm that's predicted to be historic. 

• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has introduced a joint resolution to authorize military force against ISIS. 
• For two weeks, the FBI hosted a website offering thousands of child-porn images.
• Inside the National Review anti-Trump edition: editor Rich Lowry gives the back story. 
• Making a Murderer subject Steven Avery sent a letter from prison to WISN 12 News in Milwaukee accusing his ex-girlfriend Jodi Stachowski of lying about him on the Nancy Grace show. 
• A Canadian man charged with criminal harassment of two women's rights activists due to messages he sent on Twitter has been found not guilty.
• Former Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holtzclaw was sentenced to 263 years in prison stemming from his 2013-2014 sexual assaults of multiple women.  

New at Reason:

Did ISIS Make a Bad Move by Attacking Istanbul?: The suicide bombing might end the cozy arrangement between the organization and the Turkish president. By Shikha Dalmia

Responsible Research and Innovation: A Concept Worse than the Precautionary Principle: A debate over biotechnology previews the regulatory innovation that could stop innovation. By Ronald Bailey

It's an Era of Angry Populism and No One Is Immune: Bernie Sanders represents as radical a shift in party ideology as Donald Trump. By David Harsanyi

Powerball Frenzy is Just a Distraction: Money is fungible and lotteries simply supplant other funding. By Steven Greenhut

Could It Be…Satan?: Where does it say in the Bible the Devil can't moonlight as a detective? By Glenn Garvin

Movie Review: The 5th Wave: Chloë Grace Moretz gets feisty in an attempted sci-fi franchise. By Kurt Loder

The Geography of Genius: Author Eric Weiner on the places where creativity thrives and why governments won't create the next Silicon Valley. By Meredith Bragg

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don't forget to sign up for Reason's daily updates for more content.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

A Canadian man charged with criminal harassment of two women's rights activists due to messages he sent on Twitter has been found not guilty.

Found not guilty on social media???

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hello.

"For two weeks, the FBI hosted a website offering thousands of child-porn images."

See what happens when you cancel The Mentalist?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

They caught Red John. What more do you want?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

THEY DID?!

That story arc went on and on and on...

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Yeah, like 3 times. OR DID THEY???

[blcartwright]

Patrick Jane shot RJ before the cops arrived.

[commodious spittoon]

On Twitter, no one can hear you plead innocence.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Former Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holtzclaw was sentenced to 263 years in prison stemming from his 2013-2014 sexual assaults of multiple women.

If he had simply beat or shot them, he'd be home safe right now.

[Gojira]

That's some good police work there, Lou.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Not even a regulation dunk. Shame on the academy.

[Libertarian]

It's getting to be big news these days whenever a cop does something nice for someone instead of shooting them.

[Irish ?s ESB]

The FBI distributed shitloads of child porn.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Do you even links, bro?

[Irish ?s ESB]

Fuck. I was sitting on that link.

I guess I'm not ENB's favorite anymore. 🙁

[Just say Nikki]

tfw when you sit on a link half the day and then realize you're on Twitter with the links bloggers.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Nicole, I don't know why you make me hate you.

[Just say Nikki]

It's because I'm too real.

[Ted S.]

It's because she's the worst.

[Fist of Etiquette]

IT'S ALREADY AN OFFICIAL LINK

[commodious spittoon]

WHY IS EVERYONE SHOUTING??

[rts]

LOUD NOISES

[Crusty Juggler]

MANHATTAN CLAM CHOWDER

[Ska]

It's showdere.

[Tak Kak]

Come back here! I'm not through demeaning you.

[CZmacure]

I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you! Especially those of you in the jury!

[Riven]

IS THAT THE RED OR THE WHITE KIND

[blcartwright]

Red. Like watered down tomato sauce with clams in it.

[MSimon]

INFLATION

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEIR EXCUSES ARE BUT I DON'T HEAR WELL OUT OF MY RIGHT EAR.

[Swiss Servator]

*Fires 105mm howitzer off to Rufus' Left side*

[Juice]

Fieman said more than 100,000 Playpen registered users visited the site while it was under the FBI's control.

Seems like quite a lot of users. Wow.

[SIV]

Half of them are law enforcement agencies.

[Jimbo]

*snicker*

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

"For two weeks, the FBI hosted a website offering thousands of child-porn images."

It's OK when we do it. Sick fucks.

[B. Woodrow Chippenhaus]

How does that not constitute entrapment?

[SIV]

They didn't host them on fbi.gov

[Eurynom0s]

I'm not usually sympathetic to all the contortions about why things aren't entrapment, but in this case...yeah, you were looking for the porn without the FBI prodding you into it. This isn't like leaving a visibly unlocked car on the side of the road and waiting to see if someone tries to hotwire it.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

That also is not entrapment.

[SIV]

It's exactly the type of law enforcement police should be doing in a free society.

[blighted non millenial]

But it sure is a lot like the FBI doing something that they would put you in cage for doing for a very long time.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Yes. That is my general concern.

[TheZeitgeist]

It is no less unethical from that perspective than a wired agent offering dope, then actually selling it. Or the whole Fast and Furious thing, a much deadlier crime committed by Feds to supposedly catch more criminals. Each of those are very analogous activities; and obviously not 'illegal' in terms of any consequences.

Horse left the legal barn on this long before internet existed.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

But it sure is a lot like the FBI doing something that they would put you in cage for doing for a very long time.

SO...the illegal activity is hosing a child porn site (distributing CP)...and the King's Men did that very thing for two weeks ish. And it's okay.

SO...if you have an undercover oinker in with the mob, and he commits murder in the process is that okay too?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

*hosting

[Jimbo]

I liked "hosing" better.

[TheZeitgeist]

SO...if you have an undercover oinker in with the mob, and he commits murder in the process is that okay too?

Whether it is 'okay' is irrelevant. They can apparently get away with this exact thing by way of 3rd party already - at least with Fast and Furious. Feds can't commit the murder, but they can sell you the guns and ammo it seems. Likewise, the Feds can't commit the kiddie porn, but they can provide the camera and hosting services. If one is 'legal' than the other is by corollary. And F'n'F was 'legal.'

[a better chipper]

Also, I doubt that the FBI gained the permission of the victims featured in the illegally pornographic content as well.

I don't think anyone who fell victim to it would ever know or want to find out, but if they ever did, I can't imagine being more furious over anything than that.

Fuck the government for this. Truly sickening.

[Overt]

If you read the article at least some of the lawyers representing victims approved of the measure saying that the material was already out there, and it might as well get used for good.

The funny thing to me is that they said they had around 100,000 visitors but they had only gotten around 1300 identities and much fewer charges brought. This tells me that the attack they used was a Javascript attack and that most people had JS disabled and/or were using the TOR Browser which flatly does not contain the functionality that this exploit uses in order to get peoples' IP information.

[DEG]

Do you think those tax dollars are going to spend themselves?

[DEG]

Oil producers say they don't want a bailout

"The industry is not looking for a bailout from Washington, D.C.," Neal Kirby, director of public affairs of the Independent Petroleum Producers of America, emphatically told CNNMoney.

The organization, which represents thousands of small and medium-sized producers, said it's actually looking for the opposite of a rescue.

"We're asking the federal government to get out of the way and allow America's free-market principles to work," the group said, referring to government support for competitors like renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

[In League with the Dark Ones]

That earthquake you just felt? was my jaw hitting the ground.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

That's the first thing out of my deadbeat relative's mouth when she's trying to ask for a bailout.

[Horatio]

Ha! That's rich coming from an industry that gets crazy accounting tricks like WRITING OFF EXPENSES.

/accountant sarc

[Pat (PM)]

Ha! That's rich coming from an industry that gets crazy accounting tricks like WRITING OFF EXPENSES.

THIS IS WHAT SHREEK ACTUALLY BELIEVES

[Private Chipperbot]

H.E. Pennypacker would write it off.

[Horatio]

From what I hear he'll be writing off some investment losses in 2016

[Swiss Servator]

*applause*

[Jimbo]

Aren' you supposed to be working on some "get rich quick scheme?"

[Rt. Hon. Judge Woodrow Chipper]

director of public affairs of the Independent Petroleum Producers of America

I would guess that exactly zero oil producers are members of that organization. Kinda like zero scientists are members of CSPI.

[Brett L]

Why would a scientist join the California Prevention of Science Institute?

[Unicorn Abattoir]

It could be that the "Independent" producers are the small outfits that typically get the short end of the stick when government money gets thrown around.

[OneOut]

No really.

Typically the mid size outfits get some tax advantages because they are the ones who do most of the exploration and wildcatting. Both being highly expensive and speculative. when they find something worth the majors time trouble and investmen the the majors just money whip them and buy them out since the smaller company probably develop the field anyway. That does not include potentially huge and expensive to reach fields but even those are sometimes purchased from smaller wildcatters that laid the ground work.

About 15 years ago I built a retirement home for a lady who was then the head of IT for all of Exxon located in Houston . she told me they had a control room that looked like the bridge deck of the enterprise. geologist sat in Captians chairs with a joystick and fly through different screens with seismic rock formations on large screens looking for the presence of possible oil . She claimed that all the worlds oil is discovered and that it's just a matter of finding it on the data they already have.

[Pat (PM)]

Alaska burglary suspect identified after locking keys in car

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) ? A man suspected of burglarizing two Alaska businesses was delayed in his get-away by locking his keys in his car. A call to a cab company helped open the car but also led to his identification.

Surveillance video of the burglary and the taxi led police in North Pole, a city 14 miles south of Fairbanks, to seek a warrant for 27-year-old Joseph Michael Barria, who is suspected of stealing tools, stereo equipment and other property from a laundry and a fitness business.

The Jan. 6 video shows a man carrying items from the businesses into his car, then pulling his car closer to the door. Later, a cab arrives to help the man open the locked car.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Huh. Cab drivers are also locksmiths in Alaska?

[colorblindkid]

Well the cabs are moose with saddles and they just smash their antlers through the window to get the keys locked inside.

[Riven]

Learn something new every day. I wonder if they're bonded

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

You and I don't need bonds. Personal hobby exemption. For now.

[Riven]

Hobbyists don't, thankfully. I'm wondering if the cabby offers his services professionally or what, you know? Liability and all that.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

There's no good reason not to have a slim jim and a pick gun on you at all times. Just keep them well hidden.

[Riven]

Pick gun? Heathen!

But I'm a hopeless romantic with my tension wrenches and various hooks.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I like to get it done.

[Riven]

That's the problem with the private sector--they expect results.

[Mr Drew]

But I'm a hopeless romantic with my tension wrenches and various hooks.

Riven, I may be in love. I'll show me a picture of my favorite rake if you show me yours.

[thrakkorzog]

It's not that unusual a setup especially in smaller markets. If your keys are locked in your car at 2 AM, who are you going to call to give you a lift home? So the cab companies usually have a couple of cabbies who can unlock car doors, since it is pretty easy money for them.

[CE]

...police in North Pole, a city 14 miles south of Fairbanks...

How is a city named "North Pole" south of anywhere?

[Pat (PM)]

Audio recording released of paranoid pot smugglers' 911 call

REXBURG, Idaho, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- Police in Idaho released audio of a 911 call from a pair of pot-smoking drug smugglers who convinced themselves they were being followed by undercover cops.

The Rexburg Police Department released audio this week of the Jan. 23, 2015, 911 call made by Leland Ayala-Doliente, 22, while he was in the car with Holland Sward, 23, and about 20 pounds of marijuana.

Police said the duo had been smoking marijuana and became paranoid that they were being followed by authorities in unmarked vehicles while transporting their load of pot from Las Vegas to Bozeman, Mont.

"Hi, uh, we're the two dumb [expletive] that got caught trying to bring some stuff through your border and all your cops are just driving around us like a bunch of jack wagons and I'd just like for you guys to end it. If you could help me out with that, we would like to just get on with it," Ayala-Doliente told the 911 dispatcher.

[SIV]

lightweights

[Zeb]

So, did they decide to smoke pot for the first time ever while smuggling a trunk load of weed, or what? How fucking dumb are you if you call the cops on yourself?

[Horatio]

So, post WoD, what do desperately stupid people do for a living? Think of the morons before you spout your crazy libertarian nonsense!

[d3x / dt3]

Don't get high on your own supply.

[CZmacure]

To be a dope man, you must qualify.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...editor Rich Lowry gives the back story.

The leftwing candidate was coming from inside the house!

[DEG]

GM wins an ignition switch case

Scheuer sued GM (GM) in federal court charging that he was injured when his Chevrolet Cobalt hit a tree and the air bag did not deploy. He claimed he suffered from memory loss as a result of the accident. His wife testified that as a result of the memory loss, the couple lost their "dream house" because her husband misplaced a check they needed to buy the house.

But after the trial started in New York earlier this month, a realtor in Oklahoma contacted GM to say the couple actually lost the house because they had presented an altered check as proof of funds to buy the house. GM used that evidence to impeach Scheuer's testimony, and Thursday he dropped the case.

[Ted S.]

Government Motors for the win!

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

See? Stimucus works!

[Ted S.]

A mixture of stimulus and mucus?

[waffles]

I think that's just Canadian English and Rufus has a cold, you knob.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I'm healthy!

Well.

Kinda.

[Jimbo]

You are a sick fuck!

Have a nice day, Rufus.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yes!

Nothing gets past you, you.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

It may sound crasy, but I had a fever one time that confuxored my memory. About half of everything that happened before that was suddenly unavailable. Fifteen years and I don't think it's all come back yet, and almost nothing came back for the first few years. At any rate, somehow after the fever I had totally forgot about paying property taxes. It's only because somebody mentioned something about it about a year later that it came back. Other simple facts like that just dropped out of my brainhole and didn't leave a visible mark by their absence, probably only because the whole structure was so fucked to hell that it couldn't get ne more distorted or ramshackle than it was. When things did start coming back, it was such that they'd sometimes come back for a day and then vanish again for a week. One of the strangest was how language units would flicker in and out, so I couldn't understand a bit of German one day then the next it'd be back but my Latin would be gone, and there was no remarkable sign letting me know that a unit was inaccessible till I went and tried to use it, which got me in some awkward situations.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I also went from having mathematical ability far beyond normal (though low for my family) to being unable to keep simple count past three. It wasn't for years till I discovered that crap we had to learn in school, that is, how to do maths in Egyptian and Sumerian and Greek and what not, that it still worked. After a while of simply converting any numbers to alternative systems and operating on them there and converting them back, I've got some aptitude with regular maths back. Still, I have no ability whatever to commit sequences of Arabic numerals to memory, things like phone numbers or whatever, where the value is totally arbitrary; yet, I have no trouble committing random sequences of numbers to memory if they are encoded in a different numerical system, and no matter how many times I go back and forth, for instance, between Arabic and Greek to remember my telephone number, I can never recall the Arabic sequence directly. Th'only docs I can thank for any improvements are Dr Cannabidiol and Dr Maeng Da. My only salvation that is that I am not fundamentally an idiot on principle and so I don't feel any special compulsion to submit to the wisdom of paid experts who are obviously idiots nor do I feel like there's something magical about technical papers or law such as whatever keeps most folk determined to never understand anything they read in that area, no matter how plainly written, and to do their best to avoid ever actually reading any of it.

[Jimbo]

Did your hands feel like 2 baloons?

[Pat (PM)]

Study suggests 'ideal number of sexual partners' to have

Ten is the ideal number of lovers to have had for both men and women, researchers have claimed.

More than 1,000 people took part in the online survey for Britain's biggest extra-marital dating site IllicitEncouters.com, being asked how many lovers they would want a new partner to have had.

Between eight and 12 was the most popular answer, chosen by 38 per cent of women and 37 per cent of men.

Within that group, both men and women agreed 10 was the "Goldilocks" answer - "neither too hot nor too cold".

[Rt. Hon. Judge Woodrow Chipper]

Ten is the ideal number of lovers to have

That's the ratio I learned from Dr. Strangelove.

[Riven]

What a bunch of squares.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Per day?

[Ra's al Gore]

At once?

[Unicorn Abattoir]

In a row?

[Swiss Servator]

+37

[Sevo]

42, for pete's sake!

[BigT]

Can I get a do-over?

[But Enough About Me]

Ten?

Man, I've been ripped off. My wife has, too. :-/

[CE]

As far as you know.

[But Enough About Me]

True, but I'm okay with that. Ignorance, bliss, etc.

[lap83]

how many lovers they would want a new partner to have had.

In other words....probably a fraction of how many partners they themselves have had

[OneOut]

What do you do next year ?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has introduced a joint resolution to authorize military force against ISIS.

Heaven forbid he introduce legislation outlawing ISIS.

[Jimbo]

Come on! If he outlawed them, he'd have nothing to do in the future.

[rts]

I sure could use a snow day.

[In League with the Dark Ones]

"Obama Gently Guides Michelle's Hand As She Maneuvers Drone Joystick"

I enjoyed that article too much, especially the last sentence.

The Onion is just too on point sometimes.

[Pat (PM)]

Serious birth defect on the rise, CDC researchers say

(CNN)An increasing number of babies are being born with a serious birth defect, gastroschisis, and it's got scientists concerned.

The condition causes the intestines, and sometimes organs such as the liver and stomach, to poke through a newborn's abdomen near the belly button. It needs to be repaired through surgery.

The latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that the number of cases of the birth defect nearly doubled from 1995 to 2005. The problem has continued to increase since 2005 for babies born to mothers of every race and age group. For non-Hispanic black women under age 21, the rate increased 263%, which was of particular concern, researchers said. Scientists tracked birth data in 14 states.

"It concerns us that we don't know why more babies are being born with this serious birth defect. Public health research is urgently needed to figure out the cause and why certain women are at higher risk of having a baby born with gastroschisis," said Coleen Boyle, the director of the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.

[Rt. Hon. Judge Woodrow Chipper]

I had that in 1964. It wasn't in the news then.

[Clich? Bandit]

Is that what one of the reason spawn had? Sloop?

[Ted S.]

I thought that was an omphalocele. I don't know the difference.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I expected more porn out of the ENB PM links. Some people are snowed in, ENB!!!

[Crusty Juggler]

Not porn for you, but some of us will appreciate it:

We are beautiful: Five women of all shapes and sizes proudly pose in their bras on a street corner to prove to onlookers that all female bodies should be cherished

[Ted S.]

There are more than five shapes and five sizes.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

bull fucking shit

[deepspeed]

Holy shit that made me laugh.

[Riven]

Wouldn't. But it's about faces to me

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

You're right. Those 5 women add up to a 10.

[Libertarian]

Just five more and your average Englishman would claim, "Perfection!"

[SIV]

How much are you subtracting for the two on the outside?

[blcartwright]

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

Each observer gets to decide for themselves what is beautiful. There is more consensus on some shapes and sizes that others.

Not every shape and size is healthy.

[Crusty Juggler]

Zac Efron Displays Seriously Sexy Muscles During Swim Lesson ? See the Photo

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

All it takes is a slight (severe) cocaine habit.

[Jimbo]

I worry about you sometime.

/kidding

[Jimbo]

And I meant once! I'm not gey or anything.

(I'm looking at you Jesse! Butt not too hard)

[Akira]

Friends don't let friends skip leg day.

[DenverJ]

So how's stormagedeon going, ya'll? 60 degrees in the Mile High.

[Rhywun]

Nothing here in NYC until after midnight.

[Mazakon]

A Canadian man charged with criminal harassment of two women's rights activists due to messages he sent on Twitter has been found not guilty.

Good, the people behind this are nothing more than witches. Plus the precedent that would have been set would be disastrous.

[But Enough About Me]

Yeah, I had to do a double-take when I realized that it was a Canadian court.

And then I also realized that the dumbass females who went after this guy probably didn't have to spend a penny of their own cash screwing this guy over in the justice system, but will still posture as "victims" of a ruling they don't agree with.

Ah, that's the Canada I know and love! All's better now. /sarc

[Pat (PM)]

Why Facebook still isn't doing enough to combat hate speech in Europe

Facebook waded deeper into the political debate around refugees in Europe with the launch of an initiative to counter hate speech in Germany yesterday (Jan. 18). But the social network still appears unwilling to embrace a role as arbiter of its users' conversations.

The company is putting up ?1 million ($1.1 million) and partnering with European non-profits and governments to develop ways to counter "online extremism" on the continent. The program is called the Initiative for Civil Courage, and it's based in Berlin, with support from the German government.

Why Berlin? Facebook caved after months of complaints from German politicians, activists and celebrities that the firm wasn't doing enough to restrict xenophobic and racist comments from users triggered by an inflow of asylum seekers to the country. German prosecutors even started a probe in November 2015 into Facebook's top executive there for allegedly facilitating the incitement of racial hatred after a spike in anti-immigrant posts.

[Ted S.]

It's not hate speech, it's wrongspeech.

[Jerry on the rocks]

Report: Locals fled pool after migrants masturbated into jacuzzi, defecated into kid's pool, invaded girls changing rooms.

Where else?

[Pan Zagloba]

With common sense legislation, such things would not happen!

By "things" I mean articles, of course.

[Heroic Mulatto]

"An asylum seeker has masturbated in the hot tub and ejaculated into the basin. This is also recorded on the surveillance camera". He wrote that the group desecrating the jacuzzi

Jeez, I like my hot tub too, but I didn't make a fucking religion out of it.

[Homple]

A translator probably missed a linguistic nuance.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Well, of course...

[Pan Zagloba]

It does say these are "historic" swimming baths, so, maybe?

[Homple]

The Germans are pretty serious about preserving historic buildings, so maybe the place is revered.

[Pan Zagloba]

You know which German wasn't into preserving historic buildings?

[Homple]

Bomber Harris? Oh, wait....

[Pan Zagloba]

I was going with Alaric.

[Homple]

A win for Pan Zagloba

[Homple]

Nude saunas, swimming and spas are common in that part of Germany, because of the FKK (FreiK?rperKultur) culture. There will be fun over this custom of mixed public nudity.

Zwickau is in a part of Saxony where skinheads have been around for years and some of them are evil sonsabitches. I'd keep the migrants out of baths and saunas for their own safety. One of them will mess with a lady whose boyfriend is less than fully committed to accommodating the customs of his new neighbors and unpleasantness will ensue.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

yeah because Berlin's always been the center of civil courage.

[Homple]

Read about Ernst Reuter and other Berliners during the Soviet Blockade before you dismiss the residents thereof with "always". Those people lived through shit you'll never have to even dream of.

[Horatio]

Please join me in welcoming any Berniebots still hanging around from the campaign finance thread.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Wait, what? I missed a thread where I had the chance to beat the living shit out of Bernie trolls? FUCK!

[Zeb]

They convinced people on Facebook. FACEBOOK! You must understand the power of The Bern.

[Horatio]

It was like someone turned on the lights in a Taco Bell kitchen

[blcartwright]

As clueless as The Bern

Bernie Sanders
Any Supreme Court nominee of mine will make overturning Citizens United one of their first decisions.

Yarnie
wonderful news!

Lisa Ann
bless your heart. The President can't overturn Citizens United. Shows how misinformed you and your candidate are. Scary

Yarnie
He us proposing a Constitutional Amendment to over throw it...so bless your uninformed heart

[blcartwright]

Lisa Ann
no that's not what he said sport, but hey, great comeback!

Yarnie
It says they're right on his website amend the constitution you're the liar
read his plan it says amend the constitution we all know what it takes to make an amendment even a fourth-grader knows that

blcartwright
so the govt should be able to ban a book or movie that says "don't elect Hillary" (or Bernie) ??

Yarnie ?
WTF is he tweeting about? U attack Bernie Sanders you're going to have to deal with all of us. #WeAreBernie

[paranoid android]

Making a Murderer subject Steven Avery sent a letter from prison to WISN 12 News in Milwaukee accusing his ex-girlfriend Jodi Stachowski of lying about him on the Nancy Grace show.

Newly-developed analysis techniques show that Stachowski is actually a ventriloquist dummy being manipulated by Detective James Lenk.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Lawyers for child pornography victims expressed surprise that the FBI would agree to such tactics ? in part because agents had rejected them in the past ? but nonetheless said they approved.

The subjects all consented?

[Private Chipperbot]

Uh. Isn't one of the things they always bring up when prosecuting child porn is the fact that each time a photo is looked at it does harm again?

Would any of these kids have a case against the FBI? Did they all consent to be looked at again?

[Pat (PM)]

This Day in History

1901 - Queen Victoria of England died after reigning for 63 years (the 4th longest among longest-reigning monarchs and the longest for queens).

1905 - 500 workers were killed by the Czar's troops in "Bloody Sunday" in St. Petersburg.

1938 - Thornton Wilder's play Our Town first performed publicly in Princeton, N.J.

1973 - Former President Lyndon B. Johnson died at age 64.

1973 - The Supreme Court legalized some abortions in Roe v. Wade.

1997 - The U.S. Senate confirmed Madeleine Albright as the first female secretary of state.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Are you looking for a job?

[Pat (PM)]

If that's your clever way of soliciting me for sex, then yes.

[BigT]

Liz will catch Victoria in a couple of weeks (Feb 6)

[Derpmaster General]

Way to rule of 3 curse her.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

yeah but Victoria was actually ruling the empire. I don't think stumbling around palace banging her cup on the gilt crying for more gin in a senile alcoholic haze should count as "ruling".

[Limpee Wiltstock]

At at least Victoria looked like an empress and bore herself like it. Elizabeth would lack credibility as a landlady, much less any kind of monarch.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

history started in 1901?

[Pan Zagloba]

A Canadian man charged with criminal harassment of two women's rights activists due to messages he sent on Twitter has been found not guilty.

Thank you, Reason, for finally noticing this poor guy exists. Not mentioned: it took three years for him to be found not guilty after he was charged, oh, and

Shortly after getting bail on Friday Nov 23 2012, he was informed that after roughly 17 years working as a graphic designer, he was being fired from his job without cause. He received no official reason for his termination.
...
To make matters worse, because his bail conditions prohibited him from using the Internet and computers for the duration of the trial, he was unable to use the tools of his trade and has been unemployable since.
Too date, he has paid $50,000 in legal fees, and owes roughly $40,000 more that he is unable to pay at this time.
And if this wasn't sad enough, the only reason he was able to cover his living and legal expenses over the last 3 years was because he received and cashed his pension from work.

For tweeting. Mean things. To feminists. AND NOT GUILTY!

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

When are feminists going to be charged? The law will be uniformly applied, right?

[Pan Zagloba]

Law is uniformly applied - icky people get fucked, shiny good people do not. What more do you want?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Wow. Just wow. I wonder if he can turn around and sue them.

About his job, reminds me of what happened to a broker I know. We worked for, ahem, the biggest bank in Canada at the time when internal affairs looked into some trades his former partner made. Long story short, neither did nothing wrong but management left him out to dry and fend for himself. It was a disgusting case of fucking over people to protect asses. Every single one of those people involved I regard to this day as pure assholes.

My friend, a really honorable guy, picked himself up, left for a better place and is VP and highly successful today.

[Rt. Hon. Judge Woodrow Chipper]

Vincent Price?

[kinnath]

The process is the punishment.

[But Enough About Me]

In Canada, the process truly is the punishment.

[But Enough About Me]

Aaaaagh! Too fast with my reply, didn't read all the others.

Sorry.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

[censored]

?Viva el Canad?!

[censored]

[Zeb]

Isn't there a historic East Coast snow storm every year?

I'm just annoyed that this historic storm looks like missing me completely. Winter sucks when there is no snow.

[blighted non millenial]

Schools in Atlanta either didn't bother or let out between 11-12. Colleges around 2pm along with a recommendation from some GA state emergency board that employers let out at 2pm for some limited amount of snow that may or may not happen starting at 8pm.... /facepalm

[Zeb]

Yeah. I can kind of understand it in the south. But we're starting to see more of that nonsense in New England.

The only time weather has ever stopped me going to work is when there was a huge tree across my road.

[Just say Nikki]

Tell me about it, stud.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

During the last Snowmageddon, everything west of the Mississippi was having an historic mild winter.

[JW]

Winter sucks when there is no snow.

I'm going to go with that as the bestiest kind.

I want to live among a people who don't have a word for snow.

[Zeb]

So you like empty, chilly darkness without any fun or beauty? Whatever floats your boat.

[JW]

I'm thinking half-naked tropical women feeding me things. Preferably not my own balls.

[Libertarian]

Not every year. But it does seem we get 100-year storms about every five years or so.

[CE]

When you think about it, isn't everything that happens historic?

[Eman]

woah man.

[Sevo]

Wife and I go out for lunch, the place has silent TVs on, with the golf channel on one (or maybe more). Casually watching, chatting, and there's what looks like a PSA featuring ag in Africa along with some other 'usual suspects' in aid packages, and then I notice a woman who is every bit as homely as Chelsea Clinton and wonder why they pick such an ugly?.
Presto, new screen: "Please contribute to the Clinton Foundation"!
I'm sure it is just coincidental that the first ad I ever see for the foundation airs when she's trying to beat back the Bernie wave, not to mention the stench of her actions until now.

[Sevo]

Just checked; it's not yet on youtube.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

"Please contribute to the Clinton Foundation"!

AKA the Hillary legal defense fund.

[Sevo]

Are you ready for Hillary? I ask you, is anyone ready for Hillary? How about the FBI?

[Sevo]

OK:
http://www.ispot.tv/ad/AtMK/pg.....foundation

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I'm not gonna lie. The drunk me would probably naked wrestle with Chelsea Clinton.

I hope that PGA shit isn't out in the desert this weekend. I'm thinking of going out there for a day or 2, and those assholes always jam up my favorite food spots.

[Heroic Mulatto]

*monocle falls to the floor, faints*

[JW]

[claws eyes out]

Dude. Stop infiltrating Crusty's turf.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

the DRUNK me

[Crusty Juggler]

You need to be drunk to passionately hammer a beautiful woman? You have issues.

[Jimbo]

You are a Reason treasure.

[Sevo]

"the DRUNK me"

Can't imagine being that drunk.

[DK]

... included links to more than 23,000 sexually explicit images and videos of children

Doesn't that equate to like 230,000 years in prison? Let's be generous and divvy that up between all of the people in the FBI.

[Crusty Juggler]

You mean the organization that took down Martha Stewart? Think of the chaos! Good God, man.

[Jimbo]

Would

[Crusty Juggler]

For two weeks, the FBI hosted a website offering thousands of child-porn images.

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

No can do. It was taken down after two weeks due to the number of FBI agents it netted.

[Mazakon]

More than 6,200 U.S. flights have been canceled and nearly 30,000 people in North Carolina are without power as the mid-Atlantic greets a winter snow storm that's predicted to be historic.

So historic Paul Ryan is livestreaming it.

[CE]

Arizona, welcome to Carolina. Just in time for playoff football.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

More than 6,200 U.S. flights have been canceled and nearly 30,000 people in North Carolina are without power as the mid-Atlantic greets a winter snow storm that's predicted to be historic.

30,000 without power on the East Coast makes news? Shit, we had 370,000 without power after some slightly heavier than normal breezes.

[Pan Zagloba]

Look, Paul, stop pretending that there's anything north of California/Oregon border! Next you'll invent some kind of "Western" "Canada," you liar!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Well, to be fair, within those 30,000, there is a much higher percentage of Important Beltway People without power. Their 30,000 is like, what, our 5,000,000 in sheer mental powers.

[But Enough About Me]

Fifty million. Really.

[Illocust]

"Former Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holtzclaw was sentenced to 263 years in prison stemming from his 2013-2014 sexual assaults of multiple women."

This really seems like a miscarriage of justice to me. I'm not sure how I feel about someone charged with violent rape of adults spending over thirty years in jail. Yes, I'm aware there are 18 counts, but these things don't stack upon victim number. I'm not half as wary of someone who assaulted five people moving in next door as someone who assaulted ten people. Once you've done multiple of the same crime it's in another category than someone who only did it once, but +/- a few victims either direction speaks more to opportunity than anything else.

Put another way, I wouldn't think a person who stole one penny from every individual in the world should have a life sentence. A just system doesn't seem like it would take damages to multiple people in a strictly additive way.

Yeah, I'm rambling. Give me a couple weeks I'll probably have a more coherent and straightforward point once I've worked out the kinks. Until then, feel free to chime in. What do you think is deserving of a life sentence, and how do you draw the line?

[Pat (PM)]

Particularly given the power, privilege and public trust bestowed upon the cops, I wouldn't be sad to see the guy hooked up to old sparky whether it was 1 or 50,000 women he raped.

[Zeb]

I could probably get behind the death penalty if it was reserved for agents of the state who abuse their power in the commission of serious crimes.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Like raping poor women while in uniform and carrying a firearm?

[Zeb]

Yes, just like that.

[Just say Nikki]

If he'd committed these crimes against me I'd feel perfectly justified in killing him.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I'd say you were justified in killing him too, and I'd even help you get away with it after the justice system inevitably fails you.

[Heroic Mulatto]

And my axe!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

What are you axing here?

[Heroic Mulatto]

*eyes narrow*

[Swiss Servator]

*joins HM in narrowed gaze*

[Just say Nikki]

Private justice ftw.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

The public also benefits.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

"What's wrong with street justice?"

"Oh just let the animals wipe themselves out?"

"God willing."

[JW]

I think Baltimore is the experimental group.

[GILMORE?]

If you reframe your point as "sentencing has some fundamentally illogical aspects to it" and make sure no one ever has to feel bad about the serial-rapist cop.... i might take you up on the offer.

That said, i'd be perfectly happy seeing rapist-cop have a bag of starving rats put on his head. Wouldn't need to serve a day behind bars.

But no.... sentencing isn't logical. Your point re: how crime 'scales' is valid. There are legal principles which produce bizarre results. no one can serve 263 years obviously, and at a certain point it makes no sense for multiple counts of a 'lesser' crime to add up to more time than fewer counts of a far-more grievous crime. but that's the way shit works. I've had conversations about it with criminal lawyers and they all admit none of it really makes sense, but thems the way shit works. Often because the solution/reforms present even greater complexities.

[Zeb]

I think that the longest prison sentence ever was for thousands of counts of mail fraud. Some thousands of years, I think it was.

[Juvenile Bluster]

According to wiki, the longest prison sentence in the US is 30,000 years to a child rapist. The longest prison sentence in the world was 141,078 years to someone in Thailand for running a ponzi scheme.

[Pan Zagloba]

Did they offer a prison informant deal to the Thai guy?

"For every guy you help us nail, we take the length of their sentence off of yours. Nail ten and receive a bonus!"

[Heroic Mulatto]

It was a woman, actually.

[paranoid android]

A man would have gotten 188,104 years, then.

[Zeb]

Maybe I was thinking of the Thai Ponzi scheme thing.

I think it was a memory from reading the Guinness book of records in the 80s, so I may have misremembered. Child porn and rape seem to be the main things in the US for really long sentences.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Financial crimes.

[Illocust]

The story was what brought the issue to the forefront of my thoughts and this is the PM links, so it seemed a reasonable choice for starting the discussion. Plus it's a board for libertarians, the great I'll defend a Nazi's right to freedom of speech bastion. I expect people to be able to get over their dislike of the serial-rapist cop when discussing how things should be run.

What are some of the solutions/reforms suggested by your criminal lawyer friends? It'd be informative to know what's already been discussed and dismissed by folks specializing in the area.

[Pat (PM)]

I can't speak for anybody else, but I think serial perpetrators of violent crimes should, indeed, be removed from society for very long or indefinite periods of time since they have demonstrated an inability to respect the rights of others. I also believe egregiousness is fair to consider in sentencing, and abusing public trust and authority warrants more punishment than, say, a crime of opportunity or impulsiveness. No reform necessary. He got tried. He got convicted. He got sentenced to a term that his community found fair. That's pretty much the ideal model of how the justice system should work. Fuck this guy and everybody like him.

[Jickerson]

Who cares what the community found fair? That's irrelevant. I'm not a fan of mob justice, and I can't see why anyone else would be. I expect more objective results.

The 'justice' system should be about rehabilitation, not revenge or making people feel good. Unless someone was sent to prison multiple times and still persisted in the behavior, we should try to rehabilitate them instead of locking them up forever. Otherwise, you don't know if it's possible for the person in question to change.

But the desire for revenge is hard to overcome.

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

How do you "rehabilitate" another person?

I mean, I get that you provide incentives and make sure there are resources in place should the person want to change, but you can't exactly force another person to think and feel a certain way-at least, not permanently.

[Pat (PM)]

Trouser nails it. Which is exactly why rehabilitation is not an appropriate goal of any public policy.

[Pat (PM)]

The 'justice' system should be about rehabilitation, not revenge or making people feel good

No, it shouldn't. It should be primarily about restitution and secondarily about retribution. Rehabilitation is the job of your therapist after your sentence is over, should you so choose. Justice is making the victim whole (restitution), which in some cases, particularly those where damages are non-monetary, may include inflicting a proportional amount of suffering on the perpetrator (retribution).

Unless someone was sent to prison multiple times and still persisted in the behavior, we should try to rehabilitate them instead of locking them up forever.

No. Getting caught is not the crime. Committing the crime is the crime. If you serially commit a particular crime over the course of many years, you should serve whatever sentence is appropriate for the crimes you committed. "You're gonna be in BIG trouble the next time you rape 18 women under the color of law, mister!" is not justice, even by your tortured definition.

[Pat (PM)]

Also, the appeal to community is merely a matter of practicality. There is, in fact, no objectivity in sentencing, nor can there be in cases with non-monetary damages. Expecting such is foolish. The best alternative is an objective process. Unless you favor individual anarchy, in which case it's the wild west.

[GILMORE?]

"What are some of the solutions/reforms suggested by your criminal lawyer friends? It'd be informative to know what's already been discussed and dismissed by folks specializing in the area."

None were ever 'specialists', really. One was a criminal public defender, one was a prosecutor. both young and a bit horrified by the criminal system overall, which they characterized as a machine that functions by "byzantine ules"... and that the idea of 'a justice system' is a myth perpetuated by TV legal dramas.

i.e. - "Its not about "justice" at all". Its about prosecutors getting the most conviction #s and its about defense lawyers negotiating better deals with the shit they're given.

On the subject of "perverse sentencing", they did discuss some cases where some mentally-ill guy in NY was handed 20+ years for some 3rd strike conviction for something.... really petty.... while known murderers were often given slaps on the wrist to avoid long-complex cases.

they thought there should be somethings in place like what you suggest = limits, and minimums

[GILMORE?]

....sorry, had to run out and rushed that bit at the end there.

to be clear = their point was that the current system has lots of mandatory minimums and guidelines and limits etc. in place already, most of which can combine to produce some weird and contradictory combinations at times, and they felt the system needed a soup-to-nuts overhaul which reduced the burden on the courts themselves, and also allowed greater discretion in cases of severe crimes like the situation under discussion.

but they also pointed out that it is those very same contrary impulses that create the sentencing mess in the first place; there were basically, "no good answers". The discussion was mainly at the time around the Drug War, and almost everyone agreed that if you got rid of drug crimes that it would open up a lot of resources.... but then there was the point about how many cases aren't always "pure" drug crimes, but merely violent crimes that occurred in the context of the drug-selling business.

whatever that's worth

[Illocust]

It's interesting, and very true. Practically we can't overhaul the whole justice system. Still worth discussing, though.

Thanks for typing that out.

[paranoid android]

I don't know. I mean, it's facile to say that we should reserve life sentences for people we have no reasonable expectation will ever repent or be reformed, but there's still the issue of who gets to make that very profound and momentous judgement. I don't think there is a good answer.

In the case of this guy, either his lawyer sucks or he's completely desensitized to excessively huge sentences:

Holtzclaw waived his right to remain in custody in the county jail for 10 days, instead opting to be taken directly to prison. Defense attorney Scott Adams said Holtzclaw will appeal.

"It is what it is," Adams said. "It wasn't a surprise."

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

He did it on duty, in uniform, at gunpoint (actual or implied), under the color of law.

Take the regular punishment, multiply it by 20, and that's a good starting point.

[Riven]

Well. Hm.

That said. I'd fry that asshole. Cop used his badge to literally fuck a bunch of folks over and you think it's a "miscarriage of justice" that he got some well-deserved and earned time. OK.

[JW]

Give me a couple weeks I'll probably have a more coherent and straightforward point

Not holding my breath on that.

The POS used his status as a LEO to rape women and made sure he picked only vulnerable women whose testimony could be picked apart with their criminal record. I'd have been OK if they shot off his junk and hung it around his neck..

[Riven]

And then hung him with his own junk?

I'm interested in your newsletter, friend.

[JW]

I have reasonable rates. Can I put you down for 2 years?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

It can't be worse that the Reason mailing list.

[Riven]

I think I could do two years. I'll go for five if you'll give me four-year pricing...

[JW]

We have generous payment plans.

[grrizzly]

This must be one of the reasons why the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. I'm not kidding, the Soviet justice system was much more lenient.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Drug offenses and more accurate record keeping.

[grrizzly]

While one could get a death penalty, a 12-15-year sentence for murder was considered normal. That's why it's difficult for me to get used to super-long sentences given in the US for pretty much anything.

[JW]

Appropos....Years ago, I knew a Russian immigrant and his family, whom I met working at a grocery store in the 'hood. One day some asshole parked his car in the middle of the road, out of convenience to go into the store. His comment: "Back home, if someone did something that, they'd never see him again. Poof."

[grrizzly]

People in South Boston think that double-parking is their God-given right. They especially like to do it at the busiest intersection of the neighborhood.

[JW]

Well, yeah. MASSHOLES.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

OH I GET IT

YOU'RE TROLLING

[Illocust]

No, I'm not letting personal disgust towards the criminal or crime dictate how I think a justice system should work. I realize revenge and mob "justice" are going to baked into any system due to the nature of human beings, but that doesn't mean things shouldn't be questioned when they are hinky just because it involves someone I don't like.

[Heroic Mulatto]

No, I'm not letting personal disgust towards the criminal or crime dictate how I think a justice system should work.

I agree. Upthread, you've stated that you believe a justice system works when the violent rape of a woman shouldn't carry a sentence of more than 3 decades. By what metric have you determined that is the proper amount of time?

[Warty]

Not to mention that the state shouldn't add some extra punishment when its agents abuse citizens under color of law. If there's one thing we know from experience in this country, it's that there's no good reason to do that.

[MSimon]

In that case I favor using bad reasons.

[Illocust]

Started on the basis that murder is the ultimate harm with the destruction of all possibilities for the victim. It seems reasonable as the ultimate harm it should result in the ultimate punishment vis a vis justice. Ultimate punishment we can hand out is death or life sentences.

Rape is a lesser harm as the victim hasn't lost everything. There are still possibilities for their life. Punishment should therefore be less. From there its subjective weighting. Which is worse, one person being murdered or eighteen people being raped. The harm of death is irreversible, unrecoverable, and permanent. So on small scale (relative to the human population) death wins out as the worse harm. This is the same premise as why Hillary's statement that women are the primary victims of War is ridiculous.

So if rape even of multiple people is less bad than the murder of one then the punishment should be less than the murder of one (there is probably a tipping point where this is no longer true, but that's a discussion for after the original premise is accepted). From there I grabbed thirty years because its about right for not being a defacto life sentence for the majority of people. You could add some years to that and I won't squeal.

Not a perfect argument, but that's the thought process I went through when picking thirty years. I'm still working out kinks. Like I said, it'll be a couple weeks before I hit a point where I'm satisfied with the logic.

[Just say Nikki]

So could you rape an infinite number of people without it being as bad as a single murder?

[Crusty Juggler]

Bill Cosby hopes so.

[Illocust]

(there is probably a tipping point where this is no longer true, but that's a discussion for after the original premise is accepted)

[Just say Nikki]

I'm asking you on that basis. I don't agree with any part of the premise, but I'm asking for your own idea of it.

[Illocust]

Couldn't tell you. At the entire population of the planet planet probably should just shoot the one innocent person, but where the tipping point hits. Dunno.

Yes, I'm aware that I value life much higher than the average person.

[Just say Nikki]

Okay.

As it happens, I am a radical on the other side, and depending on how a person was killed, I might say rape was far worse than murder. Dead guy is no longer suffering. Holzclaw's victims have suffered for years. Even if you only count their rapes, they suffered more than many ways of killing a person would cause.

[Illocust]

So if he put a bullet in their heads at the end of the rape he would be less deserving of punishment than he is currently?

From the point of view of the victim, this is obviously not true for every victim that does not kill themselves. Continued existence is more highly valued than not suffering. Hell, most these girls where threatened with a gun. Allow the cop to rape them or die. Choosing life over not being raped means their subjective opinion during the situation also falls on the side of murder being worse than rape.

I think the phrase is revealed preferences over stated.

[ant1sthenes]

Forget it Ill, it's Nikkitown. I think she's emo or something.

[OneOut]

Bull fucking shit.

A rape victim may suffer for years but they still have the opportunity to get over it and see their children grow up and provide for those children, if any. .

A murder victims family is denied their presence forever and if children are involved they have suffered a greater loss than an adult rape victim.

[Riven]

Smellin' a lot of "if" comin' off this plan.

I don't even know where to start with this hot mess.

[Illocust]

What plan? Heroic wanted to know how I picked thirty years.

[Riven]

Sigh.

If I give you a participation ribbon, will you stop? I hear young people love those.

[perlchpr]

You're falling victim to Zeno's Paradox, for one.

Just because a rape is less bad than a murder does not imply that even just two rapes is less bad than one murder, let alone 18 of them.

[Illocust]

"From there its subjective weighting. Which is worse, one person being murdered or eighteen people being raped. The harm of death is irreversible, unrecoverable, and permanent. So on small scale (relative to the human population) death wins out as the worse harm. This is the same premise as why Hillary's statement that women are the primary victims of War is ridiculous."

I addressed that. It is subjective in some sense, but it's a hard argument that the complete destruction of a life won't weigh more than harm to several lives.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

Rape is a lesser harm as the victim hasn't lost everything. ... Punishment should therefore be less.

Why? There is a difference between 100 degrees C and 150 C, but both temps will boil water. Even if murder is worse than rape, why can't rape be bad enough to also warrant the ultimate punishment?

I'm also not sure why one murder requires "the ultimate punishment." This goes back to the purpose of "punishing" the criminal. From the POV of protecting civil society from dangers, a serial rapist is far more dangerous than a person who committed one murder. Even a serial thief might be more deserving of permanent removal from society than, say, a murder in the heat of the moment.

Ultimately I object to the rosy view of justice. There is no cosmic scale that is tipped out of balance if there is a "miscarriage of justice." Your thoughts as to what is just and what is not are your own, and not interpersonally valid. I think the best we can hope for is a series of rules that are not too inconsistent and provide a safe environment for people to interact peacefully. Compiling sentences as in this case may not satisfy those conditions, but I think what you're pushing here is even less satisfactory.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

"The harm of death is irreversible, unrecoverable, and permanent."

And also invisible to the victim. There's no way to reasonably measure harm except in value, and as soon as one is kilt off he is no longer able to impute value into the milieu; as such, a person's own death is not measurably harmful to him. Felicifical calculi and whatnot are nonsense: we can't determine what value other people put on things for them. The only way to measure the harm of death is to do so like it was done through most of history, which is by the harm done to his clan and other corporations to which he contributed some value. Murders are not all equal, but variable in value. Same is true for rapes. This should be taken into consideration in sentencing. Furthermore, I think there is a certain level of violence after which there's no point in trying to make distinctions. It doesn't matter that someone did something ten times worser than another if the lesser harm already merits maximal punishment. Long prison sentences benefit no one and are an absurdity and a waste. Maybe if the medi?val penitentiary model were revisitted, there'd be some value in it. Still, it's inferior to the primitive Germanic system in which crime was punished by a scale of fines up to a point, and all crimes worser than that meritted the same punishment--outlawry, with collective application of capital punishment employed only in a certain class of crimes that brought dishonour on the whole community.

[Just say Nikki]

I guess the question then is what you think the basis for a justice system should be (e.g., rehabilitation, restitution).

[Illocust]

Restitution is only practical for property crimes where value can be objectively determined for the current time, place, and people.

Rehabilitation is ideal from a society stand point, but is not always possible.

Safeguarding the rest of society is a secondary ideal, but if it is the sole guiding factor it will result in situations that are wrong. Locking the serial gum thief up for life just isn't right.

Deterrence is another goal, but not always possible.

Punishment isn't really restitution as it is unrelated emotional aid to the victim. It's a nice thing to have if you can, but all it does is make the side of us that likes to watch our enemies suffer happy.

So it really needs to be a mix. With the goal to be to get as many of these things as you can depending on the situation. Some should be weighted higher, but none should really apply to all situations in a legal system.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

The only just and at the same time feasable approach is punishment-cum-restitution for reasonable crimes and very severe punishment for more extreme injuries. Rehabilitation is not a desirable goal, as it translates crime from the realm of violence by moral agency to something more like witchhunting or therapy; it fails to provide any justice and it demeans the humanity of the violator. Restitution and justice are pursuable public goods. If some violator thinks he needs to get rehabilitated, he can pursue that on his own dime, and certainly there is no dearth of institutions enthusiastic about helping him out with that, many of them at no cost.

[Eman]

entertainment. wasnt there some arnold movie about that? definitely the right idea

[GILMORE?]

" I realize revenge and mob "justice" are going to baked into any system due to the nature of human beings"

while that's true, there are also some valid principles at work you may be overlooking.

you might see multiple counts of a crime as being reduced in their individual significance, and that long-sentences are 'unjust' or disproportionate after a certain point...but i doubt any victim has ever seen it that way.

here's a legit argument that every victim's case should be treated separately and independently. Otherwise you get into the perverse situation where the 'cost' of repeated crimes are steadily diminishing from the POV of the criminal. Once you've committed 2... why not the 3rd? or the 5th?

[Illocust]

This seems like more of a problem with the victim being aware of other victims. If each victim would be satisfied with the criminal serving twenty years, then why should it matter if that twenty years is happening for multiple crimes? Each individual victims harm isn't increased by the existence of other victims. Being the only victim of the cop wouldn't have made them any less raped.

Why must the punishments stack? It's a premise that's been halfway accepted by the current legal system, but it's complete implementation would result in situations like the penny thief going to jail for the rest of his life. Maybe it's not the best premise.

[Pat (PM)]

Why must the punishments stack?

There's no 'must' - concurrent sentences are still a thing.

it's complete implementation would result in situations like the penny thief going to jail for the rest of his life.

If only there were some way that the legal system could be flexible and allow judgment on an individual basis. Maybe we could construct a system where instead of automated, algorithmic sentencing, we gave discretion in sentencing to the finders of fact, or perhaps appointed some sort of arbiter to oversee the entire process and render a sentence based on his judgment and the particular facts of each case...

[Just say Nikki]

As Gilmore explained, under your way the marginal cost of an additional rape is zero.

You seem to be addressing things purely from a societal standpoint. But victims are individuals. I don't see why I should care much at all that someone else got justice from a criminal who wronged me.

[Illocust]

How did someone else get justice but you didn't? Justice for you is the criminal serving twenty years. It just so happens there is another person who is also getting justice by that criminal serving the same twenty years.

[Just say Nikki]

Is he serving it in my name? Or hers?

[Illocust]

Both. Neither one of you is diminishing the justice received by the other. You both get your twenty years.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

If each victim were satisfied with the punishment, there would be minimal decrement in value and possibly even no total loss in value. Also, unless the violator were extremely well endowed, reasonable fines would eventually amount to something to make him think twiced. And for the unreasonable crimes, there'd be loss of value, but punishment would be so severe repetition would be very unlikely. The thing to bear in mind with murder and rape is that murder is frequently if not usually a reasoned solution to a problem and the fact of being punished will instruct most murderers that his evaluation was wanting and it was not in fact the best solution available; whereas with the rapist, it's not a rational solution, so getting punished will never teach him that it wasn't the most preferable solution. The only thing happening to the rapist is he gets a stronger and stronger conviction that he's got to find some way to get away with it (or perhaps pursue some other unreasonable violence that may be also satisfying but less risky). So, categoricly, the rapist is a greater liability and probably can't be adequately punished by means of fines and what not, but that doesn't do away with the need to consider each case individually.

[Juvenile Bluster]

You're right. He should've been killed immediately, his head put on a spike in the patrol room as a warning to others.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Fuck that, I'm not paying his pension to his wife for the rest of her life and mine.

[BigT]

"This really seems like a miscarriage of justice to me. I'm not sure how I feel about someone charged with violent rape of adults spending over thirty years in jail. Yes, I'm aware there are 18 counts, but these things don't stack upon victim number."

We!re having a special on rape this week. First rape is 10 years, but it's 2 for 15 years, and 5 rapes for 20 years. You just can't beat these prices!!!

[Illocust]

Alright, I'm out for the weekend. I'll be back in the Monday AM links. If any of you want to continue any of these discussion then, feel free to start a thread on those links and I'll try to chime in.

Have a great weekend guys!

[GILMORE?]

Trump Retweets Stormfrontish Stuff

"Trump retweeted Donald Trumpovitz, who uses the handle "@WhiteGenocideTM," gives the location of the account as "Jewmerica" and features an image that references George Lincoln Rockwell, a prominent figure in the neo-Nazi movement in the United States."

Its a perfectly understandable mistake.

[Irish ?s ESB]

The guy also tweeted a picture of Donald Trump putting Bernie Sanders in a gas chamber

[Heroic Mulatto]

In that bizarre universe, does the Donald follow up by gassing his Orthodox Jewish daughter?

[Princess Trigger]

National Black Republican Association Endorses Donald J. Trump!
http://blackrepublican.blogspo.....ation.html

[Crusty Juggler]

This is a tweet from the whitest rabbit! on twitter, which I found on the whitegenocidetm account which made me lol, even though it is sad.

Also, let me be known that @whitegenocidetm has endorsed Bernie Sanders.

[Cytotoxic]

[Insert mendacious whiny excuse for why this isn't racist from area yokel]

[SIV]

So Jeb's a protected class now?

[Notorious UGCC]

I can't help thinking that ENB is missing some big story...something about an anniversary...

Could it be...this story?

But wait, there's also a Millennial angle!

[MSimon]

March for life?

Shouldn't they be screwing to make more humans?

[MSimon]

I'd like to see a "Sex For Life" march.

Sophia Loren, Anita Eckberg the country will grow.

[Notorious UGCC]

Happy Birthday, Roe v. Wade!

[MSimon]

Vagina police will cure that problem.

[GILMORE?]

DeBlasio announces that he has appeased the Snow Gods, and that his people will be spared

(*please take special note of the hippy-looking guy doing sign-language to his left. )

[Crusty Juggler]

The sanitation department is not on strike, so it will get cleaned up.

[Free Society]

I think they put that guy on stage so that people will actually appear to be watching a DeBlasio PSA

[Cytotoxic]

Donald Trump will never be president.

Trump is extraordinarily unpopular with independent voters and Democrats. Gallup polling conducted over the past six weeks found Trump with a -27-percentage-point net favorability rating among independent voters, and a -70-point net rating among Democrats; both marks are easily the worst in the GOP field.
.
.
.
Trump is the most unpopular of all. His favorability rating is 33 percent, as compared with an unfavorable rating of 58 percent, for a net rating of -25 percentage points. By comparison Hillary Clinton, whose favorability ratings are notoriously poor, has a 42 percent favorable rating against a 50 percent unfavorable rating, for a net of -8 points.

http://reason.com/archives/201.....e-5th-wave

[Cytotoxic]

Oops: http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea.....on-voters/

[OneOut]

If those numbers are true then why this ?

http://polling.reuters.com/#po.....2/type/day

Drude is supposed to be a conservative hangout but if that's true then how did bernie come in second ?

[Cytotoxic]

That really doesn't contradict what I just linked to.

[Notorious UGCC]

"Ex-Cosmo Writer Says New Kind of Feminism Is Decidedly Pro-Life...

"CBN News spoke with the March for Life Conference's 2016 keynote speaker, Sue Ellen Browder, who says young women are entering the pro-life movement in record numbers. She calls today's young pro-lifers the Pro-Life Generation....

"In the early 1970s, Browder's life was very different than it is today....

"She said she often wrote stories meant to soft-sell unmarried sex, contraception, and abortion as the single woman's path to personal fulfillment.

"Browder's personal story of how she helped the sexual revolution hijack the women's movement -- and the impact it had on her life and the future of America -- is chronicled in her new book, Subverted."

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Here we go...abortion and pizza.

[Notorious UGCC]

Show some respect, Roe v. Wade is 42 today!

[blcartwright]

43

[Notorious UGCC]

sorry, the tiime was justy flying and I lost track

[Hyperion]

Snowpocalypse. Meh. Typically when the Weather Channel says it's going to snow 300 feet, that means 2 and half inches and they need more ad revenue.

[Warty]

I swore them off entirely when they started being all WINTER STORM ATHENA. Fuck you, snowstorms don't have names. Dicks.

[ant1sthenes]

If they do name winter storms, they should at least have the decency to name them after Game of Thrones characters. Winter Storm Arya, TYVM.

[DenverJ]

60 degrees here 😉

[Rhywun]

They're calling for 8 inches here in NYC. We've had multiple storms with 25+ inches in recent memory that got way less coverage than this. At least Cuomo didn't shut down the MTA like he did during last year's embarrassing non-mageddon.

[DenverJ]

Yeah, over reacting is what pols do. It's CYA all the way down.
Part of it is regional, when I was OK, we housed a couple of rug rats, and I was amazed at how they would cancel school for cold weather, not even snow. But I understand NYC is not a stranger to winter weather.

[Rhywun]

NYC is not a stranger to winter weather

Nope. The ongoing bitch-fest between Cuomo and Deblasio is probably the deciding factor this year.

[DenverJ]

Are they both running for "authoritarian asshat of the year?"

[Rhywun]

Dividing the spoils between them and laughing as it all comes crashing down, so - yeah.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

God, last year's non-event was awful. I was so ready to get a day or two off work, 'stranded' in my Brooklyn apt. And then it snows for maybe 2 hours, for like 3 inches at most. So, so ridiculous.

And people had freaked the fuck out. The lines stretching out of Whole Foods were hilarious to see. Whole Foods!

[Cytotoxic]

Venezuela will go bankrupt in several months at most.

here Link

[paranoid android]

"It seems that the Venezuelan government doesn't want to improve the country's situation. If it did, it wouldn't have appointed such economically illiterate people to run the economy. To think that Luis Salas, P?rez Abad, or Jesus Far?as would ease the crisis is utopian thinking," he says.

Pssssht. Utopian thinking? In the Socialist workers' paradise? Perish the thought.

[blcartwright]

MLB has shut down the Venezuelan Summer League for 2016.

[In League with the Dark Ones]

School shooting in La Loche, SK.

[GILMORE?]

"Sk"

This is why we need common-sense eskimo control

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

More like Common Sense Canadian Control.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

So the article refers to a chief....

[Cytotoxic]

Some of this acticle is silly, but it highlights the fact that Russia is probably imploding before our eyes.

There is widespread labor unrest in cities where private-sector workers have not been paid for months at a time. There also have been months of strikes by long-distance truckers protesting extortionist road fees and corruption. Even fire and rescue first responders employed by the federal Ministry of Emergency Situations have not been paid in months. That emergency personnel in such major cities (and places where revolutions have started in Russia's past) as St. Petersburg and Moscow, with responsibilities for handling public protests, have gone without pay underscores the precariousness of Russia's finances and the risks it is forced to incur.

here Link

The country is falling apart while it's engaged in multiple conflicts abroad. The two previous revolutions also occurred after unsuccessful wars

[Irish ?s ESB]

Milo Yiannopolous Trolls harder than any have trolled before, creates college scholarship available exclusively to white men called the Privilege Grant.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Some how, I believe this is just Milo's latest scheme to find some young men to sugar-daddy.

[Pan Zagloba]

I think he's on the record as preferring black men, so this seems counter-productive.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Actual Milo Quote: "Racist? Me? I've had more black dick in me than the Kardashian family"

[Swiss Servator]

*chokes on shiraz, laughing*

Call my orphan servant, would you please? And freshen this drink, wine steward!

[Heroic Mulatto]

paranoid beat me to it.

[paranoid android]

Finally, the moment has come to pitch my screenplay for a race-flipped version of Soul Man.

[Cytotoxic]

The Revenant is excellent by the way. You should all go see it.

[Notorious UGCC]

STEPHEN KING IN THE 21st CENTURY

As Jack Torrance descended into madness, he decided that he would write the sentence "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and then repeat it over and over until he'd filled 500 pages.

Two minutes later he was through and went back to work on his book.

[Notorious UGCC]

STEPHEN KING IN THE 21st CENTURY

She took out her cell phone and called the police.

"Help!" she said. "my car just broke down and there's a rabid dog prowling around outside!"

"We'll be right over, Ma'am," said the dispatcher.

Ten minutes later, the cops had emptied their guns into Cujo and killed him.

"If there's one thing we know how to do, it's kill dogs," said the police chief. "Just so long as they don't get the jump on us, they're goners."

"Thank you!" she said, "another five minutes and my son and I would have started feeling warmer."

[ant1sthenes]

Joke's on you, the actual ending is that the cops panicked when they saw Cujo, unloaded every bullet they had at him, and killed her and the kid in the car.

[Frankjasper1]

Ryan Cooper at theWeek claims like Krugman that the stimulus package didn't really do anything cause of course it wasnt big enough. And the sluggish is economy is due to austerity ($400B deficits are austerity?).

When is massive government spending going to actually do what Krugnuts and Cooper claim? Sure as didn't happen in the 1930s or just recently with trillion dollar deficits.

[But Enough About Me]

BTW, for those of you wanting to put your money where your mouth is, the sons of the Canuck guy who was found not guilty of criminal harassment on Twitter have started a generosity.com page to cover his expenses and help him get back on his feet here.

I've already dumped $57.50 USD into the kitty. Freedom of speech is so poorly valued in Canada that I figure anything might help!

[Eman]

"lying about him on the Nancy Grace show." i dont think people do that

[nailzer]

The government morons obviously learned nothing from the "fast and furious" debacle.

[joshuahseverance]

Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is wha- I do...... ?????? http://www.richi8.com

[andy50]

I've made $76,000 so far this year working online and I'm a full time student.I'm using an online business opportunity I heard about and I've made such great money.It's really user friendly and I'm just so happy that I found out about it.

Open This LinkFor More InFormation..

??????? http://www.workpost30.com

[andyt2188]

Yahoo CEO, Marissa Meyer has gone som far as to Support the practice "Work at home" that I have been doing since last year. In this year till now I have earned 66k dollars with my pc, despite the fact that I am a college student. Even newbies can make 39 an hour easily and the average goes up with time. Why not try this.

Clik This Link inYour Browser.......

? ? ? ? http://www.Jobstribune.com

[lindalee252]

My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do..

Click This Link inYour Browser....

? ? ? ? http://www.workpost30.com

[lindalee252]

My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do..

Click This Link inYour Browser....

? ? ? ? http://www.workpost30.com

[sara542532]

Start working at home with Google! It's by-far the best job I've had. Last Wednesday I got a brand new BMW since getting a check for $6474 this - 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was bringing home at least $77 per hour. I work through this link, go to tech tab for work detail.

Click This Link inYour Browser......._+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+ http://www.Paybucket40.com

[andythomas569]

my classmate's mother-in-law makes $78 hourly on the computer . She has been out of work for 6 months but last month her check was $17581 just working on the computer for a few hours. view website

???????========[] http://www.Jobstribune.com

[algeria]

niceeee

............................
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