Quotulatiousness

November 16, 2010

It was such an urgent threat that only a week later, the authorities reacted

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:29

A good round-up of the “Twitter bomber” case:

It all started with a moment of grumpy sarcasm on Twitter. Frustrated that his planned trip to Northern Ireland was put in jeopardy by heavy snow at Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster, Mr Chambers whipped out his iPhone and posted the following message on the social networking site: ‘C***! Robin Hood Airport closed. You have got a week to get your s*** together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!’

A week later, he was in a police ­station being quizzed as a potential terrorist. He was eventually prosecuted under a law aimed at nuisance calls rather than under legislation for bomb hoaxes, which requires stronger evidence of intent.

After all, it was plain as a pikestaff that Mr Chambers didn’t have any intent to bomb anything at all. Even so, he was hauled before magistrates, found guilty of sending a menacing electronic communication and fined £385. A few days ago, Mr Chambers lost his appeal against his conviction and sentence.

He will now have to pay £2,600 legal costs as well. Judge Jacqueline ­Davies, who was sitting with two magistrates, ruled the tweet was ‘menacing in its content and obviously so’, claiming ‘any ordinary person’ would ‘be alarmed’ by it.

November 9, 2010

How to create false sympathy for “victims”

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:16

Adrian MacNair gives a couple of examples of how to manipulate your reader into a sympathetic view of someone who isn’t actually a victim:

In the first instance we have a story about a court pondering whether a person can agree in advance to unconscious sex. It’s not a particularly edifying piece of news as it discusses an Ottawa court case involving a kinky couple who were involved in sex involving asphyxiation.

Although the article focuses on the court’s upcoming ruling of “sexual autonomy”, a quote from a woman’s legal advocacy group, and the background details of the alleged assault, we only learn in paragraph nine about an extremely important detail:

“The woman took her complaint to Ottawa police two months after the alleged assault, when she was seeking custody of the couple’s toddler.”

Two months after the fact, while embroiled in a custody battle. Sounds like something that could have been delivered a little higher in the story. Indeed, one could rewrite it in such a way that implies this parent is using the legal system in a manipulative way that challenges sexual autonomy just to win her kid.

The second case involves the new parents who “lost their seats” on a flight:

And then we get to salient information in paragraph 11. The couple arrived through security 20 minutes before takeoff, and then decided to run their baby [to] the bathroom because he soiled his diaper. This diaper changing took so long that apparently the airline gave away their seats to standby. Sorry, so sad. Too bad.

Journalism students are taught to find a hook or an angle to make the story of interest to the largest possible audience, but these two cases sound like the story is actually being distorted to fit a pre-decided agenda.

November 5, 2010

His lawyer said “Vakhtang has been under a great deal of stress”

Filed under: Cancon, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:14

One sometimes has sympathy for police officers who may harbour suspicions, but are unable to pursue them for a lack of evidence. When the disappearance of Mariam Makhniashvili came to public attention, I wondered if her father might have been the perpetrator (I’m sure the police had similar thoughts), but there was no reported evidence to support that notion.

Since then, Vakhtang Makhniashvili has been involved in a series of incidents that can only reinforce any suspicions:

Trouble seems to be following Vakhtang: his daughter disappeared in September 2009, he was arrested in May after allegedly stabbing his neighbour and in December 2008, was charged with lewd conduct in Los Angeles related to an alleged obscene incident in front of a daycare centre, but was was later acquitted.

That’s why yesterday’s incident seems, in retrospect, almost inevitable:

[Vakhtang Makhniashvili] has also been charged with aggravated assault and fail to comply with recognizance following a double stabbing in the city’s east end on Thursday.

A man and a woman were stabbed inside a home at 10 Greenwood Ave., near Queen Street East.

On Thursday, blood stains could be seen on the front porch and a trail of blood was splattered on the sidewalk.

Police told 680News Vakhtang was in the couple’s home where a verbal argument took place, and that ended with the pair being stabbed multiple times.

Yes, yes, presumption of innocence, etc. But it’s even harder to believe after all of this that he didn’t have something to do with the Mariam Makhniashvili case, isn’t it?

November 2, 2010

This is either App-alling or App-ealing, depending on your party affiliation

Filed under: Law, Politics, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:30

There’s now an iPhone app for reporting suspicious election activity:

Just in time for Election Day, American Majority Action has created the nation’s first mobile application to help identify, report and track suspected incidents of voter fraud and intimidation. This free, cutting edge system will enable voters to take action to help defend their right to vote. Whether you’re a campaign junkie, or just want a better America, Voter Fraud will help you report violations at the election booth and serve to uphold the democratic process.

H/T to Ace of Spades HQ for the link.

October 28, 2010

New Orleans to abandon “crime camera” network

Filed under: Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:53

New Orleans installed a multi-million dollar camera network to try to reduce crime. It hasn’t been a good investment:

In seven years, New Orleans’ crime camera program has yielded six indictments: three for crimes caught on video and three for bribes and kickbacks a vendor is accused of paying a former city official to sell the cameras to City Hall.

Given that ignominious track record and the millions the city has paid for a camera network that rarely worked, Mayor Mitch Landrieu unceremoniously pulled the plug on the project Thursday.

“Most of us can agree that based on the way that they were installed, based on the way that they operated and the way that they were not maintained, that they were not a good investment,” Landrieu said as he announced his proposal to scratch the program from the city budget. The budget requires City Council approval.

For now, the cameras will stay in place, but won’t be maintained. Landrieu said he wants to wait to see if they are ever something they could use again before taking them down.

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

October 22, 2010

The gruesome confessions of a murder that never happened

Filed under: Europe, Germany, Law — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:01

Roger Henry sent a link to this Australian story, which is just plain weird:

It was a macabre crime that horrified Germany: a farmer, battered to death and dismembered by his own family, his body apparently fed to his pigs and dogs.

A killing without a corpse, since all traces had been gobbled up in the farmyard.

Yesterday, thought, nine years after Rudi Rupp disappeared, a Bavarian court opened a retrial of his supposed killers after the discovery of his intact body in the River Danube. The case has sent shockwaves through the German judicial system, which since the Second World War has prided itself on its probity and professionalism.

Mr Rupp, a 52-year-old Bavarian pig farmer, allegedly returned home from the pub one autumn night in 2001 and was hit over the head with a large wooden beam by Mathias Eisenhofer, 17, the lover of Mr Rupp’s daughter Manuela, 16. He was beaten almost to death and taken to the cellar where Manuela noticed that her father’s leg was still twitching. Eisenhofer then hit the farmer’s skull with a sharp-edged hammer. Manuela joined in. Another daughter, Andrea, 15, watched, as did the farmer’s wife Hermine.

Why would they make up such a gruesome story? It doesn’t appear to make any sense. The whole thing is so weird that I’d be tempted to check that it wasn’t an early April news story.

October 19, 2010

Is the NFL finally starting to take head injuries seriously?

Filed under: Football, Health — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:09

Another sign that perhaps the NFL is realizing that they need to change their entire culture around head injuries is this snippet:

After a brutal day of games in which players were dropping like flies and several high-profile knockout shots were applied, the league announced that players may be suspended for head shots starting next week. The awareness of concussion-related problems is catching up to the game and may affect the way defenders have to play the game in the future — and how the head-hunters will be treated. The league has learned in the past the fines don’t quite do the job, especially with players making millions of dollars a year. Keeping them from being on the field with their teammates is the pain.

It’s a start, although it should have been policy long ago.

Update: Gregg Easterbrook approves:

Josh Cribbs of the Browns sustained a concussion on a helmet-to-helmet hit by James Harrison of the Steelers on Sunday. No flag was thrown. Later in the same contest, Mohamed Massaquoi of the Browns left the field with a head injury after a helmet-to-helmet hit by Harrison. No flag. DeSean Jackson of the Eagles sustained a “severe” concussion on a flagrant helmet-to-helmet hit by Dunta Robinson of Atlanta. Robinson was flagged but not ejected, as he should have been. (Robinson left the game with his own concussion, but disqualification sends a much stronger message about behavior than just a penalty.) Zack Follett of Detroit lay motionless for several minutes on the field after a helmet-to-helmet hit by Jason Pierre-Paul of the Giants. No flag. Sam Bradford’s helmet was knocked off by a helmet-to-helmet hit by Kevin Burnett of San Diego. No flag.

Late Monday night, the NFL said it would announce new head-protection rules by Wednesday, and that the new rules will take effect immediately. It’s about time.

For too long, NFL headquarters and sports commentators both have acted as though there is some gigantic mystery regarding why NFL players make so many dangerous helmet hits. Here’s why in three words: because they can. The play is almost never penalized.

For too long, NFL headquarters and sports commentators both have acted as though there is some gigantic mystery regarding what to do about dangerous helmet hits. Here’s what to do in three words: throw the flag!

It will take longer for sports personalities on TV to stop glorifying the most dangerous hits, of course . . . they’ll have to un-learn phrases like “jacked-up”, “blew up” and the like. They’ll also have to stop playing audio clips of massive collisions at the line of scrimmage. I, for one, won’t miss this at all.

October 17, 2010

New laws aim to reduce military corruption in China

Filed under: China, Economics, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:39

Strategy Page looks at the latest attempt to curb military corruption:

China is enacting new laws that puts additional pressure on the military to maintain quality standards (in the construction and use of military equipment). Why should something like this be thought necessary? It’s all because of corruption, an ancient, and growing, problem in China. There, it is taken as a given that, if you get a government job, you have a license to steal. In the military, this means weapons are built in substandard ways, and equipment is not properly maintained. Military corruption is an ancient Chinese custom, and accounts for most of the poor military performance in the past.

For over a decade, the government has worked to eliminate the worst of the theft and moonlighting by the troops. The most outrageous examples of this have been curbed. Thus military officers no longer use cash from the defense budget to set up weapons factories they run and profit from. Big chunks of procurement cash no longer disappear into the offshore bank accounts of generals and admirals.

It’ll take more than new laws and a few high-profile prosecutions to tackle a problem that has been endemic for generations.

October 16, 2010

Court makes a mockery of “freedom of speech” in bail conditions

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:30

I’m not particularly fond of the organizers of the G20 protests (see the general tone of my posts during the G20 meetings for proof), but this court decision is obscene:

Alex Hundert’s words will not appear in this story.

Unlike other Canadians, he’s not allowed to speak to the press.

At least that’s how a court interpreted the new bail conditions placed on Hundert, an accused ringleader of violence during the G20 summit in June.

“It’s staggering in its breadth,” said John Norris, Hundert’s lawyer. “I’ve never heard of anything as broad as that.”

Hundert, 30, faces three counts of conspiracy pertaining to G20 activities, and was released in July on $100,000 bail with about 20 terms, including not participating in any public demonstration.

Shortly after his release, the Crown filed an appeal to revoke his bail. Superior Court Justice Todd Ducharme ruled against that appeal.

On Sept. 17, shortly after Ducharme’s decision, Hundert was arrested for participating in a panel discussion at Ryerson University — which police deemed to be a public demonstration.

On Wednesday Hundert agreed to the new, more stringent, bail conditions.

They include a clarification of the no-demonstration rule, to include a restriction on planning, participating in, or attending any public event that expresses views on a political issue.

This is just wrong. No government or court should have this power: he’s an accused criminal, but he has not been convicted of a crime. This is an unjustifiable restriction of his freedom and should never have been imposed.

H/T to Darian Worden for the link.

September 30, 2010

Even rustlers are going vegetarian

Filed under: Europe, France, Law, Wine — Tags: — Nicholas @ 08:01

The scourge of the old west (at least in TV and movie representations) were cattle rustlers. Their modern counterparts are apparently grape rustlers:

Thieves in France have broken into a vineyard and stolen an entire crop of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, say police.

They struck in Villeneuve-les-Beziers on Sunday night, taking advantage of a full moon and using a harvesting machine to seize 30 tonnes of the crop.

Farmer Roland Cavaille said similar crimes had taken place before in the Languedoc-Roussillon, one of France’s best-known wine growing regions.

He said the theft amounted to a year’s work and about 15,000 euro (£12,900).

“They used a harvesting machine to gather grapes. This means there was no need to have lots of people, two people would have been enough,” Mr Cavaille told Le Parisien newspaper.

“The area was quite isolated, it is a a few kilometres from the village and near a river. So the thieves were able to work safely.”

I’m sure there’s a joke in there about sour grapes, but I’m not clever enough to put it together.

September 16, 2010

QotD: Trial By Jury

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, Quotations, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 17:03

In 1850 Spooner published A Defence for Fugitive Slaves, Against the Acts of Congress on February 12, 1793 and September 18, 1850, where he argued that juries “are judges of the law, as well as the fact” and are therefore justified in nullifying federal fugitive slave laws. “No man can be punished for resisting the execution of any law,” Spooner wrote, “unless the law be so clearly constitutional, as that a jury, taken promiscuously from the mass of the people, will all agree that it is constitutional.” Today we call this radical approach “jury nullification.”

Two years later, in Trial by Jury, Spooner developed his argument in full, expertly tracing the right of jury nullification back to the Magna Carta. “It is indispensable that the people, or ‘the country,’ judge of and determine their own liberties against the government,” he wrote. “How is it possible that juries can do anything to protect the liberties of the people against the government; if they are not allowed to determine what those liberties are?” According to Spooner, it was essential to distinguish between trial by jury, which meant trial by the people, chosen by lot, and trial by government, which was an illegal usurpation of the people’s power. “If the government may decide who may, and who may not, be jurors,” he wrote, “it will of course select only its partisans, and those friendly to its measures.” Furthermore, he said, if the government had its way, it “may also question each person drawn as a juror, as to his sentiments in regard to the particular law involved in each trial…and exclude him if he be found unfavorable to the maintenance of such a law.”

Of course, that’s exactly what happens today when potential jurors who oppose the death penalty are prevented from serving on death penalty cases or when those who oppose drug prohibition are excluded from drug cases, thereby stacking the jury in the government’s favor. As Spooner presciently observed, “if the government may dictate to the jury what laws they are to enforce, it is no longer a ‘trial by the country,’ but a trial by the government.”

Damon W. Root, “Clarence Thomas’ Favorite Anarchist: The radical anti-statism of Lysander Spooner”, Reason, 2010-09-16

September 6, 2010

When “informers” become “enablers”

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:12

Stephan Salisbury writes that many “foiled” terror plots could never have become actual threats . . . without government assistance:

Informers have by now become our first line of defense in our battles with the evildoers, the go-to guys in the never-ending domestic war on terror. They regularly do the dirty work — suggesting and encouraging the plots, laboring as bag men to move the money, fashioning the bombs, and eliciting the flamboyant dialogue, even while following the scripts of their handlers to the letter. They have attended to all the little details that make for the successful and now familiar arrests, criminal complaints, trials, and (for the most part) convictions in the ever-distracting war against . . . what? Al-Qaeda? Terror? Muslims? The inept? The poor?

The Liberty City Seven, the Fort Dix Six, the Detroit Ummah Conspiracy, the Newburgh Four — each has had their fear-filled day in the sun. None of these plots ever came close to happening. How could they? All were bogus from the get-go: money to buy missiles or cell phones or shoes and fancy duds — provided by the authorities; plans for how to use the missiles and bombs and cell phones — provided by authorities; cars for transport and demolition — issued by the authorities; facilities for carrying out the transactions — leased by those same authorities. Played out on landscapes manufactured by federal imagineers, the climax of each drama was foreordained. The failure of the plots would then be touted as the success of the investigations and prosecutions.

It’s often been observed that war is the health of the state. Can we now also say that the war on terror is the health of the intelligence agency?

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

August 31, 2010

The inevitable result of that crazy marijuana legalization

Filed under: Europe, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:23

Just as drug warriors have been predicting for years, the Netherlands government is paying the price for their irresponsible and dangerous legalization of drugs: they’re having to close prisons for lack of criminals to fill them with:

The Dutch government is getting ready to close eight prisons because they don’t have enough criminals to fill them. Officials attribute the shortage of prisoners to a declining crime rate.

Just for fun, let’s compare the Netherlands to California. With a population of 16.6 million, the Dutch prison population is about 12,000. With its population of 36.7 million, California should have a bit more than double the Dutch prison population. California’s actual prison population is 171,000.

So, whose drug policies are keeping the streets safer?

August 24, 2010

“One of the few thrills of working as a bylaw enforcement officer is making people cry”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:23

Ezra Levant looks at the bylaw enforcement regime in Clarington, just east of Toronto:

It’s not a lemonade crime wave that the brave city elders of Clarington are combating. It’s the menace of backyard barbecues.

Peter Jaworski has been holding backyard barbecues at his parents’ property there for 10 years. It’s a house in the country on 40 secluded acres. Once a year, Peter invites a few dozen of his friends to spend the weekend eating his mom’s cooking and camping next to the swimming hole. I’ve been there: it’s one part family reunion, one part picnic and one part political talk.

So clearly, the Jaworski family must be stopped.

First came the health department. They poked and prodded, and even took water samples. No one has ever got sick at a Jaworski barbecue — the opposite; everyone comes for the food — but the government ordered that no home cooking would be allowed. The Jaworskis complied with these costly and ridiculous demands, catering the whole weekend and serving only bottled water, at great cost.

But bureaucrats travel in packs. A local bylaw enforcement officer waited until the barbecue itself, and marched right onto the property — no search warrant needed! — and started peppering the guests with questions.

He wasn’t a health officer; he was a bylaw officer. Yet he demanded to know what the guests had for lunch. In the name of the law!

Armed with this devastating information, the officer charged Peter’s parents with running an illegal “commercial conference centre,” which carries a fine of up to $50,000. The officer, a burly, tattooed, six-foot-something man, told Peter’s mom to “be very careful.” She burst into tears.

Why do people get this insane idea that they should be able to do what they want on their own property? If we wanted that to happen, we wouldn’t appoint bylaw officers and arm them with bylaws to quash your fun and destroy your ability to enjoy your own property!

This scourge of backyard entertainment must be defeated, and Clarington is leading the way!

August 11, 2010

QotD: Treating politicians correctly

Filed under: Government, Humour, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 14:02

First off, every Congressman should be treated like a known member of the Mafia — we know the person is a criminal and we just don’t have the evidence yet though we’ll be working on it. Every Congressmen should have FBI agents assigned to tail him and report on everything he is doing. Everything a Congressman does and says should be recorded and made publicly available as well. As a trade-off to being some idiot spending trillions of our dollars, you have absolutely no expectation of privacy while in office. If you can’t deal, don’t be in Congress. And because these people create the laws, it should apply even more so to them. If they are ever convicted of anything, they automatically should get their sentence doubled.

Right now Congress gets this idea they are better than us when really they’re just idiots who meddle in things while other people actually do all the useful work in this country. It’s time we treated them like lesser people with less rights and more suspicion. Then maybe they’ll know their place.

Frank J. Fleming, “We Need to Treat Congress More Like Crooks”, IMAO, 2010-08-11

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