Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
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Thats always my problem too. Those kids didn't ask for that life.
GasBandit
Staff member
I wonder if Corzine will get to share a cell with him at some point.
Apparently the ATF wanted to use Operation: Fast and Furious to pass stricter gun regulation, according to CBSNews.
So yeah... our government sold guns to Mexican drug lords in order to prove that such sales were happening. Then they wanted to use their own malfeasance to justify laws to restrict gun sales. Why the fuck is the ATF always involved in these fucking scandals?
So yeah... our government sold guns to Mexican drug lords in order to prove that such sales were happening. Then they wanted to use their own malfeasance to justify laws to restrict gun sales. Why the fuck is the ATF always involved in these fucking scandals?
Is Prince in charge yet? That would explain a lot.
No, not the singer, and if you get that reference, you also have watched extremely odd sci-fi (or something, kind of a hard genre to classify this show in).
GasBandit
Staff member
Obama's speech said "You won't be on your own." What the heck is wrong with being on your own?
GasBandit
Staff member
It's now legal precedent - Bloggers aren't journalists, because one dumb bitch decided to represent herself.
Bloggers As Journalists of the Day: Crystal Cox, a blogger who runs several sites including industrywhistleblower.com, judicialhellhole.com, and obsidianfinancesucks.com, was recently sued by the Obsidian Finance Group for several posts which they deemed defamatory.
She lost and was ordered to pay the investment firm $2.5 million after a Portland judge ruled that, being a blogger, she was not protected from disclosing her sources by the state’s media shield law.
The entire case revolved around a single post — the judge tossed out the firm’s claims against 9 others — which was, ironically, more factual than those the court dismissed.
Cox claimed that an insider provided her with the information she used to charge Obsidian with some serious misconduct. However, she refused to reveal her source, forcing the judge to make a ruling about Cox’s status as a legitimate journalist entitled to the protection of the shield law.
Unfortunately, U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez ruled that Cox was not technically a journalist, being that she is unaffiliated “with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.”
Cries of foreboding precedence may be unwarranted, however, as it seems Cox is at least partially to blame for the judge’s decision. You see, Cox represented herself in court, which, as you know, is a big, fat no-no. The judge, it seems, may have misread Oregon’s media shield law, which clearly states:
However, as attorney Bruce E. H. Johnson, the man who wrote Washington’s shield law, tells Seattle Weekly, even if she were granted the protection of a shield law, Cox might still have been required to reveal her source to prove her claims.
Cox plans to appeal the ruling, but remains dead set on going it alone. Johnson recommends that Cox contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which may agree to take her case pro bono.
Bloggers As Journalists of the Day: Crystal Cox, a blogger who runs several sites including industrywhistleblower.com, judicialhellhole.com, and obsidianfinancesucks.com, was recently sued by the Obsidian Finance Group for several posts which they deemed defamatory.
She lost and was ordered to pay the investment firm $2.5 million after a Portland judge ruled that, being a blogger, she was not protected from disclosing her sources by the state’s media shield law.
The entire case revolved around a single post — the judge tossed out the firm’s claims against 9 others — which was, ironically, more factual than those the court dismissed.
Cox claimed that an insider provided her with the information she used to charge Obsidian with some serious misconduct. However, she refused to reveal her source, forcing the judge to make a ruling about Cox’s status as a legitimate journalist entitled to the protection of the shield law.
Unfortunately, U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez ruled that Cox was not technically a journalist, being that she is unaffiliated “with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.”
Cries of foreboding precedence may be unwarranted, however, as it seems Cox is at least partially to blame for the judge’s decision. You see, Cox represented herself in court, which, as you know, is a big, fat no-no. The judge, it seems, may have misread Oregon’s media shield law, which clearly states:
No person connected with, employed by or engaged in any medium of communication to the public shall be required by … a judicial officer … to disclose, by subpoena or otherwise … [t]he source of any published or unpublished information obtained by the person in the course of gathering, receiving or processing information for any medium of communication to the public[.] (Emphasis added.)
If Cox had hired an attorney this case would likely have had a different outcome, one that might have straightened the ambiguity about bloggers in Oregon’s shield law once and for all.However, as attorney Bruce E. H. Johnson, the man who wrote Washington’s shield law, tells Seattle Weekly, even if she were granted the protection of a shield law, Cox might still have been required to reveal her source to prove her claims.
Cox plans to appeal the ruling, but remains dead set on going it alone. Johnson recommends that Cox contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which may agree to take her case pro bono.
It'll be overturned on appeal. Judge violated a standing law, which he had no authority to overturn.
Because people like having shit like sanitation, safe medicines, clean food and water, roads, police, schools, firefighters, traffic lights, stop signs, student loans, the internet, and the dozens of other things (big and small) that government provides or provided that allow us to becomes "doctors, lawyers, architects, executives, professional golfers, radio personalities, business owners, teachers, firemen, pastors, airline flight attendants, career military, casino dealers, accountants, public administrators, nurses, salespeople, artists, welders, loggers, firefighters, mechanics, beauticians, tavern owners, and every other profession and trade imaginable." Assholes like that guy like pretend that what the government has provided for them (and everyone else) played no role in their successes when they'd very likely be little more than a serf if we lived in the economic libertarian "every man for himself!" utopia they talk about.
Guys like this asshole completely and willfully misconstrue the arguments in favor of social programs and social justice to make those who oppose them out to be whiny children. It annoys me. There are certainly people out there who are acting like whiny children, but there are people on his side who sound like downright sociopaths. The main message, the realistic message that he's arguing against? It can be summed up as thus: Maybe those giant multinational corporations, that take in billions of dollars yearly, should pay a tax rate that isn't in the negative. Perhaps we lowly serfs should have the same voice in government as millionaire CEOs (when we really, really don't). And maybe, just maybe, in a country with some of the most advanced medical technology and treatments on the planet we shouldn't have people dying of preventable/treatable illnesses because they (or their parents or their spouse) changed jobs recently or lost their job recently or their job had choose between lay-offs and health insurance or they bought health insurance that was almost useless for anything other than a check-up or etc. But that last one in particular would value human lives over dollar bills, so we can't have that shit it would make us Communist Russia!
Though Obama is wrong. If he doesn't get re-elected, we won't be alone. We'll have a Republican, a member of the party who believes government is never the answer and aims to prove as much, in the White House. It would be better to be alone. At least the Democrats try to improve peoples lives, even if they do so with the firmness and tenacity of a jello mold. Republicans just cut taxes (for the rich), increase spending (on defense), and then hope things get better.
GasBandit
Staff member
Putting aside all the other stuff we'll never agree on (and there's a difference between not having clean water to drink and the government owning you through access to health care and finance), you're especially wrong about this last part. Until Obama came along, a republican was responsible for the biggest entitlement increase in decades and increased our budget to the highest level it's ever been, even discounting military spending.
Contrary to what democrats AND republicans would have you believe, the republican party is not the party of no government. It hasn't been since Goldwater. Both parties want a big government, their only difference is that each wants to be in charge of it.
To say that electing a republican will be a de facto dismantling of the government is blatantly false. I would even go so far to say even if Ron Paul of all people got elected president next year, the federal government would still grow.
Added at: 13:34
More fun political brouhaha today - FDA said girls under 17 can buy emergency birth control without prescription, DHHS vetoes, Obama say "I ain't touchin' that, but yeah."
edit: screw you, automatic post concatonator.
Ars coverage of the story.
I don't see an issue with the decision. A Blogger is not necessarily a Journalist, but a Journalist can be a Blogger. Kind of like squares and rectangles.
GasBandit
Staff member
The issue is the italicized portion of the article I posted. But I know what you're getting at, and I disagree - I think "freedom of the press" type protections should be extended to all published opinion, even self-published and e-published and those that are both. There should not be a minimum entry fee to the first amendment.
I seem to remember some old document that said something about "in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty." That might fit the question of what could be wrong with being completely "on your own".
GasBandit
Staff member
So our only alternative to martial law is anarchy, is what you're saying?
So countries like Sweden represent "martial law" to you then?
GasBandit
Staff member
Countries like sweden represent societal stagnation, is what they represent.
M
makare
Hmm I've never considered bloggers journalists. I find that case interesting.
I just had someone else whip out that Tim Nerenz guy on me in an argument the other day. What an idiot. I am a member of the productive class he mentioned and I like the idea of not being on my own. But then again I don't equate the kind of not being alone that Obama is talking about with government gestapo control. Because, well, I am not a nutjob.
I just had someone else whip out that Tim Nerenz guy on me in an argument the other day. What an idiot. I am a member of the productive class he mentioned and I like the idea of not being on my own. But then again I don't equate the kind of not being alone that Obama is talking about with government gestapo control. Because, well, I am not a nutjob.
This is honestly an issue of the laws not catching up with the medium. Bloggers as journalists is the norm, not the exception anymore. They deserve the same protections, period.
M
makare
I am sure it goes state by state.
The kind of socialist social programs that Gas labels as analogous to "martial law" and the government "owning you" (since your life, as a policy number, being judge by how much profit it can bring to a faceless corporation is sooo different and much better!) are a normal part of daily life in Sweden, which is one of those countries that consistently beats us at everything save for "teen pregnancy" and "corporate profits".
I know that simply copying Sweden wouldn't work for us, but it gives us a standard to aspire to. If they are a society in stagnation and we are a dynamic society...give me the stagnation of a healthy, well-educated, long-lived, comfortable populace.
M
makare
oh noes! bread and circuses lols
When I think of stagnant cultures, I think China and Japan. Despite having immense technological progress and innovation, their entire societies are still held back and ruled by attitudes forged hundreds of years ago... attitudes that really don't work anymore and it's starting to show.
America is the other extreme: A culture defined by absolute anarchy and few unifying values. It's one of the reasons our crime rate is so high and why corruption seems to rule just about every facet of our lives these days. We don't have any stability from our community anymore and it's starting to hold us back, as we all desperately struggle against the predators we've helped create.
If anything, Sweden has the happy medium: A unified culture that both accepts new ideas and is willing to engineer it as much as needed to make it work... but then again, that's what happens when you don't need to spend billions on national defense like China, Russia, Japan, and America.
America is the other extreme: A culture defined by absolute anarchy and few unifying values. It's one of the reasons our crime rate is so high and why corruption seems to rule just about every facet of our lives these days. We don't have any stability from our community anymore and it's starting to hold us back, as we all desperately struggle against the predators we've helped create.
If anything, Sweden has the happy medium: A unified culture that both accepts new ideas and is willing to engineer it as much as needed to make it work... but then again, that's what happens when you don't need to spend billions on national defense like China, Russia, Japan, and America.
Maybe Sweden has the happy medium if you enjoy paying crippling income taxes. It's also easy not to spend much on defense when you rely on the big spenders to protect you.
The crazy cat lady has her own blog? Cool! She's a journalist now!
I don't think bloggers should be automatically disqualified from being journalists. But I agree with the judge when he points out her lack of journalistic actions throughout the ordeal. The lack of journalistic standards mean she is not a journalist, rather than discounting her claims simply because she uses a blog.
I can agree to it as well. Not all bloggers are journalists but that doesn't mean none of them are.