A man who grabbed a 14-year-old girl's arm to chastise her after she walked in front of his car, causing him to swerve to avoid hitting her, must register as a "sex offender," the Appellate Court of Illinois has ruled. Once again, a very good law is being used indescriminately
Fitzroy Barnaby, a 28-year-old Evanston, Illinois, man was prosecuted for attempted kidnapping and child abduction charges following a November 2002 incident in which he nearly hit the teen with his vehicle. How could that be kidnapping, unless she got caught under the car and drug away? Was that over the top? I can never tell.
The girl testified Barnaby yelled, "Come here, little girl," when he jumped out of his car and grabbed her arm. She broke away and called authorities. Barnaby says he was merely trying to lecture her for her carelessness. The trial jury accepted Barnaby's version of the story, but found him guilty of unlawful restraint of a minor — a sex offense under Illinois law. Well, when you put it like that it makes perfect sense
As a convicted sex offender, Barnaby is required to be listed on the state's sex offender registry and must keep authorities informed of his place of residency. He also isn't allowed to live near schools or parks. The Illinois Sex Offender Information website, operated by the Illinois State Police, lists those in the registry, along with their photographs and home addresses. Trial Judge Patrick Morse ordered registration reluctantly, acknowledging it was "more likely than not" Barnaby only intended to chastise the girl. "I don't really see the purpose of registration in this case. I really don't," Morse said. "But I feel that I am constrained by the statute." He was also overheard saying: " I think text in a law book is more important than justice, peoples lives, fairness , or commonsense"
Barnaby was not listed on the registry during his appeal, but following the recent ruling by the appellate court, he soon will be. Hey man, what are you in for?
"This is the most stupid ruling the appellate court has rendered in years," Frederick Cohn, Barnaby's attorney, told the Chicago Sun-Times. "If you see a 15-year-old beating up your 8-year-old and you grab that kid's hand and are found guilty of unlawful restraint, do you now have to register as a sex offender?" Gee, I sure hope so.
The appellate court agreed it was "unfair for [Barnaby] to suffer the stigmatization of being labeled a sex offender when his crime was not sexually motivated," however it sided with the state's attorney ????
who argued it is "the proclivity of offenders who restrain children to also commit sex acts or other crimes against them." What ever happened to letting the punishment fit the crime? Don't worry mr. prosecutor I'm sure a portion of the community will still revile him anyway.
"It is [Barnaby's] actions which have caused him to be stigmatized, not the courts," reads the decision. The judge then excused himself so that he could go back to his chambers and approve a generous plea bargain for a 5-time convicted child molester
#3
Its NOT Leftism,. Socialism, Communism, Big Govt. or Regulation, etc. - its "National" and "Personal Security", "Safety", and "Protection", as honest injun as there are only GOP-DEM "Conservatives" and "Rightists" in America, versus dem dar wily rascally "Liberals"
NOw lets all be good Clintonian Amerikan citizens of the future Rockwellian-Reaganist USSA/Global SSR and eat our prim-and-proper, and GOP-CONSERVATIVE, tea-and crimpets/cookies while quietly reading NYT Bestseller Marx's COMMUNIST MANIFESTO - you know, Russia-China's "FASCIST STRATEGY TO RULE AMERICA AND THE WORLD" * "GEE MOM, WHAT WOULD BILL CLINTON = SUPERMAN = REAGAN = ROCKWELL/GOLDWATER, ........ETAL. STALIN/MAO = PAUL SIMON AND MCGOVERN, DO? GRANDMA HAD TWO-PLUS HUSBANDS AND FAMILIES AT THE SAME TIME, DIDN'T SHE"!?
No its not Ted Kenneddy nor Micheal Moore, its possibly a new volcano off of Japan
TOKYO Japan's Coast Guard dispatched aircraft Sunday to survey a 3,300-foot-high column of steam rising from the Pacific Ocean off a small Japanese island, in a possible sign of an undersea volcanic eruption, officials said. The water vapor resembling a huge cloud, was seen from the island of Iwo Jima (search) on Saturday by Japanese troops stationed there, said Hiroshi Shirai, a spokesman for the Maritime Self-Defense Forces.
#8
There's another one of these in the Caribbean, with the delightful name of "Kick 'em Jenny." It blew and bubbled and shook up a passing steamer when Mt. Pelee was blowing up.
See "The Last Days of St. Pierre," Rutgers U. Press, in your local library.
A "deranged" Saudi has stabbed and wounded five worshippers in the courtyard of the Great Mosque of Mecca, Islam's holiest site, a newspaper reported on Saturday. The unnamed man, who is in his 30s, was arrested by police after becoming "agitated" and going on a stabbing spree on Friday, Al-Riyadh said. Five worshippers were wounded, two of whom had to be hospitalised, it said, adding that police were continuing their investigation into the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
way to go
Posted by: Jan ||
07/03/2005 0:07 Comments ||
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Heh Heh -- The Rumster is loved!
The Associated Press
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed autographs, posed for pictures and was generally given a warm welcome as he made his way through the NASCAR garage area before the Pepsi 400.
Rumsfeld also got a standing ovation during the prerace drivers meeting.
"Everywhere I go around the world the troops talk about NASCAR and how much it reminds them of home," said Rumsfeld, the honorary grand marshal for the race.
Sen. Joe Biden said Sunday that if President Bush nominates recently confirmed Circuit Court Judge Janice Rogers Brown to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats will launch a filibuster.
"If [Bush] sent up Edith Jones, I could assure you that would be a very, very, very difficult fight - and she would probably be filibustered," Biden told CBS's "Face the Nation." In the next breath Biden corrected himself, saying, "I misspoke, I misspoke. Janice Rogers Brown is what I meant to say."
Asked whether that would break the Senate's much heralded compromise last month not to filibuster judicial appointments except under "extraordinary circumstances," Biden explained: "[The Supreme Court] is a totally different ball game . . . A circuit court judge is bound by stare decisis. They don't get to make new law. They have to abide by [legal precedent]."
Asked if O'Connor's retirement was more likely to provoke a filibuster than would have been the case had the more conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist retired, Biden responded: "Probably."
I was watching this when he made asinine statement. I am not a legal scholar but it was my understanding that the PEOPLE made up the laws in this country and the Courts are supposed to enforce those laws. At most the courts can challenge the legality of a law or strike down a law because it conflicts with the Constitution not Make New Law as Biden (and the LLL) think it should. IMHO Janis Rogers Brown should be the FIRST on that short list for the SCOTUS. Gonzales would be a close second because these two people understand which way the laws originate. Also I would call up Biden, Kennedy, Boxer, and Kerry and tell them to go FUCK OFF! This demonstrates why I could never be Ambassador to the un.
#1
I'd suggest holding the nomination close to the vest to preventfocussed dirtdigging. In the meantime, the Dems will fall all over themselves saying who isn't acceptable, that their agenda will be obvious. After this, Rehnquist bails, nominate Scalia for chief and you get another battle on nat'l TV over Estrada . The third, to fill Scalia's should be after everyone's worn out, and you nominate a real kickass conservative :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/03/2005 17:49 Comments ||
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#6
Sen. Joe Biden said Sunday that if President Bush nominates recently confirmed Circuit Court Judge Janice Rogers Brown to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats will launch a filibuster.
Not a problem. Make them actually conduct a real, honest-to-goodness filibuster and put it on live TV.
#7
Agreed, BAR. If Frist had any intestudinal fortitude, he'd make them run an actual fillibuster.
And then, once they were going good - and hopefully had Sen. Byrd (D-KKK) speak for a stint - the Repubs could go on the talk show round and mention how Sen. Byrd was so good at fillibustering because he had so much practice trying to stop the Civil Rights Act from being passed. Film of him doing so, if it's available, would be nice, too. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/03/2005 20:53 Comments ||
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#8
Did the Republicans filibuster Moonbat Bader-Ginsburg? They should have.
#9
The Dems and aligned are rabid becuase its not just O'CONNOR - given their current ages, most of the SCOTUS seats could be up for grabs by 2010, with several by 2008 - can anyone say REPEAT/REVENGE OF RONALD REAGAN. Despite the Dems all but officially discarding "Liberals", they want the same, nka "Moderates" to be placed on the SCOTUS bench. 2008 > about Hillary and the SCOTUS.
China's annual coal demand is expected to reach 2.5 bln metric tons by the end of the decade and 2.9 bln tons by 2020, the 21st Century Business Herald reported, citing an industry source.
Guo Yuntao, director of the China Coal Industry Development Research Center, predicted coal demand for this year to hit 2.13 bln tons, the newspaper said.
Guo also said coal supply capacity is predicted to reach 1.6 bln tons in 2010 and 2.0 bln tons in 2020, leaving shortfalls of 0.5 bln tons and 1.3 bln tons respectively.
The report said coal consumption by power producers will reach 1.1 bln tons this year, 1.5 bln tons by 2010 and 1.9 bln tons by 2020. This neatly explains why Kyoto is a self-indulgent waste of time. Burning a tonne of coal produces about 2.3 tonnes of CO2. From the start of this year to 2010 China will burn an extra .5 billion tonnes of coal per annum releasing an extra 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2. Total projected reduction in CO2 emissions under Kyoto is 483 million tonnes per annum by 2012. Not that there is any chance this will be reached. Increased coal consumption in China alone will swamp any reductions from Kyoto and then there is India and the rest of the developing world and all the other fossil fuels whose use is increasing at the fastest rate in history.
#2
More's the pity, will they crash if they don't get the coal? Can China afford to upgrade its infrastructure to convert?
All the more reason for America to actuate more clean-burning coal plants---reserve the supply here, and it's less for China.
#3
I'd sure like to see the US get serious about pebble-bed reactors, like yesterday. If the ChiComms wanna pay the freight, sure we'll sell 'em Western coal. All they want, heh. As long as we do that first thingy, first. That be the uberserious thing.
#2
fair enuf! It's a "Life Going Round In Circles" - Daryl Waltrips' autobiography - and a lot of people don't get it, but most other sports don't have a prayer/invocation before it starts, and the obligatory military flyover (other than Texas football, I guess :-))
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/03/2005 14:18 Comments ||
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#3
Why those beer-drinking, bible-thumping, Nascar-loving people make me proud to be an American!
#4
NASCAR has by far the best fly-overs. First time ever I saw a B-2 in the air was a D-500 flyover..... One caveat. The all time-best flyover is still that crazy SOB that flew buzzed Florida Field in a B-25 Mitchell, at one point is was below the press box.
#5
Heh--I still understand the appeal of watching cars make 2,000 left turns in a row, but I love to see this! I can just see the lib elites seething while staring down their nose at those NASCAR fans... LOL
Posted by: Dar ||
07/03/2005 20:45 Comments ||
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Provocative question: Are we running out of innovation? I find the argument that innovation peaked in the 19th century compellling, but I would argue its a social phenomena rather than the result of mining a finite resource of potential inovations. The innovation peak approximately corresponds with the shift from science being performed by enthuisiatic amateurs to it being performed by paid professional scientists. Resulting in powerful social forces for conformance which all organizations suffer from. Political Correctness is a recent manifestation of this phenomena. I've mentioned before that the internet has spawned a nascent community of amateur scientists (many of whom are cranks). I don't know if this will a new source of innovation. SURFING the web and making free internet phone calls on your Wi-Fi laptop, listening to your iPod on the way home, it often seems that, technologically speaking, we are enjoying a golden age. Human inventiveness is so finely honed, and the globalised technology industries so productive, that there appears to be an invention to cater for every modern whim.
But according to a new analysis, this view couldn't be more wrong: far from being in technological nirvana, we are fast approaching a new dark age. That, at least, is the conclusion of Jonathan Huebner, a physicist working at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California. He says the rate of technological innovation reached a peak a century ago and has been declining ever since. And like the lookout on the Titanic who spotted the fateful iceberg, Huebner sees the end of innovation looming dead ahead. His study will be published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
It's an unfashionable view. Most futurologists say technology is developing at exponential rates. Moore's law, for example, foresaw chip densities (for which read speed and memory capacity) doubling every 18 months. And the chip makers have lived up to its predictions. Building on this, the less well-known Kurzweil's law says that these faster, smarter chips are leading to even faster growth in the power of computers. Developments in genome sequencing and nanoscale machinery are racing ahead too, and internet connectivity and telecommunications bandwith are growing even faster than computer power, catalysing still further waves of innovation.
But Huebner is confident of his facts. He has long been struck by the fact that promised advances were not appearing as quickly as predicted. "I wondered if there was a reason for this," he says. "Perhaps there is a limit to what technology can achieve."
In an effort to find out, he plotted major innovations and scientific advances over time compared to world population, using the 7200 key innovations listed in a recently published book, The History of Science and Technology (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). The results surprised him.
Rather than growing exponentially, or even keeping pace with population growth, they peaked in 1873 and have been declining ever since (see Graphs). Next, he examined the number of patents granted in the US from 1790 to the present. When he plotted the number of US patents granted per decade divided by the country's population, he found the graph peaked in 1915.
The period between 1873 and 1915 was certainly an innovative one. For instance, it included the major patent-producing years of America's greatest inventor, Thomas Edison (1847-1931). Edison patented more than 1000 inventions, including the incandescent bulb, electricity generation and distribution grids, movie cameras and the phonograph.
Huebner draws some stark lessons from his analysis. The global rate of innovation today, which is running at seven "important technological developments" per billion people per year, matches the rate in 1600. Despite far higher standards of education and massive R&D funding "it is more difficult now for people to develop new technology", Huebner says.
Extrapolating Huebner's global innovation curve just two decades into the future, the innovation rate plummets to medieval levels. "We are approaching the 'dark ages point', when the rate of innovation is the same as it was during the Dark Ages," Huebner says. "We'll reach that in 2024."
But today's much larger population means that the number of innovations per year will still be far higher than in medieval times. "I'm certainly not predicting that the dark ages will reoccur in 2024, if at all," he says. Nevertheless, the point at which an extrapolation of his global innovation curve hits zero suggests we have already made 85 per cent of the technologies that are economically feasible.
But why does he think this has happened? He likens the way technologies develop to a tree. "You have the trunk and major branches, covering major fields like transportation or the generation of energy," he says. "Right now we are filling out the minor branches and twigs and leaves. The major question is, are there any major branches left to discover? My feeling is we've discovered most of the major branches on the tree of technology."
But artificial intelligence expert Ray Kurzweil - who formulated the aforementioned law - thinks Huebner has got it all wrong. "He uses an arbitrary list of about 7000 events that have no basis as a measure of innovation. If one uses arbitrary measures, the results will not be meaningful."
Eric Drexler, who dreamed up some of the key ideas underlying nanotechnology, agrees. "A more direct and detailed way to quantify technology history is to track various capabilities, such as speed of transport, data-channel bandwidth, cost of computation," he says. "Some have followed exponential trends, some have not."
Drexler says nanotechnology alone will smash the barriers Huebner foresees, never mind other branches of technology. It's only a matter of time, he says, before nanoengineers will surpass what cells do, making possible atom-by-atom desktop manufacturing. "Although this result will require many years of research and development, no physical or economic obstacle blocks its achievement," he says. "The resulting advances seem well above the curve that Dr Huebner projects."
âRather than growing exponentially, or keeping pace with population growth, innovation peaked in 1873 and has been declining ever sinceâAt the Acceleration Studies Foundation, a non-profit think tank in San Pedro, California, John Smart examines why technological change is progressing so fast. Looking at the growth of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, Smart agrees with Kurzweil that we are rocketing toward a technological "singularity" - a point sometime between 2040 and 2080 where change is so blindingly fast that we just can't predict where it will go.
Smart also accepts Huebner's findings, but with a reservation. Innovation may seem to be slowing even as its real pace accelerates, he says, because it's slipping from human hands and so fading from human view. More and more, he says, progress takes place "under the hood" in the form of abstract computing processes. Huebner's analysis misses this entirely.
Take a modern car. "Think of the amount of computation - design, supply chain and process automation - that went into building it," Smart says. "Computations have become so incremental and abstract that we no longer see them as innovations. People are heading for a comfortable cocoon where the machines are doing the work and the innovating," he says. "But we're not measuring that very well."
Huebner disagrees. "It doesn't matter if it is humans or machines that are the source of innovation. If it isn't noticeable to the people who chronicle technological history then it is probably a minor event."
A middle path between Huebner's warning of an imminent end to tech progress, and Kurzweil and Smart's equally imminent encounter with a silicon singularity, has been staked out by Ted Modis, a Swiss physicist and futurologist.
Modis agrees with Huebner that an exponential rate of change cannot be sustained and his findings, like Huebner's, suggest that technological change will not increase forever. But rather than expecting innovation to plummet, Modis foresees a long, slow decline that mirrors technology's climb.
"I see the world being presently at the peak of its rate of change and that there is ahead of us as much change as there is behind us," Modis says. "I don't subscribe to the continually exponential rate of growth, nor to an imminent drying up of innovation."
So who is right? The high-tech gurus who predict exponentially increasing change up to and through a blinding event horizon? Huebner, who foresees a looming collision with technology's limits? Or Modis, who expects a long, slow decline?
The impasse has parallels with cosmology during much of the 20th century, when theorists debated endlessly whether the universe would keep expanding, creep toward a steady state, or collapse. It took new and better measurements to break the log jam, leading to the surprising discovery that the rate of expansion is actually accelerating.
Perhaps it is significant that all the mutually exclusive techno-projections focus on exponential technological growth. Innovation theorist Ilkka Tuomi at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Seville, Spain, says: "Exponential growth is very uncommon in the real world. It usually ends when it starts to matter." And it looks like it is starting to matter.
#1
I'm an amateur, but observation is available to all, lol! Innovation is most certainly not dead, though I agree PCism and associated disorders have elevated the posers and weak-minded - at the expense of the truly gifted in many cases - distracting attention from serious work and wasting resources. Has it not always been so? Methinks it has. Additionally, in recent times, totally separate legal burdens, consumerism for its own sake, and just plain lousy management have probably politicized many R&D labs. The evolutionary demise of the Bell Labs / BellCore / Lucent super-think-tank is a hallmark of the effects of such influences. The failure of the MCC (Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation) think-tank to ensure America's preeminence (a response to Japan's Fifth Generation initiative) rather proves that you can't simply declare and schedule serendipity, too. Bell had it and lost it through a long series of missteps. MCC, purpose-created to do the same sort of ground-breaking work hasn't done much of anything of note - even with Bobby Inman heading it up for its first 4 years and an amazing level of funding - and you don't get much smarter than Bobby.
And I think it is, in the end, just another evolutionary process. It seems to run in cycles... small successful entities begin to aggregate for cross-polination and efficiency but, eventually grow into something big enough to hide losers and sycophants and politicians - which eventually drag it down until it is disbanded, and the cycle repeats. Social, legal, tax, corporate fashion and other forces all contribute to the process. Heaven help the society that restricts or prevents the individual from experimentation or entrepreneurial enterprise. That way lies the death of innovation... think EU Super-Regulation for a classic contemporary model of this suicidal idiocy.
I expect no end to innovation, just the usual fits and starts that history (since the acceptance of science, generally speaking) documents. A tiny breach in the wall of the unknowns usually leads to wholesale breakouts in narrow areas - then spreading wider as alternative applications are found - slowing the penetration but broadening the actual impact. Certainly material science and nanotech are poised for some surges...
#3
I sorta agree with that.Look for the Arts . The problem is that Humans have only 5 senses. So Pinture is down from the XIX century , Music is down too in criativity, in Cinema many things have been done and there will not be much more inventiveness, i dont see many series because i already saw them in another disguise . Maybe is that the normal state of the humanity and last 200 years were an exception.
The inventiveness is stiffling because humans have created many many things. I think optical illusions, and cheating the senses still have a field to explore, new materials and technologies will help Designers, Architects and Sculptors to drive some of the criativity. But there is only 7 musical notes unless maybe someone will field a hear frequency augmenter and then Musicians will explore that...
I dont mean that a new melody will be impossible to find but that will be far and between them.
#4
Ah, go watch Connections or The Day the Universe Changed to get a good perspective of the history of technology. Stuff being thought up today won't be acted upon for years, vice the generations in prior times. Heck, I'm typing on the ancestory of Babbage's machine which required over a hundred years till the means caught up with the idea. Then when the concept was implemented it moved from simple calculations to a spectrum of uses unthought of originally. Today the flow of ideas is nearly the speed of light versus the speed of the post and sailing ships. This is just another 'if it didn't happen in the last nano-second we must be declining' rant.
#5
People have been moaning about the end of the Golden Age since the time of Socrates (although then they were correct, at least in Athens). "These useless kids today! Now when I was young..." And yet the world goes on. For that matter, there were some major innovations that took place during the Dark Ages, too. It's just that the politics of the time -- in Western Europe -- are more interesting than changes in the lives of the common people.
I'll bet you a quarter and my reputation that the author is a Baby Boomer in his dotage.
#6
This guy reminds me of a patent clerk who was working an office in the late 1800s. He became convinced that no new inventions would be coming, and closed his office. He was forced to open it back up several months later.
Innovation comes in spurts. Find new thing, perfect function of new thing, look for new thing, repeat.
#12
"I find the argument that innovation peaked in the 19th century compellling, but I would argue its a social phenomena rather than the result of mining a finite resource of potential inovations."
I study the cultural history of science and technology. I agree that the apparent slowdown is the result of sociological factors, but I would place the peak in the 1930s, when public admiration and approval of science and technology were probably at an all-time high.
Outside the computer world, much of today's society looks to the past rather than the future for technical paradigms, to a degree that was unthinkable a couple of generations ago. Look at the new houses being built in your local subdivision. In their superficial and unconvincing way, they are designed to resemble Victorian mansions or 18th Century French chateaux, masking the various innovations that go into them. The same is true of cars. The most successful and popular recent models, like my Chrysler PT Cruiser, are deliberately designed to recall the past. I like this style personally, but I cannot fail to cite it as evidence of a turn toward an idealized past.
This turn to the past is perhaps rooted in simple ennui after decades of breakneck change.
It may also have its roots in the ability of Hollywood and the other modern media, themselves at the leading edge of innovation, to reconstruct an idealized and graphically convincing version of the past.
In recent years, this turn to the past has been masked by what amounts to a miracle of innovation, the phenomenol growth in the power and utility of computing machines. It is interesting to think about where we would be if this had not happened, if computers had taken all the time from 1980 to the present to advance to the point where they actually were in 1985. This would have been a reasonable expectation in 1980.
I believe that this growth has compensated for trends that would otherwise have destroyed us, or come close to it, by now.
Before the internet, the mass media were all powerful, plunging the world toward a New Dark Age that is only now being arrested essentially by the intervention of an unanticipated development, the internet as an instrument of mass communication.
Similarly, much economic growth has been fuelled by greater computer power. Many businesses and industries that were on their way to extinction have undergone a renaisance, thanks to the wealth of software that streamlines operations, simplifies inventories, tracks markets, increases efficiency in every area. This is beside the new opportunities that have been created, quit aside from the computer industry itself. To cite just one underreported example, small scale manufacturing is enormously more practical and profitable than it was just 20 years ago, thanks almost entirely to the introduction of advanced computing in several areas.
This is how I get parts for my 1937 FarmAll tractor. Somebody can make them in small batches with ultra-flexible CAM methods, or find them through a global search that takes in every dusty corner of every old warehouse on the globe. With the internet, it is child's play for them to then find the handful of customers around the world. This isn't major industry, but it is a profitable business that would not exist otherwise.
#13
The huge majority of IT applications would be seen as tremendous innovations IF we had to implement them with mechanical devices (assuming they were doable at all).
An appropriate subtitle to the article ought to be: blind man complains that he can't tell how bright new LED lights are.
The rate of innovation is linked to the degree of freedom we enjoy. If we let the Islamofascists win, there won't be any innovation anywhere on Earth.
#15
better yet, create a "Huebner" award for best new breakthrough
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/03/2005 12:41 Comments ||
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#16
Bah! This is just numerical masturbation combined with the media's never-ending joy over stories of gloom and doom. The statistic, innovations per billions of people is a bogus measure. All it takes is a growing population to drive the number down. An example would be the developed countries producing inventions at a constant rate while the population of the undeveloped countries continues to rise.
Furthermore, an innovation, such as a smallpox vaccine, provides benefit to everyone. It is not like dividing a pizza where your share is inversely proportional to the number of people.
I am not arguing the numbers are wrong; simply that they are meaningless. Bah and Double Bah.
#17
I guess the point is all this stuff is great, but where is my FLYING CAR?
Posted by: bruce ||
07/03/2005 17:25 Comments ||
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#18
TW, the golden age of Greek ideas men (no women in those days, sorry) was the Iona Greeks who lived on the coast of what is now Turkey and the ajacent islands. By the time of Athens, greek ideas were already past their peak. I still find it astonishing that 2,000 years would pass before we came close to their originality and diversity of thinking.
Otherwise, I wish people wouldn't use the computer industry as an example of innovation. I worked in it for 30 years and genuine innovation was rare and real innovators were often a voice in the wilderness. Moore's Law results from incremental engineering improvements and not from significant new ideas. The ever wider application of computers results from them getting ever cheaper.
Which brings me to a pet idea of mine - innovation results from different people attacking the same problem in moreorless isolation. There are many examples, such as Einstein's theory of relativity and my Iona Greeks who lived in many small towns and islands. If I am right then the result of improving communications is to homogenize ideas and create orthodoxy. I long ago figured out that the biggest barrier to people considering new ideas is getting them past 'I already know the answer to that'.
DETROIT - A lawyer for Michael Moore urged a federal judge Friday to dismiss a libel lawsuit against the documentary filmmaker filed by the brother of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols. Moore attorney Herschel Fink argued during a hearing that James Nichols' claims "range from the frivolous to the silly," and that Moore only reported the truth and his constitutionally protected opinion in the 2002 film "Bowling for Columbine."
James Nichols' attorney, Kenneth McIntyre, argued that Moore "offered half-truths or total untruths" to accuse his client of being an accomplice in the April 1995 bombing that killed 168 people. Among the items in question in Nichols' lawsuit are Moore's use of the term "practice bombs" in the movie to refer to explosives the Nichols brothers and McVeigh made on a farm prior to the Oklahoma City bombing.
James Nichols also claims that Moore incorrectly stated he had been arrested in connection with the bombing. McIntyre said Moore knew James Nichols was only held as a material witness and that later charges against him were not connected with the bombing and eventually were dropped.
McIntyre also took issue with a phrase in the film that alleges federal agents couldn't get "the goods" on James Nichols, so they dropped the charges against him. He said viewers would think Nichols was involved but somehow got out of it.
Fink called Nichols' complaint "the perfect storm of libel suits." He said Moore's reports are based on documents from court and other sources and items from reliable news outlets. He also argued that Moore's statements are protected because James Nichols, who has written a book, given speeches and appeared in several media interviews, is a public figure. "When you see a Michael Moore film, you know it's opinion," Fink said. "And it's protected."
Judge Paul D. Borman said he will issue a decision after he reviews the case.
#1
There is opinion, which is protected, as well as satire. But, a movie that makes a claim of a documentory and tells nothing but lies, is slander and libel. BIG differance.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/03/2005 20:44 Comments ||
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#8
So next time I'm up hunting in N.Michigan & I shoot Moore's fat ass my attorney (I.M. Fulluvit) can persuade the jury that I mistook Moore for a moose.
#1
only take it half way down for the SEALS and Night Stalkers
Posted by: Jan ||
07/03/2005 0:06 Comments ||
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#2
Since the SubSupreme Court made it legal, find out who complained, and file an emminent domain claim to build a Flag history museum on the site of the troublemaker's house after it is demolished...
#3
One of the reasons I am on our HOA board is precisely to stop this kind of crap from happening to Me.
I made sure we had a "seasonal display" clause for temporary things like this.
#4
Comets are always a bastard to see, it's some sorta law. My favorite bust is still Comet Kohoutek, see it in the daylight! read the newspaper at night by its glow! I spent many frustrating nights when I was a mere yut trying to find that SOB with a 2.4 refractor which had so much chromic aberration you could never be certain what you were seeing.
#5
From the Deep Impact website, on observing the event through telescopes:
Q: What will I see?
A: Before impact, you will see a very dim fuzzball through a telescope. After impact, we expect that you will see a brighter fuzzball through the telescope.
Sounds... spectacular.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/03/2005 10:27 Comments ||
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#6
will Bruce Willis be narrating? Aerosmith in the background?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/03/2005 11:34 Comments ||
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#7
The good stuff will be coming down from the flyby vehicles cameras. Might be some approach shots now, you never know.
#8
What you're seeing is not the "dirty ice ball" itself but the stream of particles that trail behind it in the solar wind. Everything depends on the angle at which the comet approaches the sun, as seen from Earth. The better the angle, the more reflected sunolight from the comet's contrail.
I remember Kohoutek as a bust too. But Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp (love that name!) were beautiful. I remember showing our youngest kids the "fuzzy stars from the back porch.
#9
'These materials have not seen the light of day for 4.6 billion years,' said Jessica Sunshine, a scientist working on the mission. 'That's what we're waiting to see.'
The NASA Rainbow, another Clinton legacy, reflecting the full spectrum of "talent", from the best and brightest to the PC and puffery.
BTW, it's NASA you illiterate Observer twits, it's an acronym (look it up, if you must) - so cap it.
#11
Here's some info on Sunshine, complete with photo. She has a PhD in planetary geology (I deduce) from Brown. Don't see any "PC and puffery". (Yeah, yeah, the name, I admit...)
Got an asteroid named after her, but then, so do a lot of people.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/03/2005 14:15 Comments ||
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#13
Saddam's interest in probes is prolly a recent phenomenon. But just for fun, I'll respond a bit.
I worked for SAIC, too - 4 of the last 6 years, in fact. Spectroscopy is her specialty, as I read it, and applies because the probe trajectory is supposed to be aligned so that, upon impact, the ejecta will have the sun behind it, from the POV of their spectrography gear on the "mother ship". If everything works, they'll get some definitive shots telling them the elements / chemistry of the comet area impacted. That's cool. We had spectroscopy hotshots in the awl bidness, too.
I'd love to hear someone explain how "planetary" geology differs from "regular" geology, heh. The elements, minerals, lithology, and change processes are, I'd wager, universal, lol. I knew bunches of geologists, as you might expect, in the awl bidness. My favorite guy was also a physicist and decided to put a sign above the door of his office claiming that he was a "Fizziologist", heh.
#14
As far as the fuzzy blob goes. I find fuzzy blobs all the time, nebulas, gobular clusters, many 10th magn or higher, this little bastard is damend hard to find and has been "lost" several times since it's original discovery.
I'd love to hear someone explain how "planetary" geology differs from "regular" geology...
Not being a geologist, I'm not sure, but it prolly has something do with all those other planets not being a lot like earth. Change processes include things like hydrology, vulcanism, and plate tectonics, which not all other worlds have.
It's kinda like how being an astrophysicist isn't exactly like being a physicist.
Posted by: R ||
07/03/2005 17:03 Comments ||
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#18
Asteroids or comets can be thought of as unorganized planets or pre-planets - I just hope the Science boyz correctly calcul the "hardness" of this rock, and the correct level of blast. WE don't want TEMPEL to come apart in full view of NASA's watchful cameras - sorry but FOXNEWS simulation foootage of the blast occurring in the leaner center between TEMPEL's two large lobes doesn't allay my concern. OTOH, iff one of the lobes does fracture off and smashes into the earth, we can find out if ole Terra Firma can take the dynamics of a PLANET X or the MOON CHUNKS Of 2030, etc.
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SURFING the web and making free internet phone calls on your Wi-Fi laptop, listening to your iPod on the way home, it often seems that, technologically speaking, we are enjoying a golden age. Human inventiveness is so finely honed, and the globalised technology industries so productive, that there appears to be an invention to cater for every modern whim.
DETROIT - A lawyer for Michael Moore urged a federal judge Friday to dismiss a libel lawsuit against the documentary filmmaker filed by the brother of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols. Moore attorney Herschel Fink argued during a hearing that James Nichols' claims "range from the frivolous to the silly," and that Moore only reported the truth and his constitutionally protected opinion in the 2002 film "Bowling for Columbine."
