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The Jury System
As Don Bauder points out, there are two justice systems...one for the rich and another one for the rest of us.— June 15, 2008 9:16 a.m.
Yes We Cannes! The Yacht That Tells a Lacht -- Everything, Actually -- About Copley Newspapers
Re: 39 and 43... "Jock strap"? Don, you have a potty mouth! Fumber is actually an "athletic supporter". Isn't that much nicer? It's important to make such distinctions and use nice language. For example, just the other day I was hauling my humongous lesions (much nicer than pus sores) around in a sanitation vehicle (much nicer than "garbage truck"), when I ran over inhabitants of a third world nation (much nicer than "gutter snipes"). Painted on the side of my sanitation vehicle was the legitimate and honorable sports business (much nicer than "Padres and Chargers") logos displaying my pride and loyalty (much nicer than "sniveling mindless servitude") to our local teams (much nicer than "mercenary players for hire"). See, Don, how with just a few changes to your language you may some day reach the heights of expository brilliance that fumber provides this humble publication. Fumber, again, thank you for your kind words and loving support. As always, you are welcome to savor the fresh taste of some sweet, sweet santorum any time you desire, and I'll be happy to provide you a steadly lifetime supply of the same. Best, Your loyal admirer, Fred— June 15, 2008 9:14 a.m.
Yes We Cannes! The Yacht That Tells a Lacht -- Everything, Actually -- About Copley Newspapers
The Shelter Island Lutheran Picayune is the finest newspaper in this part of the world. Scott Marks is one of their most perceptive writers. Some recent news stories he's broke: "No news of journalists strike" "Earthquake hits -- La Jollan's lunch interrupted" "San Diego renamed Mooresville" I've been following the Shelter Island Lutheran Picayune (SILP) for decades now. I used to know the financial editor there, Braun Daughter, but I hear he's retired and now writes for some weekly. The only issue I have with SILP is the owner, Cop Davely, a skinny runt who does nothing but read books in his modest studio apartment. He's always opposing things like stadiums and public money for political conventions. I just wish he'd occassional be a booster for the region and its benefactors.— June 15, 2008 7:35 a.m.
Yes We Cannes! The Yacht That Tells a Lacht -- Everything, Actually -- About Copley Newspapers
Paul, you got it exactly right. I was there. You missed one thing though. The media picked the opposition spokesperson. The only opponent to Prop. C they would ever allow on air was a nice woman who was always very polite and soft spoken. They ignored anyone with rhetorical big guns. So they put this nice woman on the air, who was easily flustered, and pretended she was the only voice against the ballpork rip-off. Yet another favor to their business partners at the Padres. Both before and after the vote, all the television, radio, and other news outlets had marketing deals with the Padres including ticket giveaways, special access to the star players, and exclusives for their deliberately ignoring what happened during the re-writing of the MOU. This is why I continue to advocate suing the Padres for our money back. It was a deliberate fraud, including criminal extortion and conversion, as well as bribery of public officials. Remember, we are all paying for the ballpork, right out of the general fund, in direct contradiction to what the voters approved. Until 2037!!! Disgusting.— June 14, 2008 8:30 a.m.
Service at Restaurants
I knew a cantankerous old cuss who would say, "Ya wanna tip? Don't take any money from strangers. HA!" (...then he would leave a generous amount of money on the table for the waitress...he just loved to tweek people.)— June 14, 2008 8:25 a.m.
The Jury System
Hi Josh, I agree with most of what you wrote, but have a contradictory take on this: "....if it looks like the guy is guilty, and the jury is too stupid to see it that way, the judge needs to step in and do something." Josh, I think it's more often the other way around. Juries need to be able to step in when the judge is making rulings clearly prejudicial to the defendant. As the venerable Blackstone said, it's better for ten guilty to go free than for one innocent to be convicted. Similarly, you wrote that you feel people are likely guilty or the police wouldn't go to the time and effort. Hello? Earth to Josh! Earth to Josh! Haven't you been hearing about the innocence project? Already dozens of death row inmates freed by DNA evidence. They were rail-roaded. Cops lie. There's no way around it. Cops have a HUGE steroids abuse problem, especially here in San Diego, making them hyper-agressive. Instead of defusing the situation, they often escalate it to have the chance to play billy-bad-ass and beat down anyone who would dare question their authority. Then the person beaten to a pulp gets charged with assaulting a police officer, sentenced to jail, loses his liberty, savings, job, and family. This happens a lot, Josh. Right here in San Diego. The UT turns a blind eye, or adds insult to injury by ALWAYS siding with the cops no matter how egregious their behavior. See the case in Oceanside where an SDPD officer named White shot a woman and child five times. She got charged. He's still on the job. They refuse to release the facts of the case, leading a lot of reasonable people to believe it's another cover up. Thanks for provoking me to respond to your posting, Josh. There are a lot of problems with our current system, and I'd welcome you reporting on them in more detail in the future. Best, Your buddy Fred— June 14, 2008 8:20 a.m.
Realtors Hold Post-Election Fundraiser To Help Mayor Sanders Pay Back His Debt
In 1996-97 I wrote a paper for the San Diego Crime Commission on voter fraud. A summary was published in their newsletter. The conclusion was that, in the words of then California Secretary of State Bill Jones, the system was "Ripe for fraud." Little has changed since then, except in a negative direction. The software running these systems remains secret. Is it infected with trojans or back-doors? Can the database tables be manipulated? Can they simply swap results between candidates, giving A the votes of B? We just don't know. But we do know that some of these systems are easily hacked, prone to errors and malfunctions, and immune to challenge even when there are glaring flaws. Can the unscrupulous register multiple plausible aliases, vote absentee, and pass completely undetected? Absolutely. I documented exactly how to do so. Nothing has changed since then. I can still register a whole family of hamsters to vote, fill in their absentee ballots, and have them counted in an eletion with nobody the wiser. The "Motor Voter" law was well-intentioned, but fatally-flawed. As we saw in Florida and Ohio, optical scanners are not particularly trustworthy. We also saw that politically motivated officials have the power to end-run recounts. The owners of vote tabulation companies make substantial campaign contributions. Instead of neutral honest brokers, they are partisans in the business of pleasing politicians. Our voting process should be open and transparent. Instead it is tightly controlled by a few, and not open to outside observation or validation. Various reform proposals have surfaced, including making the software running the tabulation machines open source. This makes a lot of sense for both technical and public policy reasons, but has gotten nowhere. After studying this issue for several months in the late nineties, I had to conclude that there is absolutely no way to know if our elections are honest or not. So far as I can tell, nothing has changed since then. So did Sanders win "fair and square"? We cannot know.— June 13, 2008 9:39 a.m.
Yes We Cannes! The Yacht That Tells a Lacht -- Everything, Actually -- About Copley Newspapers
I have a mental picture of David Copley stepping onto Happy Days, causing it to list 20 degrees. Really, he makes sumo wrestlers look skinny. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't he the inspiration for the Monty Python "Wafer Thin Mint" sketch in the movie Meaning of Life?— June 13, 2008 9:22 a.m.
The gentle decline of golf in San Diego
Back to the subject of golf subsidies: http://www.reason.com/blog/show/126990.html Funny and revoluting simultaneously...— June 13, 2008 9:10 a.m.
Service at Restaurants
Prague is beautiful, it's true. And all those supermodels who's names end in "-ova" are Czech. The music is fantastic. The art is too. The city is much safer than San Diego too...you can walk around at night with no fear at all, except for pick-pocketing if you're drunk and inattentive. Tipping there is totally different. At the end of the meal, after they tally your tab, you simply round up. It's best to frequent only a few neighborhood pubs, let them get to know you, and be patient. It takes about six months, but then you'll start receiving acceptable service. But if you ever complain, you'll be frozen out. Save your money Josh, I'll be back in Prague after the elections here. Then you can come visit me. I'll show you a good time and help you avoid tourist rip-offs.— June 13, 2008 8:01 a.m.