Posts by Stephen Judd
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The scoop on why a commutation of sentence and not a pardon.
Scarily, the guy who figured this out thought of it two weeks ago.
With Judge Reggie Walton's ruling that Scooter Libby must begin serving his prison sentence before the appeal of his convictions has run its course, the pressure from Libby's supporters on President Bush to keep Libby out of prison is certain to intensify. President Bush, however, is unlikely to outright pardon Libby for a simple reason: to protect himself and Vice President Cheney.
If Bush were to pardon Libby, he and Vice President Cheney would give up the rationale they have used successfully for four years to avoid addressing their own roles in the case. And Libby's trial made very clear that the President and Vice President played significant and troubling roles at the very heart of the case. It is for the very same reason that Bush is more likely to follow the advice some have offered him and commute Libby's prison sentence, allowing Libby to remain free while he pursues legal vindication.
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It is precisely out of the desire to avoid such uncomfortable questions for himself and his vice president that President Bush is likely not to pardon Libby but to commute his sentence, or otherwise keep him out of prison without fully clearing him. That would enable Libby to remain free while he seeks legal vindication through the appeals process. But more importantly, it would enable Bush and Cheney to continue the strategy they have successfully pursued in deterring journalists seeking their explanations with claims that they shouldn't comment on an ongoing legal proceeding. If Bush were to pardon Libby, he and Cheney would no longer have such a rationale for evading the press' questions - nor would Libby be able to claim the right against self-incrimination to resist testifying before Congress about the role that Cheney and Bush played in directing his conduct.
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<i>because they know what it's like for these things to happen to a family/person.</i>
I don't understand this idea that because a family member has suffered something -- whether it be suicide, murder, drug addiction, or some other horrible social ill -- that this qualifies you as an expert in preventing that problem.
For sure it makes you an expert on the feelings of victims' family members, but that is all. If we elevate the opinions of family members, that is a road to really terrible public policy.
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I myself only drink whiskey for its delicious taste.
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Rik, you realise you're paying more for your port, thanks to Uncle Jim?
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"Stephen Judd of Stephen Judd fame"
Which is just like real fame, only without the recognition, money, or sex.
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Anderton's thinking that this will eliminate an amount of substance use is stunningly naive.
I think that's a very kind way of putting it. I would have said it was an illogical, emotional non-solution to a exaggerated non-problem.
Anderton is not naive, in the sense that he is not a person innocent of the world who has incorrect beliefs based on incomplete knowledge. He is a willful ignoramus, ie someone who believes he knows best no matter what the evidence or aguments presented to him.
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Apropos Cunnamulla, here is director Dennis O'Rourke on that subject:
The light bulb for the film went on just before the beginning of the rise of Pauline Hanson. I thought that the whole idea of Hansonism and native title and "reconciliation" would loom larger in the film than it does. And because it doesn't, that doesn't mean that I don't place value on those issues, in a sense that this is just a film, a story, it's just one thing. I would like to say about Cunnamulla, as some of you that have read the press will already know, that Cunnamulla is a town where half the people say they are black and half say they are white. If you get my drift. Now Jack in the film, Jack's mother was aboriginal. Jack was born on the Warrego, on the creek, down at the river. His father was an Afghan. By every normal definition in Australia today, Jack is an aboriginal. Jack always said he talks about aboriginal people as "them". "Them black cunts" he says. The greatest line that never got in the film was when I was talking to Jack about the fact that the Kooma people had been granted a sheep property through the indigenous lands council and I said, "Isn't this great that they have been given this?" And Jack stares out the window for a while and he said, "Oh those black cunts, the only thing they know about sheep is how to eat the cunts", he says.
Now that sounds offensive if you are removed from Cunnamulla, if you are in Cunnamulla it is not offensive. It is just how it is. Now are we to censor how people speak, are we to censor how they think? I think not. I think that the way that the debates about these issues are so rarefied by us city elites that we sort of somehow miss it you know. People who know the family, as soon as they saw Cara, they would know that she was aboriginal. But, blonde hair? Maybe not, you know. So for most people that I have shown the film to, it is only when they see Cara with her mother that they realise she is an aboriginal girl. Marto is absolutely white if you want precise definitions. All the aboriginal families in Cunnamulla have Irish surnames like McKillop, Water and Cavanagh, you know. They are not aboriginal names.
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RL: that's Sport Review NZ
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Nyet.