TheAgitator.com
Bonus Afternoon Link Dump
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010Lazy-man blogging continues…
- Motorhome Diaries crew files intent to sue for arrests in Jones County, Mississippi.
- This is pretty stunning news.
- Arizona judge finds Andrew Thomas and Joe Arpaio are abusing legal system to attack political opponents.
- Poll: Canadians prefer bacon to sex. Better not step foot in Canada, Tim Love.
- New York City public school system has 55,000 teachers. They’ve managed to fire just three in two years for incompetence.
- Copyright Nazis kill original Rickroll.
- Italy sentences Google execs to prison after user posts abusive video to YouTube.
As hamas was established by the US and israel as an alternative to the PLO, why is anyone suprised by this? Have you been living under a rock?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/24/rhode.island.teachers/index.html?hpt=T2
That Italian decision is pretty stunning.
I keep reading it and thinking “That can’t be right”.
talk about govt. actively fighting the public good. Not even taking into the account the positive effects of free speech which is now going to be limited in Italy.
think about what happened here.
The ability of people to post videos on YouTube is what got this “crime” of bullying noticed.
Then google assisted the govt. in locating these “criminals”.
Therefore due to YouTube a “crime” was reported and the suspects located.
This is bad?
well maybe depending on what the crime of bullying is, but the general principle stands.
They’ve updated the article, rickroll is back.
http://tinyurl.com/2lrx46
Google should take down Youtube and Google video for all of italy, and replace it with a simple message:
Due to the recent decision by Italian Procecutors (Include link to their gov’t site) to press unfathomable privacy charges against our executives, and the subsequent sentencing of these employees to jail time (Link to tarticle) by italian courts, Google can no longer provide video services to The country of Italy without exposing it’s innocent employees to criminal prosecution.
You got it wrong, Balko. The NYC public school system is so freaking awesome on the hiring end – attracting and hiring only the best of the best – that they’ve only had to fire three of them in the past couple of years. Their hiring practices should be documented and replicated!
Yeah, that’s it.
And I thought only the US had a screwed up legal system. The kids who made the video and beat up the autistic kid only got 10 months community service and the google execs who did nothing, got 6 months jail time. sad.
I read the Italy article and kept hoping they were sentencing the founders to prison, who could tell them to shove it since they aren’t in Italy.
Sadly, it seems they’ve actually sent people to prison for… pretty much nothing, apparently. I still can’t get myself too indignant, lest I remember that our local violence monopoly throws way more people in cages for pretty much nothing than the Italian one does.
That said, if I was an exec of an American company in Italy, I’d be thinking about plan B right about now.
Hate to go against the grain, but the I have to take the
side of the police in the Motorhome Diaries contretemps.
The police clearly “had no idea what those guys were going to do.”
What else? Oh yeah one of the guys called the
officer’s dog a liar.
Also they were into that wing-nut Liberty stuff.
Ok, so a visiting judge from another county admonished Sheriff Joe and his prosecutor cronies. Now it’s time to sit back and watch them retaliate for this miscarriage of justice!
Where’s my pop corn?
Only her death and absence from the country saved Oriana Fallaci from facing trial in Italy. Seen in that context, the Google result is not surprising.
Appalling, yes. Surprising, no.
Afterthought to the previous comment.
I’ve seen a number of pieces about the Italian government’s desire to suppress free speech on the Web. Here’s a recent one.
Speculation: if, per their recent behavior in China, Google is refusing to assist the Italian government with repressive technology, might the conviction be a reprisal?
“New York City public school system has 55,000 teachers. They’ve managed to fire just three in two years for incompetence.”
The second paragraph spells it out if you do the math. They only went after 0.13% of all teachers in the first place.
All they had to do was fire the one worst teacher out of 750. You’d think it would be a slam dunk, but even then, they only had a 4% success rate!
The government is truly pathetic.
The suggestions for Google to stop service in Italy until their people are exonerated are good. Google might also want to consider asking President Obaba to ‘pardon’ the executives. This would have no direct on Italian law, of course, but would let them escape any American consequences of conviction.
Obama hasn’t got the balls, of course.
In before the “Hamas is a zionist organization” accusations.
*Looks at post 1* Shit, too late.
Man you propagandists are good.
“Obaba” = Obama. Sorry.
Re NYC Teachers, see Joel Klein’s “The Rubber Room” in the New Yorker last summer.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill
Regarding the “lazy man” approach to blogging — short links are great, but it would be nice if each was separately posted, so that the comment threads could be unitary.
**Italy sentences Google execs to prison after user posts abusive video to YouTube.**
Things like this are why I am so suspicious of the murder case brought against an American woman, Amanda Knox, this past year. It reeked of anti American sentiment and even prosecutors here said they would not have brought so weak a case before a jury.
I will not be visiting Italy any time soon, with a legal system like that…
Fortunately, my “Battlestar Galactica”-themed Rickroll remains untouched: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaCkFm0XlVQ
There was some reporting about that Italian Google trial on NPR today. From what I gather, their case was based on the idea that Google didn’t react fast enough to remove the video. Personally, I don’t think they should have had to remove the video at all, although I have no objection to them doing so. I’m not a fan of government mandated censorship whether it be done in the name of decency, obscenity, terrorism, or patriotism. It’s a brutal world and it does a disservice to humanity to suppress imagery of that brutality. What’s disturbing to me is the idea put forth that all the people who viewed that video were satisfying some evil voyeuristic lust for violence. Since when did curiosity become shameful?
In any case, despite Hilary’s grand pronouncements against censorship in places like Iran, the rate at which western countries are moving toward internet censorship is alarming. Of course, they are doing it to suppress immoral stuff like porn and violence that every single soul on the planet universally agrees has no social value (despite it’s overwhelming popularity), but mechanisms put in place to control porn, will eventually be used to control political speech. Even more worth protecting, the internet has the power to bring people together almost instantly, giving citizens the power for the first time in history to immediately threaten their government with extinction (through the voting process, of course…) if their wishes are ignored.
Cop seeks protection from cops:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/51789.html
This is what happens to a cop who somehow has a shred of humanity left, the shred that says “your Brotherhood of Blue is evil”, the one that most cops embrace and enjoy.
Thanks for the Motorhome Diaries link. I didn’t read it until this morning, so now my whole day I shot because of my indignant libertarian anger. Why don’t you just give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice in it?