Open Thread

14 Comments

1. 

   Andrew Longman on August 3, 2008 at 10:50 am

   I think this may be a hard case for the govt to win.

   They have to prove that the construction on his house the  trade of cars was below market value (fine}

   Then they have to prove it was deliberately under valued

   Then they have to prove he knew it was deliberately undervalued and should have reported it.

   It is all to easy for him to say, “Hey, I just paid the bills they sent me. I don’t know construction costs. I’m busy being a Senator”

   And its all too easy to show that the case is built around the testimony of guy who took plea deals.

   But the way these deals were crafted to create plausible deniability is in itself damning, so there is always hope.

2. 

   Sawgrass on August 3, 2008 at 12:29 pm

   I chortled when I read this:

   [The prosecution] offered to quickly turn over 500 gigabytes of evidence in the case, including wiretap conversations and hidden video. That’s enough to fill the most powerful consumer computers on the market.

   Heh.  My Dell desktop purchased in 2000 (so last century) has a 500 gig drive. And additional 300 gig storage.  

   So glad to know that spending about $80 for the 500 gig drive allows my 8 year old computer to be one of the most powerful computers on the market.

   You can tell when a reporter “gets” technology, and when they don’t.  How appropriate that this appears in an article about Ted Stevens.

   • 

     ericy on August 3, 2008 at 2:39 pm

     That may be true, but it is still a lot of data.

     When they have both audio and video, there must be a smoking gun in there somewhere…

     • 

       on August 3, 2008 at 4:23 pm

       Hopefully, the indictments aren’t based on the weight of the hard drive.

     • 

       Sawgrass on August 3, 2008 at 5:29 pm

       You’re quite right, and your comment inspires a comparison of what 500 gig might represent.

       I bought a 500 gig drive mostly as redundant backup to other drives on my home LAN, but also to serve as a central repository of photos, music, podcasts, audiobooks, and some short video snippets.

       The audiobooks and podcasts alone represent ~900 real-time hours (~38 days), and they use only 23 gig. The pictures and short videos (44,000 items collected since 2000) take up only 88 gig.  

       Video can require a lot of space, even at low resolution. I bet a large part of the prosecution’s 500 gig is video.

       One would expect that the prosecution has indexed all these materials. I suppose the challenge for the defense is to review all the hours of audio and video, and to mine those hours for anything useful.  It would take time and money, and they seem to have a lot of money.

       • 

         dada on August 3, 2008 at 5:48 pm

         l agree, that’s a hell of a lot of data to sort thru in a very short time. as to your notion that “One would expect that the prosecution has indexed all these materials.”

         no doubt they have, but a smart prosecutor wouldn’t give the defense the indexed data, just the raw files…go find it pal…meets the letter and spirit of the law.

         ianal, but that’s what l’d do, especially with an expedited trial date….then wait for the defense team start asking for extensions.

         imo, this case going to trial before the election is a big if. in fact, he may stand a better chance come november if it doesn’t.

         but then, l’m jaded and cynical.

   • 

     on August 4, 2008 at 3:28 pm

     Sawgrass — The reporter was right, and you’re the one who didn’t “get” it.  The majority of consumer computers on the market have hard drives far below 500gb, and only the most powerful have 500gb or larger drives.  

3. 

   dada on August 3, 2008 at 7:01 pm

   via LAT:

   MOSCOW — Nobel laureate Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, the reclusive icon of the Russian intelligentsia and chronicler of communist repression, has died of heart failure, Russian news agencies reported.

   :::

   “It is history’s sorrow, the grief of our era, that I carry about me like an anathema,” Solzhenitsyn once wrote of his life.

   That he persevered through nearly nine decades was a wonder to many; the bearded author with piercing blue eyes and a diffident manner had weathered cancer, prison, labor camps and condemnation.

   :::

   With his masterwork, “The Gulag Archipelago,” he gave a name to the brutal network of labor camps that spread across the Soviet Union during dictator Josef Stalin’s frenzied drive to industrialize his backward country. Tens of millions of men, women and children died.

   Solzhenitsyn spent the last decade of his life in failing health and seclusion at his rural estate outside Moscow, editing his life’s work for a 30-volume anthology that he predicted he would never live to see completed.

   RIP

4. 

   Salunga on August 3, 2008 at 7:35 pm

   Officer arrested in murder of 10 year old Palestinian child.

   • 

     Hurria on August 4, 2008 at 3:37 am

     No way! This is really a surprise. The only reason they arrested the murderer is because this had become such a high profile case. It is also very that the murderer is a Druze rather than a Jew since most of the border guards are Druze. In any case there is a high likelihood that he will get off, unless they feel they need to make an example of him.

     I DO love this bit of standard bullshit: “Ehud Barak told CNN the boy’s death was an isolated event ‘that we deeply regret.’” It is fascinating that there are tens of exactly this kind of “isolated incidents” every year. Israel kills Palestinian children on a very regular basis, and oddly enough most of them die from shots to the head or upper body, indicating that the killings are quite intentional. It really is a shame that Palestinian children so frequently get in the way of Israeli bullets.

     What is particularly fascinating about this kind of “isolated incident” is that, although Palestinians are accused of deliberately targeting Israeli children, Israelis kill many times more Palestinian children every year. It seems that Palestinians, who target Israeli children, are very bad at hitting them while Israelis, who do not target children, are very bad at not hitting them.

     • 

       Hurria on August 4, 2008 at 3:44 am

       PS I forgot to mention that Israel is holding a large number – I don’t recall at the moment exactly how many, but it is significantly more than one hundred – Palestinian children as young as nine and ten years old in indefinite detention. Many of the Palestinian children Israel imprisons report having been tortured, and deprived of food and water for long periods of time.

       • 

         Salunga on August 4, 2008 at 7:59 am

         but at least Gush Shalom’s protests had some small impact. I’m sure the murderer will be released. They made mention of the rubber bullet shooting on a detainee also. This is MSM remember I have never even seen these stories there.

5. 

   dada on August 3, 2008 at 8:22 pm

   this is pure, unadulterated BS…via thinkprogress:

   On Meet the Press, host Tom Brokaw informed guest Joe Lieberman (I-CT) that nearly 50,000 activists have signed onto the “Lieberman Must Go” petition being circulated by Brave New Films. “Do you think you’re going to be comfortable next year in the Democratic caucus?” Brokaw asked. Lieberman said he’s crossed party lines to support John McCain because “this is no ordinary time.”

   :::

   If Sen. McCain feels that I can help his candidacy…I will do it. But I assure you this Tom, I’m not going to go to that convention — the Republican convention — and spend my time attacking Barack Obama. I’m going to go there really talking about why I support John McCain and why I hope a lot of other independents and Democrats will do that.

   And frankly, I’m going to go to a partisan convention and tell them — if I go — why it’s so important that we start to act like Americans and not as partisan mud-slingers.

   Later in the roundtable segment, Andrea Mitchell said the “good money” is that Lieberman would deliver the keynote address at the RNC Convention.

   don’t be “partisan mud-slingers“ eh…guess ol joe’s powers of perception have gone south just like his demoRATic credentials.

   what’s it take for the leadership to recognize and do something about this self-aggrandizing ass?

   it’ll be interesting to see what, if any, actions the demoRAT caucus comes up with after this recess, and the conventions are concluded.

   imnsho. the smart money’s on “nothing“.

6. 

   anarchronarchist on August 4, 2008 at 2:48 pm

   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26012351/

   Looks like the big C continues to bring down baddies and good guys alike. Novack says he is going to draw the curtain and join the choir invisible.

   This guy was bad. So bad, in fact, his by-line alone is is reason to doubt his announcement as a distraction/fabrication. My thoughts are with his family and friends.  They must be very tolerant people.