Should you ever talk to the police to exonerate yourself? Professor James Duane explains why you should never talk to the police. Ever. Even if you are completely innocent. Sounds like good advice to me. It's not just a clever defense lawyer tactic. It's a Constitutional right that has been upheld repeatedly by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The next time someone says to you that religion is under attack by the courts in the schools because of the separation clause, consider this high school history teacher who has been found guilty of insulting Christians in class.
James Corbett, a 20-year teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, was found guilty of referring to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a 2007 classroom lecture, denigrating his former Advanced Placement European history student, Chad Farnan.
The problem with this is that, basically, Mr. Corbett only told the truth, and appears to have talked almost exclusively about Creationism, not Christianity. The judge made the immediate connection between the two, however. U.S. District Court Judge James Selna's claim that he can find "no secular purpose" in Corbett's statements is either thick-witted or disingenuous---it would seem to be a teacher's job to point out to students something that is, well, idiocy. However, I expect an appeal on this, because it is also clear that the judge in question has something of a bias here. But it's instructive---rather than take the idea of Creationism as what it has lately been packaged, namely Intelligent Design, and examine it as a claim of "science" as its advocates insist it is, Selna understands immediately that this is a bogus proposition. That, in fact, Intelligent Design is a religious idea in a new wrapper. Corbett's dismissal of Creationism can only then be an attack on religion. Which, by the letter of the law, is a violation of the separation clause. Those who advocate against secularism and insist religious ideas have no defense in this modern state should look at this as an example---not in their favor, because it still won't allow for the introduction of religion into public schools---of the fact, oft-stated, that the Constitution requires even-handed exclusions. Secularists can't even say nasty things about a bogus idea that has only association relevance to religion. You can't even bring it up to say it's wrong. Personally, I do think this is a bit idiotic, but---what's that old phrase---it is fair to a fault.Paul Kinsella is a fascinating fellow. Though he is not with any branch of law enforcement, he has taken it on himself to delve into the tactics of the Nigerian scammers. You know, they might as well be called Nigerian spammers. And, believe it or not, though most of us simply delete those emails, over the course of a year many people fall for the scam and they lose substantial money in the process. Kinsella is featured in "Master Baiter," a detailed and entertaining article written by Nicolas Phillips and published in this week's Riverfront Times. Kinsella, a 37-year old Illinois native as well as a father of two, scams the scammers with gusto. And he loves to tell them that they've been scammed by him. Kinsella has often tried (and sometimes succeeded) in convincing the scammers that he wants to work with them to rip off victims. Check out Kinsella's website (419hell.com)to see many of the flavors of the scams, along with the people running them. Quite impressive. He must spend incredible numbers of hours running his operation. The payoff? He has learned of the identities of 26 potential victims and prevented 14 of them from actually paying the money. To see the FTC's warnings about the Nigerian scams, go here. Kinsella is multifaceted. He intentionally dropped 100 fake-lost-wallets to see how honest people were (74 were returned), resulting in a lot of publicity. He's also a cartoonist and . . . oh yeah, consider this other service he offers:
He also created AfterLifeTelegrams.com, which works like this: For $5 a word, you write a telegram to a deceased loved one. Kinsella then arranges for a terminally ill person to memorize the message and pass it along.
As I learned from my days working as an Assistant Attorney General, it takes a scammer to catch a scammer. Check out the article in the RFT. It's full of facts, figures and entertaining vignettes about Kinsella, the Nigerian scams and much more.On 24 March, 2009 Lawrence Lessig delivered the keynote speech, Getting the Network the World Needs, at the OFC Conference in San Diego, CA. This is a revision of a REMIX talk, distinguishing between parts of the 20th Century that were Read-Only and parts that were Read-Write. His brilliantly delivered thesis discusses how culture prior to the 20th century was essentially read-write, everyone consumed and created the culture interactively. During the 20th century centralization and control of media and distribution transformed our culture to a read only - where creation was almost exclusively the province of professionals and professional distribution channels (tv, movies, music). He then suggests that the 21st century brings the promise and the demand for building a read-write culture once more, and for moving far beyond the mash-up of the past decade. He also discusses the necessary legal and infrastructural changes needed to accommodate this changed reality. Warner Music has tried to serve a DCMA takedown, based on his inclusion of some music and media clips - despite the obvious and clear "fair use".
McClatchy has now found a most intriguing (and, in retrospect, a most predictable) connection.
The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.
Read more about it at Koz. And also check out the new disclosure that the Bush Administration did its damndest to destroy a memorandum highly critical of the legality of its decision to torture prisoners. And now we know that Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney personally approved waterboarding. Finally, consider this conversation involving FOX's Shepard Smith and Judith Miller (the Judith Miller), who unrelentingly attack the memos for trying to justify torture. Maybe Miller is in a redemptive phase . . . THEN, listen carefully at exactly 5:07 of the video to hear a walloping Freudian slip by the conservative think-tanker, Cliff May, a guy who claims that waterboarding is fun and games, who accidentally admits that the Bush-approved techniques WERE torture (listen for the critical word is "it"). Yes, Cliff, it was torture and you (and everyone else in the country) know it. Miller raises the point that even Israel, which knows a thing or two about interrogating prisoners, outlawed waterboarding long ago because it is torture. But there's still more. Consider Republican strategist and Cheney-admirer Phil Lusser's "magic eyeballs" in a conversation with Lawrence O'Donnell and Norah O'Donnell. Go to the end of this video and you'll hear Lawrence O'Donnell clean Lusser's clock. It's all falling apart like a house of cards. After years and years of insanity, it's finally happening. Yes, sunshine is the best disinfectant.