So don't ask me why I thought about this, but it intrigued me. I just ordered a 1 terabyte external hard drive and while thinking about how awesomely huge that is it got me to another thought. Assume the following: an 80-year life span, the average length of a song is 3.5 minutes, and the average size of an MP3 is 1 MB per minute. If you bought a total of 12 terabytes of hard drive space (which you could do for ~$1200) and filled it with MP3s, you would officially have more music than you could ever listen to in your lifetime. Even if you started playing songs the moment you were born and continued 24/365, you would still not get through them all by the time you were 80. Of course, that begs the next question, which is how long would it take to download 12 TBs of music on the average T1 line? Well, guess that's a question for another day . . .
Changing topics completely, this story disturbed me . A man (Jonathan Reed) in Texas has had his 30-year-old rape/murder conviction overturned. The reason? The Texas Supreme court ruled that "prosecutors improperly excluded black prospective jurors from Reed's trial". The kicker is that Reed is white. The case was apparently built upon a manual "written by a prosecutor in 1969 and used for years later, that advised Dallas prosecutors to exclude minorities from juries" because "they almost always empathize with the accused". OK, that definitely seems pretty obscene, but is this really an effective way to right that wrong? Shouldn't the fact that, you know, there was overwhelming evidence that this guy is guilty carry a little more weight (the roommate of the murdered girl was also attacked but lived and ID'd Reed, and two other residents ID'd him as being in the apartment complex before the attack) than judicial procedure? It seems to me that it's your basic right to a trial judged by a jury of your peers and it certainly seems like he still got that. Thus, if we were talking about a black defendant where all black jurors were disallowed that would be different. Furthermore, since this manual was written in 1969 and Reed's trial was in 1979, doesn't that mean that all decisions rendered within those 10 years now need to be vacated and retried? And, if so, doesn't that mean that the families of any men put to death (Reed was on death row) as a result of decisions rendered during that time can now sue the state? I guess that at the end of the day, my point is that I believe that a correct response achieved through incorrect methods is still a correct response. I think that while lower courts need to be strict interpreters of the law, when cases reach the levels of the state and federal supreme court, I believe that society is better served if the justices are guided by the overall principle of "was justice served in this case?" But, as with the Burris appointment, this is probably another example of where the "right" thing to do comes into conflict with the "legal" thing to do. It's a bit disheartening that those two principles should conflict so often.
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Huh. Very very interesting indeed. I wonder what my lawyer friends (look at me, I have lawyer friends) would say about that. They probably talked about that sort of thing in ethics class.
Glad you’re blogging again!
How many average sized JPG's would it take to fill a 1TB hard drive? And how long would it take a person to take that many digital pictures?
And depending on your T1 line and options you can get anywhere from 1.5Mbps to ~6Mbps. So you do the math.
I have lawyer friends too. They just all exist on TV. And while you may say that putting blacks on juries because they are sympathetic to defendants is "obscene" the underlying theory has been used in TV/Movie courtrooms for years. If you are a defense attorney trying to get your client off, and focus groups, psychologists, and history shows that blacks are more "empathetic with the accused" then you should get some blacks on your jury. The same would be true if instead of blacks the study showed the same trends for women, Mexicans, gays, or fry cooks.
I don't know the law enough to say if the Appeals court is crazy or not, but the thing that disturbs me most about this article is that this guy has been on death row for 30 years. I am understanding when it comes to the appeals process, especially in death row cases, but 30 years is fraking rediculous. (there is also a joke to be made about this happening in Texas.)
But from your comments:
"I believe that a correct response achieved through incorrect methods is still a correct response."
There is some serious Machiavellian shit going on in that statement. This conversation can turn to vigilantism, racial profiling, torture gleaned information...etc...
Little too weighty for a Friday afternoon.
Well, first off it's one thing for an individual lawyer to use stereotyping in jury selection; it's another thing for it to be in an official DA manual.
As for the Machiavellian thing, yes I thought about that as I wrote it and was actually trying to phrase it so it sounded least like it. I was thinking more along the lines of a couple times in high school where I got a question on a test marked wrong because even though I came up with the correct answer, I didn't apply the right formula or in the right way. I always thought that was crap.
I agree that phrasing it the way I did is too simplistic. But my larger point is just that in appeals cases, especially at Supreme Court levels, there needs to be an overriding question of "was the correct verdict rendered" that should carry more weight than if every judicial procedure was followed to the letter of the law.
I do like me some Machiavelli though . . .
i bought a copy of 'the prince' about a year ago because as a literature buff i felt obligated to own it.
but i still haven't gone back and re-read it. even though i did it, i still admit that people WAY oversimplify the 'ends justify the means' and i totally understand where you are coming from, i just dont know enough about appellate law to make a decent argument.
Ah, some good stuff from your buddy Rush.
Obama: "I hope he fails."
Not so sure what you mean to stir up with that one, Eric, but I am going to say this.
I hope he fails to:
1) Raise taxes
2) Institute a national health care plan
3) Abandon Iraq to be left to terrorists and criminals
4) Reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine"
5) Interfere with free trade policies
6) Raise the minimum wage
7) Weaken our military
8) Give amnesty to illegal aliens
9) Create a mandatory community service plan
10) Take away a persons right to private ballot in union votes
I hope he succeeds in:
1) Eliminating racial divisiveness (on ALL sides)
2) Resolving (with a decisive victory) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
3) Developing free trade markets across the continent
4) Developing on-shore energy resources that not only meet our environmental needs, but our ECONOMIC ones as well
5) Developing our infrastructure (RE: Energy Grid, Communications, Transportation) in a fiscally responsible way
Admittedly I have more hopes for failures than successes, but that is why I didn't choose to vote for him. I hope this makes sense...
I wasn't trying to 'stir up' anything, but I think we took different things away from what Rush had to say.
I understand what you are saying about hoping he fails on certain partisan policies, but I also think there is a difference between...well, things. I read the Rush transcript as saying basically "I hope he fails at everything because he is a democrat."
Even your list of things, while I understand what you are saying about the eventual outcomes of your points, is slanted or spun.
I mean, saying you hope he "Abandon[s] Iraq to be left to terrorists and criminals," is incendiary whereas saying something like "I hope his plan in Iraq for a gradual troop drawdown and a transfer of power back to the democratically elected government and people of Iraq works instead of creating instability for the region in general and for the Iraq specifically."
I mean, Rush says "I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don't want them to succeed."
I mean, all of his intentions are good, right? A middle class tax cut coupled with a tax increase on the top 2-3% can, in theory, stimulate the economy just as well as a cut for those same 2-3% can, in theory, stimulate job growth. History has shown that both methods can succeed and fail.
In the above example, I read Rush's statements as saying "I hope his tax plan fails to benefit the country." not "I hope his tax plan doesn't pass because it would be bad for the country."
I also find it asinine to say that people didn't give President Bush a fair shake before tearing him down. According to this Bush's approval rating didn't fall below 55% until 10/9/03 which includes the 8-9 months he was in office before 9/11.
(To answer your question though, I enjoy talking with the 3-4 of you, and the only thing that generates a sustained conversation is politics or current events, so I was really just trying to jumpstart a conversation.)
To steal a line from Al Franken, Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.
It really bothers me when politics take on this type of religious tinge. There is a huge difference between "I hate this liberal policy because it's awful for the country" and "I hate this awful policy because it's liberal for the country." Some of the classic simplistic statements that I fundamentally reject: "That's bad because it's socialist"; "That's good because it's capitalist"; "That's right because it's in the Constitution." They all represent the exact same thinking as "I know it's true because it's in the Bible."
I thought that going into Iraq was a bad idea, but once we did I said that even though I didn't think it would I hoped it succeeded. And to Rush's point I specifically remember watching Bill Maher the week of the invasion with him saying "I think at this point you have to root for the plan to work."
I hate the non-accountability that the diehards of each ideology espouse. Here are the competing versions of the last 20 years,as told by many of the talking heads:
Arch-Conservatives: Reagan and Bush 1 put us on a great course, then Clinton came in and screwed everything up, resulting in 9/11 first of all and then sowing the seeds for the current financial collapse. Bush II has done his best to keep the snarling liberals at bay, kept the country safe, but has gotten the blame for everything that was actually Clinton's fault because the liberal media is out to get him. Now with Obama in the government will run everything and we'll be living in a combination of a Soviet and Orwellian hell before the next 4 years are up. From the moment he is sworn in, anything bad that happens to this country will be Obama's fault.
Arch-Liberals: Reagan and Bush 1 were only interested in helping their rich buddies through crony capitalism and catered to the religious right by pushing an opressive social agenda on the masses. Clinton came in and was the savior but he never got the credit he deserved because the vast right wing conspiracy in the media was out to get him. Then Bush 2 came in (by stealing the 2000 election), allowed 9/11 to happen, then started 2 unnecessary wars and caused the rest of the world to hate us while systematicaly raping the American people of their civil liberties. Now Obama will come in and try to clean up Bush's mess. Anything bad that happens during the entire Obama presidency will still be Bush's fault.
When viewed through this prism, nothing is ever "your guy's" fault. The "beauty" of compromise is that whenever anything doesn't work one side can always say "it didn't work because you went to far" and the other side can say "it didn't work because you didn't let us go far enough."
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