Archive for the ‘oddities’ Category

A basic truth

Posted: September 14, 2009 by datechguy in oddities
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RS McCain mentions a basic truth during his fight with Johnson that accidently captures the net in a nutshell:

Regular mainstream politics, where phony Democratic hacks do battle with sold-out Republican frauds, tends to become tedious, and yet there are scores of reporters in Washington who masochistically crave the privilege of covering such pointless snoozefests. The reporter who can locate something newsworthy on the oft-ignored fringe of the political spectrum has got a much better chance of scoring an exclusive — and, frankly, it’s a lot more interesting.

Also, I like crazy people. God help me, but I do love a kook. (Ask any journalist who covered last year’s Libertarian Party convention what a target-rich environment that was for kook-lovers.) As long as they are not actually dangerous, the wackos and zanies are so much more fun than the uptight Republicans and dishonest Democrats one usually meets in Washington.

If you look at what non-political videos go virual this would seem very true, the weird stuff is a lot more fun to watch.

How bad do people want to be famous?

Posted: September 13, 2009 by datechguy in oddities
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This bad:

Women Held Hostage Were Tricked Into Thinking They Were Filming Reality TV

Yes you are reading that right, the story:

The women were rescued on Monday from the villa in Riva, a summer resort on the outskirts of Istanbul, according to a spokesman for the military police in the region who carried out the raid. He said the women were held captive for around two months, but refused to provide further details.

The women were led to believe they were being filmed for a Big Brother-type television programme, according to the Dogan news agency and other news reports. Instead, their naked images were sold on the internet by their captors.

Why would you agree with the terms etc?

“We were not after the money but we thought our daughter could have the chance of becoming famous if she took part in the contest,” one captive’s mother is quoted as saying. “But they have duped us all.”

The thing that surprises me is how little this surprises me.

Federal Law is for little people: not Andrew Sullivan

Posted: September 11, 2009 by datechguy in oddities, opinion/news
Tags: ,

Apparently if you are of the left in Massachusetts some federal laws apply and others don’t:

Political commentator, author and writer for The Atlantic magazine Andrew M. Sullivan won’t have to face charges stemming from a recent pot bust at the Cape Cod National Seashore — but a federal judge isn’t happy about it.

U. S. Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings says in his decision that the case is an example of how sometimes “small cases raise issues of fundamental importance in our system of justice.”

How upset was he? This upset:

Collings says he expressed his concern that “a dismissal would result in persons in similar situations being treated unequally before the law. … persons charged with the same offense on the Cape Cod National Seashore were routinely given violation notices, and if they did not agree to [pay the fine] were prosecuted by the United States Attorney … there was no apparent reason for treating Mr. Sullivan differently from other persons charged with the same offense.”

In fact, noted Collings, there were several other defendants appearing in court the same day who were charged with the same offense. emphasis mine

In his opinion, Collings wrote that the U.S. Attorney is “is not being faithful to a cardinal principle of our legal system, i.e., that all persons stand equal before the law and are to be treated equally in a court of justice once judicial processes are invoked. It is quite apparent that Mr. Sullivan is being treated differently from others who have been charged with the same crime in similar circumstances.”

Ultimately, Collings acknowledged that he had no choice other than to allow the case to be dismissed, but “that the Court must so act does not require the Court to believe that the end result is a just one.”

I wonder if Mr. Sullivan was not such a fan of the current occupant of the White house if the US Attorney’s office would have been in such a hurry to dismiss?

Update: I beat the Other McCain to it but Vodka pundit and Dan Riehl
beat us both.

Update 2: but I did edge out hotair

If you like Maintenance Sex you’ll love Culture of Corruption. Glenn creates a statistical oddity

Posted: September 9, 2009 by datechguy in oddities
Tags:

To give you an idea of how powerful Instapundit is consider this:

Glenn links to an article about “Maintenance Sex”

He includes a link to this book on the subject.

And Viola suddenly the market base for the book changes:

Click for full size

Click for full size

So two hours after Glenn links to a book on sex suddenly 27% of the people who go to that page are buying culture of corruption.

I wonder how many people who would normally go to that page would see a link to Michelle’s book?

It will be interesting to check this page out in a day or so to see what happens.

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