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Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

Kepler said:
They know their audience.

When I lived there in the 80s the Globe ran a story on 2 local yahoos who died in an earthquake in Turkey. Something like 5000 others died. That, the name of the city, and the date of the event were not mentioned in the article but I learned the guy was an avid train photographer.

Boston is the most parochial place on earth. It makes North Korea look cosmopolitan.
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From my Dad's experiences with the Boston press to reading Bill Veeck's "Thirty Tons a Day", to haveing one of my kids play junior and college hockey in the Boston area, I associate myself with your remarks.
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

joecct said:
From my Dad's experiences with the Boston press to reading Bill Veeck's "Thirty Tons a Day", to haveing one of my kids play junior and college hockey in the Boston area, I associate myself with your remarks.
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Holy crap, I didn't know that. Which college did he play for?
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

[Illinois] controversial felony murder rule under microscope after Lake County shooting

Here's an interesting story. Six teenaged boys take a ride to the suburbs from the city of Chicago and go prowling some sleepy neighborhoods. Around 1 A.M., while in the suburbs, they attempt to break into a 75 year old gentleman's car. Gentleman faces the boys and tells them to leave. One boy approaches the homeowner with a knife; homeowner, defending himself, fires his weapon injuring the boy.

The six kids then get into an SUV and drive off. They approach an officer in a neighboring city and one boy along with the mortally injured boy get out to get assistance from a police officer. The other four boys flee in the SUV. Police pursue the SUV, find out it was stolen a week earlier from a different neighboring city, and chase the boys back to Chicago where they ran out of gas and were apprehended. The injured boy died due to the gunshot wounds.

Now, here's the twist. Under (an aggressive) Illinois law, Lake County prosecutors are charging the five boys with Felony Murder of the sixth boy, even though he was shot by the homeowner. Reason being had the boys not gone out that night for the B&E, the boy wouldn't have been shot.

The homeowner has not been charged as he was defending himself.

Illinois is one of the few states who allow trumped up felony charges to be attached to minor cases as a deterant to committing those petty crimes.

I'm not sure how to feel about this.
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

aparch said:
[Illinois] controversial felony murder rule under microscope after Lake County shooting

Here's an interesting story. Six teenaged boys take a ride to the suburbs from the city of Chicago and go prowling some sleepy neighborhoods. Around 1 A.M., while in the suburbs, they attempt to break into a 75 year old gentleman's car. Gentleman faces the boys and tells them to leave. One boy approaches the homeowner with a knife; homeowner, defending himself, fires his weapon injuring the boy.

The six kids then get into an SUV and drive off. They approach an officer in a neighboring city and one boy along with the mortally injured boy get out to get assistance from a police officer. The other four boys flee in the SUV. Police pursue the SUV, find out it was stolen a week earlier from a different neighboring city, and chase the boys back to Chicago where they ran out of gas and were apprehended. The injured boy died due to the gunshot wounds.

Now, here's the twist. Under (an aggressive) Illinois law, Lake County prosecutors are charging the five boys with Felony Murder of the sixth boy, even though he was shot by the homeowner. Reason being had the boys not gone out that night for the B&E, the boy wouldn't have been shot.

The homeowner has not been charged as he was defending himself.

Illinois is one of the few states who allow trumped up felony charges to be attached to minor cases as a deterant to committing those petty crimes.

I'm not sure how to feel about this.
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Almost all states have felony murder statutes. When you say Illinois allows trumped up felony charges, are you suggesting they have a typical felony murder statute but tend to fabricate felonies so they can use it?
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

Okay, maybe not the best wording on my part for that, but from the article:
In Illinois, the felony murder rule applies to 14 specific "forcible felonies" like murder, robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping and even burglary and treason, but also allows prosecutorial discretion to charge someone in cases involving "the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual."

Critics of felony murder argue it unduly punishes someone who didn't actually commit the deadly act and requires no intent to kill to be applied. Supporters argue it prioritizes life by establishing severe consequences for criminal actions that can end with someone's death.

"The rule is there to discourage people from committing crime," said Woodstock-based defense attorney Hank Sugden. "The moral of the story is don't commit a serious crime."
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Biggest example of it's use is:
One of Illinois' most famous felony murder cases involved the shooting death of a Joliet police officer by another officer in 1970. Three men burglarized a warehouse late one April night but fled when police arrived. One of the burglars was immediately captured, but two remained on the lam. During the search for the two burglars, one of the officers mistook another officer crouched near some bushes for one of the burglars and opened fire when his commands to drop a weapon were not heeded. The burglars were caught a few hours later. The Illinois Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction against the two burglars, saying their commission of the burglary ultimately led to the officer's death.
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In each case, the accomplices are charged with murder because of the indirect death their actions caused.

I get the reason as a deterent, it just seems... odd when used. Especially this incident in Lake County. They have them on felony B&E, felony fleeing. Yet, throw Murder on them?

*edit* Not arguing against it, just moreso looking for discussion on this.
 
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Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

I'm all for it. Maybe people will start to finally think twice about their actions ahead of time if they think there's even a small chance someone could end up dead because of it. And then we need to start emptying our jails and prisons of those with petty drug offenses.
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

I get the sentiment of that but pragmatically what does that get us?
If they trump up charges so someone has the punishment for the crime you get some people who are happy that vengeance has happened. You also you get a lot of people in the community who feel this is unjust making building trust in the community go down the shi1tter.
You get a lot of people who are 'inside'. We pay to warehouse them. We indirectly end up paying for the consequences to their families having to do things to adjust to them being inside.

They come out with a record that makes them unemployable unless there is a miracle, making it close to impossible to get employment and if they do it rarely is at a livable wage. Having a record with that type of conviction most likely sets them up to chronically fail even if they are motivated to help themselves. They come out detached from their families and community so it is easier for them to offend again.

How does this help?

I am NOT saying everyone should get away with things without consequences but when you chose consequences it is a good idea to chose ones that don't shoot you in the foot too
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

leswp1 said:
I get the sentiment of that but pragmatically what does that get us?
If they trump up charges so someone has the punishment for the crime you get some people who are happy that vengeance has happened. You also you get a lot of people in the community who feel this is unjust making building trust in the community go down the shi1tter.
You get a lot of people who are 'inside'. We pay to warehouse them. We indirectly end up paying for the consequences to their families having to do things to adjust to them being inside.

They come out with a record that makes them unemployable unless there is a miracle, making it close to impossible to get employment and if they do it rarely is at a livable wage. Having a record with that type of conviction most likely sets them up to chronically fail even if they are motivated to help themselves. They come out detached from their families and community so it is easier for them to offend again.

How does this help?

I am NOT saying everyone should get away with things without consequences but when you chose consequences it is a good idea to chose ones that don't shoot you in the foot too
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This is probably a bad analogy, so I hope you get what I'm saying:

Group of people: Let's TP this house!
One person of the group: F THAT! BURN IT DOWN! FIRE!
Rest of group: Uh, wait, what? SH* TOO LATE! RUN!

Group gets charged.
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

The Rube said:
This is probably a bad analogy, so I hope you get what I'm saying:

Group of people: Let's TP this house!
One person of the group: F THAT! BURN IT DOWN! FIRE!
Rest of group: Uh, wait, what? SH* TOO LATE! RUN!

Group gets charged.
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yup. And then society has to deal with them being unmarketable, not productive and a burden because society thought it was a great idea to make them unmarketable. Once they have the stain it doesn't wash out and we pay for it too.
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

Explosion sparks fire at Russian lab that stored smallpox


An explosion took place on Monday night at a Russian biological research facility which is reportedly one of two centers in the world that keeps samples of the smallpox virus.

The explosion at the Russian State Centre for Research on Virology and Biotechnology occurred when a gas cylinder exploded on the fifth floor of the laboratory during repairs to a sanitary inspection room, the facility wrote in a statement.

One worker was injured in the explosion and was transported to a burn center, where he is in intensive care, a Russian news agency reported.

The city’s mayor said the blast does not pose any threat to the population, the news agency reported, and that no biohazard material was being stored in the inspection room.
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Government telling citizens there's no threat to the population...where have we heard that before...
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

Dead men tell no tales

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Not even corpses are willing to speak on the record these days <a href="https://t.co/FuWcAbDIwn">pic.twitter.com/FuWcAbDIwn</a></p>— Someone's An Idiot (@SomeonesAnIdiot) <a href="https://twitter.com/SomeonesAnIdiot/status/1173801435798081536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

Deep Fake videos are on the rise. The vast majority of them are porn.

The number of deepfake videos is 84% higher than it was last December when Amsterdam-based Deeptrace found 7,964 deepfake videos during its first online count. The company conducted this more recent count in June and July, and the number has certainly grown since then, too.

While much of the coverage about deepfakes has focused on its potential to be a tool for information warfare in politics, the Deeptrace findings show the more immediate issue is porn. In the report, released Monday, Deeptrace said 96% of the deepfakes spotted consisted of pornographic content, and all of that pornographic content featured women.

Deeptrace CEO and chief scientist Giorgio Patrini told CNN Business that the growth the company charted over just seven months shows the potential for false content to be created and quickly circulated. Even if one of these deepfake videos isn't very realistic looking — at this point, plenty of them aren't — it could still be good enough to influence many people's opinions.
"That is a fairly worrying threat for social media," Patrini said.
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And as with all new tech since VHS, it always starts with porn.
 
Re: Headline News Thread II: Meanwhile...

From the NY Times.

“South Park" was erased from major platforms in China after an episode taunted Chinese censors. The show's creators posted a mocking apology: “Like the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts. We too love money more than freedom and democracy.”
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