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18. februar 2004
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Semicolon stops anti-gay legal filing
The gay rush to to be married in San Francisco continues, as a legal filing is conveniently delayed by some bad punctuation:
Superior Court Judge James Warren told plaintiffs late this afternoon that they would likely succeed on the merits of their case but said he would not issue a court order until they corrected a punctuation error in their legal filing.
"I am not trying to be petty here, but it is a big deal. That semicolon is a big deal," Warren told attorneys, according to an account by Associated Press.
There is a vast potential for very bad puns here, but I'll restrain myself.
PS: Yes, I just quote from and link CalPundit, since I haven't bothered to register with LA Times yet.
9:47:11 PM 
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Music for the masses
Always worth reading, blogger VodkaPundit has a very good article on the recording industry and the problems with copyright and file sharing. Read all of it, but I wanted to emphasise the part where he argues that the RIAA will never accept reform in licensing fees for radio:
The RIAA doesn't want that to happen, because they like the way things are now: they order up color-by-numbers songs from music producers, tell the radio stations what to play, ship out a bunch of lousy CDs--and then whine when the CDs don't sell. As far as I'm concerned, the record companies can go cry to the Buggy Whip Manufacturer's Association. The time of their time has come and gone.
Indeed.
Ah, I wish I'd written that.
8:21:39 PM
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Mullah Krekar released
Ansar al-Islam leader Mullah Krekar, the Islamic terrorist who has been living in Norway as a refugee for years, has been released from protective custody. His PR-savvy lawyer team used the opportunity to grab the headlines today, alleging that the case has collapsed when a private investigator employed by Krekar found out that a witness had been tortured by the PUK in Iraq before implicating Krekar in terrorism.
The white-collar crime unit Økokrim, responsible for prosecuting Krekar, has denied that the case has collapsed and that torture charges are relevant to decisions in the case, but hasn't explained what is going on. They are upholding the charges. Norwegian police insists all evidence presented in court was based on interrogations done by Norwegian police alone.
The lawyers seem very confident, and are preparing demands for compensation from the Norwegian state. However, nobody has confirmed that the charges will be dropped.
I have predicted earlier that Økokrim will fuck up this prosecution , as it "has a track record of general incompetence." In this case, however, I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
Krekar is still in hot water, however, as he is about to be expelled from Norway if he is not prosecuted. His lawyers are now appealing for help from Amnesty International to prove he will be in danger if he is returned to northern Iraq. Cry me a river!
Picture above: A smiling Mullah Krekar (background) meeting his lawyer Brynjar Meling when released from prison in Oslo.
More on Mullah Krekar case.
PS: Bjørn Stærk also has more on this recent development.
3:50:37 PM
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Majority of Americans believe in Noah's flood, six day creation
If there is one issue that is bloody hard to defend when leftists begin their "Americans are stupid" chants, it is the enormous amount of people in the US who believe in creationism even in its most primitive form. Observe this poll:
"I'm going to ask about a few stories in the Bible. [See below.] Do you think that's literally true, meaning it happened that way word-for-word; or do you think it's meant as a lesson, but not to be taken literally?" |
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Literally
True |
Not
Literally
True |
No
Opinion |
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% |
% |
% |
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"The story of Noah and the ark in which it rained for 40 days and nights, the entire world was flooded, and only Noah, his family and the animals on their ark survived." |
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60 |
33 |
7 |
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"The creation story in which the world was created in six days." |
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61 |
30 |
8 |
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"The story about Moses parting the Red Sea so the Jews could escape from Egypt." |
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64 |
28 |
8 |
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"On another subject, do you think all Jews today bear responsibility for the death of Jesus, or not?" |
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Yes |
No |
No
Opinion |
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% |
% |
% |
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8 |
80 |
12 |
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It is good news that an overwhelming majority of Americans reject anti-semitic theology. The good news ends there.
Young earth creationism is one of those beliefs that definately mark you as extremely ignorant on natural science. Believing in an ark and a literal, worldwide flood is outright silly. Having a population that is massively ignorant about the actual makeup of the universe and also inclined to believe absolute nonsense is very worrisome, period. When a population with a majority of scientific illiterates vote to control the world's only remaining superpower, there is at least cause for concern.
On the other hand, I do suspect that many more Americans are much more likely to answer such questions in the affermative when put on the spot like this poll does. Somewhat different wordings would undoubtedly give some markedly different results.
Link via Pharyngula.
10:21:46 AM
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The Norwegian Constitution
 I was surprised at how many Norwegian laws were translated into English on the Lovdata/Law data semi-official website. Most important laws are available in translation in Word format. One of them is the constitution.
Since I am probably not the only one who finds it cumbersome to open Word documents online, I have put the Norwegian Constitution of May 17, 1814 out in html format.
When it was written the ideas about separation of powers set forth by Montesquieu were put into the constitution that the Norwegian Fathers meeting at Eidsvoll wrote as Norway obtained independence from Denmark, entering a union with Sweden instead. The constitution made it possible for Norway to obtain complete independence in 1905 under the leadership of prime minister Christian Michelsen from Bergen. Somewhat unusually, Norway had a referendum, chosing to become a monarchy. Since the Danish royal house was related to the ancient Norwegian royal families and most other royal families in Europe, the Danish prince Christian Frederik Carl was elected the King of Norway, chosing the name Haakon VII.
The constitution guarantees the basic freedoms of religion and speech, it limits the powers of government and guarantees the rule of law, due process, respect for private property rights, etc, like most modern constitutions. It also includes a number of modern amendments including human rights and environmental declarations ratified by Norway.
As I have noted earlier, Norway is a constitutional democracy. If you took the constitution literally, the King would be the actual head of state, with substantial powers. In fact, he has absolutely no political power; that power resides with the government of the day.
Since we have a parliamentary system of government, this means that a simple majority of the parliament can at any time sack the government with a vote of no confidence. The government, headed by a prime minister, is formed after an election by the largest block of parties in parliament. There are elections every four years. Parliament cannot be dissolved, so whoever is elected have to somehow get a working coalition running..
Considering there has not been a majority government in Norway since... eh, some time before I was born I think, this means the parliament (Storting) retains almost complete political control, sometimes down to quite ridiculous detail if you ask my opinion.
The independent judicial system is built on (continental) civil law, unlike British and American common (case) law. In legal discussions of civil law, parties are more likely to cite the actual letter of the law, bylaws and the preparatory documents written by the lawmaking body (Storting) than citing earlier court decisions. The Supreme Court of Norway still retains a crucial role, but is less likely to be creating law in the way the US Supreme Court is known to do. In Norway, however, our Supreme Court has established a much stronger protection of civil rights (like freedom of speech) than those guaranteed in the literal constitution. Norway probably has a slightly weaker free speech protection that the US, but considerably stronger than it is in e.g. France and Germany.
12:04:08 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 02.03.2004; 23:45:58.
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