You're (Probably) a Federal Criminal

[oddlycalm]

Good thing that operating a major financial institution in a manner that causes fundamental risk to the international financial system isn't on the list. :rolleyes:

You're probably a federal criminal (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/21/heritage-house-law/)

oc

[trish]

I wonder what they are looking to accomplish by making laws like this and going to such lengths to enforce them.

[cameraman]

The story is a political hatchet job. Note that the actual charges, publicly available actual charges, are never discussed. Only the defendant's views are given.

The guy didn't just leave off a sticker, he shipped sodium metal, highly explosive in contact with water, in an unlabeled package. He put everyone at UPS handling that shipment at risk. He put every emergency responder if that truck had been in an accident at risk. Anyone who has sodium metal knows full well the risks and regulations regarding it shipment. He did not forget, he did not want to pay the hazardous materials shipping fees.

The feds don't have time to waste on somebody who made a minor mistake. The only way the feds would even have a clue about the shipment is if UPS discovered it somehow and felt it was egregious enough to notify the feds.

We have had several prosecutions around here lately of these "innocent" small businessmen who have been caught blatantly violating all manner of materials storage/safety laws to save themselves the cash required to do it correctly.

[Elmo T]

The story....

Thanks for saving me the time.

I am in the business of enforcing many requirements that, to some folks, seem to be unnecessary. Just this week I had to explain to a gas station that they can't squeegee gasoline into the storm sewers :saywhat: .

Last month I responded to a chemical facility that had a serious fire. Turns out they hadn't filed their hazmat reporting to either the feds or the state. We had no idea what was in the building and, it seems, they lied to us when we tried to get more info.

Perhaps different in scale to the news article, perhaps not. My guess is that this was not a one time occurrence and that the defendant was given ample notice that he was in violation.

As long as emergency responders place themselves in harms way, these are not victimless crimes.

[datachicane]

A Fox gov hatchet-job during a dem administration? Amazing!
:gomer:

One more example of a government lose-lose.
If the govmint hassles some poor small bizznessman for, ahem, 'forgetting' some labeling, it's a police state. OTOH, if an overturned UPS truck flattens a neighborhood some rainy night, the govmint's incompetent for not doing more to protect us.

Heck, in any given week you'll probably find stories in your local rag about how the local child protection agency failed to protect some poor kid from his deranged/methhead parents, while a few pages later the same agency is overzealous in removing some other kid from parental custody. Of course, confidentiality requirements prevent the agency from disclosing precisely why the action is being taken, leaving only the 'wronged' parents version to hit the press.

Sometimes I think we should actually shut down all regulation and enforcement for a year or so just to remind the anti-government nutjobs why those things were such a good idea in the first place. Not where I live, of course, but maybe in a state like Texas or Utah. :tony:

[datachicane]

Norris is no cupcake, either. The poor elderly gardener trying to eke out a few dollars for retirement was knowingly shipping and receiving endangered species protected by multiple international treaties, going so far as to arrange for U.S. entry through Miami rather than in his home state of Texas because of the Miami USDA's reputation for relatively lax enforcement.
I don't know of many poor elderly gardeners trying to eke out a few dollars for retirement who drop $45k a shipment for 1100+ specimens at a whack, and then turn around a few months later and do it again.

Link (http://tinyurl.com/kwdpkn)

[oddlycalm]

All excellent points and right as rain. I have to plead temporary idiocy. Musta been the heat or too many fresh tomatoes...:o

oc

[nrc]

A Fox gov hatchet-job during a dem administration? Amazing!
:gomer:

Didn't all of the events discussed take place under the previous administration?

[emjaya]

Didn't all of the events discussed take place under the previous administration?

No politics or the boss will kick your a...oh. :gomer:

[datachicane]

Didn't all of the events discussed take place under the previous administration?
Thus the :gomer:.

For the record, I can't seriously condone the execution of my suggestion re: Texas or Utah, either.












Well, maybe Texas.
<runs>

[Gnam]

You're (Probably) a Federal Criminal

You'll never take me alive, copper. :p

[eiregosod]

Fox are treading on dangerous water with this expose. Wait until they hear from the hawaiian lawyers from the Corrections Corp of America or Wackenhut about this.

[Napoleon]

Good thing that operating a major financial institution in a manner that causes fundamental risk to the international financial system isn't on the list. :rolleyes:

That would entitle you to billions of dollars.

No comment on the underlying story, but the US had 5% of the worlds population but 25% of its prisoners (and it almost goes without saying but more as a % or absolute number then any other country on Earth). If you are members of certain minority groups in the US you are more likely to be in jail then a Soviet citizen at the zenith of Stalin's gulag system.

You think with that record we could do what the Chinesse sometimes when their business men are caught in major law breaking and shoot them.

[Napoleon]

Good thing that operating a major financial institution in a manner that causes fundamental risk to the international financial system isn't on the list.

OC,

Speaking of financial shenanigans that major financial institutions appear to be allowed to get away with, there is actually a story that was set off about a month ago with an arrest of a Russian immigrant who stole some computer code from Goldman Sachs and uploaded it to a computer in Europe. Just now the underlying story is beginning to peculate up into the "MSM", namely that big financial players, primarily Goldman Sachs, has been running a high speed computer program that is run on computers that have been, amazingly, allowed to tap directly into the NYSE's computers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html

I do not have the hour this morning to round up all of the links to deeper discussions of what this may mean both from a technology or legal standpoint (a good place to start is zerohedge.com, or goggling something like "goldman sachs front running"), but the NY Times, likely to avoid the inevitable liable suit from Goldman Sachs, doesn't mention that this all could be interpreted as "front running" which is blatantly illegal.

If this ends up being true, and considered front running the customer, it would be the biggest financial fraud in world history, and would make Bernie Madoff look like a kid who stole a pie off of the window sill of Mrs. Jones. Effectively every time someone reading this makes a trade on their 401(k) Goldman Sachs computers causes them to pay more then they would have otherwise, with the difference going directly to Goldman Sachs.

(edit - a PS to my PS, when the Russian immigrant I mention above was arrested, it was shortly after GS finally went to the FBI with what had happened and I had read at the time that GS told the FBI that the code he had could be used to manipulate the stock market).

[oddlycalm]

You think with that record we could do what the Chinese sometimes when their business men are caught in major law breaking and shoot them.

Or at least arrange medium term incarceration. The Fox article wasn't worthy of the link but you correctly grasped where I was going with it. We jail people on a scale never seen before but the big doers have to be stupid enough to commit outright theft or fraud (and get caught but regulatory agencies asleep at the switch) in order to serve a single day.

Whether it was permanently destroying our industrial sector with their high stakes monopoly game of previous decades or the current smoking crater resulting from the Casino Of Worthless Derivatives these people have accomplished what no foreign army or terrorist could while getting richly rewarded into the bargain.


But we’re moving toward a two-tiered marketplace of the high-frequency arbitrage guys, and everyone else. People want to know they have a legitimate shot at getting a fair deal. Otherwise, the markets lose their integrity.”

Reality check for the Times; we have had a two-tier market for some time now and when was the last you spoke with anyone who still believed that the markets had any integrity?

oc

[Elmo T]

I saw another link on this guy this AM. I don't have all the details, but I checked the EPA site to find the court case.

This was not some guy tinkering in his basement!



Jury Convicts Eastern Idaho Man for Hazardous Waste Violations

Release date: 06/20/2007

Contact Information: Roxanne Smith, (202) 564-4355 / smith.roxanne@epa.gov

(6/20/07) A federal jury in Pocatello yesterday returned guilty verdicts against a former Salmon resident for violating the Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety Act and illegally storing and disposing of hazardous waste, violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

Krister "Kris" Sven Evertson, 53, of Wasilla, Alaska, also known as Krister Ericksson, is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 28 at the federal courthouse in Pocatello. He faces maximum penalties of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 on each of the three counts.

Evertson is the former owner and president of SBH Corp., a Nevada corporation that is now defunct. He transported 10 metric tons of sodium metal from its port of entry at the Seattle-Tacoma Port Complex to Salmon, Idaho, where he used some of the sodium in an effort to manufacture sodium borohydride. Everston arranged for the transportation of the sodium metal not used in the manufacturing process and several above-ground storage tanks which contained sludges and other liquids to a facililty in Salmon. Sodium metal and the materials in the tanks were highly reactive with water, and the jury found that Evertson failed to take protective measures to reduce the risk that the transported material would react and damage persons or property.

[cameraman]

Now compare the conviction to the Fox story:flame:

[dando]

Now compare the conviction to the Fox story:flame:

Fair and balanced. :gomer:

-Kevin

[Sean Malone]

Fair and balanced. :gomer:

-Kevin

Meh, I'm done Fox bashing. Considering they are out numbered by left wing media 100:1 I cut them slack on their bias.

[nrc]

These may have been bad examples, but I still believe that things are out of wack. In the Evertson case at least there's the reasoning that people's safety was put at risk. But 18 months in prison for importing flowers seems excessive when there are people who get drunk and kill people and do 30 days.

[oddlycalm]

Meh, I'm done Fox bashing. Considering they are out numbered by left wing media 100:1 I cut them slack on their bias.
There isn't a liberal or conservative version of the truth, there is only the truth and lies. I'm sorry I posted the link and should have fact checked it given the source.

I was trying to make a point about proportionality of justic but that point was lost due to the obvious intentional inaccuracies of the Fox article that I was tired enough to link without checking.

oc

[Elmo T]

I was trying to make a point about proportionality of justice
oc

Something everyone can probably agree upon. The system does seem to fail us (the public) at times. Without getting all political - the problem is that the extreme ends of the political spectrum are so divisive and they use these court cases to forward their causes. They miss (perhaps intentionally) the systemic problems.

[dando]

I'm sorry I posted the link and should have fact checked it given the source.


Nah, a good case study in media bias. :)

-Kevin

[Sean Malone]

There isn't a liberal or conservative version of the truth, there is only the truth and lies.

oc

That's heavy! I apologize for adding to the derailment of your thread. :(

[oddlycalm]

That's heavy! I apologize for adding to the derailment of your thread. :(
No need, I completely derailed it myself from the get go. Ready, fire, aim, ouch...:gomer:

oc

[Napoleon]

There isn't a liberal or conservative version of the truth, there is only the truth and lies.

oc

You must not be a fan of Stephen Colbert who famously said at the 2006 White House correspondent dinner at which he was the headlining speaker "Reality has a well known liberal bias."

[datachicane]

Nah, a good case study in media bias. :)

-Kevin

Well, it might arguably be even nastier than that.

Walsh isn't a journalist at all, biased or otherwise.
He's a paid operative for a political lobbying organization. There's not a damn thing wrong with that, except when his lobbying efforts (that would be marketing/PR/public education/propaganda, depending on your perspective) is passed off as journalism.

The problem here isn't whether or not Fox is biased, the problem is that a paid PR piece is being passed off as news. It's a problem that isn't limited to Fox or to media outlets of any particular political bent, unfortunately. Local print and TV news is probably the worst offender- it's simpler and cheaper to print prefab pieces helpfully :rolleyes: provided by some outside entity than to actually pay for the shoe leather yourself.

[extramundane]

No need, I completely derailed it myself from the get go. Ready, fire, aim, ouch...:gomer:

oc

Just for that, you have to watch O'Reilly and Olberman at the same time for a week.

Good luck not shooting your TV. :D

[dando]

Just for that, you have to watch O'Reilly and Olberman at the same time for a week.

Good luck not shooting your TV. :D

My brain would explode first. :saywhat: :gomer:

-Kevin

[KLang]

The problem here isn't whether or not Fox is biased, the problem is that a paid PR piece is being passed off as news.

It is in the opinion section of their site. I wouldn't consider that news myself.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/21/heritage-house-law/

[Indy]

There isn't a liberal or conservative version of the truth, there is only the truth and lies.

You are funny. :D

In politics, there is no truth, only self interest. Until "news" is provided by robots and computers programmed by God to be perfectly even handed, human beings, that is people with political biases, will be doing the reporting. The "truth" will always be told from their perspectives (in ways which benefit them).

[STD]

His statement was much more concise and to the point. :laugh:

[oddlycalm]

In politics, there is no truth, only self interest. Until "news" is provided by robots and computers programmed by God to be perfectly even handed, human beings, that is people with political biases, will be doing the reporting. The "truth" will always be told from their perspectives (in ways which benefit them).

I should have been more clear and "truth" is an overused and ambiguous term; there can be an infinite number of opinions but only one set of facts for any given situation.

While I appreciate what you are saying I find there is a notable degree of consistency regarding the facts between BBC, Christian Science Monitor, McClatchy, Reuters, etc. on most news stories. While these outlets remain focused on reporting stories factually the mainstream media has become profit driven and focuses most of it's energy on reacting to the news as opposed to just reporting the facts.

My error was getting lazy and linking to a Fox article without giving it any critical review. Considering the source I should have known better.

oc

[dando]

My error was getting lazy and linking to a Fox article without giving it any critical review. Considering the source I should have known better.


That'll teach ya not to get your news from Drudge. ;)

Sad state of affairs when most everything in the mainstream media is pretty much varnished by the time it's placed in the trough for the majority of the public. :irked:

-Kevin

[STD]

You are funny. :D

In politics, there is no truth, only self interest. Until "news" is provided by robots and computers programmed by God to be perfectly even handed, human beings, that is people with political biases, will be doing the reporting. The "truth" will always be told from their perspectives (in ways which benefit them).

Who's vision of god would that be?

[datachicane]

http://www.no37.net/uploads/ImageLadle/FSM.gif

[Elmo T]

FSM

Sweet. Not sure how I missed the boat on this one. :thumbup::thumbup:

[Napoleon]

Oh Dear, the Flying Spaghetti Monster makes an appearance.

[datachicane]

Oh Dear, the Flying Spaghetti Monster makes an appearance.

Careful, lest he smite you with His Noodly Appendage.

[G.]

Uh, can't you get into wicked trouble posting cartoon images of the Great FSM (all praise!)??

[datachicane]

Uh, can't you get into wicked trouble posting cartoon images of the Great FSM (all praise!)??

2nd Epistles to the Doomed, 7:23

"For it is not what thou Saith forthwith, but How thou Saith It."

[Elmo T]

Not to reopen an old wound, but I saw this headline in the daily DHS Infrastructure Report. The headline has that "overbearing gov't" look, until you read further.

Officers with the U.S. Marshals Service have seized all skin sanitizers and skin protectants, including ingredients and components, at Clarcon Biological Chemistry Laboratorys facility (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32255554/ns/health-more_health_news/)

[oddlycalm]

until you read further.
Yeah, the last paragraph should have been part of the first paragraph.

Anyone that has had a cellulitis knows that it's no joke, especially with the MRSE strains that are out there. A family friend that was a former girlfriend of our son died last year within a few days of diagnosis of a MRSE cellulitis. :(

oc