EU proposes two years in jail for hackers. And what about those banksters?

Still waiting on the legislation that details jail terms for destroying the global economy. Surely the EU isn't condoning destructive behavior by bankers right? While nobody is condoning the bad hackers, it's odd to only target that community rather than the much costlier white collar bankers who have barely missed a beat since bringing down the economy. SC Magazine:

Once announced, it was approved by 50 votes in favour, one against and three abstentions; illegal access, interference or interception of data would be treated as a criminal offence.

In terms of punishment, the maximum penalty to be imposed by a member state for such offences would be at least two years' imprisonment, and at least five years where there are aggravating circumstances such as the use of a tool specifically designed for large-scale (such as botnet) attacks, or for attacks that cause considerable damage (by disrupting system service), financial costs or loss of financial data.

Also, using another person's electronic identity, for example by spoofing their IP address to commit an attack and cause prejudice to the rightful identity owner, would also be an aggravating circumstance. MEPs say that member states must set a maximum penalty for this of at least three years in jail.

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Job growth again in March

This early (and unofficial) report is more good news on the US economy. It has to get a lot better in order to help clear out the excessively high unemployment numbers. Unlike the consistently ugly numbers during the Bush years, this is once again both growth and above the number of incoming job seekers. Between the jobs growth numbers and the rising Dow numbers, Obama is not too bad for a socialist who hates business. CNBC:

The private sector created 209,000 jobs in March, continuing the slow but steady rise in employment that has characterized the employment market for months.

Services again led the job creation, according to a report from ADP and Macroeconomic Advisors.

The service sector increased 164,000 in March, though the rate of job creation slowed a big from the upwardly revised 183,000 in February.

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Coke drops ALEC

This is kind of huge in our world. ALEC is a big nasty organization that, along with the Chamber of Commerce, pushes for all sorts of conservative legislation. Well, Coca-Cola just dumped them. Kudos to the Color of Change for getting this done.

"The Coca-Cola Company has elected to discontinue its membership with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Our involvement with ALEC was focused on efforts to oppose discriminatory food and beverage taxes, not on issues that have no direct bearing on our business. We have a long-standing policy of only taking positions on issues that impact our Company and industry."

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Video: White fluffy kitten zen

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Philly child rape trial: Priest joked about raping 3 boys in one week

This is not an organization that has any business talking morals or values with anyone. We're years past the "it was an isolated incident" that the Catholic Church used to promote. It's sadly the same story in multiple cities around the world and yet the church remains defiant. Hell, as Joe wrote the other day, some church leaders still think they did nothing wrong.  Their focus should be on cleaning up their own house, helping the poor and modernizing, but there is no appetite for change within. Instead, it's always about making excuses and cover up.

How did anyone knowing this sleep at night knowing that they did nothing to protect the children?

In the day's most startling testimony, a detective read internal church memos about a priest who allegedly "joked about how hard it was to have sex with three boys in one week." His accuser also stated that the priest had a "rotation process" of boys spending time sleeping with him.

Defense lawyers argue that Lynn tried to address the problem as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, but was blocked by the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and others in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

The testimony Monday also included a 1992 complaint about a different priest who allegedly molested boys at a church-owned camp three decades earlier.

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Romney: Obama is hiding his agenda

From the guy who can't stick to any position for more than five minutes. NY Times:

Appearing before a group of journalists that had hosted the president on Tuesday, Mr. Romney began by recalling Mr. Obama’s recent comment to Russia’s leader, in a moment picked up by a live microphone, that his flexibility on foreign policy would increase after the election. Mr. Romney asked on what other issues Mr. Obama would disclose his plans only after re-election.

“He wants us to re-elect him so we can find out what he will do,” Mr. Romney said.

“His intent is on hiding,” he said. “You and I are going to have to do the seeking.”

NOTE FROM JOHN: Oh I just had to weigh in. Romney calls the President's "candor" into question. Really Mitt? You're the biggest liar in this entire campaign, and you're suggesting the President is hiding something? Really Mitt? Would that be the same Mitt Romney I was called in to help fight in 1994 because he was telling gay voters in Massachusetts that he was more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy? Yeah lots of candor today, Mitt, when you now claim to be a conservative on gay issue. And on abortion, when you were pro-choice and pro-Planned Parenthood only a few years ago.

Consider how much Mitt Romney has flip-flopped in this campaign - remember, this is the guy who flip-flopped on eating catfish - it really takes some chutzpah, and bad political calculus, to make "candor" an issue in this campaign.

Remember the time Romney flip-flopped on climate change?
When Romney flip-flopped on abortion?
When Romney flip-flopped on invading Iraq?
When Romney flip-flopped on whether he'd seen a Gingrich ad?
When Romney flip-flopped on Solyndra?
When Romney flip-flopped on contraception?
When Romney flip-flopped on the stimulus?
When Romney flip-flopped on gay rights?
When Romney flip-flopped on health care reform?
When Romney flip-flopped on taxes and the credit rating?

The Mormons have a belief they call "Lying for the Lord." They use it to justify a lie, so long as the lie furthers what they consider the greater good. They use it a lot when talking about their decades-long multi-million dollar effort to rip the civil rights away from gays and lesbians. A lie is okay so long as it's to further the Lord's work.

And boy has Mitt Romney been up to a lot of work. Read the rest of this post...

Creepy 62 y.o. GOPer following opponent's daughter on Twitter

He got called out for it, and yeah, it is creepy.  (Though I suspect he did it hoping the daughter would say something stupid about dad or the opponent.) Read the rest of this post...

Keith Olbermann explains why he left/was fired from Current TV

Much thanks (heh) to The Political Carnival for bring this to the very small screen.

Olbermann's first appearance after the Current TV dust-up, plus sidekick David Letterman. Watch:



I've said via Twitter something I want to say here. Dustin Hoffman is an A-list talent with an A-list ability to be a pain for directors. But he brings his A-game to every performance and delivers.

Anyone who hires Dustin Hoffman and doesn't surround him with the best that money can buy is (a) wasting his money, and (b) dumb as a stick.

Even I can predict the results, my neighbors can predict the results, Schrödinger's cat can predict the results (in its waking persona) — of that freshman media mistake. It won't be "hilarity" that ensues.

Olbermann, the same. Me, I'd hire him in a minute if the circumstances allowed me to let him be good. It's not that hard; there's so much talent in media these days. You just have to choose to use it.

Thanks; needed to say that in more than 140 characters.

(To follow my 140 characters, click here: @Gaius_Publius. Again, thanks.)

Side note — Did Olbermann inadvertently reveal his salary in his off-the-cuff "$10 million chandelier" comment? Curious number to come up with. Not that it matters now, of course, but still.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Romney surrogate Donald Trump says he has a "very, very" impressive manhood

Well, we know it's not the hair. Read the rest of this post...

Does ABC video show Zimmerman told the truth?

Police video enhanced by ABC

Crop of just Zimmerman's head

Zimmerman's head enlarged 300%

Yeah it matters.

We've all been litigating this entire case in the public, and people have been getting important facts wrong.

First everyone was convinced that Zimmerman was white (I said he was Latino and was roundly corrected - guess what, he's Latino).

Then we were told that Zimmerman called 911 forty-some times over the preceding two months, proving that he was a vigilante nut.  In fact, the story cited as proof of this said nothing about 911, but rather seemed to suggest they were calls to the police non-emergency number, which is significantly different than calling 911.

I've also repeatedly heard that Trayvon Martin was clearly innocent of any wrongdoing because he didn't have a weapon on him.  When I was mugged, and two young thugs quite efficiently tried to strangle me to death several years back, neither of them had a weapon.  (And it was outside of a 7-11.)

A lot of the crowd-sourced "truths" in this case aren't necessarily true.

And perhaps the most important factual error, we were told that Zimmerman had no visible injuries to his head the night he was arrested, so he clearly lied about being in a physical scuffle with Trayvon Martin.  ABC News appears to have found those injuries in a video ABC enhanced with the help of experts. (I used Perfect Resize to enlarge the ABC image 300%.)  The question of proof of a scuffle goes to the self-defense claim.

As for why the marks on Zimmerman's head matter.  I was told the other day that it doesn't matter if Travyon slamed Zimmerman's head repeatedly into the sidewalk, as Zimmerman claims, because Zimmerman started it by not staying in his car.  Well, that's not always the way the claim of "self-defense" works in the law.  In law school, we were taught that it doesn't matter if the other guy starts it if you use more force than is necessary to stop him (unless he's in your home).  It may not sound "fair," but it's how the law generally works.

George Zimmerman may be guilty as sin.  But we're not going to find the truth by embracing falsehoods.  I agree with those who say that we were given no choice but to litigate this in public, otherwise no one would have even investigated whether Zimmerman actions were a crime.  And that's true.  Without the uproar the police, and Justice Department in Washington, would have done nothing, and we'd never know the truth.  But what concerns me are all the "conclusions" that folks are reaching based on "facts" that we've learned from newspapers and TV shows.  Facts that keep changing.

Zimmerman may be guilty as hell.  But this case needs to go to a judge and a jury for us to find out what actually happened.  And the uproar has helped to ensure that it will. All I'm asking is that you keep your inner skeptic alive when listening to "conclusions" about what "definitely" happened in this, or any other, case.  Facts have a funny way of changing the more you learn about what really happened. Read the rest of this post...

Voluntary labeling for Pink Slime?

The Obama administration has had it's positive moments for food safety, but between sending the USDA Undersecretary to a Pink Slime/GOP photo op and now only allowing voluntary labeling of Pink Slime, I have to wonder. Shouldn't consumers have the right to know if the food they are purchasing is Pink Slime? Let the Republican Pink Slime businesses invest their own money in marketing the product and winning over consumers if it's such a great product, but let consumers know what they are purchasing.

Forget about "allowing" and make this mandatory.

As consumers clamor for more transparency about the beef product dubbed “pink slime,” federal agriculture officials have agreed to allow several meat producers to list the stuff on package labels.

That means grocery shoppers soon could know whether some packages of ground beef contain the ammonia-treated meat that has been at the heart of a controversy that has shuttered plants, scuttled jobs and sparked uproar over the contents of the nation’s hamburgers.

Dirk Fillpot, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food safety branch, said Tuesday he could not identify the firms that sought labeling changes, or even say how many were involved. He only confirmed that the agency has received voluntary requests from beef firms to change their labels to indicate it contains lean finely textured beef, or LFTB.

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"Benton Harbor has not had local democracy since last year" (or Running against the State, pt 2)

This is what a constitutional coup looks like, when an organized cadre takes over the mechanism of the State (in this case, the small "c" state of Michigan) and uses it for its own purposes.

If the cadre can't be ousted and the rule-changes can't be reversed, we're beyond politics. The hammer we're dealing with is the machine called the State.

Maddow (at about 2:50):

[Quoting the "emergency town manager"]: "We [in effect, the State] believe [the radio station] is going to be so much more useful in [the school district's] hands than ours."

More useful? More useful than what? Well, what was it used for before? In addition to news and music, [the station] was used for dissent. For expressing dissent ... about the town being stripped of its democrat rights, for instance.

Watch (to open large in a new tab, click here):



Three points:

(1) The next Republican president will have Michigan and Wisconsin and Florida as a template. Say "Nader-Nader" (whatever that means) all you want; it's just a fact, and smart people have to factor that into their voting decision. (Or not. The good news: the 2012 election is over, as I see it. Time to plan for 2013.)

(2) This is an instance of a coup at a state-wide (small "s") level. The coup at the national level (in my humble opinion) has already occurred; more soon on that.

(3) You really do want to read about Hungary. This is how "Michigan" is done at the level of a nation.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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Reagan judge freaks out in court over President's criticism of "activist" judges on HCR

Kevin Drum has the background. It's next to impossible to excerpt his post without stealing the entire thing. Just take a minute to read it, it's worth it, and short, then come back.

A few points.

1) The President was having a little fun turning the Republicans' "activist judges" rhetoric around on Republicans, and Republican judges, who seem to have no problem becoming activists when it comes to overturning health care reform or putting George Bush into office (Obama didn't mention Bush, I did).

2) It's really inappropriate for a judge to show that he's pissed off, in court, over anything the President has said.

3) It's actually kind of bizarre that the judge thought the President was saying that judges can't find laws unconstitutional. Though it is funny that when Democrats, or Democratic judges, deem any laws unconstitutional, such as those banning gay marriage or sex between gay people, conservatives are more than happy to cry "activist!"

The judge is appeals court judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee in the 5th circuit.

I wonder where Judge Smith was a few years back when judges were being shot while Republicans in Congress were gleefully demonizing the entire bench. I'd like to think that Judge Smith was dutifully chastising President Bush and Republicans in  Congress for their incendiary rhetoric while judges were dying.  But sometimes you don't get what you like.

Some examples of times when I'd be curious if Judge Smith spoke out:

The time when a man offered $50,000 for the assassination of the judge in the Terri Schiavo case after conservatives savaged the judge. Any word from Judge Smith?

Things got so bad during the Schiavo affair that Supreme Court Justice O'Connor warned that the conservative rhetoric against judges could lead to violence.  Did Judge Smith speak out then?

When threats against judges surged in 2005 and 2006, just as Republicans like Frist, DeLay and Cornyn were demonizing judges left and right, did Judge Smith speak out?

When a GOP member of Congress talked about putting judges on the "endangered species list," did Judge Smith say a thing about it?

One wonders if the only thing Judge Smith is really worried about is Mitt Romney's sinking chances in November.

More from NY Magazine. Read the rest of this post...

Jobless in Spain hits record high

Sadly, there is very little good news out of Spain these days. The jobless numbers are horrid (again) and the unemployment is sitting at 23.6% and over 50% for the younger generation. Now that the new government has announced its strict austerity plan, times are bound to get tougher. BBC News:

The number of Spanish jobseekers rose for the eighth month in a row in March to hit a record 4.75 million.

The Labour Ministry said the number of people filing for unemployment benefits rose by 38,769 with the services sector seeing the most jobs lost.

The jobless rate in Spain stood at 23.6% in February, according to EU figures released on Monday.

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