Day: July 15, 2002

Hilariously Hypocritical Big Brother 2 Lawsuit

Krista Stegall, who was a contestant on “Big Brother 2”, has filed a lawsuit against CBS over the criteria it used to choose contestants.

In one episode another contestant, Justin Sebik, apparently put a knife to Stegall’s throat and ask if she would be mad if he killed her. He claimed he was joking(!) but CBS kicked him off the show.

Clearly she’s got a good civil lawsuit case against Sebik, but her case against CBS contains an oddity. Her lawyers maintain that since Sebik had prior arrests for assault that CBS never should have allowed him on the show. Stegall’s attorney, Clayton Burgess, told the Associated Press, “I don’t think there’s any doubt (CBS) made a huge mistake letting him in and keeping in him in.”

That certainly makes sense, but her lawyers forget to mention that this standard would also have kept Stegall herself off of the show. Stegall lied to the producer’s of the show by telling them she had never been arrested. In fact she was arrested on March 27, 2001, for simple battery after a 4 a.m. fight with her boyfriend.

The police report noted that both Stegall and the boyfriend had “physical marks” indicating that both had committed “battery on each other.”

Like Sebik, Stegall was never actually prosecuted. Stegall’s boyfriend told the prosecutor he wanted the charges dropped and the prosecutor declined to proceed with the case.

Sources:

‘Big Brother’ player sues over knife incident. The Associated Press, July 4, 2002.

The Smoking Gun (Krista Stegall).

Unions First, War on Terrorism Second

What could be more important than protecting the United States from terrorism? Preserving the jobs of unionized federal government workers of course.

The bill that would establish a Department of Homeland Security also contains a sentence that would give the executive branch more authority to fire workers at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs Service and 20 other federal agencies currently planned to be part of that department.

Democrats are already bristling at such language. The Post quotes a spokesman for House Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) saying,

It’s a huge issue for the Democrats because it’s a huge issue for working families. Public employees were the first responders on September 11th, and they deserve the security of keeping their civil service positions. This is 170,000 people who don’t know if their job is going to be protected.

Thank goodness House Democrats have their priorities straight. Fighting terrorism should never overshadow the important mission of protecting government employees.

Source:

Bush to Ask Workers for Flexibility on Homeland Security. Ellen Nakashma and Bill Miller, Washington Post, July, 10, 2002.

Userland and Salon? Now That’s Funny

Okay, you have to love the irony of Dave Winer getting all over George W. Bush, journalists and anyone else over the bursting of the stock market bubble. So who does he apparently choose to partner with? A poster child for dot.com corporate excess, Salon.Com. (Winer had a note about partnering with a major name publicaton but, par for the course, he deleted it).

How about this as a slogan: today, Salon, tomorrow the World(Com).

Adam Curry actually says,

Congrats to the UserLand krew! Looks like Salon is going to be saved from demise!

Yeah, Userland itself has been showing such big profits that it should have no problem helping to stop the bleeding at Salon.Com.

This I gotta see.

Scientific Fraud and Element 118

Back in 1999, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory claimed to have created Element 118 in their laboratory. Then in 2001 after it became apparent that their research could not be replicated, Lawrence Berkeley withdrew the claim. An investigation into the event has revealed the problem — fraud committed by one of the 15 researchers assigned to the project.

The laboratory fired the researcher, but the whole affair has caused renewed interest in scientific fraud. Such fraud seems relatively common in biological sciences journals, but accounts of the Element 118 debacle seem shocked to see such fraud in the physical sciences.

Source:

Elementary mistake due to falsified data. Hazel Muir, NewScientist.Com, July 15, 2002.

When Dragons Attack

Steven den Beste goes into some detail to make a point about the film Reign of Fire. If humanity is ever faced with a scourge of firebreathing dragons, those lizards don’t stand a chance. Such a war would last like a month and end up with a lot of barbecued dragons.

I’d heard of this film but didn’t realize that the movie simply skips the difficult part of explaining how a few dragons discovered in 2002 manage to wipe out most of humanity by 2020.

Here’s how I would get around that — since we’re already dealing with flying dragons, why not give them the side ability to generate electromagnetic pulses which have completel wrecked havoc with technological society.

Then again, why not do a movie that has a decent script instead of building a film around CGI special effects?

John Walker Lindh Pleads Guilty

So John Walker Lindh plead guilty today to two separate charges that will land him in jail for at least 17 years. I wonder what its like to go from being part of one of the most extreme religious/political movements to getting your lawyers to weasel a deal from the Great Satan so you don’t die in jail.

And what kind of life will this guy have when he’s released? The Washington Post quotes Lindh’s father Frank as saying,

Never once did he say anything against the United States. I think any father who knows John would be proud to claim him as a son. He’s a really good kid.

Yeah, I was just thinking the other day that I can’t wait for my kids to grow up to march off and defend Islamofascism wherever it is threatened. But aside from his insane relatives, who is going to want to see this guy released in 2020 or so? Does he think people will have forgotten by then? I don’t.

Maybe he will go overseas — maybe there will still be extremist Islamic groups that might treat him as a celebrity. Especially after the inevitable book deal (you know somebody’s going to be willing to pay him big bucks for a book/movie deal).

Will he even survive prison? How are authorities going to keep other prisoners from killing Walker? Part of the deal involves Walker providing information and testimony for the government — if I were the feds, I’d get all I can from Lindh ASAP before some lifer decides to avenge Sept. 11 on Lindh’s skull.

Source:

Lindh Admits Guilt to Two Charges. The Washington Post, July 15, 2002.