Small but significant differences
A consular officer from India was arrested in New York City. Apparently she's chosen a really good, or really bad lawyer. Daniel Arshack said his client, Devyani Khobragade, has diplomatic immunity. She does not. She has consular immunity. There are small, but significant differences between the two.
So did Mr. Arshack know this when he claimed his client has diplomatic immunity, trying to confuse the media and the public? Or was he ignorant of those differences? If he did the former, he's clever. If the latter is the case, he's ignorant of those differences. One of which is that his client can be charged with, tried and convicted of any crime that doesn't involve her official duties.
Ms Khobragade stands accused of visa fraud and making false statements and could face 15 years in prison. She allegedly lied on the visa application of a housekeeper she brought here from India and then paid the housekeeper just over one-third of the amount indicated in the visa application. The housekeeper, who was supposed to get $9.75 per hour, was being paid only $3.31 per hour.
I'll be following this to see if the federal government decides not to prosecute her because it is causing a rift in relations between the two nations.
* * *
When does dead mean dead? That family in Oakland who thought their daughter had gone through a tonsillectomy with no problems and then saw things go horribly wrong don't want to take her off of life-support. Should they be forced to? The coroner's office needs to investigate this death and determine what happened. As much as we would like to believe in Christmas miracles, one is not forthcoming in this case.
Before we assume that miracle isn't coming, someone should talk to the family of Zack Dunlap. Zack was 21 back in 2008 when he had an accident while in his four-wheeler and he was critically injured. Zack was (and probably is) a registered organ donor and his family had reached the difficult decision to take him off of life support to allow the harvesting of his organs.
A few minutes before he was to be disconnected from the ventilator, one of his family members thought he was improving. They tested and found he was not brain dead after all. Five weeks later, he left the hospital and went home.
I understand that if this little girl is truly gone, it is important to find out why. I also understand that allowing her to remain on life support will make that more difficult for the coroner. Let the coroner work harder. This family deserves to grieve as they wish.
* * *
Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn's annual waste book is out. I find the first entry in it quite disturbing. Turns out there are more than 100,000 federal government employees that earn more than $100,000 per year, who were not deemed "essential" during the government shutdown. They each earned at least $4,000 during the shutdown for doing nothing. $400 million and they aren't essential.
Just what do these people do to earn that much annually and yet aren't categorized as essential? No one working for the government earning a six figure salary should fall into this group.
But not every entry in this book of waste is actually documentation of what should be considered wasteful spending. Senator Coburn is critical of the military's choice to spend $10 million on recruiting through a tie-in with the film "Man of Steel". Yes, the National Guard is being downsized but that doesn't mean they can stop recruiting. Military recruiting is a war in and of itself and failure to meet recruiting goals results in a degradation of readiness and capability.
I'll leave the rest of that book aside. For now.
* * *
Random Ponderings: (just a reminder these are my personal views and represent the positions of no other person or business)
We can all breathe a sigh of relief at Will Ferrell's statement that there will be no sequel to "Elf" and that he thinks anyone who suggests there should be one is crazy.
When Justin Bieber says he is retiring, does he mean from music, or is he going to retire from being one of the world's worst douchebags in terms of his behavior?
Tax avoidance is not tax evasion. When the action taken to avoid tax is legal, that's avoidance. When tax is actually due under the law and something illegal is done to avoid the tax, that's evasion. But when $100 billion is moved legally into trusts in Nevada and Delaware to avoid state income tax, the law needs to be looked at again.
Is the IRS really using the services of a company that owes over $500 million in back taxes? Yes it is.
I saw a Hyundai with federal government plates on it. Even with the company having a manufacturing plant in the U. S., should our government be buying cars from a foreign company while Detroit is going bankrupt?
Will the ratings of cable's most popular reality show, "Duck Dynasty" go down in the wake of homophobic comments from one of the show's stars? Probably.
Would all the idiots who want to die stop doing stupid shit to take others with them? Please?
Keith Richards just turned 70, but that's not old for rock and roll icons. B. B. King is 88 and he's got concert dates scheduled for 2014.
Josh Duhamel probably found it funny that his wife, Fergie, let this cat out of the bag. Five years before he landed a movie role, the actor did a quick bit as an extra in a Christina Aguilera video. See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIDWgqDBNXA. At 2:36, he's the first one hopping the fence. Oh, you might find Weird Al Yankovich's take on this song amusing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFLu8_rEQL0.
Katharine Jackson's latest move is kind of gross. She is seeking donations from fans of Michael Jackson to help her make a documentary about his life, and the big loser in the deal would be Michael's children. Their father's estate's money goes to them and Katharine is trying to avoid paying licensing fees to the estate.
* * *
December 18th in History:
218 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia – Hannibal's Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic.
1271 – Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of Mongolia and China.
1622 – Portuguese forces score a military victory over the Kingdom of Kongo at the Battle of Mbumbi in present-day Angola.
1642 – Abel Tasman becomes first European to sight New Zealand.
1655 – The Whitehall Conference ends with the determination that there was no law preventing Jews from re-entering England after the Edict of Expulsion of 1290.
1777 – The United States celebrates its first Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by the Americans over British General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga in October.
1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1793 – Surrender of the frigate La Lutine by French Royalists to Lord Samuel Hood; renamed HMS Lutine, she later becomes a famous treasure wreck.
1878 – John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires is executed in Pennsylvania.
1878 – The Al-Thani family become the rulers of the state of Qatar
1888 – Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discover the ancient Indian ruins of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde.
1892 – Premiere performance of The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
1898 – Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the first officially recognized land speed record of 39.245 mph (63.159 km/h) in a Jeantaud electric car.[1]
1900 – The Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook, Victoria Narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in or 762 mm) Railway (now the Puffing Billy Railway) in Victoria, Australia is opened for traffic.
1912 – The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is announced by Charles Dawson.
1916 – World War I: The Battle of Verdun ends when German forces under Chief of staff Erich von Falkenhayn are defeated by the French, and suffer 337,000 casualties.
1917 – The resolution containing the language of the Eighteenth Amendment to enact Prohibition is passed by the United States Congress.
1932 – The Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth Spartans 9–0 in the first ever NFL Championship Game. Because of a blizzard, the game is moved from Wrigley Field to the Chicago Stadium, the field measuring 80 yards (73 m) long.
1935 – The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is founded in Ceylon.
1939 – World War II: The Battle of the Heligoland Bight, the first major air battle of the war, takes place.
1944 – World War II: 77 B-29 Superfortress and 200 other aircraft of U.S. Fourteenth Air Force bomb Hankow, China, a Japanese supply base.
1956 – Japan joins the United Nations.
1958 – Project SCORE, the world's first communications satellite, is launched.
1966 – Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.
1969 – Capital punishment in the United Kingdom: Home Secretary James Callaghan's motion to make permanent the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, which had temporarily suspended capital punishment in England, Wales and Scotland for murder (but not for all crimes) for a period of five years.
1971 – Capitol Reef National Park is established in Utah.
1972 – Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will engage North Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II, a series of Christmas bombings, after peace talks collapsed with North Vietnam on the 13th.
1973 – Soviet Soyuz Programme: Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.
1973 – The Islamic Development Bank is founded.
1978 – Dominica joins the United Nations.
1987 – Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language.
1989 – The European Economic Community and the Soviet Union sign an agreement on trade and commercial and economic cooperation.
1997 – HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.
1999 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
2002 – 2003 California recall: Then Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.
2005 – The civil war in Chad begins when rebel groups, allegedly backed by neighbouring Sudan, launch an attack in Adré.
2006 – The first of a series of floods strikes Malaysia. The death toll of all flooding is at least 118, with over 400,000 people displaced.
2006 – United Arab Emirates holds its first-ever elections.
Famous Folk Born on December 18th:
General Charles Griffin
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
Ty Cobb
Joseph Stalin
Paul Klee
George Stevens
Gladys Cooper
Edwin Armstrong
General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.
Willy Brandt
Betty Grable
Ossie Davis
Ramsey Clark
Moose Skowron
Chas Chandler
Roger E. Mosley
Michael Moorcock
Keith Richards
Stephen Biko
Steven Spielberg
Bill Nelson
Leonard Maltin
Elliot Easton
Ray Liotta
Brad Pitt
Stone Cold Steve Austin
Casper Van Dien
Cowboy Troy
Trish Stratus
Katie Holmes
Christina Aguilera
Movie quotes today come from 1994's "Cobb", a biopic about Ty Cobb, who set baseball records that lasted for decades. He still hold the record for highest career batting average:
Louis Prima: With all the great players playing ball right now, how well do you think you would do against today's pitchers?
Ty Cobb: Well, I figure against today's pitchers I'd only probably hit about .290
Louis Prima: .290? Well that's amazing, because you batted over .400 a... a whole bunch of times. Now tell us all, we'd all like to know, why do you think you'd only hit .290?
Ty Cobb: Well, I'm 72 fucking years old you ignorant son of a bitch.
#2
Ramona: Who are you again?
Ty Cobb: I am the Georgia Peach. I have 4,191 base hits in 11,429 at bats, 920 stolen bases, 2,244 runs scored, and 93 batting records; and I want you to take off every stitch of your clothes.
Ramona: I don't think so.
[Cobb points a gun to her head]
Ramona: That don't scare me, 'cause if you shoot me, I'll be dead. And you're not gonna screw a dead lady!
Ty Cobb: [cocks gun] I might like it.
#3
[Cobb narrates a lengthy lambasting of Babe Ruth into a tape recorder]
Al Stump: Come on, Ty, aren't you going to give Ruth credit for anything?
Ty Cobb: (pauses) He could run okay for a fat man.
#4
[Stump is in a bar with his friends]
Al Stump: We call ourselves writers! All we do is sit around talking about baseball and getting drunk a lot. You call that writing?
[All his friends: Yeah!]
Notes: Allan Malamud, one of the greatest sportswriters in history appears in this film. So does Lawrence "Crash" Davis, the inspiration for the name of the character played by Kevin Costner in the baseball film "Bull Durham." So does Ernie Harwell, the longtime Cubs radio/television announcer and the man who was on the mic when Bobby Thompson hit the "shot heard round the world" in 1951.
So did Mr. Arshack know this when he claimed his client has diplomatic immunity, trying to confuse the media and the public? Or was he ignorant of those differences? If he did the former, he's clever. If the latter is the case, he's ignorant of those differences. One of which is that his client can be charged with, tried and convicted of any crime that doesn't involve her official duties.
Ms Khobragade stands accused of visa fraud and making false statements and could face 15 years in prison. She allegedly lied on the visa application of a housekeeper she brought here from India and then paid the housekeeper just over one-third of the amount indicated in the visa application. The housekeeper, who was supposed to get $9.75 per hour, was being paid only $3.31 per hour.
I'll be following this to see if the federal government decides not to prosecute her because it is causing a rift in relations between the two nations.
* * *
When does dead mean dead? That family in Oakland who thought their daughter had gone through a tonsillectomy with no problems and then saw things go horribly wrong don't want to take her off of life-support. Should they be forced to? The coroner's office needs to investigate this death and determine what happened. As much as we would like to believe in Christmas miracles, one is not forthcoming in this case.
Before we assume that miracle isn't coming, someone should talk to the family of Zack Dunlap. Zack was 21 back in 2008 when he had an accident while in his four-wheeler and he was critically injured. Zack was (and probably is) a registered organ donor and his family had reached the difficult decision to take him off of life support to allow the harvesting of his organs.
A few minutes before he was to be disconnected from the ventilator, one of his family members thought he was improving. They tested and found he was not brain dead after all. Five weeks later, he left the hospital and went home.
I understand that if this little girl is truly gone, it is important to find out why. I also understand that allowing her to remain on life support will make that more difficult for the coroner. Let the coroner work harder. This family deserves to grieve as they wish.
* * *
Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn's annual waste book is out. I find the first entry in it quite disturbing. Turns out there are more than 100,000 federal government employees that earn more than $100,000 per year, who were not deemed "essential" during the government shutdown. They each earned at least $4,000 during the shutdown for doing nothing. $400 million and they aren't essential.
Just what do these people do to earn that much annually and yet aren't categorized as essential? No one working for the government earning a six figure salary should fall into this group.
But not every entry in this book of waste is actually documentation of what should be considered wasteful spending. Senator Coburn is critical of the military's choice to spend $10 million on recruiting through a tie-in with the film "Man of Steel". Yes, the National Guard is being downsized but that doesn't mean they can stop recruiting. Military recruiting is a war in and of itself and failure to meet recruiting goals results in a degradation of readiness and capability.
I'll leave the rest of that book aside. For now.
* * *
Random Ponderings: (just a reminder these are my personal views and represent the positions of no other person or business)
We can all breathe a sigh of relief at Will Ferrell's statement that there will be no sequel to "Elf" and that he thinks anyone who suggests there should be one is crazy.
When Justin Bieber says he is retiring, does he mean from music, or is he going to retire from being one of the world's worst douchebags in terms of his behavior?
Tax avoidance is not tax evasion. When the action taken to avoid tax is legal, that's avoidance. When tax is actually due under the law and something illegal is done to avoid the tax, that's evasion. But when $100 billion is moved legally into trusts in Nevada and Delaware to avoid state income tax, the law needs to be looked at again.
Is the IRS really using the services of a company that owes over $500 million in back taxes? Yes it is.
I saw a Hyundai with federal government plates on it. Even with the company having a manufacturing plant in the U. S., should our government be buying cars from a foreign company while Detroit is going bankrupt?
Will the ratings of cable's most popular reality show, "Duck Dynasty" go down in the wake of homophobic comments from one of the show's stars? Probably.
Would all the idiots who want to die stop doing stupid shit to take others with them? Please?
Keith Richards just turned 70, but that's not old for rock and roll icons. B. B. King is 88 and he's got concert dates scheduled for 2014.
Josh Duhamel probably found it funny that his wife, Fergie, let this cat out of the bag. Five years before he landed a movie role, the actor did a quick bit as an extra in a Christina Aguilera video. See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIDWgqDBNXA. At 2:36, he's the first one hopping the fence. Oh, you might find Weird Al Yankovich's take on this song amusing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFLu8_rEQL0.
Katharine Jackson's latest move is kind of gross. She is seeking donations from fans of Michael Jackson to help her make a documentary about his life, and the big loser in the deal would be Michael's children. Their father's estate's money goes to them and Katharine is trying to avoid paying licensing fees to the estate.
* * *
December 18th in History:
218 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia – Hannibal's Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic.
1271 – Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of Mongolia and China.
1622 – Portuguese forces score a military victory over the Kingdom of Kongo at the Battle of Mbumbi in present-day Angola.
1642 – Abel Tasman becomes first European to sight New Zealand.
1655 – The Whitehall Conference ends with the determination that there was no law preventing Jews from re-entering England after the Edict of Expulsion of 1290.
1777 – The United States celebrates its first Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by the Americans over British General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga in October.
1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1793 – Surrender of the frigate La Lutine by French Royalists to Lord Samuel Hood; renamed HMS Lutine, she later becomes a famous treasure wreck.
1878 – John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires is executed in Pennsylvania.
1878 – The Al-Thani family become the rulers of the state of Qatar
1888 – Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discover the ancient Indian ruins of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde.
1892 – Premiere performance of The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
1898 – Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the first officially recognized land speed record of 39.245 mph (63.159 km/h) in a Jeantaud electric car.[1]
1900 – The Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook, Victoria Narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in or 762 mm) Railway (now the Puffing Billy Railway) in Victoria, Australia is opened for traffic.
1912 – The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is announced by Charles Dawson.
1916 – World War I: The Battle of Verdun ends when German forces under Chief of staff Erich von Falkenhayn are defeated by the French, and suffer 337,000 casualties.
1917 – The resolution containing the language of the Eighteenth Amendment to enact Prohibition is passed by the United States Congress.
1932 – The Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth Spartans 9–0 in the first ever NFL Championship Game. Because of a blizzard, the game is moved from Wrigley Field to the Chicago Stadium, the field measuring 80 yards (73 m) long.
1935 – The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is founded in Ceylon.
1939 – World War II: The Battle of the Heligoland Bight, the first major air battle of the war, takes place.
1944 – World War II: 77 B-29 Superfortress and 200 other aircraft of U.S. Fourteenth Air Force bomb Hankow, China, a Japanese supply base.
1956 – Japan joins the United Nations.
1958 – Project SCORE, the world's first communications satellite, is launched.
1966 – Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.
1969 – Capital punishment in the United Kingdom: Home Secretary James Callaghan's motion to make permanent the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, which had temporarily suspended capital punishment in England, Wales and Scotland for murder (but not for all crimes) for a period of five years.
1971 – Capitol Reef National Park is established in Utah.
1972 – Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will engage North Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II, a series of Christmas bombings, after peace talks collapsed with North Vietnam on the 13th.
1973 – Soviet Soyuz Programme: Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.
1973 – The Islamic Development Bank is founded.
1978 – Dominica joins the United Nations.
1987 – Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language.
1989 – The European Economic Community and the Soviet Union sign an agreement on trade and commercial and economic cooperation.
1997 – HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.
1999 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
2002 – 2003 California recall: Then Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.
2005 – The civil war in Chad begins when rebel groups, allegedly backed by neighbouring Sudan, launch an attack in Adré.
2006 – The first of a series of floods strikes Malaysia. The death toll of all flooding is at least 118, with over 400,000 people displaced.
2006 – United Arab Emirates holds its first-ever elections.
Famous Folk Born on December 18th:
General Charles Griffin
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
Ty Cobb
Joseph Stalin
Paul Klee
George Stevens
Gladys Cooper
Edwin Armstrong
General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.
Willy Brandt
Betty Grable
Ossie Davis
Ramsey Clark
Moose Skowron
Chas Chandler
Roger E. Mosley
Michael Moorcock
Keith Richards
Stephen Biko
Steven Spielberg
Bill Nelson
Leonard Maltin
Elliot Easton
Ray Liotta
Brad Pitt
Stone Cold Steve Austin
Casper Van Dien
Cowboy Troy
Trish Stratus
Katie Holmes
Christina Aguilera
Movie quotes today come from 1994's "Cobb", a biopic about Ty Cobb, who set baseball records that lasted for decades. He still hold the record for highest career batting average:
Louis Prima: With all the great players playing ball right now, how well do you think you would do against today's pitchers?
Ty Cobb: Well, I figure against today's pitchers I'd only probably hit about .290
Louis Prima: .290? Well that's amazing, because you batted over .400 a... a whole bunch of times. Now tell us all, we'd all like to know, why do you think you'd only hit .290?
Ty Cobb: Well, I'm 72 fucking years old you ignorant son of a bitch.
#2
Ramona: Who are you again?
Ty Cobb: I am the Georgia Peach. I have 4,191 base hits in 11,429 at bats, 920 stolen bases, 2,244 runs scored, and 93 batting records; and I want you to take off every stitch of your clothes.
Ramona: I don't think so.
[Cobb points a gun to her head]
Ramona: That don't scare me, 'cause if you shoot me, I'll be dead. And you're not gonna screw a dead lady!
Ty Cobb: [cocks gun] I might like it.
#3
[Cobb narrates a lengthy lambasting of Babe Ruth into a tape recorder]
Al Stump: Come on, Ty, aren't you going to give Ruth credit for anything?
Ty Cobb: (pauses) He could run okay for a fat man.
#4
[Stump is in a bar with his friends]
Al Stump: We call ourselves writers! All we do is sit around talking about baseball and getting drunk a lot. You call that writing?
[All his friends: Yeah!]
Notes: Allan Malamud, one of the greatest sportswriters in history appears in this film. So does Lawrence "Crash" Davis, the inspiration for the name of the character played by Kevin Costner in the baseball film "Bull Durham." So does Ernie Harwell, the longtime Cubs radio/television announcer and the man who was on the mic when Bobby Thompson hit the "shot heard round the world" in 1951.
posted by me at 2:14 PM
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