The Off Topic Topic

[Grey Fox]

To OVB, after the annexation and I'm a 2nd class American citizen. I'll find your grave and piss on it.

Fucking fascist, destroying everything because Biden didn't vote against a BS declaration.

[HVC]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFkUDEpSKL1

You ever miss it grumbler?

[grumbler]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFkUDEpSKL1

You ever miss it grumbler?

That looks fake.  There's no puke.

[viper37]

New York judge resigns after saying he can't be on a jury since he thinks all defendants are guilty

An upstate New York judge has resigned after he got out of jury duty by claiming that he couldn't be impartial — because he thought everyone brought before a court is guilty.

Richard T. Snyder, who had been a justice of the Petersburgh Town Court for about a decade, left his post after being charged with misconduct by a state judicial commission, officials said Tuesday.

According to court transcripts, Snyder tried to avoid serving on a jury in 2023 by first identifying himself as a judge and then saying, "I know everybody come in front of me. I know they are guilty. They would not be in front of me."

He was eventually dismissed from serving on the jury after he continued to argue that he could not be impartial, saying "No. It would not be fair," court transcripts from a special grand jury empanelment in Rensselaer County show. 

The judge who was overseeing the jury selection reported Snyder to state officials.

At a judicial commission hearing the following year, Snyder said he understood that defendants are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty but that he still felt that people wouldn't be in court if they didn't commit crimes.

"I meant, that they were guilty because they did something wrong. But they're not guilty 'til they come to court. They're innocent 'til proven guilty," he told the commission.

"They did something wrong. That's why they got a ticket. But they're not guilty," he added.


Snyder, who was elected as a justice, is not an attorney and has agreed to never serve as a judge again.

Public records did not list a phone number for Snyder. Voicemails left with the Petersburgh Town Court were not immediately returned.
Petersburgh is a small town outside Albany near New York's border with Vermont and Massachusetts. It has a population of about 1,400 people, according to census data.

In a statement, Robert H. Tembeckjian, administrator of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, said "there is no place on the bench for someone who so deeply misunderstands the role of a judge and the administration of justice."

"It is bad enough that a judge would seek to avoid such a fundamental civic responsibility as jury service. It is astounding that the judge would claim an inability to be impartial, and to declare under oath that the accused must be guilty or they would not be in court," he said.

Courts in New York do not offer automatic jury duty exemptions to anyone, including judges.

I liked the second bolded part:
They're guilty,  but they're not guilty.

I supposed lots of lawyers are looking at their case now to see if they ever appeared in front of him

[HVC]

You'd think being a a judge was a good enough of an excuse.

[Eddie Teach]

Ok, Greenland and Canada are fine, but I think we've got to draw the line somewhere. Zero interest in taking over Gaza.   

[Jacob]

Seems like Putin is trying to step up his soft power game:

Back in the USSR: Putin revives Soviet-era 'Eurovision' with new allies

MOSCOW, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a revival of the Soviet answer to the Eurovision Song Contest in an effort to counter what he says is the decadence of modern Western culture.
Putin signed a decree on Monday for the Intervision Song Contest to be held in Moscow this year, and told senior Kremlin and government officials to prepare for the event. China, Cuba, Brazil and other "friendly" countries are expected to take part.

Russia was banned from Eurovision in 2022 after Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, though he has been trying to revive Intervision for more than a decade.
In contrast to Eurovision, which often celebrates LGBT+ themes and performers, Intervision will strike a more sober tone, according to documents seen by Reuters, stressing respect for "traditional universal, spiritual and family values".

"Artists may not perform songs that call for violence, humiliate the honour and dignity of society, and it is required that political themes in the lyrics are completely excluded," said one of the Russian planning documents.

Putin has increasingly sought to cast Russia as the defender of traditional family values and says the West has lost its moral moorings in the pursuit of what he sees as excessive individualism and a lack of respect for religious traditions.

In Russia, stringent rules now ban anything deemed to promote homosexuality, while the international LGBTQ+ movement is branded an extremist organisation.
Russia took part in Eurovision 23 times from 1994 but as ties with the West steadily soured it began to consider reviving the Soviet-era Intervision, especially after Conchita Wurst, an Austrian drag queen popularly known as "the bearded lady," won the contest in 2014, the year Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

INTERVISION

Intervision originally launched under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the 1960s as an Eastern Bloc alternative to the capitalist Eurovision Song Contest, bringing together Moscow's allies in eastern Europe and other communist nations like Cuba.

Russian officials say a number of countries including China, Brazil, Cuba and former Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Belarus have expressed interest in taking part in the revived Intervision music contest.

According to the documents seen by Reuters, performers will have up to four minutes to sing their song live in whatever language they like. The winner will go on tour and get prize money.

"The contest will be open for participation of all countries that wish to do so," the document said, adding that participants must "respect cultural, ethical and religious traditions of other peoples of the world".

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/back-ussr-putin-revives-soviet-era-eurovision-with-new-allies-2025-02-04/

... I wonder if the US is going to participate?

[celedhring]

A Central Asian Eurovision is something I could dig. 

But I guess this will be more drab.

[Josquius]

Ireland laughs at the pathetic BBC and their "London busses" unit of measurement.

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/enormous-asteroid-size-59-bonos-34626814

Enormous asteroid the size of 59 Bonos racing towards Earth could 'wipe Ireland off the map'

[grumbler]

A Central Asian Eurovision is something I could dig. 

But I guess this will be more drab.

[Valmy]

Ireland laughs at the pathetic BBC and their "London busses" unit of measurement.

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/enormous-asteroid-size-59-bonos-34626814

Enormous asteroid the size of 59 Bonos racing towards Earth could 'wipe Ireland off the map'

59 Bonos doesn't seem very big. He only weighs about 170 lbs or something surely.

[HVC]

Just looked up the Super Bowl score. Jesus.

[Razgovory]

It was a fucking massacre.

[Zanza]

Interesting way to show Chinese dominance in manufacturing.

[Josquius]

How much is loss and how much is China just growing a shit tonne.
World manufacturing capacity I imagine is a lot higher today than 30 years ago.
Percentages like this  are the wrong way to show international comparisons.