A vaccine is an immune system booster. It is not a cure or a treatment for disease.
You have to have an immune system to start out with.
My question is, in the case of centenarians, how much of their immune system is left?
I wrote this four years ago, pointing out that the Swartz prosecution was political in nature. MIT and the US Attorney’s Office in Boston are responsible for his death. After his suicide, the Boston USAO lied, claiming that they had offered him a six-month plea bargain. That was and is a lie:
The Federal Sentencing Guidelines provide a base sentence of 57-71 months in prison in this case, followed by 2 or 3 years of supervised release and no computer use during this time. I have not seen a report where the prosecution offered Swartz a six-month cap in exchange for a plea. I have seen a report that the prosecution insisted on what is called an open plea to the entire indictment. This is not a plea bargain at all.
My only conclusion from all of this is that this case was and is a political case and so was handled differently from run of the mill criminal matters. The government no doubt wanted to make an example of Swartz and his efforts in opening up PACER played into this. The Government is afraid of people like Swartz, Assange and Anonymous (and perhaps even Kim Dotcom–they are viewed essentially as one entity.
Society’s reaction to crime ebbs and flows. In medieval England, the sole penalty for felony was death. The idea was that the punishment was so horrible that no one would commit a felony. This obviously did not work. The United States is similarly using draconian legislation to modify the behavior of people interacting through computers. This effort will fail. The greatest blow to people pirating music was iTunes offering songs for less than a dollar and not any draconian legislation.
The Swartz case raises so many issues. Perhaps only a Constitutional Convention could address all of them (keep in mind that the federalization of crime took place under Hoover; at the founding of the Republic there were only three federal crimes).
An adjutorious arbitration; an archaic word but then again, in the law nothing is archaic. There has to be a good deal of good will and cooperation where the parties fail to provide for an arbitration clause, a dispute arises and they nevertheless agree to resolve their dispute amicably using ICC Arbitration. So “adjutorious” in the sense of “helping” them to resolve their dispute. Accessory or ancillary arbitration doesn’t work because such an arbitration is the principal one. It ’s not ancillary to anything except the contract–not the dispute–and if you could use “ancillary” you might as well use “additional”. “Sequacious” could also be used in the sense of “following” the contract, but this word is mostly used to describe a person. No reason it couldn’t be used here, it’s just a question of repeated use and acceptance, but you lose the euphony of alliteration. Perhaps someone could start looking at the Selden Society’s volumes, there might be a term from Law French. Which, of course, is not French at all.
You cannot applaud the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Iran while condemning the assassination of Khashoggi in Istanbul.
(And if it’s OK for Israel, it’s OK for Saudi Arabia)
A new law of war is needed:
Ronald Reagan left the White House when he was 77 years old after serving two terms.
Joe Biden today is one year older than Reagan was at the end of his term and getting ready to begin his.
Biden will be 82 at the end of his term.
“There’s no freedom of religion unless you are free to worship Sumerian wind demons”
Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner, was an attorney in Maryland.
And a slaveowner.
John Marshall, the 13th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was a slaveowner too. He owned 150 slaves. He is the intellectual author of the principle of judicial review, found in the seminal case of Marbury v. Madison.
It looks like Biden is the victor, assuming no court intervention. Whatever happens between now and January 20th, the Press will focus on Trump. They will not admit it, but they will miss him greatly. Unless he runs into Alberto Fujimori on the golf course, Trump will provide reliable entertainment as he has always done. The Press will clutch their pearls and say “how dare he?”
Moreover, Trump will find a way to stay relevant. He will visit foreign capitals and mouth off as usual—stealing the new president’s thunder. Imagine a two-year world tour, à la Ulysses Grant. He would be unable to comply with subpoenas, could not be called to testify, and would wreak havoc wherever he went.
Let’s say Trump were to grant his first post-presidency interview to Howard Stern: how many millions would tune in? It’s quite possible, indeed, as I write this I think it is more and more likely—that Trump will continue to grab the spotlight in new and astonishing ways in his post-presidential career.
Dick Cheney re-invented the Office of the Vice-President. Trump could re-invent the post-presidency. Jimmy Carter devoted his post-presidential years to doing good deeds. Imagine a president who devoted his post-presidential years to further shenanigans, to getting even with the American public.
Trump would be the darling of any out of power foreign administration, giving them continued legitimacy merely because of his appearance. Imagine if Trump were to meet with the Dalai Lama. China would be furious and American reassurances that “he’s only a private citizen” would be ignored by the Chinese, who would see this as some kind of insidious American scheme. Freed of the constraints of the White House, Trump can be relied on to be unpredictable and the unpredictable is dangerous.
Biden would have to beg Trump to behave, making Trump a kind of “senior-president” holding a veto over those policies of the new administration he didn’t like. The Catholic Church has two popes. Why can’t the United States have two presidents? The fact that one is in the White House and the other on Twitter won’t matter to a constituency that increasingly spends most of its time on the Internet anyway. It’s all greenfield—a perfect environment without rules for one who never believed that the rules applied to him anyway. It will be an amazing show and the press will cover every move.
Or, Trump can join Jimmy Carter and build houses for the poor. Yeah, right.
Whatever Biden plans to do, he better do it fast—he will be a one-term president. I say this without any regard for his future policies or popularity, but merely due to his age. After age 60, years are like dog years. Biden will be 83 at the end of his term.
Eighty-three. Maybe there will be an “80 is the new 60” campaign.
Danger Will Robinson: Biden may try to raise taxes significantly, knowing that he doesn’t have to stand for re-election. People voted for Biden not because they were enamored of him or his traditional Democratic policies, but because he wasn’t Trump. What does Biden stand for? What will be the issue de jour that he sets upon and decides to call his own? Wouldn’t it be ironic if Biden turns out to be the real demagogue?
Every move that Biden makes will be attacked by Trump, who will inevitably get the microphone and attention. And that is precisely what he wants. What he so desperately needs.
With Biden in the White House, I expect four years of stasis. The Ship of State will barely move. The Democrats will squabble amongst themselves. The Republicans will say “no” to their “yes.” Expect two full years of new investigations, of Trump, Hunter Biden and others, both known and unknown to the grand jury. These sideshows will consume a great deal of energy but will amount to nothing.
In describing an incident where feces were found in the marital bed that Amber Heard shared with Johnny Depp, Judge Andrew Nicol found that it is likely the feces were not human given that Heard’s dog “had an incomplete mastery of her bowels after she had accidentally consumed some marijuana.”
So if someday you are accused of public defecation, point out to the officer that you merely had “an incomplete mastery of your bowels.” The officer is likely to respond with, “Whaat? Did you shit in the street or not?”
It is also good to know that the pooch did not “deliberately” consume marijuana, though I am not sure how His Lordship came to that conclusion.
