This is easily rule 11 territory as any first year law student can tell you . . .

Any first year law student can tell you that Rule 11 is a civil rule, not a criminal one.

I don't know why I waste my time . . .

Also from the court documents:

Ms. Kanae was present at the hearing on this motion and admitted that she had assisted Mr. Smallwood in the preparation of his filing . . . Although she was not prepared to represent Mr. Smallwood at the hearing and argue on his behalf, Ms. Kanae has now appeared in this action, and the Court is confident that she will sign all future pleadings that she prepares (as she properly did for Plaintiff's Second Supplemental Mem.).

He's not pro se, in other words. He's represented by counsel.

You are correct, though, that as a pro se, he would have gotten creamed. The judge initially dismissed his complaint sua sponte for failure to properly allege federal jurisdiction. No way is this guy a lawyer.

What other jobs? We're talking here about a country with near double-digit reported unemployment (the real rate is probably a lot closer to 25%) and whose largest employer is Wal-Mart. Exactly where are these guys going to find work at all, much less any that will make them prematurely jump ship?

I suppose they could be prison guards. That's about the only growth industry left in America nowadays.

What other jobs?

I suppose they could be prison guards. That's about the only growth industry left in America nowadays.

Actually, busting through the ice is hazardous to your launch mission, since you have to make a SHIT-TON of noise before you can ever open your missile hatches.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't those birds be landing over LA, NYC, and DC while you were still deciding what to do about the mysterious noise you heard in the Arctic?

Call it fanboyism, but I do not think Linux is such a terrible operating system that it would see no use whatsoever, or practically so.

Hmm, let's see here . . .

In this corner: Spend a weekend recompiling my kernel two dozen times to get some piece of hardware to work the way it's supposed to.

In this corner: Plug it in and it does what the hell I need it to do, no kernel recompiles required, thus allowing me to spend the rest of my time doing other things I enjoy.

If you think I'm trolling, no less an authority than JWZ agrees.

I agree, Linux is a great operating system, but even as far as it has come, it's still not ready to be a full-time desktop OS that could replace Windows, much less Mac.

Can someone (who knows what the hell they're talking about, and can give cites) please tell us what the actual Federal law is that controls this situation.

You're an idiot blowhard. If you ever were actually in the situation you describe, you would wet your pants followed by confessing to being bin Laden if that's what the cop suspected.

Same reading assignment I gave to another pallid /.'er occupant of his parents' basement: Terry v. Ohio . The police have the right to detain you for a reasonable period of time if they have a "reasonable suspicion" that you have been involved in the commission of a crime. And yes, Virginia, they have the right to use force to detain you.

"Am I under arrest?"

"No? Then shoot me, mother f*cker, or get out of the way."

Bzzt, wrong answer. The correct answer is, "officer, am I free to go?" What you're doing is known in the trade as "flunking the attitude test." It is also known as "contempt of cop" and is likely to earn you some "street justice."

And I'm headed for the door. And ANYONE who lays a hand on me is guilty of assault, and I plan to protect myself.

By the tone of your post, I'm assuming that you intend to protect yourself with a firearm. Guess what - you've just escalated the situation from nothing to you being clad in a diaper strapped to a gurney saying your last words right before receiving a megadose of animal traquilisers in full of the parents whose basement you live in at the age of 40. All because you're a typical American jackass who thinks he's Rambo and who thinks a gun is the solution to every problem. Hope you enjoyed your last meal.

What a crock! If you are detained from going about your business, you are ARRESTED!!

Wrong. Detained != arrested.

Reading assignment: Terry v. Ohio . If you've watched Law & Order, you've probably heard of a "Terry stop." That is what this is referring to. See my previous comment re: posting to /. from your parents' basement in between masturbation sessions to Ayn Rand.

This kind of crap really makes me embarrassed to be an American...

..If you voted for Comrade Obama, check back with me in a couple years.. I'm betting you won't like him then...

This ignorant dreck in your sig makes me glad I don't have to share a country you with anymore. Unfortunately, I have to share a very long "undefended" border. Now, if there was something I could do about that, I would. Those of us in touch with reality know that Obama is about as far as you can get from a "comrade." The truth is, the Obama administration is really Bush's third term.

I'll bet you think he's a Kenyan Muslim too.

Funny, I don't see an "except for the border" clause in the Bill of Rights.

The latest example of the legal illiteracy that pervades /. This is a classic example of the kind of uninformed blather that comes out of the mouth of someone posting to /. from his parents' basement in between rounds of masturbating to Ayn Rand or some other losertarian fantasy/fallacy. The rest of us who have real jobs know that the world, and especially the legal system, is ever-so-slightly more complicated.

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the Fourth Amendment does not apply at the border. At all. Anyone can be searched, questioned or detained at any time for any reason at the border or the "functional equivalent of the border." And in a country of laws, the U.S. Supreme Court has the right to say what the Constitution says.

Federal statutes don't trump the constitution.

All enactments of Congress are presumed constitutional. That presumption holds unless and until the courts, and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court, say otherwise.

May I suggest an "Intro to Law" or "Law for Nonlawyers" course at your local community college?

Dartboard pics outperform the "financial wizards."

sv_libertarian (1317837) writes:

On top of that you . . . are forced to store the guns locked, broken down and apart from the ammo.

That's what they teach you to do in gun safety class, no?

Well, when your kid shoots himself with it, at least he won't grow up to be a losertarian moron with male potency issues. When the intruder you fear so much shoots you with it, or steals it and uses it in a crime, how will you feel?

Compared to an American, you are disarmed.

And this is a problem . . . why?

You effectively can only use your guns for sport, and using them to protect your home, your family or yourself is pretty much impossible.

Maybe they don't need to because their crime rate is a tiny fraction of America's? Maybe they're not paranoid that someone is going to break into their trailer and steal their Zenith black-and-white TV and tinfoil rabbit ears? I find it interesting that the gun nuts who complain the loudest actually have the least to protect.

To save $99 per year, I want to renew my iPhone App development license with a gun.

I have mod points, but I've already posted in this discussion. Damn.

Funny you mention that, though. I wonder if a gun is how a lot of these sexually frustrated males plan on getting girlfriends.

Not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.

I was referring to the right to travel. In the same sense, I have the right to travel to Europe this summer, but if I don't have the money to make the trip, I can't exercise that right, can I?

Even assuming arguendo the Second Amendment is an individual right applicable to the states (courts are still murky on this one - don't challenge me on this, you will lose as I will post the case law), the exercise of all Constitutional rights is subject to reasonable limits. Your right to free speech is subject to time and place restrictions, for example. The Fourth Amendment simply does not apply at the U.S. border or the functional equivalent thereof, even to your laptop, for another example.

So it is with the Second Amendment. Insane people do not have the right to keep and bear arms at all, nor do children, nor do felons. The reductio ad absurdum of your argument that the Second Amendment is untrammelled would be to claim that it gives you the right to bear a nuclear device, a howitzer, a tank, a machine gun or a grenade launcher. After all, the government has all of these and if you accept the argument that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to give the people the right of rebellion, then why shouldn't you?

You know, the ones whose motto is normally "sentence first - verdict afterward," "shoot first, ask questions later" or "hang 'em from the nearest tree"? These people who normally regard the Constitutional rights of individuals as mere "technicalities" that only benefit criminals have all turned into hairy-assed civil libertarians when it comes to a huge multinational corporation.

Applying the same arguments the right wing usually applies to criminals, particularly those with the misfortune to have dark skin or a funny accent, all of BP's assets should have been seized and should be on the auction block by now. That $75 million limitation of liability? Pah, a mere technicality. We know they're guilty, so let's put Tony on a horseback and git-a-rope!