You do accept a deal for 4 years if your lawyer tells you there's 5 year minimum and a 20 year maximum for the crime. Odds are he was facing 10+ years, and guilty or not you have to consider what a jury is going to think of your case.

A stack of CDs in his room was not put there over his open WAP, but once the government deems them child pornography the Adam Walsh Act prohibits access to child pornography evidence as contraband, as though it were a kilo of cocaine. What this really mean is that in child porn cases, people can be convicted without the prosecution turning over evidence to the defense. If the defense doesn't make enough of a stink, they may never get more than an affidavit. And the defense can hire an expert to examine the evidence, but that expert will have to do all their work at a government facility.

A guy that lives with a roommate probably can't afford a seriously good lawyer, and even a really good lawyer would still have to fight to get access to the evidence. It is your right to demand evidence be examined, validated and otherwise poked at by a neutral party. And we need to demand the rights of ACCUSED child pornographers be defended as we would have our rights defended...a few more laws like this and we won't have rights to worry about.

Clearly child porn shouldn't be handed out on the street, but if you are being accused of possessing it they still need to make it available to your defense so someone besides the prosecution can say "Yup, that's child porn". CDs full of pictures of 17 year olds and skinny asians in pigtails is WAY different from toddlers, but 100% identical to the prosecution.

Synthetic sapphire is way cheaper than that. I bought one about an inch across for under $10. Real synthetic sapphire too, leaves a horrific gouge in quartz if the two come into contact.

Wow. You're all so right.

Knitters would never be geeky or sexy or pretty or fun or sexually active.

And they're certainly not attractive or witty or sensual.

No, no, no. No worth in knitters at all. Pfft.

I have always used just salt for french fries from fast food restaurants like Burger King and McDonalds. But from Diners and nicer restaurants I usually forgo the salt and use ketchup.

As I read through the SlashDot comments, it becomes clear to me that some people don't understand how newspaper interviews work.

Generally they're conducted by telephone. The reporter calls with a story idea. He's looking for information, background, quotes, etc. He asks a bunch of questions and has a conversation with the interviewee. In this case, the AP reporter was writing a story on licensing computer users, and he wanted to know what I thought about it. I spoke with the reporter for about ten minutes about this idea.

The reporter eventually hangs up. He talks to other people. Then, he writes the story. His job is to string together the facts and quotes into an interesting and entertaining news article.

I never get to see what quote he uses. I never get to approve the context. I never see the story before it appears in print.

People are misquoted all the time. Be careful about judging someone by a single quote they say in print, especially if it's something you wouldn't expect them to say. I'm always aware of the high error rate in news stories, but not everyone is.

Bruce