Your video, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - House of Lords, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

One of the downsides of jury nullification not mentioned in the video is that it doesn't afford higher courts the opportunity to correct defects in the law.

In the UK an eleven and a twelve year old boy set fire to some newspapers, which unknown to them spread to a wheelie bin, which spread to another wheelie bin, which spread to a shop and eventually caused ~£1 million damage. They were convicted of arson despite an extremely reluctant jury and even judge, because while it was acknowledged that the boys didn't foresee the risk of the fire spreading the standard of recklessness at the time (which had persisted for around two decades) was an objective one referring to the judgement of a hypothetical reasonable adult.

It took their conviction, and the Court of Appeals upholding that conviction, for the House of Lords to reexamine the bad precedent they'd set in an earlier case and finally revert the standard to a subjective one of the defendant's actual capacity.

It may take thousands of nullifications before legislators even notice that their terrible laws aren't being enforced, while one unsound conviction can make a difference. So your strategy as a juror may be to convict in obviously stupid cases (unconstitutional ones in the US, say), but nullify where the law appears to be functioning as intended but conflicts with your conscience.

"[A Lord] said he had been left “scarred” after his dinner booking was cancelled suddenly. He complained that his wife was “unable to lunch elsewhere” because she was wearing a tiara." -- Independent

I would like to try to drown them in a bowl of eel pudding, the lot of 'em. Do I have your blessing?

>> ^Porksandwich:

Couldn't understand a lot of what was said after the "drip" part.


There certainly was a lot of talking over each other, but this is what I heard:


Cox: "I think that just a drip of that quantative easing to the science budget would possibly transform our economy."

Campbell: "He could get into Downing Street anytime he wants, and why don't you stand for parliament?"

Cox: *Stammers*

Neil: "Good answer"

Cox: "Not much happens then does it, I think you've got to be ..."

Portillo: "don't you have a 15 year term in the House of Lords?"

Cox: " .. don't you have to be Prime Minister, at least, until you can get anything done?"

>> ^dannym3141:

I want to grab these tory fucking scumbags by the scruff of the neck and scream into their faces "SHAME ON YOU, REPRESENT THE PEOPLE!"
What fucking happened to my britain? What happened to the highest privilege to be born british? Keep calm and carry on spirit?
How can the CUNT tory scumbags expect the least privileged in this country to care for each other and take part in fucking "big community" when our fucking government is LITERALLY selling our nation from under us to line their cronies pockets? How can they act dishonestly and expect honesty from the rest of the country?
They're rushing all these fucking policies in as quickly as they can because they know they're not gonna get in next time, so there's nothing to lose. At least the other fucking parties pretend to be doing it in our best interest.


Oh hear hear, love. Just sit back and watch it crumble. Because even protests and petitions won't make a dent anymore. Fucks sake, even The House of Lords hold no sway. There is LITERALLY nothing we can do and fuck all to cling onto. I feel like the voice of doom, but I know I'm not exaggerating. Still, if anything is going to change, we have to hit rock bottom... and I think we're getting there.

>> ^radx:

He's rather nervous, isn't he? Admittedly, if there's something to it, he'll be floating down the Thames soon enough.
Normally, I'd say noone is stupid enough to try a fraud based on these blatantly preposterous figures. Then again, they did find $6T worth of fake US bonds last week, so anything goes, apparently.
I bet those 750 thousand tonnes of gold were shipped and Somali pirates snatched 'em.
Or maybe they were FedEx'ed and Tom Hanks and Wilson are now building a mansion with it on some godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere, like Guernsey.


Jesus turned the gold to paper, then Heath Ledger collected it into a large pile and burnt it all.
I submit my proof: http://videosift.com/video/Everything-Burns

Wonder what the death toll is going to be from today

It's a great place. Was hopping to go back there for a year or so in the near future. Looks like it will probably be a bit too civil-war-y (or fascist)

Sad

I actually worked for the military dictatorship there in 2007 (barely, I was teaching in a state highschool), before the 'civil' powers took over. Biggest bunch of plutocrats you'll find in the modern world. Want to set up a system that makes the house of lords seem reasonable.
On the other hand Thaksin's drug war killed 3~5,000 people and the reds venerate that draconian bastard.
Hard to choose a side.

from wiki: Monckton was an unsuccessful candidate for a Conservative seat in the House of Lords in a March 2007 by-election caused by the death of Lord Mowbray and Stourton. He received no votes in the election.[6] He was highly critical of the way that the Lords had been reformed, describing the by-election procedure, with 43 candidates and 47 electors, as "a bizarre constitutional abortion."[7]

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
...but I can see your argument if it was about giving Wilders a big platform, but again, he was expelled from the COUNTRY, not just the House of Lords or the screening.

Perhaps someone can clarify this? Having just delt with a lot of traveling myself, this came to mind... perhaps because Wilders screening was cancelled there was no reason for him to be in the country, thus the reason for his visa would be void, in which case he was turned away?

It seems unlikely though. Knowing how crazy politics gets.

I think both positions are simply incompatible with the reality on the ground, this is a political situation and needs to be treated as such, so say we allow Wilders his screening, what kind of repercussions does that incur and what kind of view does that create? If this is allowed to be screened then why not a screening of Fahrenheit 9/11, The Truth about AIPAC, Palestine and Israel, An Inconvenient Truth or even something good like Taxi to the Dark Side? Have you ever heard of that? Of course not, and am sure the same people who support this screening would not support the ones I mentioned.

This is not about screening the film. Wilders was refused entry to the UK because of his views on islam. If britain refuses Michael Moore entry to the UK over Farenheit 9/11 because it "offended republicans" then we might be on equal grounds here. The House of Lords invited him to show it, I do not know their exact motivation, and I do not know if screenings of this kind are common in the House, (perhaps someone of British background could shed some light on this?) but I can see your argument if it was about giving Wilders a big platform, but again, he was expelled from the COUNTRY, not just the House of Lords or the screening.


Also worth noting is the REASONING for his expulsion: Basically the British government caved from threats from fascist terrorist loonies, and refused a law-abiding EU citizen entry because of his views.

^spoco2

Noocracy doesn't require an absolute measure of intelligence. Reasonable indicators are enough, I'm sure we both agree it is possible to distinguish between smart and stupid.

Constitutional republics like the U.S. are a kind of chronologically-removed noocracy; the 'smart people' establish a lasting foundation of law with which they hope to bind the excesses of the mob to whom they surrender government. I respect the idea, but these always degenerate towards democracy, demonstrating the need for an active policy.

"How are things like that EVER going to work without some sort of military might to hold off the non bright and the scared? And then, if you start down that road then you'll be running into the issue that the intellectuals will see that for what it is, which is a form of dictatorship, and not agree with that on humanitarian grounds."

This is the heart of our disagreement. Intellectuals, the best of them at least, will and do recognise that democracy, not noocracy, is oppressive. I've already called it the plural of dictatorship, a more common term is the tyranny of the majority. More fundamentally, democracy is immoral on an individual level; imposing ones will on society, by voting or any other method, without the expertise to make the most correct moral determination possible is violence.

I can point to successful, if limited, quasi-noocratic government systems already in operation. The constitutions of states nominally ruled by law may be transient, but they certainly slow the relentless advance of the mob. The House of Lords in the UK is viewed as baffling and almost miraculous in its ability to identify and oppose the worst legislation of the elected house. If you'd like to know how I'd go about implementing noocracy in my own country, I might start by expanding the authority of that body while rationalising its membership criteria.

Yeah I'm in Ireland!

Man, I was a news junkie for years, I picked it up from my grandfather. I was one of those guys who sat and watched BBC News 24, all day long, changing over to the ITV news to see their take on the same stories. All I ever watched on TV was News and Star Trek.

I remember the exact moment when BBC News started to change and go the way of American news. It was in 2003, when David Kelly, the british UN weapons expert was found dead in a forest near his home. Just a couple of days previous, I had watched the entire live 2 hour cross examination of David Kelly in front of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, as he completely tore holes in the dossier that the UK government had put forward claiming that Saddam had WMD. I had been following the whole story in impeccable detail, online, on TV, bookmarking everything I could, and I had been looking forward to seeing David Kelly appear in front of the committee.

Anyone who watched it live was completely blown away by it, it couldn't have been any more dramatic. The government totally shot themselves in the foot. That night on the news, the BBC got stuck right into Tony Blair and the UK government and they continued to do so for the next couple of days, exposing all the lies about the Iraq war. It seemed finally that we were going to get the whole truth, and David Kelly was the key to the whole thing.

Then David Kelly was found dead, an alleged suicide. The same day the government went on the offensive against the BBC, people in the BBC were sacked over the next few weeks, government mouthpieces started appearing on all the TV news programmes shouting down presenters and acting very very strange indeed.

That is the exact moment when it changed. The BBC started becoming very very dumbed down very very quickly. Reports on the Israel/Palestine conflict became very watered down, that was when I really knew that the government had gagged the BBC (also happened in the 80s when Thatcher was in power during the Falklands war). The only decent reports were hour long specials broadcast at 1am or 2am, the normal daily news became a joke. Even the presenters were changed.

Within a year, the ITV News (Independent TV news in the UK), which had been reporting very consistently about the whole debacle ceased broadcasting.

Now the House of Lords - very little of what goes on in there is ever covered on the news. To see it you have to watch the live broadcasts on the Parliament channel (which I don't get any more cos I cancelled my cable a few months ago). It's where law is made, the house of commons is the showpiece for the public. All the stuff they decide in the commons has to go to the Lords where it is actually discussed at a very high level of detail and intelligence before it can be made law. The Lords also recommend what the UK prime minister should be saying to foreign presidents during state visits, a good example was when Blair was going to Russia and the Lords wanted him to confront the Russians about old KGB type activity rearing its head again - fascinating stuff, not a bit of it was ever on the normal news.

The Lords are probably the most well versed people on the history of Europe you could possibly meet. It is an education watching them debate sensibly and intelligently without all the pomp and drama you get on the TV news. They have bloodlines going way way back, they are soaked in the history of Britain and Europe. (Tony Blair near the end of his term even made moves to get rid of the Lords altogether when he wanted to get his 48 days detention without trial bill passed into law, the BBC actually started running hit pieces on the Lords, another sign that the BBC had changed)

Anyway, the point is, the Lords are a bit jumpy about stuff like this, and I'm sure it won't have gotten past them. Someone will have raised it for discussion. Obama making speeches in Israel about fighting extremism is very dangerous for Britain because I have watched discussions about the oppression of Palestine in the Lords and how delicately it has to be handled because the UK is an ally of the US which is an ally of Israel. Following that up with an event reminiscent of a British coronation more than a US presidential acceptance speech will really be ringing alarm bells.

I hope you're following my line of thinking, I'm brainstorming it all right out in full flow...

To Americans, these events will be soaked in pride, hope and patriotism, there is nothing wrong with that.

But to a British politician or to the Lords who have reign over the politicians, it paints a very different picture. It's one thing when Luther King makes speeches about civil rights in this way, it's another when Obama talks about uniting forces against extremism, and even goes as far as talking about Iranian nukes. That's the language of fear, that's the kicker, that's the alarm bell - and I mean that in the most literal sense, this language of fear is one of the things Winston Churchill warned about in the tomes of books he wrote after WW2, about how the world must avoid the same thing happening again, and how he regretted that Britian didn't move sooner against Germany.

These are very specific things contained in Obama's speeches, and I really don't know what to make of it. I think you should be thankful that at least somebody in American media saw this from a perspective of history. WW2 is very fresh in the minds of people in England, the country is soaked in the history of that war in every town and city and bit of countryside and Obama's words are very potent and a bit scary to be frank in that context.

That's why I say it's all about persepective, and what makes it frightening is that Obama's speechwriters couldn't have made it any more potent in the context of WW2.

Phew.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Are you, as your name implies, from Ireland?

I'm definitely curious on your take as to why the House of Lords would have an objection to what Obama said in Israel, or the fact that he plans on giving a speech to 75,000 campaign volunteers at his nomination (different from inauguration, BTW).

I did a couple searches of BBC News's site, and it seemed to generally be reporting positive reactions in the UK and elsewhere to Obama's trip. Is the UK media as distorted as the US's these days?

Here, there's already a meme forming about how this trip is going to hurt Obama domestically.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
http://politics.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Speech-Something-the-Fuehrer-would-have-done

In regards to this, I think it's important that this stuff be posted, sifted, and discussed. I'm not into posting stuff that I personally believe or subscribe to. I'm quite the opposite, I post stuff because I want to know what people think so I can get a big brainstorm of commentary. I don't know what to make of it, but I have an excellent knowledge of WW2 and whether intentional or not this is resonates with that history and is very dangerous ground for Obama and America to be on.

To be absolutely honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if this and the Israel visit are items for discussion in the House of Lords in the UK.

I'm all for discussion of it, after all I didn't downvote it. Put me down as taking outright offense to a member of the propaganda arm of the Republican party trying to paint Obama as a Nazi because he's popular.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
http://politics.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Speech-Something-the-Fuehrer-would-have-done

In regards to this, I think it's important that this stuff be posted, sifted, and discussed. I'm not into posting stuff that I personally believe or subscribe to. I'm quite the opposite, I post stuff because I want to know what people think so I can get a big brainstorm of commentary. I don't know what to make of it, but I have an excellent knowledge of WW2 and whether intentional or not this is resonates with that history and is very dangerous ground for Obama and America to be on.

To be absolutely honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if this and the Israel visit are items for discussion in the House of Lords in the UK.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Is the point here to show how misleading and offensive this is, or to take something mediamatters.org highlighted as misleading and offensive and try to perpetuate it?

Do you really think giving a political speech in front of lots of people makes you a Nazi? Usually acceptance speeches happen before crowds of 20,000 or so. What's the cutoff number for Nazification?

Does that mean Martin Luther King became a Nazi for his I Have a Dream speech, which he gave before 200,000 people?

http://politics.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Speech-Something-the-Fuehrer-would-have-done

In regards to this, I think it's important that this stuff be posted, sifted, and discussed. I'm not into posting stuff that I personally believe or subscribe to. I'm quite the opposite, I post stuff because I want to know what people think so I can get a big brainstorm of commentary. I don't know what to make of it, but I have an excellent knowledge of WW2 and whether intentional or not this is resonates with that history and is very dangerous ground for Obama and America to be on.

To be absolutely honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if this and the Israel visit are items for discussion in the House of Lords in the UK.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Is the point here to show how misleading and offensive this is, or to take something mediamatters.org highlighted as misleading and offensive and try to perpetuate it?

Do you really think giving a political speech in front of lots of people makes you a Nazi? Usually acceptance speeches happen before crowds of 20,000 or so. What's the cutoff number for Nazification?

Does that mean Martin Luther King became a Nazi for his I Have a Dream speech, which he gave before 200,000 people?

http://politics.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Speech-Something-the-Fuehrer-would-have-done

In regards to this, I think it's important that this stuff be posted, sifted, and discussed. I'm not into posting stuff that I personally believe or subscribe to. I'm quite the opposite, I post stuff because I want to know what people think so I can get a big brainstorm of commentary. I don't know what to make of it, but I have an excellent knowledge of WW2 and whether intentional or not this is resonates with that history and is very dangerous ground for Obama and America to be on.

To be absolutely honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if this and the Israel visit are items for discussion in the House of Lords in the UK.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
How do you think this event will be percieved around the world?

Moving the venue to a football ground and filling it with 75,000 'adoring fans' does have the whiff of fanatacism about it.

I'm sure many Europeans will see this event echoing 1930s Germany.

I think it's right that this be raised and discussed. Obama's speech in Israel followed by this event is sending out a very particular type of message.

It's not about what I personally think, it's about the alarm bells that this kind of stunt rings around the rest of the world. It's about perception.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Is the point here to show how misleading and offensive this is, or to take something mediamatters.org highlighted as misleading and offensive and try to perpetuate it?

Do you really think giving a political speech in front of lots of people makes you a Nazi? Usually acceptance speeches happen before crowds of 20,000 or so. What's the cutoff number for Nazification?

Does that mean Martin Luther King became a Nazi for his I Have a Dream speech, which he gave before 200,000 people?