The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: Arachno-capitalist on March 12, 2008, 02:53:44 pm
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Is this just a big local story? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/nyregion/12cnd-spitzer.html?hp (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/nyregion/12cnd-spitzer.html?hp)
The man just needed some high priced pussy, I don't see how that affects his ability to run the state. No one seemed to have a problem with the job he was doing, he was one one of the most popular governors in new york. But now that it comes out that he wanted some Entertainment once in awhile, the people demand his impeachment and resignation. I mean, that guy who was picking up other men in airport bathrooms is still in office.
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Oh no, not just a local story by any means.
It's hard to be a crusader against this and that, be a big-time prosecutor, and then get caught doing something illegal and (to many people) immoral.
And not to say this excuses him, but I refuse to believe this investigation came up through routine means. If your bank notices "unusual" cash transactions, who do they call first? Usually you, right? In this case, they went to the IRS or FBI or somebody, not to Spitzer. And for somebody as rich as he is, I'm not sure transactions in the thousands are all that unusual. Based on pure specultation, I'm guessing some high-ranking political enemy had an in at the bank, and told them "If you find ANYTHING we can get this guy on, let me know."
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My understanding is that the shell company was being monitored as a result of the post 9/11 banking regulations that monitor large cash transactions. Spitzer himself wasn't being monitored so much as the money-laundering-company, thats why hes "Client #9" and the biggest charge against him is that he was "funding a criminal enterprise".
Whatever. Show me how this affected his ability to govern.
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First I think prostitution should be legalized. I think it's safer for everybody involved if it's regulated plus also, it's just a bodily function.
That said the dude deserves this for his hypocrisy. He went after johns and prostitutes pretty vigorously back when he was attorney general. And people love it when "moral guardians" get caught doing whatever it is that they claim is so horrible. This isn't as good as catching a Leviticus-spouting hate-monger with come all over his face but it's still pretty satisfying.
I think I heard that the bank had to report his activity because of a money laundering law, but I'm not sure.
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Dude got caught doing something wrong, no doubt.
Problem is that he got caught in a specific witchhunt against him for fighting corporate corruption.
Kinda sucks across the board.
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First I think prostitution should be legalized. I think it's safer for everybody involved if it's regulated
This can go for most drugs as well while we're at it.
Dude wanted to buy hisself some 'tang, I ain't hating, so long as there was informed consent all round.
There was an interesting link off Fark I read earlier today that pointed out, as bad as this guy's day is, it's going to be even worse for 'Client 8' and so on down the line because there's no way they're going to get away with anything less the prosecution to the fullest extent of the law just because the governer was involved.
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What was he thinking? He's famous for crusading against this sort of thing, did he not realize how it would look if he got caught? Did he think it was so impossible that he would get caught?
People are astounding sometimes.
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The irony here is that Spitzer was one of the most vocal critics of sexual content in videogames. The focus of his scorn usually fell on the ability to pick up prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto games:
Media content has gotten more graphic, more violent and more sex-based… Currently, nothing under New York State law prohibits a fourteen-year old from walking into a video store and buying… a game like ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ which rewards a player for stealing cars and beating people up. Children can even simulate having sex with a prostitute…
Fun stuff. (http://gamepolitics.com/2008/03/10/breaking-video-game-critic-spitzer-involved-in-prostitution-ring/)
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Did he think it was so impossible that he would get caught?
If you're paying $5500 an hour for a hooker, you expect it will be discreet.
Not that I've ever paid $5500 an hour for a hooker.
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i have no sympathy for sleazeballs who pay for sex and cheat on their spouses. sorry.
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I mean, that guy who was picking up other men in airport bathrooms is still in office.
That's between him and his constituents, I imagine. Also, politics. HRC was pretty tight with this Spitzer guy, and having his stinking carcass to lug around for the next 6 weeks wouldn't do much for her chances in Pennsylvania.
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Ah, I didn't realise that he was being such a hypocritical douchebag,
or that he was married, that changes things somewhat. In general I still agree with A-CAP that sexual indescretions don't mean someone is unfit to govern, but in this specific instance he was obviously backing legislation he had no intent of following himself and that is some bullshit right there.
edited: because on reflection the fact that he was married doesn't make much difference to me either. People can have their marriage fall apart and still be good at their jobs. Hypocrisy still holds though.
Not that I've ever paid $5500 an hour for a hooker.
That we know of.
Because they're discreet.
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Not only was he a crusader, he was famous for investigating the personal lives of the people involved in corporations he went after, and using anything he found as leverage to force resignations/dismissals even if he had no real case. While ordinarily "a little something on the side" isn't enough for me to want to oust someone, this guy lived by the sword.
Questionable morals can be forgiven, but not in concert with hypocrisy and hubris.
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What was he thinking? He's famous for crusading against this sort of thing, did he not realize how it would look if he got caught? Did he think it was so impossible that he would get caught?
People are astounding sometimes.
This article (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20070622-000002.xml) from a little while ago basically says "these men aren't squandering their careers on stupid affairs; subconsciously, stupid affairs are why they wanted powerful careers in the first place."
The question many asked in 1998—"Why on earth would the most powerful man in the world jeopardize his job for an affair with a young woman?"—is, from a Darwinian perspective, a silly one. Betzig's answer would be: "Why not?" Men strive to attain political power, consciously or unconsciously, in order to have reproductive access to a larger number of women. Reproductive access to women is the goal, political office but one means. To ask why the President of the United States would have a sexual encounter with a young woman is like asking why someone who worked very hard to earn a large sum of money would then spend it.
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And there's one in the Washington Post today that says basically what's in that quote, but also that the personality characteristics of politicians and of people who cheat on their spouses are the same set of characteristics. Which is actually the explanation that has made the most sense to me so far.
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(http://www.fotolode.com/images/jaydub/homerdroolgirls.gif)
"Reproductive access to larger number of women..."
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for the record, one of my psych professors brought up that article as an example of what gets published when people make wild claims with little scientific basis. A lot of it makes sense to me, but he seemed pretty peeved about it.
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Evolutionary psychology can be hell of specious though. Talk about a field that basically looks for it's hypothesis in it's data. Here's (http://www.badscience.net/?p=518) a fun article on all the news stories that came out a little while ago when someone published a study that declared women like pink because back in the day they had to be good at collecting berries.
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for the record, one of my psych professors brought up that article as an example of what gets published when people make wild claims with little scientific basis. A lot of it makes sense to me, but he seemed pretty peeved about it.
You're absolutely right. This article has no apparent research behind it. It's really shoddy science journalism, and I'm a bit of a schmuck for passing around baseless sensationalism. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm complaining about when JL tunes me out in the car. But then again, this whole thread is based on a news story that caught attention because everybody knew they'd get to show pictures of a pretty hooker, so maybe I don't have to feel so bad.
And Asherdan, I'll dig around for those studies that say Americans catch and prosecute domestic abusers and take care of their elderly parents way better than public perception.
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Evolutionary psychology can be hell of specious though.
That's why I prefer the explanation I related above, that politicians and cheaters can be observed to have the same list of personality traits. While an evolutionary explanation might exist for that observation, the insight can stand without it - it's something you can determine in the here and now.
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Sure, tha's coo. I don't think you'll get much argument that our society rewards dickish behaviour.
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I don't know if she's worth five grand an hour, but this girl is fuck*ng hot as a motherfucker:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=69041220
We're MySpace friends.
Also, this reminds me that our country was founded by Puritans - those for whom the social mores of 16th Century England were too liberal and outrageous.
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I don't know if she's worth five grand an hour, but this girl is fuck*ng hot as a motherfucker:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=69041220
We're MySpace friends.
Also, this reminds me that our country was founded by Puritans - those for whom the social mores of 16th Century England were too liberal and outrageous.
So are you the one who posted "SOMETYMES IT TAKES SUMTHING BAD 2 HAPPEN..4 SUMTHING GOOD 2 HAPPEN..REAL TALK.. " on her profile?
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Jough, that girl looks like every single girl ive ever seen on the jersey shore. She is a completely average looking woman.
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good lord, apparently the Jersey Shore is a repository of attractive women, then.
What?
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I mean, she is attractive but... nothing to write home about.
Also, I am officially old enough now where she looks like a child to me.
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good lord, apparently the Jersey Shore is a repository of attractive women, then.
What?
This is something that I thought everyone already knew.
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She looks a bit better in this shot (http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/03/13/poor-ashley-dupre.aspx). But whatever hotness is gained from this picture is lost from the accompanying description:
A broken home on the Jersey shore. Abused as a kid. A nightclub singer. Worried about paying her rent. Men walking out on her. "Broke and homeless," and known for giving extra food to homeless guys. OK, so she's not a Thai village girl smuggled into Amsterdam. But she is a sad American type: This is Marilyn Monroe territory—a woman who can play the role of sexy and powerful but is always herself being played
Serious boner-killer.
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I know that a lot of people say prostitution is a "victimless crime" and all that but...
Man, I don't know.
Even if a lady honestly "chooses" to do that job, it is from the pressures of Circumstances.
I don't go into strip clubs because I just wanna hand-out blankets and hot cocoa and vouchers for, like, time with a psychiatrist when I'm in there. Yes, they "could" do something else but... clearly, if they had anything else they could do, they wouldn't be grinding their bits on college kids and truckers for five dollar bills.
Maybe it is just that I am an unreconstructed bleeding-heart of the old school variety but... man, I don't think so.
There's choices and there's "choices".
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I know that a lot of people say prostitution is a "victimless crime" and all that but...
Here's a really good audio interview on NPR with sociology awesome-guy Sudhir Venkatesh (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88276496). He's basically saying call-girls are becoming a more acceptable personal service in upper-middle-class/rich society. Some women are choosing it as a career and not just a way to make ends meet. Arrangements are usually an on-retainer thing and not a single-incident thing and often are more about hiring a relationship than straight-up sex. Still, it's a physical and psychologically dangerous life with gobs of depression and disease. I think I remember him saying the average high-priced call-girl (up to $7500 per engagement) still gets beaten up about twice a year. But you'll have to check on that. I'm not listening to it again. I've got pressing circumstances.
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if prostitution was legal it wouldn't be a last resort for desperate people
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Hours after being sworn in as governor of New York, new governor admits having an affair for years!!!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03/17/2008-03-17_gov_paterson_admits_to_sex_with_other_wo.html (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03/17/2008-03-17_gov_paterson_admits_to_sex_with_other_wo.html)
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Hours after being sworn in as governor of New York, new governor admits having an affair for years!!!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03/17/2008-03-17_gov_paterson_admits_to_sex_with_other_wo.html (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03/17/2008-03-17_gov_paterson_admits_to_sex_with_other_wo.html)
I adore this country so much.
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In a country where half of all marriages end in divorce, a dude had an affair?
C'mon, people.
Prostitution being a scandal, I get, its a major violation of law, it's the kind of thing that you could easily be using state funds to facilitate or state resources to cover up... but a consensual affair?
C'mon, party people, seriously.
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and yet there are still people who refuse to admit that life is absurd. I feel like to really appreciate life I had to accept that it is ridiculous sometimes a while ago.
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I find it hilarious because we elect these people to manage our rights, our laws, and a large percentage of our income and they can't even hold themselves together - but people call me crazy when I say we should just be allowed to run our own lives.
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We cannot throw the baby of our moral responsibility to be humane toward each other out with the bathwater of the fact that everyone's fucked up and generally the most fucked up people of all tend to seek out power and possessions to paper over their flaws.
The power of compassion is magnified on economies of scale the same as anything else, decision makers generally needing some blowjobs on the side or not.
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For me, this latest revelation -- which has not made much of a national stir at all -- indicates that this debacle was mostly about hypocrisy, some about breaking the law, and secretly about pictures of a pretty young prostitute attracting news ad revenue. It's not about some dude's personal life, it's about some dude's blatant public hypocrisy. That's the thing America won't forgive here. I think that's pretty awesome.
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Well, I don't think that prostitution should be illegal necessarily. I mean, two consenting adults, etc.
Obviously being *forced* into prostitution is wrong - but so is rape - that doesn't mean we should outlaw sex.
It's not like money doesn't change hands for non-prostiutional sex too. You ever got a girl to sleep with you without spending a dime on her?*
Also, this girl is hotter than fuck. I don't care if there are also a lot of women in South Jersey that look like her. They're all hot. There are hot women in Chicago, too, but none of them are actually from here.
Anyway, what the hell does sex have to do with how well a dude can run a state government? They should be supplying the man with whores for all the hard work he puts in. The only crime here was that the man had to spend his own hard-earned cache on that shit.
* Post-college, I mean.