demagogue on 12/3/2008 at 23:03
@Aerothorn
180 is a perfect score for the LSAT. It's a little like the SAT in that it's not a knowledge test, there's no information to study, but an "aptitude" test of thinking ... but the questions are much more focused, like logic problems you have to graph out, page long reading comprehension... It's a lot harder than the SAT (still a cakewalk compared to the Bar Exam, though). To do well on it, you basically just take a million practice exams and you see the same questions over and over. It's impressive to get a perfect score, but not like Stephen Hawking impressive.
As for the actual issue at the center of it, as I understood it, technically the major issue is that in some cases public money was used to pay for the prostitutes, and they charged $1000/hour, so $10,000's of public money was in this prostitute-ring, of which he was just one client. It's just politically, and for the media, the hypocrisy of being so anti-prostitution that makes it an eyebrow raising story to sell newspapers and airtime, and is the pressure pushing the thing at its root. One more instance of the public-interest and the main ethical issue being on different wavelengths.
ercles on 12/3/2008 at 23:24
The figure I heard in ABC (Australia) news this morning was 80, 000 spent on call girls. The other main issue is that he transported prostitues across state borders when he transported them to his place in Washington, which is against the law. Whoever is prosecuting ruled out a plea bargain, and transporting hookers carries a maximum sentance of five years in jail.
Turtle on 13/3/2008 at 15:51
But she is in no way $1000 an hour hot.
For that much money, Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman need to doing filthy, filthy things to me.
d0om on 13/3/2008 at 16:38
I dunno, I think she is easily $1000 of someone else's money hot :p
Aerothorn on 13/3/2008 at 16:41
Quote Posted by demagogue
@Aerothorn
As for the actual issue at the center of it, as I understood it, technically the major issue is that in some cases public money was used to pay for the prostitutes, and they charged $1000/hour, so $10,000's of public money was in this prostitute-ring, of which he was just one client.
TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS
d0om on 13/3/2008 at 16:42
Public money -> Prostitutes -> Drug Dealers -> Terrorists!
US government is funding terrorism!
Rug Burn Junky on 13/3/2008 at 16:58
To clarify, 180 is not a "perfect" score necessarily, only the maximum. You could actually get a couple wrong and still score 180.
The year I took it, 5 wrong was too many to score a 180, but it was damn close. ;)
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I've never been a fan of Spitzer, as I feel that he is the worst form of prosecutor: interested in convictions, rather than justice.
The hypocrisy I see in him is not the prostitution, but rather, a far more subtle one. What shakes people's faith in the criminal justice system is its arbitrariness at times. That is only heightened when prosecutorial discretion is used to go after people who are traditionally not prosecuted: either because of a lack of harm, or a tacit acceptance by the public that "Hey, the government got this one wrong."
What Elliott Spitzer did as Attorney General was to not only go after these gray areas, but to get them on mere technicalities. I'm not convinced one way or the other whether his prosecutions on Wall Street ultimately led to good. I am, however, absolutely convinced that his tactics in doing so were out of line. I am not a believer in "the ends justify the means" in prosecution, and he most certainly engaged in that.
Now, for him to go down on a prostitution bust after breaking up that ring in 2004 is what everyone has been pointing to. That's really irrelevant. The finer point, that he is being brought down for something which is technically illegal, but virtually decriminalized, really does more to cut to the core of the man and highlight his flaws.
the_grip on 13/3/2008 at 17:57
Good points RBJ. Looks like his bad karma came back to bite him in the ass, huh? What goes around comes around...
Starrfall on 13/3/2008 at 21:45
Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky
Now, for him to go down on a prostitution bust after breaking up that ring in 2004 is what everyone has been pointing to. That's really irrelevant.
Yeah but what makes it FUN is that he didn't go down on a technicality, he went down because he was stupid and didn't use cash like any sensible person would.
