Scientists in Italy convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 6 years and 10 million (usd) each for failing to accurately predict an earthquake.
WTF Italy?
That is fucked up.
Wonder how this is going to affect enrollment for the Earthquake Science programs at Italian Universities…
The Italian judicial system seems like the most retarded, unfair piece of crap ever.
I need to find the family of Daniel Fahrenheit and sue them for that hot coffee I spilled on myself.
Come to think of it I can sue the descendant of Anders Celsius and Kelvin too!
As a European I welcome this, because if we are going to go over the cliff, I would prefer it if we did it full speed.
Still, what do wear…
I think this time, dark green shirts, black trousers and combat boots?
Maybe a Gaya emblem on the left shoulder?
Fucking physicists and their shitty earthquake prediction. Death penalty I’d say.
As always with the media these days there’s more to the story:
The town was experiencing tremors.
Scientists employed to safeguard the public reassured the public there was no risk. One suggested sitting back with a wine and then actually recommended one.
309 people died in the earthquake that followed.
I imagine the court would have been presented with a lot of evidence that tremors and earthquakes are not exactly mutually exclusive.
A judge found that the scientists were negligent and then went batshit crazy over the top with the sentencing.
More balanced coverage at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/shock-over-italian-quake-scientists-kill-verdict/story-fnb64oi6-1226501812363
[quote]Just_Matt wrote:
As always with the media these days there’s more to the story:
The town was experiencing tremors.
Scientists employed to safeguard the public reassured the public there was no risk. One suggested sitting back with a wine and then actually recommended one.
309 people died in the earthquake that followed.
I imagine the court would have been presented with a lot of evidence that tremors and earthquakes are not exactly mutually exclusive.
A judge found that the scientists were negligent and then went batshit crazy over the top with the sentencing.
More balanced coverage at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/shock-over-italian-quake-scientists-kill-verdict/story-fnb64oi6-1226501812363[/quote]
Oh man don’t come in here and spoil our fun with facts and shit. I was just about to roll out my best Italian jokes.
hehe, the same Aust paper just came up with this shit:
“Homeless bill up to $5.5m per person”
“THE chronically homeless are costing taxpayers a “staggering” $900,000 to $5.5 million per person in economic costs, a ground-breaking study has revealed.”
Back to our regular Italian court programming:
“ITALY’S top court has ruled that a businessman developed a benign brain tumour because he held a mobile phone to his ear for hours daily for his job and deserves worker’s compensation.
Innocente Marcolini, whose face is partially paralysed, argued that using mobile and portable phones six hours a day for 12 years while dealing with clients in China and elsewhere overseas caused the tumour on the trigeminal nerve in his head.”
The death toll would have been a lot lower if the authorities had enforced proper building codes. There has been a lot of corruption and negligence going around…
[quote]Just_Matt wrote:
As always with the media these days there’s more to the story:
The town was experiencing tremors.
Scientists employed to safeguard the public reassured the public there was no risk. One suggested sitting back with a wine and then actually recommended one.
309 people died in the earthquake that followed.
I imagine the court would have been presented with a lot of evidence that tremors and earthquakes are not exactly mutually exclusive.
A judge found that the scientists were negligent and then went batshit crazy over the top with the sentencing.
More balanced coverage at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/shock-over-italian-quake-scientists-kill-verdict/story-fnb64oi6-1226501812363 [/quote]
Could you copy-paste the article? I don’t want to register to read it. The blurb that I could read from the link talked about outrage.
Meanwhile, another Italian man was convicted of involuntary manslaughter when he threw a banana peel on the road, causing an accident and subsequent death of another driver.
What do you expect? It’s Italy.
If those scientist were Americans in Italy, they would have gotten the death penalty.
[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
Could you copy-paste the article? I don’t want to register to read it. The blurb that I could read from the link talked about outrage.
[/quote]
Weirdly, it’s now behind a pay wall:
[quote]Just_Matt wrote:
[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
Could you copy-paste the article? I don’t want to register to read it. The blurb that I could read from the link talked about outrage.
[/quote]
Weirdly, it’s now behind a pay wall:
[quote]
Six Italian scientists and an ex-government official have been sentenced to six years in prison over the 2009 deadly earthquake in L’Aquila.
A regional court found them guilty of multiple manslaughter.
Prosecutors said the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake, while the defence maintained there was no way to predict major quakes.
The seismologists were charged not with failing to predict the earthquake but for wrongly reassuring the public about the risk. Witnesses told the court that family members had died because after the reassurances they stopped leaving their houses when they noticed tremors, which had gone on for months before the earthquake on April 6, 2009.
Judge Marco Billi sentenced six scientists and one official who took part in a meeting of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks in L�¢ Aquila six days before the earthquake. After the meeting, two members of the group said at a press conference that, despite recent tremors, there was nothing to fear.
Bernardo De Bernardinis, a senior official from Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, said on television that residents faced no danger and should sit back with a glass of wine, recommending a Montepulciano.
Linda Giugno testified that she called her brother Luigi, a forester, at about 1am on the night of the disaster because she was frightened by the shocks. Luigi, who had heard reassuring TV news reports, told her that there was no danger and said that there was no need to wake his wife, who was due to give birth that day. When the quake struck at 3.23am, Luigi’s 18th-century house collapsed, killing him, his wife and their two-year-old son.
[/quote][/quote]
Kinda interesting that this blurb from the link wasn’t there too:
[i]THERE was international outcry from scientists yesterday after an Italian judge sentenced seismologists to six years’ jail for manslaughter for misleading the public about the risk of an earthquake in the city of L’Aquila.
Scientists insisted that the experts could not have predicted the 6.3-magnitude tremor that killed 309 people in 2009. An open letter from 5000 scientists to the President of Italy denounced the trial.[/i]
I know the article says: “The seismologists were charged not with failing to predict the earthquake but for wrongly reassuring the public about the risk.” but to me, this still seems pretty outrageous.
[quote]on edge wrote:
What do you expect? It’s Italy.
If those scientist were Americans in Italy, they would have gotten the death penalty.[/quote]
lol, this is kinda what I was thinking. Supposedly a 1st world nation with what appears to be a 3rd world judicial system