Fish Fear Me

Thursday Stuff

It's going to be a scorcher here today, though other people have it worse than we do. Given the depressingly cold spring we had I'm not going to complain, but I will commiserate with the people who have to work outside on a day like today. Watch yourself, it's a day made for heatstroke.

The rant is still coming. I had a few other obligations and now I'm pondering a few things.

An emergency water main repair in suburban Washington, D.C. has led to urgent requests to conserve water in the affected area. It also gives us, if it were to happen on a wider basis, a modern sign of the Apocalypse:

"I went to McDonald's, and they were closed. It takes a lot to close down a McDonald's," he said. "If a McDonald's closes, the world is about to come to an end."

The idea of a drone hunting license appeals to me, but not for trying to take down a federal government drone. Even if I thought there would be a good reason to try, and I don't at this point, they fly at an altitude far beyond the range of any weapon available to civilians. However, if they authorize shooting down the ever-growing number of citizen operated drones that fly over private property, I'm in on that, baby. They aren't a nuisance yet, but mark my words they will be.

Saltwater spills in North Dakota? Yes, though it's not seawater, it's "briny water" that is a waste byproduct from oil drilling. Apparently it's generated to the tune of "25.5 million barrels of briny water last year." At 42 gallons to the barrel, that would be over a billion gallons of water per year. Can they be right? And they dump it down disposal wells? I'm going to have to dig into that some more.

Happy Birthday to Nelson Mandela, who turns 95 today. He is still hospitalized, but his daughter says he may go home soon.

The White Ones Always Get Off Easy

It was a sting operation. The non-white bait cruised all over for hours, hoping for an attack so they could catch one of the predators known to prowl the area. 

Finally, the attack they were looking for came out of nowhere.

He was white, big, and he fought his captors with all his might before he finally surrendered. They took him into custody. They took his picture. And then they let him go.

I kid you not, the jerks just set him free to kill again.

The bastards. How many more have to die? How many?

Question Of The Day

There's an epic and likely brutally profane rant inside me right now that wants to be free. Should I let it out?

Whatever

In a sign of just how disconnected I am from Major League Baseball this year, until this afternoon I didn't even realize that MLB's All-Star Game is tomorrow night. I also had no idea who is representing the Twins or why: Joe Mauer, batting .320. Closer Glen Perkins, 1.82 ERA, 21 for 23 in save opportunities.

Perkins is getting plenty of opportunities because the 39-53 Twins have gotten only a major league-worst 34 quality starts in those 92 games and the pitching staff as a whole has a second-worst ERA of 4.43.

The team is on track for a third season in a row of 90 or more losses.

It also occurred to me today that so far this year I have only seen snippets of just a handful of Twins games, not a single one from start to finish. There was a shot at a game on FOX one Saturday afternoon a few of weeks ago, but I had other plans already and only managed to watch an inning or two. 

I knew this almost total disconnect would happen when they ended the last over-the-air broadcasts a few years ago, I simply didn't know how long it would take. 

It's obvious the Twins haven't missed me the last three seasons, and now I guess the feeling is pretty much mutual.

The Verdict

The verdict in the Zimmerman case has been percolating in my head since last night. I think the jury reached a legally correct verdict, but it would be wrong to say I feel happy about it. My head understands the legal angle, however I have to admit that my heart is still troubled. And that's even though I think Trayvon Martin bears as much if not more responsibility as Zimmerman for the events that led up to the shooting. Here are a few points as I try to figure a few things out.

-Protests and rallies last night and today were nearly all peaceful. There was a minor disturbance in LA last night that had officers firing beanbags to disperse a crowd and a mini-riot in Oakland, but it seems like pretty much every night is a mini-riot in Oakland. As Glenn Reynolds noted this morning, "...as usual, people are behaving better in real life than they do on the Internet." Hopefully the same applies to the Internet death threats to Zimmerman, his family, his lawyers, and the jurors. As of today, those jurors are still choosing to stay anonymous. Probably because of some overblown and racist fear.

-We would need a supernatural license for hyperbole to match this enormous steaming pile from Paul Campos, which among other things includes this lie:

Because this is America, pointing out that a black boy can be shot with impunity by a more or less white man because many white Americans are terrified by black boys and men is called “playing the race card.”

The same goes for this from Matthew Yglesias:

Pro tip: If you want to kill someone in America and avoid jail time, make sure to kill a young black man.

Right. I could walk out my front door tomorrow and blow away the black teenage boy who lives across the street from me "with impunity," with no jail time.

In fairness to Yglesias, who I sometimes suspect is borderline retarded, he may actually believe that might be true. On the other hand Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has to know he is lying. I'll probably come back to Campos later, but talk about a walking disgrace to higher education.

-It's depressing how so many people continue to cling to falsehoods about the case. I mean they are willfully denying facts that do not match the narrative they want to believe. These people are challenging my life-long belief that most people are basically good and maybe only 20% are actually rotten to the core. This case has me thinking that maybe the numbers are the opposite.

Unfortunately, I think Jonathan Turley gets it right here:

With the verdict, the Zimmerman case entered the realm of legal mythology -- a tale told by different groups in radically different ways for different meanings. Fax machines were activated with solicitations and sound bites long ago programmed for this moment. The legal standards long ago seemed to be lost to the social symbolism of the case.

Criminal cases make for perfect and often dangerous vehicles for social expression. They allow longstanding social and racial issues to be personified in villains and victims. We simplify facts and characters -- discarding those facts that do not fit our narrative. We pile meanings on the outcome that soon make the actual murder secondary to the message. Zimmerman and Martin became proxies in our national debate over race. There was little patience or need for the niceties of rules of proof and adjudication.

If you don't see the tragedy in Trayvon Martin's death that night, you are an asshole. The ugly flip side of that coin is the brutal, sickeningly callous demonization of George Zimmerman that is unsupported by the facts. Two sides of the same coin.

-I think the harsh criticism of the prosecution's conduct all along is well-founded. I buy this case that the affidavit they filed to charge second degree murder left out key pieces of exculpatory evidence. I think the charge of second degree murder was a disastrous overreach that was unsupported by the evidence from the beginning. I think a case focused on manslaughter with related lesser charges would have likely resulted in a least one conviction and a few years of prison for Zimmerman. 

The charges and the manner in how the evidence was presented to the jury left them with no options to put responsibility on Zimmerman in a way that wasn't an injustice to him.

-I'll probably have more on this, but it's getting late at this point.

Which Black Man Should I Heed?

Here are several options in the form of three distinct tweets:

 

 

So is it racist or rational to wonder if there will be a violent reaction from some black Americans if George Zimmerman goes free?

On Friday, CNN's Don Lemon echoed the first tweet pictured above:

"No one should ever be violent about anything, and especially in this particular case," he said. "And I want to say this as judiciously as possible. I'm not just saying this because I'm African-American. But to hear people come out beforehand and talk about the possibility of violence and not rioting, it strikes me as, 'those barbarians can't contain themselves.' And it strikes many people as that as well."

I get that. If I were in Don Lemon's shoes I might feel exactly the same way. After all, I think it's obvious that all but a small percentage of black Americans would not even think of rioting after a Zimmerman acquittal. But what are we, meaning law-abiding Americans of all races and ethnicities, to make of the next two tweets?

In just an hour of reviewing Twitter last night by searching for "riot," I saw hundreds of similar tweets to the second one above, meaning there are probably thousands more out there. Some of the tweets I saw were obviously sarcastic in tone and others sounded like bluster, but many were clearly angry, threatening, and real. Again, what are we to make of the latter? Are we supposed to pretend they don't exist?

And please note that a good deal of the speculation that blacks will riot if Zimmerman walks, such as tweet #3, is coming from black Americans themselves. 

It's absurd to think that Americans of any race aren't going to notice all of that chatter and try to figure out what it means and how seriously they should take it. Or if they need to take steps to be prepared to protect themselves when a verdict is reached. 

The threats of a relative few should not be used against all black Americans, of course. But as far as speculation about some blacks turning to violence if Zimmerman is acquitted, Lemon and company can kindly send their complaints to @DRIZZY_HIGHTIDE. 

Great Moments In "No Way. Way!"(cont)

This just might be the "No Way. Way!" moment of all time:

This afternoon, the Bay Area's KTVU Channel 2 news made an embarrassing mistake while reporting the names of people they thought were pilots on the Asiana flight that recently crashed.

...

According to Channel 2, the crew was comprised of:

• Captain Sum Ting Wong
• Wi Tu Lo
• Ho Lee Fuk
• Bang Ding Ow

And because God loves us and wants us to be happy, there's video too:

 

Station manager Wei So Dum was unavailable for comment.

Zimmerman: I Don't See Murder Two

I haven't been following the Zimmerman trial live, but I have been catching daily recaps on various news sites and blogs. Today the trial moves to closing arguments that could still sway my opinion one way or the other, but for now here's my "2 cents."

-I can't see how Zimmerman gets convicted on the second degree murder charge. I think the prosecution didn't even come close to proving the required "... ill will, hatred, spite, or an evil intent" for a conviction on that charge, nor did they prove "indifference to human life" on Zimmerman's part. There's no way a reasonable person can take "fucking punks" and turn it into some sort of evil intent to commit murder. How many times have you thought or muttered "fucking asshole" at somebody for what they said or did? Did you have actual murder in your heart at that point? Most of us not being psychos, the answer is no, of course. The prosecution had to strain mightily and go to a ridiculously negative extreme to try to prove this point and they failed. 

-Today the presiding judge predictably confirmed that the jury would be able to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter. I think that's what Zimmerman should have been charged with in the first place.

-I could still be persuaded otherwise, but at this point I would probably vote "not guilty" even to the charge of manslaughter. Zimmerman's mistakes may attach a certain moral culpability to that night's events, but we are dealing with legal issues and not moral judgments. In hindsight, it would have been better for everyone if Zimmerman had stayed in his truck. But following someone is not a crime and it certainly is not a legal justification for Martin to assault Zimmerman.

From the evidence it seems clear that before he was shot, Martin was on top of Zimmerman and throwing punches, the somewhat laughable "only saw downward movement" testimony aside. The state claims that Zimmerman provoked this situation, which would lead a reasonable person to conclude that Zimmerman shouldn't be able to claim self-defense for a fight he started. But what did Zimmerman do to provoke an actual fight? Again, following someone isn't illegal and it is not just cause to assault that person. And as I mentioned two weeks ago, it's possible that Martin could have easily gone home and instead chose to instigate the confrontation with Zimmerman. The burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is on the prosecution and again they failed on this point.

-The sole remaining point is whether Zimmerman was justified in fearing for his life as Martin was on top of him and punching him, and if there was sufficient reason to use deadly force. It's at this point that I have my reservations about Zimmerman's actions. 

Fistfights are a funny thing. I haven't been in very many myself, but I've seen two guys whale away at each other and come out basically unscathed, and yet once I saw a guy get hit just once in the face and he was out cold. Then there's the former Minneapolis policeman who punched a loud drunk at a bar while off-duty last year. The loud drunk hit his head on the floor and nearly died from his injuries. The officer was convicted of assault(properly I might add), and today was sentenced to three years and seven months in prison. One punch, two lives devastated.

My default position is that fistfights between two men generally don't escalate to a level that justifies deadly force. However, according to the FBI there were 728 people murdered by "hands, fists, feet, etc" in the US in 2011. That's more than rifles and shotguns combined for that year.  On the other hand, while there's no doubt in my mind that Martin injured Zimmerman, I do have my doubts that those injuries were severe enough to justify using deadly force on Martin. Would those doubts be enough to vote to convict if I were on that jury?

I don't think so, but it's a difficult call. Despite my suspicions about Zimmerman's injuries, I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the guy on his back in this sort of situation. Once again the burden is on the prosecution and I think they failed to convince me beyond a reasonable doubt here as well.   

So that's where I'm at today. I don't believe Zimmerman was out to get Martin like some "vigilante." I don't believe that Zimmerman had any racial animus towards Martin. The case the state should have focused on, in pursuit of a conviction on the far more reasonable charge of manslaughter, is that Zimmerman would have been okay if he had just waited for the cops to come. The fight with Martin did not cause serious enough injury for him to fear for his life and use deadly force. I might have gone for that argument, but I think the prosecution blew a lot of credibility with the second degree murder overreach.

Snapshots

Sorry for the lack of posts. Some combination of travel, work, laziness, blogging funk, and maybe a few other things that escape me at the moment have led to that. Time to see what I can catch up on I guess.

Here are some pics from up north(as always, click on any pic to see it full size). This is the harbor of Grand Marias, MN as seen from a scenic lookout a little ways up the Gunflint Trail:

Up north you can also get your geese in a row:

This is a little fishing pier on Mink Lake, about 15 miles up the Gunflint Trail and then a couple of miles down a Forest Service road. I had it all to myself for the whole three hours. I got a few hits and managed to bring three brook trout in, but alas, no keepers:

One morning as I sipped my coffee I spotted a doe and its fawn as they came out of the woods for a drink of that sweet Lake Superior water:

They were very nervous and they didn't dawdle. They both had a good drink and then back into the woods they went. I'll leave you with one more of the big fog:

Word

Jim Treacher, noting the latest, er, unfortunate picture/email incident to make the news, states a simple truism that I'm tempted to forward to my college-age nephew just in case this awkward subject hasn't been covered by his dad:

Of course, the best way to prevent pictures of your penis from appearing on the Internet is to not take any pictures of your penis. Pretty much a foolproof plan.

What it is.