Make it to 2029, and you might just escape that whole death thing completely.
Cancer incidence, death rates continue to fall. Seems like the continuing improvement of America’s collective health is a pretty under-reported story. Most people seem to think we’re getting sicker.
New law review article looks at judicial indifference to mistakes in eyewitness testimony. Results aren’t encouraging.
The Tetris god at work.
Compelling story in ESPN: The Magazine about Eric Frimpong, a UCSB soccer star convicted of rape on some pretty flimsy evidence.
So are that many people really having problems peeling bananas? Among the fruits that have skins we don’t eat, I’ve always considered the banana to be one of the more accessible.
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on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 10:25 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
Make it to 2029, and you might just escape that whole death thing completely.
It’s going to be a close call. If only I hadn’t smoked all those years. Now that I think about it, given my current state of physical and mental decline, by the time 2029 rolls around, I will probably welcome death (or be too demented to care).
Damn you line piece!!
Bah. Bananas are only a problem to people who refuse to turn them over and use the stick end as a handle. The other end pinches open with ease. Once you’ve opened one that way, you’ll never go back.
There oughta be a law banning rightside-up banana peeling! That will fix it!
You people won’t be happy until you completely nullify every tool the justice system has to fight crime. First you complain when they beat confessions out of prisoners. Then you get all whiny about getting confessions by such benign methods as sleep deprivation and psyops. Next you crusade against so-called entrapment and even rail against the use of informants whose only compensation is a promise of freedom instead of prison. You want to throw out valuable evidence on the mere technicality that it was obtained without probable cause or a warrant. You complain when cops manufacture a few extra details just to round out the picture. You want to take away their tasers and their tanks, leaving them essentially naked before a well armed opponent.
And now, to top it off, you want to discredit the most reliable, sure-fire, evidence there is. How can you take issue with the words, “I saw him do it”? What more certain evidence can there possibly be? Hell, when you have eye witness testimony, why even bother with a trial? I say, save the state some money and send the guy straight to the slammer.
Alright, that’s waaaay too much sarcasm this early in the day.
I’ll be 67 in 2029. Who the fuck wants to wait till their 67 years old to stop aging?
You’re missing the lede on the banana peeler.
If in fact there are people who need a banana peeler to peel a banana, that means that the banana isn’t in fact the perfectly designed fruit. If there is an all powerful and just God he wouldn’t create a banana that only SOME people could open, would he?
That means that the banana wasn’t perfectly designed, or, in other words, intelligently designed.
That means Kirk Cameron is wrong.
The banana peeler is actual evidence of the non-existence of God.
The ESPN story underlines the outrageous stance by the press and law enforcement that an alleged rape victim’s name be withheld. They never found this guy’s DNA on her. It’s impossible. Would releasing her name have aided the investigation? Has she falsely accused others in the past? Never know because “Jane Doe” is an unknown. Meanwhile, all you need is a charge to have the Nancy Grace element of our world consider you a convicted criminal and to go on a reputation destroying torch march.
Compelling story in ESPN: The Magazine about Eric Frimpong, a UCSB soccer star convicted of rape on some pretty flimsy evidence.
Wait a doggone minute. The way I read this, the victim and the jury are white and the defendant is black with a foreign accent. You call that flimsy?
If in fact there are people who need a banana peeler to peel a banana, that means that the banana isn’t in fact the perfectly designed fruit. If there is an all powerful and just God he wouldn’t create a banana that only SOME people could open, would he?
He would if he had a chosen elect that he planned to bring to heaven while casting the rest into hell. The question is, which is the elect, those who can peel or those who can’t?
Hey, that banana peeler can also be used by a mohel in an emergency.
Sure, there is the rare banana that is hard to start peeling due to no defects in the stem structure.
But why do you need a special tool? Just pull out a knife and slit it’s little throat. Or if you’re a Real Man(tm) bite the stem off with your teeth.
Too many pansies out there too squeamish to get the job done.
Oh, and Adolphus… Kirk Cameron was already wrong, the banana is a product of accelerated evolution created by man through controlled breeding in the 1700’s. The original banana was no bigger than a man’s finger.
Cancer incidence, death rates continue to fall. Seems like the continuing improvement of America’s collective health is a pretty under-reported story. Most people seem to think we’re getting sicker.
Nice strawman. I’m not pro-DemCare either but there’s no reason to be disingenuous. The issue that drives those desired reforms is about who has access to our sterling, world famous health care, not whether or not it’s really awesome. The fact that it keeps getting better says nothing at all about who has access to it.
Jane Doe’s testimony should be taken with a mountain of salt. I’ve blown a .314 before and around that B.A. level your memory isn’t worth shit. What little you do remember gets totally jumbled and thrown out of chronological order. You get faces, names, places totally mixed up. Eye-witness testimony is already subject to confusion and false-memories, even when the witness is dead sober. I can’t believe the ex-boyfriend wasn’t a suspect. She testified that they’d had sex 4 days before the rape, which, given the bodily fluids they found from the ex, would mean she’d been wearing the same underwear for 4 days. What college freshmen girl goes out to a party wearing a pair of crusty old panties?
Ah, some more “bite mark analysis” bullshit.
“The prosecution’s forensic expert, Norman Sperber, testified that he couldn’t rule out Frimpong for causing the bite on Jane Doe’s face.”
Yeah, no shit.
Cancer rates are declining largely because Nanny-state efforts to reduce tobacco have been effective.
“New law review article looks at judicial indifference to mistakes in eyewitness testimony. Results aren’t encouraging.”
I’ll say.
Recent experience: Hanging Xmas lights at my in-laws’ house. A neighbor about 100 feet away calls out “Dennis!” My name’s not Dennis, that’s my father-in-law. This neighbor mistook me for my father-in-law. I’m six inches taller and 25 years younger than him. Oh, and he knew that my father-in-law was in the hospital at the time, and he still thought I was him. Doh.
Eyewitness testimony has got to be the worst form of evidence, except for that of minors.
Picking Cotton is about how eye-witness testimony can fail if the police don’t handle it carefully. It’s the story of a woman who’d been raped by a stranger, did all she could to remember his face, and identified the wrong man in a line-up.
He was eventually cleared. He said in an interview that he’d forgiven her. She apologized, he accepted it (I’m making this sound much less emotionally intense than it was), and now they tour, lecturing about forgiveness and about good police procedure for handling eye witness memories.
Damn good thing you weren’t raping someone or selling drugs or child porn. Nothing puts a riff in a family harmony like a guy being sent to prison for something his son-in-law did.
Selfishly: 2029 is easily attainable. I’ll live forever! BWAHAHAHA.
Realistically:
We already live too long. Population growth is way out of control (We’re nearing 7 Billion people!). If we extend our lives any longer the rate that number will grow will only increase, even if it’s only available to citizens of non-third world countries. At some point we’ll wish to have discovered another inhabitable planet or learn to terraform because we’ll have no other choice.
I understand the basic urge to preserve human life (especially your own) but immortality is both a pipe dream and a nightmare in the making.
In reference to the ESPN story:
I am no legal expert, but is there a way to request a judge only trial? Sometimes I feel like a jury can be too easily swayed by information that has no relevance, like race. The fact that this girl drank enough to get 5 girls loose as a goose makes her testimony almost entirely bull shit. Not to mention the ex-boyfriend saying he saw them and felt jealous. In my eyes, there is just too much stuff going on to ruin any conviction. Reasonable person standard? Beyond a reasonable doubt?! The chick said her life has been ruined by this. I seriously doubt it. It’s not like she lost her virginity, which she was saving for marriage, to this “alleged” incident of rape. For christ sake she was wondering around with semen crusty panties for at least 4 fucking days. Meaning, she can’t even remember to wash, much less change her clothes for almost a week, but we can trust her statements. Statements that included convincing phrases like: “I don’t even know, since there’s that chunk missing.”
This story makes me feel awful, but the fact that he is still upbeat and considers himself lucky just makes me want to cry.
Liberty and Justice for some…
Think how much easier extra-solar system exploration will be when humans can live forever.
Nancy, I’m going to check out that book. Looks good.
Justin, I don’t think there’s any question she was raped, it’s just a matter of who did it. And just because a woman doesn’t lose her virginity to a rape doesn’t mean it isn’t traumatic or painful – to suggest otherwise is in pretty poor taste, to put it mildly. My take on the whole thing is that the ex raped her and she either confused him with Frimpong because she was so drunk or she knows it was her ex and she’s covering for him. It wouldn’t be the first time a victim has protected her abuser.
Justin from what’s said in the article, I don’t think he would have done to well with a judge trial if the same judge that presided over his case presided over the judge only trial. There is some curious rulings there helping the prosecution out of some holes they should probably gotten reprimanded.
I’m sure the fact the judge was a prosecutor for several years didn’t play a role. I can’t believe that a juror that had a DWI case pending before the prosecutor’s office was allowed to stay on the jury. Talk about a conflict of interest and having an inside man on the job.
Nah. Life is too short. Hell, by the time you get really good at it, it’s almost over.
Regarding the UCSB rape story:
1. This story is written from the point of view most favourable to the defense. I’m sure the prosecution would have written a different news release.
2. It is interesting that the most unfavourable evidence was of the kinds known to be unreliable (bite marks, personal recollection) while the favourable evidence was of the kind known to be reliable (DNA).
3. I also find it odd that he (or anyone else, for that matter) opted for a jury trial. Since the jury is not required to justify their ruling, there is no control ensuring that they make a reasoned decision. Even worse, the rules of the game are designed to keep them as open to manipulation as possible.
Well, here’s a chance for you to step up to the front and take personal responsibility.
That’s right Akusu, we need to start regulating how many people should be alive at any given moment. The very idea that people have an ineliable right to be alive is just ridiculous. What we should do is create special camps for people we find to be a burden and quitely force them to expire. And while we’re at it, we should remove people’s reproductive rights too. We should do all this because some quack somewhere decided to perpetuate a myth that the Earth will get overpopulated despite the fact that we consistantly create better farming techniques that have resulted in increased yields per acre of land.
There is always some bullshit impending doom to justify the destruction of freedom.
Monkeys don’t need no stinkin’ Banana Peeler :
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/peel-a-banana-like-a-monkey-web-video/Article/200907315340366?lpos=Strange_News_Article_Related_Content_Region_4&lid=ARTICLE_15340366_peel_a_banana_like_a_monkey_web_video
Why buy that banana peeler when a small cut made in the skin at the top of the banana with a thumbnail does the same thing for free?
The banana peeler is actual evidence of the non-existence of God. – Adolphus, you are hilarious!
Did anyone else get that the 2029 story is from some weird satirical fake new age magazine website?
#28
Well, here’s a chance for you to step up to the front and take personal responsibility.
Sounds like you’re advocating mass murder.
Mattocracy:
I’m not planning on taking away anyone’s rights. You can’t argue that finite vs infinite is gonna work. I happen to think that it’s selfish to want to live forever. That doesn’t mean that I want to any less than you do.
As well aware I am that this and many of my other views are controversial, I’m perpetually amused by the knee-jerk reactions that people have to them. It would be nice if people would stop invoking Godwin’s Law to “prove” their points.
Why the exception? Minors can lie just as well, not think much (per your example), be just as wrong as adults, and have as much motive to lie. Age shouldn’t give one more credibility just as pinning a hunk of metal to your chest (cop) shouldn’t give you more credibility than Joe Blow.
Memo to self: Irony does not work with self-righteous twits.
My comment was admittedly knee jerky. But I think it’s a silly myth that the Earth will be overpopulated soon or ever. We’ve been hearing about this impending doom and it just hasn’t happened yet. Mostly because technology has kept pace with human expansion and don’t see any indication that it isn’t going to keep pace. It’s as silly and unproven as violent video games turning kids into criminals or that sex on TV leads to teen pregnancy. Or maybe as unproven as torturing gitmo detainees has somehow made us safer from an alternate reality of unstoppable public terrorism. It’s my opinion that believing people are wrong for wanting to live as long as they can is remarkably selfish.
Imagine if Einstein or Edison lived for another 100 years. How about a doctor who could stay in good health for multiple life times and gain untold amounts of experience helping the sick and injured. Human ingenuity and talent are things that take a long time to develope in a person. We lose valuable potential waiting for our fellow humans to develope thier talents and learning all of the worlds previous knowledge. Prolonging life is way to mitigate the cost of creating human ingenuity and getting a greater return from others have already done.
“Nice strawman. I’m not pro-DemCare either but there’s no reason to be disingenuous. The issue that drives those desired reforms is about who has access to our sterling, world famous health care, not whether or not it’s really awesome. The fact that it keeps getting better says nothing at all about who has access to it.”
I was under the impression that Radley was not shooting a barb at the pro-public-option left on that one, but was making that comment towards the alternative medicine woo-peddlers who constantly talk about our “toxin”-infested modern life and how we need to get back to eating worm-and-parasite-ridden natural foods only.
#32,
h+ is a real magazine, not satire.
#38,
No shit! I learn something new every day. I thought I was reading some kind of Onion ripoff, just not as funny…..
That whole bit was pure brilliance!
#20 Remember, cut along your wrist, not across.
#35 That’s why I used the direct response in #41.
Soylent Green.
What about those who cannot afford eternal life? Might as well start the legislative process right now.
Frimpong Defense closing arguments;
Ladies and gemtelmen of the jury for the past three weeks you have heard many things from the 32 prosecution witnesses that have been paraded before you. Our guy said the bitch was way too drunk. I’m sure you will reach a just verdict.
**********
Did that attorney actually take money for such a defense? I think even the guy that donated $5 to the over $25k defense fund got gyped!
It is a good story though, leaves a scent of a nifong as well, just not real sure he was present though.
Lingering thoughts; Embeded sand in his shirt, elbows and forearms. Sand in his pants even in the pockets. Timeline problems. His identification of his new drinking game partner.
The boyfriend situation seems to just stink, too many ?’s open.
@ #8
Damn you , ya just had to mention her name didn’cha AAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
So have the h+ folks engineered a plan to keep semi’s from crossing medians into oncoming traffic?
How about the self peeling banana?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zGAoqmJDEcU/SeXxaJG6a2I/AAAAAAAAMB8/yh7KZEnDmxE/s1600-h/Banana+Flasher-500×357.jpg
Knowing we are going to die is a big part of what makes us human. Living forever might be fun for the first 500 years, or it might drive us mad. It’d certainly drive the third world, whose resources we’d require in perpetuity, mad to contemplate that while they get a short life of back breaking toil and open latrines we get to swan around in hover boots or something.