Monthly Archives: October 2011

A Hair’s Breadth Away From Mob Rule

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The names of the jurors in the Casey Anthony trial were released today.

I feel sorry for these people. They did their civic duty, they followed the law the way it was explained to them, and they came to a verdict that several of them have stated they did not feel was accurate. The “problem” is that they weren’t supposed to follow their feelings. They were supposed to follow the law.

You know what the scariest thing about all of this is? Check out the quote below from one of the jurors.

“If I knew then what I know now, I might not have been so honest,” Ford said after the trial. “I didn’t know the whole world was watching and that everyone had their mind made up on what the verdict was. I didn’t understand the magnitude of it.”

What she’s essentially saying, if I’m reading this correctly, is that if she had known the verdict was going to piss so many people off she’d have voted differently.

What a terrifying statement to make.

I’m going to be honest, folks. I believe that Casey Anthony had something to do with the death of her child and that she tried to cover it up after. I also believe that it was most likely an accident, and that the reason she got off is because they prosecution tried for a harsher conviction than the crime itself warranted.

That being said…The behavior of the mob in this particular case is far more disturbing to me. Nancy Grace and her army of self-righteous, judgmental, back-seat jurors are a pitchfork and a torch away from the angry peasants of yesteryear. Sad to see that some things never change.

The truth about the lies

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Image courtesy of Gage Skidmore via flickr

Over the course of the last week I’ve heard several reports about how Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio may have “embellished” a bit over the course of many interviews in which he discussed his family history. The story, as he told it, was that his parents came over from Cuba in 1959 to get away from the Castro regime. The problem is that his parents actually came over in 1956, before Castro was even IN Cuba.

Senator Rubio has stated in recent interviews that his family had always intended to return to Cuba but that Castro being in power prevented them from doing so. He also points out that he was simply repeating “family lore.” One reporter, however, has noted that Senator Rubio has always been very clear on the fact that his brother was six years old when his family came over from Cuba, and his brother was born in 1950. Either Senator Rubio is horrible at basic arithmetic or he “embellished” to make his family history more sympathetic to Cuban-American voters.

If you don’t live in Florida you probably don’t understand how likely the latter scenario is. The whole Cuba issue is a pretty big deal down here, and the Cuban-American exile community is very influential in our politics (especially in the Miami-Dade area of the state). The three year gap between those moves could possibly represent two very different political realities to those voters. Someone who moved over in 1956 could be seen as a deserter who fled the country during a time of need and inadvertently helped create the environment that let Castro take power in the first place. Someone who moved over in 1959, however, could represent the huge number of people who faced persecution under the Castro regime. There are, obviously, countless other scenarios that could have inspired someone to leave their home country at any particular time, but Senator Rubio himself brought the political reasons into this so it is fair to assume that, whatever the real reason was, the political mood in Cuba had something to do with his family feeling their homeland.

The long story short here is that it’s fairly safe to say that Rubio made up some shit about his past in order to help him get elected.

I’m waiting for someone to tell me what the big deal about this is.

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Atheists Not Allowed

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As I mentioned during my live blog of the Republican debate the other night, I get really uncomfortable when the whole religion question pops up in politics. The reason is, of course, because I’m an Atheist. I have a problem with anyone telling me that they think their actions are divinely inspired, much less someone who desires to be the leader of the free world. It’s always amazed me that if an individual claims that they blew up a building because a mythical sky being told them to do so we say they are crazy, but if someone else says they are running for political office because a different version of the same mythical sky being told them they were supposed to we think that’s perfectly ok.

No, running for office isn’t the same thing as blowing up a building…but you’re both still claiming that your actions were directed by a being nobody else has the ability to see or hear.

That’s kinda creepy to me.

But I digress…

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Live Blog – Republican Western Debate (Las Vegas)

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Here we go again, kids! Time for another fun edition of “Mike makes a bunch of inane comments while watching people he’s not likely to ever vote for.”

It will be interesting to see how Cain performs tonight. His 9-9-9 plan has come under a lot of fire in the last few weeks. I ran the numbers based on my own finances and it looks like I, personally, would come out ahead. There’s a lot of people out there who think they won’t be so lucky. So far he’s gotten by on a lot of vague statements, but it’s likely that tonight the other candidates are going to try and nail him on the specifics.

I realize they are in Vegas and all…I wonder what the odds are that Santorum will actually break into tears this time around?

I’m eating a big old bowl of baked beans to get ready. I figure I’ll be as full of gas as the candidates.

Let’s do this!

[liveblog]

[sociable]

Live Blog! GOP Economics Debate

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That’s right, kids! It’s live blogging time again. I’ve got some Chinese food on order from my favorite local delivery place, and a four pack of lovely Cigar City Brewing Cubano-style Espresso Brown Ale.

If anyone out there can think of a better way to watch a Republican debate, they are a better person than I am.

And no, watching it while stabbing yourself in the face with a fork does not count.

Let’s do this!

[liveblog]

[sociable]

Spending wisely

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Image courtesy of Nina Matthews Photography via flickr

Time is money.

We’ve all heard that phrase before, but how many of us have really stopped to think about what it means. The common translation seems to be that if people are using your time they should be willing to pay you for it, and while that’s a fine stance to take I’m not quite sure it really it captures the true meaning of the saying.

Time is a resource, just like any other, and it it finite. There are things you can do to, possibly extend the amount of time you have on this planet, but you cannot ever get time back. Once you spend it, time can never be replenished. You get no dividends or interest on time. You can’t save it and let it grow. All you can do is watch your balance constantly diminish.

That concept is still a bit esoteric, though, so let’s break it down to something much more simple.

What if you could track the amount of time you had in life much like you could the amount of money you have in the bank. What if time had a dollar amount associated to it, and every second of your life that dollar amount shrank?

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