Y2HH

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Apr 1, 2012 -> 06:31 PM) You seem like one of those people who watch too much csi and think everything is so neatly wrapped up for the prosecutor to get a guilty verdict. That's not at all what he's saying. It's what you're saying he's saying, but it's not what he's actually saying. And to get a guilty verdict, it actually *does* take quite a bit of hard evidence to present "beyond a reasonable doubt". OJ walked with much better "neatly wrapped" evidence...but how soon we forget. The media/public also convicted the kids from, what was it, the Duke Lacrosse team, with nothing other than circumstantial evidence and speculation...and how'd that work out? All he's asking for is people stop using nothing more than speculation to convict someone that hasn't even been charged of anything yet...and we all get it...something went awry with the law here...but it IS the law, irregardless of how we personally feel about it.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 1, 2012 -> 06:31 PM) At the end of the day Zimmerman is going to hell for breaking one of the ten commandments. That gives me solace. Too bad there is no hell.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 1, 2012 -> 01:52 PM) I've read articles in a number of places in the last day or two, that seem to be indicating that on second review, they are not so sure Kennedy's questioning was indicative of him being against it. More than one author is suggesting that it seems more, in their view as legal analysts, Kennedy was looking for assurances that there was some limit to Congressional power. Just thought it was worth mentioning - this might not be as cut and dried as we think. I agree with Kennedy when it comes to questioning the limit to Congressional power, and if there are written assurances that this applies to nothing else, I think he'd uphold it...and I wouldn't blame him. But if there are no such assurances, this just sets future precedent for Congress to "raise taxes" without actually raising taxes. While I can't see the writing on the wall of sneaky s*** they'll do if granted such power...if it wasn't something to worry about a justice like Kennedy wouldn't be questioning that very thing.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 1, 2012 -> 04:50 PM) yep. humans. animals. anything. Until it suffers a software crash, that is.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Apr 1, 2012 -> 01:40 AM) I ate dinner at Fogo de Chao tonight. That'll set me back a few days. Who cares, that place is awesome.

QUOTE (SouthSideTeacher @ Mar 31, 2012 -> 11:48 PM) Faulty logic? Alright, you're entitled to your opinion. For the record, I don't force my opinions or ideas onto my kids. I prefer to facilitate a dialogue where they ask all the questions and put in work to find their own answers. Not that anything YOU have to say here matters to me in the least. Perhaps you should try "facilitating a dialogue" instead of telling the person that nothing they have to say matters, merely because you don't agree with it. And yes, to answer a previous question of yours, if Zimmerman attacked Martin, Martin has the right to "stand his ground" and defend himself.

I work out so I can eat whatever I want. That's how complex my diet is.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 31, 2012 -> 04:48 PM) Well, all I'll say in reply is that there are 2 witnesses who could give an accurate version of what they saw here, and it is wrong to just listen to only 1 of them. The other witnesses, they're at the very least a mess. The big problem is that the other witness is dead. So yeah, any time someone tries to say that Martin clearly was the aggressor based on Zimmerman's statement and a bunch of other muddled and contradictory statements, I'm going to have a problem with it, because simply buying the shooter's story at face value is almost always a mistake. And therein lies the problem. Unless some additional facts arise, it looks like Zimmerman may be charged only to alleviate the mass media pressure, not because there are enough facts to actually make it stick (I don't see any such charges leading to a conviction), OR, Zimmerman pulled off the near perfect murder and walks, OR, Zimmerman is telling the truth, that while yes, he put himself into a bad situation, he was attacked and defended himself. Almost every detail that could lead to an arrest/conviction that we have right now is circumstantial, because you said it...the only other witness that could shed light on the subject is dead. So right now people are guessing off of muffled phone recordings, crappy video that looks like something out of a late 90's nanny cam, a phone "witness", a "eye witness" that hardly saw or heard anything, who is now saying police told him to change his story, a police report, EMT reports (which nobody has seen), etc. It all adds up to no conviction at the moment. Where is Columbo when you need him?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 31, 2012 -> 11:17 AM) NSA records us all. Lol.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 31, 2012 -> 11:09 AM) I don't think when he put his hood up is relevant anyway, so I don't see any reason to discount her story. Like I said earlier, I'm sure the NSA has a recording of her call, just release it already! I agree, it's not relevant. And the odds of the NSA having any such recording are almost 0. Maybe in Hollywood.

QUOTE (SouthSideTeacher @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:07 PM) Forgive me if I've missed someone mentioning this before--I've been trying to keep up with the thread but this one seems to be a case of miss a little, miss a lot. Has anyone else heard the part of the tape where Zimmerman allegedly mutters, "F****** C**ns" under his breath as he's following the kid on foot? Grainy audio-- so you can't be absolutely positive, but it sure sounds like it to me. I agree with the poster who argues that the DA opted not to charge Zimmerman because it wasn't a slam dunk and he didn't want to risk his job. It's just so sad all around. I'm tired of it. I face this room full of 11-14 year old boys who look at me and ask "WHY, Miss O?" and I am at a loss for what to tell them. It doesn't sound like he says anything intelligible at all. It's so beyond grainy that to this point audio experts still can't tell what was said. Hopefully one of them can decipher it with an experts credibility...but until that happens let's not jump to conclusions. It's equally possible all he said was, "f***ing kids".

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 10:08 PM) Forgive me for not reading this entire long winded thread but I did notice a lot of people jumping on the "hoodie" angle and how it looks "suspicious" when a young person wears one. Did anyone bring up the fact that it was actually raining when this happened? Now you're not allowed to wear a hood when it rains? GMAFB via He only put the hoodie up after Zimmerman spotted him, supposedly.

Fox is reporting that the witness may have been pressured to give details he didn't have. He also claims that the entirety of what he saw took place on grass, which could invalidate Zimmermans claims of having his head bashed onto concrete. This makes Zimmerman's claims indeed look exegerrated.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 05:28 PM) Either you haven't paid much attention to this thread or you're just trying to get on everyone's nerves by insulting them. Pretty much everyone here has taken a nuanced, supported position in some fashion here. The people who think that the police are letting a guy off for shooting a kid have been very clear about what they think went wrong in the system and how they got to those conclusions. That's true, I should add that you're right, people here aren't doing that, but many in the mass media/general public are. Just like the share of crazies that are proclaiming Zimmerman innocent and Martin a thug.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 05:12 PM) They may be relevant socially, its unclear at the moment. Its not like Zimmerman was a member of the Nazi party or a member of the KKK. For all we know this truly was a terrible terrible tragedy. Was race involved in the arrest? At first it seemed possible, but now as the facts come out, it appears the police wanted Zimmeran charged with manslaughter. Was race involved in the DA's decision not to prosecute? This may be possible, but not because the DA is racist, but instead because the DA perceives that the jury may be racist. Conviction percentages are the most important thing to prosecutors, many of them have a ridiculous rate of 90% or higher. They for the most part do not want to take risky cases because it generally is a lose lose situation. Furthermore, in this case, had the DA prosecuted and Zimmerman was found to be within his rights, the City/Municipality may have been liable to Zimmerman. So at the end of the day, I now believe the most likely thing that happened was that the DA didnt prosecute, because he didnt want to risk his job. Nothing sinister, just the sad state of criminal prosecution. Well, I hope they get to the bottom of it, figure it all out and do what needs to be done. I'm not ready to hang Zimmerman while calling Martin totally innocent. But I'm not ready to NOT hang Zimmerman because Martin may, in fact, be totally innocent. Hopefully enough facts emerge to settle this, sooner rather than later. I know it's quite uncool of me to take this wait and see approach rather than jumping on board the Zimmerman is a guilty racist and Martin is an innocent young angel of a man train, but that's not my style. I'd rather let the truth emerge and go from there.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 05:06 PM) Him being charged with something would be a nice first step. The police WANTED to charge him with something, the DA said no. But I know, it's a police conspiracy!

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 05:05 PM) Congress can do all sorts of things its never done. It can tax us at 100%. It can impose a national healthcare system. They can do things they've never done if they take the LEGAL STEPS TO DO SO. They have to stay within their RIGHTS. This is *POSSIBLY/MAYBE* out of their scope of power, which is why it's being discussed. I know you don't want to accept that...but it doesn't really matter. If what they did wasn't grey area or questionable, it wouldn't be being questioned.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 04:59 PM) Not necessarily, just that he thought he KNEW that Martin was a minority, and maybe he was already ASSUMING he was black. Or he said that because of the neighborhood he was in, I don't know how diverse that particular neighborhood is, though, in terms of different ethnic minorities. Had he ever reported a white teenager for suspicious behavior in all of his time on the Neighborhood Watch? Or anyone who wasn't black? Imagine if it turned out he was "white," and he had made that comment. Then wouldn't that ALSO be proof of racial profiling? Anything can be twisted around to suit an argument on one side or the other. So we should just assume he was racially profiling and convict. Got it. How about we do what I've been asking the entire time, and gather ALL the facts, not edited facts, not crappy video's that answer no questions...but facts? That includes his past about calling 911, was it always about blacks? Does he have a history of being a racist? What's his record? What does the witness(es) at the scene say? What about the EMT's that treated him? What about the police? How about we let them do their job and if the guy is guilty we convict him, rather than doing what we're all doing her and convicting him in the court of public opinion?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 05:00 PM) This is incorrect. I disagree...otherwise we can just get rid of the word few.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 04:57 PM) It was "he looks black," which can very easily be profiling. He also has a history of calling 911 to report black youths doing things in his neighborhood. http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/03/...ing_things.html He has a history of calling 911 for just about everything. So no. It's not a history of calling about black youths and only black youths. He calls 911 for just about anything he sees.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 04:56 PM) Several is three or more. The article I posted was from March 13th, and it was already national at that point (the article describes the case as being turned over, and this only happened after national attention). The point is that one segment from the Today show on March 27th did not impact the narrative of this story in any way. A couple is 2. A few is 3-6. Several -- is SEVEN or more.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 04:53 PM) There is still the question of whether Zimmerman would have profiled the same "suspicious behavior" of walking down the sidewalk and looking around if the teen had not been black. Nothing about the tapes disproves that. If you personally were not aware of the full tapes, ok, then maybe this changes your knowledge. But that information has been publicly available for weeks, and many versions of the story do not edit in the same manner NBC did. Zimmerman's first reaction to the 911 operator asking was, "I think he's black...", he wasn't even sure. Yea, that sounds like profiling based on race to me. Maybe there is unaired tape of the 911 call where he says, "Let me make sure he's black...and if he is, I'll go after him!" Maybe then I'd lend more credibility to him being a racist than what we have now...

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 04:49 PM) Congress can't do anything it couldn't do before, but it can do the exact same thing in a slightly different manner, maybe. This injustice must be stopped. If this law is upheld, yes, congress CAN do something it couldn't do before. Because this is something it's NEVER DONE BEFORE.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 04:48 PM) Uh, I started this thread over a week ago, and the story was already over a week old at that point. Here's something from March 13th. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/13/t...ref=mostpopular I know when you started it...and it was like 8 days ago. Several weeks would be almost 2 months. Edit, you started it on march 21st, and the story broke March 13th. Yea, several weeks. You suck at math. That's less than a month.

If Zimmerman is guilty, I hope he burns. But the media has portrayed him as a racist from the jump and because of that, YOU and many like you believe he's a racist...regardless of the TOTAL lack of evidence that he's a racist. With the unedited tape, he doesn't sound like he was profiling anyone about skin color...it sounds like he was profiling suspicious behavior. To me, that changes something...