Balta1701

QUOTE (iamshack @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 10:12 AM) As for the duty to retreat, I'm not sure at what moment you mean. To clarify, that it should have been his legal duty to extricate himself from that conflict, as it should have been Martin's legal duty to extricate himself from that conflict. I think we went into detail about why that is particularly important something like 15 pages ago and I don't wish to retype.

NBA meeting this week will discuss whether to allow the league to sell ad-space on the uniforms of the teams.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 10:01 AM) Unfortunately, we don't know that with any certainty whatsoever. With what we currently know about head injuries and brain trauma, I think your point is a better one now than it might have been even ten years ago (that inflicting head injuries could be construed as potential deadly force), but I don't think the witness testimony they have now is solid enough to establish that Martin was pounding Zimmerman's head on the sidewalk. What we have is lacerations (which, let's face it, is a nasty sounding term for "cuts" on the back of Zimmerman's head), and someone who might have seen Martin on top of Zimmerman banging Zimmerman's head on the ground. I think what Jenks has been saying, however, is that there is nothing in this law that gives Zimmerman any more immunity than already existed under the self-defense doctrine in common law. The problem here is the investigation, whether it was botched or not, has not yielded evidence solid enough to apply either the codified law or the self-defense doctrine because we don't know who started the altercation or what even happened during the altercation. It wouldn't be hard at all to figure out whether the "lacerations" were caused by his head hitting the ground. And I still say that him having a duty to retreat even at that moment would have been darn important, but hey, at least we've been over it.

So, in terms of the overall effects on governance, today's court challenge is probably equal to the level of the mandate challenge yesterday. The federal government long ago started sending Medicaid money to states, but states had to meet certain conditions to get that money. The PPACA used the same approach...there were substantial reforms to both medicaid and private insurance markets, and the Medicaid funds were the stick, if states outright refused to participate, they would lose those Medicaid funds and creating a health care disaster. The States are arguing effectively that once the federal government creates a mandate with funding that states can choose to accept or deny, then that line of funding has to remain mostly the same, you can do small changes to the total amounts or around the edges but you can't do a major program overhaul and use that funding as leverage to get the states involved in the overhauled program. If the Supreme Court agrees with the states and creates this new law, it's going to overturn a whole lot of stuff. It effectively means that No Child Left Behind was unconstitutional, for example...same tactic, a bit more money, but a fundamental overhaul of the education requirements. Oh, and there's also the debate over whether the court can strike down the mandate without striking down the rest of the law. The administration is arguing and the text of the law states that if the mandate is struck down the whole law must be struck down, to avoid the destroying-all-insurance-markets situation. Of course, the Court could simply decide it can write laws however it wants.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 09:34 AM) Jeff Passan ‏ @JeffPassan Total guesstimate franchise values: Yankees, $3B. Red Sox, $1.8B. Cubs, $1.5B. Mets, $1.5B. Angels, $1.2B. Cheapest team now >$500M. So if that's right, after holding the team for 3 years, the Ricketts could cash out with a value gain of $600 million?

If anyone was wondering why Peavy gave up 12 hits yesterday but not a lot of runs or walks, it sounds like yesterday was his "Throw his fastball 100 times" outing of the spring, if you read between the lines of this Rogers article.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 09:23 AM) Finished Alcatraz finale last night. They were building towards next season for sure. I liked the episode, but the chase scene drove me crazy. They tear through town, causing accidents all over the place, race down streets, finally wrecking each other until one car rolls over a bunch of times catches fire and explodes. Throughout all of that, apparently not a single cop notices? No one calls the police? Not a single police siren is heard. Apparently that was a detailed remake of a car chase from the film Bullitt (Steve McQueen, 1968).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 09:14 AM) So what does that make the Yankees worth? $3 billion? Gotta be more than that if you include the YES network. I think that network alone has more revenue than the Dodgers.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 07:39 AM) I don't believe a non aggravated version actually exists in modern law. Even the wiki article says toward the end that assault is basically assault no matter what. After briefly glancing through Florida statutes this morning, felony assault/felony battery seems to require either a real intent to do permanent harm or involvement of something that could be determined to be a weapon. If a guy's head hit the ground by force, I'd imagine a prosecutor would know that they could win felony charges and try to get the defendant to plead out to the misdemeanor charge in exchange for a guilty plea.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 08:57 AM) Seems like I'm in the majority with 82-85 wins. I saw on the news last night that someone predicted a 95 loss season. I really don't see how that would be possible unless there were a string of injuries and Dunn, Rios, and Peavy (aka the Lawrence Bums) repeat 2011. I think a lot of people outside of the Sox fandom overvalue the loss of Buehrle, Quentin, and Santos. Realistically, I think the Sox have filled those holes fairly well. It's really not that hard to envision a path for how the Sox get to 95ish losses from last year. Lose Buehrle, lose Quentin, lose Santos. Between them, that's ~10 wins if you're going by WAR. That takes a 78 win team down to a ~68 win team. You're right there already. Now, just have most of the people repeat last year's numbers. Some people are likely to improve, it'd be hard for De Aza to be as bad as Pierre, but then if you finally have PK14 start showing his age and either get hurt for 1/2 the year or only hit 18 home runs, the team is literally right there. The place we're starting from is ~70 wins if everyone does what they did last year. The list of guys who can improve on that is long, but you can raise a question on almost all of them.

And the season starts in Extra innings.

hot d*mn, I need to buy a major league franchise on credit and run it into the ground. That's one hell of a quick way to become a billionaire.

QUOTE (knightni @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 03:02 AM) He ought to be good as the new Marlins closer. Ok, I actually don't get the joke?

QUOTE (Tex @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 08:17 AM) I think it is also unfair to begin painting people who are willing to get involved as being some kind of fringe loonies. This victim mentality where we have to allow professionals to help makes us all victims. I understand people who are tired of being victims and are willing to fight back. That doesn't make them all crazies. There is a reason why leaving some level of situation to trained responders is the right thing to do in most circumstances though Tex, and it's well illustrated here. A properly trained responder is vastly more prepared to go into a situation, evaluate the situation, and be able to respond without making things worse. In a disturbingly large number of situations, an untrained person going into a situation with no equipment and no backup is very likely to make the situation worse. In this case, for example, we have a guy who didn't have any options other than lethal force if things turned bad. Wasn't in the physical shape to overpower a 17 year old, wasn't carrying anything that could be used non-lethally (baton or taser), had no communication to know if help was available, had no training for how to diffuse that situation, and had no ability to compel the kid to respond to instructions. He made the situation vastly worse for everyone by entering in to it, and once he entered in to it, unless the kid submitted completely, the only plausible endgame was deadly force.

Isn't assault a felony?

Lebron dislocated a finger on his non shooting hand.

QUOTE (G&T @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 09:02 PM) If you didn't like SA Cherry Wheat before...this year's is intense. Glad I'm not the only one who thought that was newish. I enjoyed.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 07:32 PM) Speaking of this case, douchenozzle resident hollywood piece of s*** Spike Lee took it upon himself to tweet Zimmerman's home address...probably to stupidly and carelessly incite retaliation violence. Big problem, though, this f***ing moron tweeted the wrong address, and some poor lady has been getting harassed...and should probably fear for her life. What a f***ing dick. I hope this f***ing asshole gets sued for everything he has and brought up on charges for potentially putting an innocent persons life at risk. Is there something he could actually be sued for? It'd be very nice if there was some penalty for this sometime.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 07:09 PM) Haven't they been getting younger and younger? I doubt it plots on a line...but sure seems that way. For exactly that reason. Roberts, Kagan, Alito, and Sotomayor were all between 50 and 55 when they were nominated. We've got those 4 there for what, 25+ years barring a genuine early retirement? Let's just say this...no one is appointing a 65 year old justice at the height of his or her career any more, no matter how deserving.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 07:00 PM) Admitting ahead of time that I haven't seen any games, how has De Aza looked? Hitting .283 on the spring coming in to today, got his first extra base hit (HR) today.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 07:00 PM) That would take an actual amendment, wouldn't it? All federal judges serve as long as they are in "good behavior" (aka Life), according to Art. III of the Constitution. Correct, which of course means it'll never happen, and we're stuck with the current system, so we may as well start nominating justices when they're in their 30's to give us the best chance of them never leaving. Plus, short paper trail.

QUOTE (knightni @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 07:01 PM) Can't be much worse than a Scottish actor not trying hard enough to be Russian. I thought his accent was wery good.

Hey, it is a thread for "Bold" predictions and them's pretty bold!

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 06:53 PM) He's a classically-trained actor. I'm sure he'd do a great job. Except for that whole "French captain who sounds oddly British" role...