StrangeSox

EXCUSE ME I AM BUSY ARGUING ON THE INTERNET IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT BUTT OUT

QUOTE (Jake @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 12:44 PM) FWIW, in terms of Nye v Ham, I don't think you have to be an atheist to disagree w/ Ken Ham Yep, anyone who isn't a young-earth christian biblical literalist disagrees with him. Catholic theology doesn't accept it, and other religions have their own creation stories.

The evolution/creation "culture war" seems to have peaked around 2005/Dover. I've watched a bit of the debate, but I can't say I really understand the point of it. I guess I could classify myself as an atheist, but people who make atheism a big part of their identity or essentially replace their previous religious fundamentalism with new atheist fundamentalism annoy the hell out of me. PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins and the whole atheist 'movement' is generally pretty awful.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:44 AM) - Those are not the prosecution's measurements. They are the police's measurements. The court decided it was Solecitto's footprint and not possibly Guede's. Please explain to me how it could possibly be Guede's with undershoots of 30% and overshoots of 50%. Alternatively, please show me measurements that are more accurate than the ones the police took. Others argue that the measurements were faulty and included the second toe as part of the big toe. If that error is adjusted, then the measurements match Guede's very well. This is still at random because 1) it doesn't actually match the stab wounds and 2) there's no reason to believe that the murder weapon would be in that drawer or in his apartment at all. But if they're convinced that he did it in a big sex party with Knox and Lumumba oops I mean Guede now, hey, here's a big knife, that's probably the murder weapon! Despite early reports to the contrary (thanks media circus and Italian justice system that invites juror contamination!), no receipts or evidence were ever produced that either of them had purchased bleach that morning. There's no indication that Knox's apartment was cleaned with bleach, either, otherwise there wouldn't be such copious amounts of Guede's DNA and blood trails all over the place. I have plenty of criticism of the US legal system, but my (admittedly limited) exposure to the Italian system really does make it seem like a big joke comparatively. Double-jeopardy is a horrible idea. Whether or not the break-in was staged is, like every other piece of evidence, very debatable and the prosecution's theories are not the most plausible. The same goes for multiple attackers. Knox's DNA was found in Kercher's bathroom, but not her blood. Not exactly shocking. Knox did have a bunch of bulls*** rambling at first, but false confessions or confusion are hardly unique to her. I note that you are yet to respond to most of the points I've made. The knife didn't match wounds; the DNA analysis on it was garbage (as found by independent investigators appointed by the judge); the prosecution's many theories don't actually make sense; Guede's blood and prints are all over the damn place but there's no reliable physical evidence linking Knox; the bra clasp was left on-scene for weeks on end, kicked around and improperly handled; the judge's summary report relied very heavily on "probably" and supposition and was light on actual, plain facts.

The articles go into more detail. It's not "lazy asses" or "follow[ing] their dreams or crap" that would see the biggest benefit here. Anyway yet another example of where nationalized single-payer would be a far better system with far better outcomes.

Not directly related to this case, but Nova had an episode a couple years ago about forensic science and some of the problems with it. http://video.pbs.org/video/2290878958/

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:02 AM) - The bloody footprint on the bathmat was a near-perfect match to Raffaele Solecitto: http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/imag...print_table.png Others strongly disagree and say that the measurements were faulty. They say that the correct measurements match Rudy's, as do the show prints found elsewhere in the apartment. It's only a "near-perfect match" if you accept the prosecution's measurements without question. Because the "test" that was run was run in an uncertified lab using non-standard techniques and even then, could only get a partial match at a low probability. The knife was essentially chosen at random from S.'s kitchen, even though there wasn't any blood, it didn't really match the blood prints or the stab wounds and there was no particular reason to select that knife. The theory that Knox was carrying a large kitchen knife around in her purse for...some reason? doesn't really make sense, either. http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda...ory?id=20738813 I don't know how anyone can think the DNA evidence, or really any of the physical evidence, is so air-tight. The "mounds of evidence" are highly questionable to many people, even if you personally believe they prove their guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. The facts are that the police work was shoddy, the prosecution's scenarios didn't make sense and frequently changed, and the forensic analysis is dubious. There's no actual, hard evidence linking them to the crime, only some circumstantial stuff, the Italian media's circus that fueled/was fueled by the prosecution, and Italy's laughable legal system.

The footprints found in the blood didn't match their shoes. The DNA in the knife was a questionable match. You still have the prosecution inventing dumb scenario after dumb scenario. You listed a bunch of things above, but some, like the witness accounts, are very very questionable and others have faced serious scrutiny. The latest idea was that they argued about cleanliness, Knox got so made she stabbed her, then her boyfriend stabbed her.oh and also this other guy who confessed the murder also happened be there, for some reason. If the physical evidence really is as strong as you say, why such a ridiculous scenario? Why invent a new scenario for the re trial?

The NYT editorial board also has a piece out pushing back against the idea that this will "cost jobs" or raise unemployment/underemployment Freeing Workers From the Insurance Trap They also point out that what the CBO is saying is that millions of Americans will be empowered over this and won't have to take or keep a job just for health insurance benefits. In other words, it's a step in the right direction of disentangling employers and health insurance.

Why the new CBO report on Obamacare is good news

America definitely isn't immune from the problem of overzealous, incompetent and corrupt prosecutions.

More importantly, what kind of dumb legal system allows double jeopardy, anyway?

Are you an Italian prosecutor or? I think this article goes over just how crappy the 'evidence' against either of them was. Guede? Yeah, he seems obviously guilty as f***. But there's nothing but (questionable) circumstantial evidence tying Knox or her boyfriend to the crime. edit: as that article references, the Italian high court that ordered the retrial said that the new trial should focus on the "sex games gone wrong" aspect, which was always dumb and loopy and completely unsupported. And the re-trial introduced yet another fun scenario about arguments over cleanliness that resulted in Knox and her boyfriend stabbing Kercher to death while Guede watched. edit2: and it's really questionable whether or not the knife found actually had Kercher's DNA, and it didn't fit many of the stab-wounds (hence the new and exciting multi-knife theory!) edit3: what's the conclusive evidence that the break-in was staged? from what I've read, they found glass on the inside, and concluded that the windows must have been broken from the inside. Are Italian police and prosecutors really that incompetent? If you break a window from the outside, most glass will fly inside.

IIRC, the knife was a kitchen knife that had been in the apartment for a long time. Not exactly surprising that the DNA of both of the people who lived there would be on it. The bra clasp wasn't collected until something like six weeks after the initial investigation and was just left lying on the floor that time. The prosecution's eye-witness was someone whom they routinely paid for such testimony and wasn't exactly reliable. edit: so, assuming the rest is true, why did the prosecution have to come up with (multiple) outlandish theories about the motive behind the crime and how it took place? The way you laid it out, it should have been very simple and straight forward.

Their summer festival "Daisy Days" is really lame but that's about all I know. I work in Willowbrook and live close so I know the general area a bit, but not much about Clarendon Hills specifically.

Another thing in the cbo report is that they've gone from scoring it as budget neutral to a net savings of $8b to the federal government.

Personally, I can't wait for the Republican campaign message of "against government welfare, against increased wages" eta: did not realize that Bill Brady had embraced that idea earlier today when I posted it!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 4, 2014 -> 02:03 PM) Just to be clear what that says...it doesn't say there will be 2 million fewer jobs, it says that people will drop out of the labor force. The number of total jobs will not be effected. This is something you could quite easily predict...for example, it's safe to say that there are a number of people who otherwise could not afford to buy insurance on their own who are being locked into jobs because they need the health benefits. If those people are able to get insurance elsewhere, some fraction of them will drop out of the labor force. In order to draw them back in, things like "increased wages" would be useful. It's more related to the ACA subsidies being means-tested. If working an extra five hours a week means you make some more money but also lose some of your subsidy, the net gain isn't all that high. It's labor/leisure utility curves from econ 101. That's always an inherent problem with means-tested programs; even if you try to scale the phase-out to not be so ridiculous (e.g. $1 under the line and you get 100% subsidy, $1 over the line and you get 0%), you're still going to have this marginal return problem. You don't see this in single-payer countries like Canada because everyone is eligible regardless of income level. I'm not sure about in countries like Germany.

My brother had a friend who smoked pot die of a heroin overdose, shows what ptact knows! More seriously though, of the people I know who still smoke pot, they might do it once every few weekends. Not really comparable to someone smoking a pack of cigarettes day-in, day-out. I'd wonder how edible or vaporized pot compares, too.

Not even fair at this point

Rooting for the shutout at this point.

This defense is something else.

Lol

this is getting out of hand now

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 2, 2014 -> 06:39 PM) BigSqwert be squirtin He's waited his whole life eight months for a Seahawks championship!