StrangeSox

On the left side of the article, you can listen to the entire recorded interview with Zimmerman from the night of the shooting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/us/docum...tml?_r=2&hp Martin was shot through the heart and lung at close range, but Zimmerman claims that Martin said "you got me!" and kept talking after he had been shot and that Zimmerman still had to restrain him on the ground.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 22, 2012 -> 08:15 AM) You just treated an entertainment option (baseball, XBox, etc) the same as something that can be key to the development of a person's career/life. Also, a baseball game and four years of college are equivalent in cost and time commitment.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 21, 2012 -> 10:39 PM) Aside from being outspoken, Ozzie Guillen is well respected throughout baseball. Who is on all the TV shows during the postseason? Ozzie Guillen is one of the top five managers in baseball. Ozzie is great at being a media personality.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 21, 2012 -> 04:18 PM) This was more or less suggested but was found to require too much programming prowess/money and could possibly negate the popularity that Soxtalk has. It could certainly be disruptive and would not be easy to implement.

forum growth should be organic, not forced edit: have one big site called ChicagoSportsTalk or something, capture SoxTalk, TalkBulls, TalkBears, etc. all under one big umbrella of subforums instead of a bunch of loosely-connected sites. oh and implement tapatalk.

This is a pretty awful taser incident: http://boingboing.net/2012/06/19/police-we...t-to-relea.html

In the specific case, a special levy for political spending, I don't have a problem with opt-in, along the lines of Sotomayor's concurrence. How the system usually operates is that groups like the SEUI are allowed to collect fees from non-members who are working in SEIU shops as these non-members benefit from collective bargaining and dispute-negotiation services that the SEIU provides. They are not required to pay the portions of the members dues that the unions spend on political campaigning. All fine and good, and in this case, the SEIU had a special assessment and didn't inform and give a chance for fee-payers to opt-out, as they should be. This portion was decided 7-2, with only Breyers and Kagan dissenting. However, the ruling doesn't stop there. The language of the ruling expands well beyond this narrow scope and finds that opt-in is required by the first amendment. This is a much larger ruling than it could have been, and it's easy to see the difference in fundraising ability that opt-in vs opt-out policies has. As well all know, thanks to this same SC, money is speech, and this ruling appears to be inviting another case challenging all opt-out union dues policies: A ruling along the same lines in such a case would have the effect of expanding RTW legislation nation-wide. In RTW states now, unions are required to represent all employees during a grievance, regardless of their membership status. All employees also benefit from wages, hours, benefits and workplace rights and safety bargaining regardless of membership status.

Opt-in seriously diminishes their dues-collecting abilities, and the ruling doesn't appear to limit this only to political funding but to dues collections in general. It would be right-to-work nation wide. Under RTW, unions can exist, but they have to cover non-members under collectively bargained contracts and disputes and cannot collect dues or fees for these services. This creates a huge free-rider problem for them and its why you see unions mostly disappear from RTW states. eta: it's not that they're actually going to outlaw unions, they're just going to cripple them.

SCOTUS issued another overly broad 5-4 (on the over-reach, 7-2 on the outcome of the particular issue at hand) ruling that may have serious impact on unions. http://prospect.org/article/court%E2%80%99...t-walker-moment The wording in the majority opinion, which broadened the scope of the case well beyond anything briefed or argued, seems to be signaling that the court would be willing to void the whole idea of a closed shop, essentially finding a "right to work" in the Constitution and expanding that law nationally. That would pretty much be the final blow to unions. edit: It's notable that the court went out of its way today in another ruling, FCC v Fox, to make a very narrow ruling that didn't address any first amendment issues at hand regarding indecency policies but went out of its way the other way in this ruling.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jun 21, 2012 -> 12:28 PM) Martin proceeded to fall face-first into a horse trough. only after doing a front flip off of the awning, of course.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archiv...hooting/258808/ Someone's been watching too many classic westerns.

Another decision day, another notable absence of a ruling on PPACA.

My wife loves it

Missile tracking cameras are now gathering data on NBA players: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670059/moneyb...emaking-the-nba Kevin Durant's guarded attempts: Where he reliably makes shots:

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 21, 2012 -> 08:05 AM) http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/marlins/201...5-marlins-loss/ Ozzie is getting paid to hang around a baseball team and party down in Miami. Honestly, good for him. We'd all love that gig.

House Oversight Committee votes to hold Holder in contempt

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 20, 2012 -> 03:19 PM) 20 years later and still a two bit hater.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 20, 2012 -> 12:57 PM) Unless those charges are included in this case. This is a state-level trial for now. Crossing state borders would have to be a federal charge, if I understand it correctly.

National Review has replaced one racist bigot (the Derb) with another: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archiv...rvatism/258749/

10 million people work in the private insurance industry? Jesus, what a waste of human effort and labor.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 20, 2012 -> 11:41 AM) Haven't watched this...but tell me if I get the gist of the show... Modern jurors watch too much f***ing television and think it's real. Modern "forensics" are generally ad hoc, non-scientific methods, especially fingerprint and bite mark analysis. People rely too heavily on this expert testimony and decades-long claims by the FBI and others that fingerprint analysis is "infallible" (they have changed that stance recently). Shows like CSI don't help, but they aren't entirely the cause as over-reliance on pseudo-expert testimony and analysis predates these types of shows.

Sounds like a good argument for abolishing private health insurance, then.

They attacked insurers by mandating that every American become their customers.

Jenks, I can't remember the most recent thread we went back-and-forth on eyewitnesses on, but I thought you might be interested in this Frontline episode on the CSI-ization of courtrooms. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/real-csi/