Jenksismyhero

Great marketing:

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 08:10 PM) I don't know how much of the media's accuracy is due to distortions and how much is due to incompetence/ignorance/being terrible at being journalists. The problem IMO is that journalism these days is all about the editorial. We no longer care to read just straight facts, we want to read someone's interesting take on the situation, or a new argument about the same issues, etc. Blogs are making this problem even worse. (Note: I'm not saying there isn't a value to that, but when that's 99% of the source for news there's a problem where the actual facts have become nearly irrelevant). That and for some reason we still have a pretty moronic populous that thinks Jesse Jackson and Sean Hannity speak the truth.

I think a distinction needs to be made where "living with the consequences of your actions" means you have to fear for your life because a bunch of uninformed race-baters (sp?) have called for your head over something that you might have had every right to do, and in fact felt obligated (based on fear of your life) to do. There's a line there where he shouldn't be expected to "deal with it."

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 10:20 AM) No way a PD's office is going to have enough of a supply of taxpayer funds to re-do every forensics test just to make sure that the lab is trustworthy. The problem is that a 2% failure rate from a lab puts thousands of people in jail, but double-checking would require double-checking a large number of the 98% of tests that worked. True, but again it's going to depend on the case. If 90% of the evidence points one way, and the test points the other way and it's going to be enough to get a guilty verdict, i'd be shocked if they would flat out deny a retest.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 10:13 AM) how much is a public defender going to be able to spend on lab tests? Well that's true. But again if that's the key piece of evidence I don't see how the public defenders office wouldn't allow that cost. I know when I've gotten testing done (blood/food/clothing) it's been hundreds of dollars, not thousands, and i'm sure the PD's office gets discounts if they do volume work. If anything i'm sure it's more on the PD's office simply accepting the test results (as they probably should since they should be trusted) and not believing their client. Which isn't something to be upset with them about considering 90% of their clients lie straight to their faces about everything.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 09:38 AM) Really...no, this Chicago Bulls team does not play to the level of the competition. They have had the killer instinct for 2 years. That has been one thing Thibs has been great at. But they can't do that if they don't have Rose and Deng at 100% or at least close to it, and Derrick Rose right now is a piece of glass. The Pacers are going to kill him if these 2 teams meet again. Go look back at the schedule. How many close games or inexplicable losses were there? Milwaukee, Toronto, New Jersey. Heck even the game against Charlotte was close. Injuries and playing on a back to back or even a back to back to back are good explanations. But sometimes they just don't come out with the energy they need and it ends up costing them when they can't turn it on in the second half. See: last night. And i'm in no way saying this is a concerning trend. It's a s***ty compressed season with a historical (probably) number of injuries they've had to deal with. I'm saying the occasional bad game against a crappy team isn't cause of concern.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 09:26 AM) But there's no reason to presuppose that he won't get a fair trial. It'll be much like the Casey Anthony situation but worse. The "public," or at least a large portion of it, has already determined he's guilty. So God help him if he gets off. He'll have to go into hiding and fear for his life for a long time. Of course, i'm sure the response is "so what, that's why he gets for killing a kid eating skittles."

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 09:50 AM) I think the answer is money. There aren't many labs that do those sorts of tests, and most of the ones that can are funded by the government and therefore prosecution. There are plenty of labs out there that test this stuff on a daily basis. It's not like we're talking 10k here either. If i'm wrongly accused of killing/raping someone, and some kind of forensic evidence test is confirming (in error) the accusation, money isn't going to deter me from getting another test done.

As I listened to this story on the radio this morning I was wondering why the defense wouldn't have gotten their own expert to review/test whatever it is the FBI was testing. Maybe it's a situation where there isn't enough blood/hair/ballistics whatever anymore to do that, but why on earth would you ever just accept as truth what those test say, especially if they're bad for your client?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 07:42 AM) I'm this close to losing hope with the Bulls this season and calling them a first round knockout. Think of it, if you're playing the Bulls in the first round, the formula is pretty simple. 2 hard hits in game 1 on Derrick Rose and he misses the next 3 games. Then, you start swatting at Deng's wrist. Come on. This team plays to the level of competition from time to time. They've done it for the last couple of seasons. Add to that that the Bulls get a teams' best effort on a nightly basis and you're going to have a couple disappointing losses. This happened earlier this year with Golden State, and it happened again last night. It happens.

Caught The Hunger Games. B+ effort. The shaky cam stuff got old really quick, so I'm glad Gary Ross is not doing the last two. In fact, my biggest gripe was that the final fight scene was totally screwed up by the shaky cam. You couldn't tell where anyone was or what they were doing or how they got in the position they were in. And kudos to Woody Harrelson. He was actually pretty decent in this.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 16, 2012 -> 02:06 PM) Clearly you havent, it's call the Haunted Mansion lol, my bad.

I don't know why people are thinking this is a big deal. Has no one been to the Haunted House at Disney World?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 16, 2012 -> 10:27 AM) It is obvious to me that Melo isn't the type of player that can play with other stars. He needs it to be built around him, or he just isn't the same guy. Which is interesting since this recent run of his where he's playing at a high level comes after both Lin and Amare are out.

To be fair, IU has what, 5 titles? Which is like 5-6th best in the country. So the numbers are there. Unfortunately they often put themselves on par with UCLA/Kentucky/UNC/Duke. They also rely on what happened 25 years ago a lot more than they should. I want to say this year was their 2nd Sweet 16 in that 25 year span which isn't anything to write home about. Still, they have great (if not annoying) fan support, which is enviable. The storming of the court last year when they beat Illinois sorta pissed me off. As did the whole Eric Gordon thing. That, and I have an IU buddy that basically stopped paying attention to their program for 3-4 season and then suddenly this year was "oh yeah, we're back. We have the best recruiting class. NC next year baby!" and blah blah. Needless to say i'm not a big fan of theirs, and I hope that all these "can't miss" prospects are busts and Crean ends up being overrated.

QUOTE (Brian @ Apr 16, 2012 -> 10:43 AM) "I'm married to Alison Brie but I'm gonna go to a whorehouse and bang a girl who looks under age like the girl I tried to pick up in driving school but ditched me for a guy her age." But she wanted to service him like he was a king! Can't fault the guy for that.

I'll take a look at that thunder shirt. I might try to find just a normal tight fitting shirt first to see if that helps. I'm sure I can find something like that for cheaper than $40. I wonder too if this was just enhanced because we weren't home. It's one thing to get nervous about storms, it's another to get so freaked out that she felt compelled to get downstairs and hurt herself in the process.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 08:48 PM) They lost the game, but Carmelo has really shut up that Lin>>>>>Melo crowd recently. Who on earth was saying this? There were people out there (me included) who thought the Knicks as a team were better with Lin than with Melo, but that was under D'Antoni's system and when Melo refused to play defense. Now the system has changed and defense has become a priority, even for Melo.

So has anyone solved a dog-being-scared-of-storms problem? We have a 6 year old Boston terrier. When we lived in the city (her first 4 or so years) she was absolutely fine when it came to rain/thunder/lightning. It didn't phase her at all. But once we moved to the burbs two years ago we noticed she was getting more and more afraid of them. It started with her just looking at my wife and I or getting close to us for comfort. Then that evolved into pseudo panic attacks - pant nonstop no matter what we did. And then this weekend was the real kicker. We came home late from a movie during a torrential downpour. We have a gate blocking her from going down to the basement (litter box heaven for her) that is made of plastic. We walked into the house and it was a blood bath - blood all over the floor in front of the gate, blood on the stairs, blood on the walls in the stairway, etc. She had chewed the s*** out of the gate in an attempt to get to the basement (I assume) and cut her mouth. After we got inside she proceeded to grab her favorite ham bone and paced around with it in her mouth for about 30 minutes until the storm went away. She'd sit next to us for about half a second before going back to walking around again...she just couldn't sit still. It's just weird to us that she is becoming more scared of storms the older she gets. Maybe in our apartment she wasn't able to hear them as well (though we lived in an older three flat, so it's not like it was a 30th floor condo with great insulation). Or maybe she's older and is paying more attention to her surroundings. Whatever it is I'm worried she's going to do something similar when we're away. I'm thinking about crating her in the basement if we know we'll be gone during a storm. Or maybe keep a TV on so she can hear voices. I've also heard there is some shirt that you can buy that is tight and makes them feel protected, though i'm wary of that since it sounds like a gimmick. Anyone else have an issue like this before?

Thought that was the best Mad Men so far, and they've finally hit that familiar groove. The Lane/Pete fight was pretty hilarious, as was Pete's creepy attempt at picking up a 16 year old.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 13, 2012 -> 01:36 PM) I still don't understand how Instagram could be worth $1B. Me neither. I mean I think they want it to be the one stop shop for social media photos, and then link it all with Facebook itself but....yeah I dunno. Free programs like Picassa do the same exact thing, albeit not on a smartphone.

Looks like it was actually Orris that wanted out: http://www.illinihq.com/blogs/recruiting-w...d-illinois.html

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 13, 2012 -> 08:10 AM) If they lose the case, I'd expect both get blamed, but the prosecutor gets to be the public face of it. Marcia Clark style. She got berated because she was an awful, awful attorney and made monumental mistakes during the trial - the Mark Furman racism stuff, putting the glove on, etc.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 13, 2012 -> 03:05 PM) Is there anything that would stop her from "Laying out what she has" after concluding an investigation if she decided not to bring charges? Probably not, but then she's putting her reputation (i.e., re-election chances) on the line by doing so because again, this is a credibility case not an evidentiary one.