Florida State Seminoles

[Gator by God's Grace]

Sanford isn't near Tampa, it's East, between Orlando and Daytona. It sits on Lake Monroe, where the St. John's River originates. It was a key port city back in the day when freight was tendered to central Florida down the river by steamship (before there was a city of Orlando). It is the county seat of Seminole County, and sits on the Eastern edge of the County, before you cross the bridge on I-4 into Volusia County. iirc former Expos star and future hall of famer Tim "Rock" Raines went to high school there, as did former LA Angel David Eckstein. when i was growing up in central Florida in the 80's, the Sanford area was mostly occupied by poor blacks and rednecks, while the western part of Seminole County was occupied by middle class and wealthy Orlando suburbanites. I have no idea what the demographics are today, it's probably continued Orlando suburban sprawl i imagine. mostly people only went there when i was a kid to visit the Central Florida Zoo, which was the Orlando-area public zoo.

[Owlman]

Prosecutors are not supposed to make a predetermined decision on reasonable doubt (95% sure) since if he does so, then he is making the decision for 12 people. The decision about whether or not to bring to trial is based on preponderance of the evidence (50%+). This is actually the grand jury standard in which assuming everything that the prosecutor says is true, do you vote for indictment?

[Gator by God's Grace]

I wonder how much of the foul up is due to police and how much due to local state attorney. i seem to recall via media leaks last month that the police there basically hand the stand your ground cases over to state attorney to direct them on what to do, iirc.

[Owlman]

yeah, I remember that statement. Supposedly, according to the mother of a 13 year old witness out walking his dog, the lead investigator wanted Zimmerman arrested but there was some foul-up at the state attorney's office (which May be why he recused himself along with the chief of police).

We'll find out by June (but with all the leaks, we may get everything out earlier)

[eCat]

another thing I've heard but no idea if the guy saying it was just talking shit, but he was saying there is a national neighborhood watch program, but Zimmerman's community wasn't a participant in it. They had been having a high number of petty thefts and break ins and went to the Sanford police department for help and the program they ran was developed for them by the Sanford police. So while they called it a neighborhood watch, its structure was based on the Sanford police telling the involved citizens how they should go about it.

I think that would help explain alot - 1. the frequency of 911 calls by Zimmerman. 2. Why Zimmerman ignored the 911 dispatcher (and followed the rules laid out by the Sanford police) 3. Why Zimmerman was emboldened to carry a gun and 4. Why Zimmerman was given the benefit of the doubt regarding his story once some evidence was shown to corroborate it.

[billy bob bocephus]

Sanford isn't near Tampa, it's East, between Orlando and Daytona. It sits on Lake Monroe, where the St. John's River originates. It was a key port city back in the day when freight was tendered to central Florida down the river by steamship (before there was a city of Orlando). It is the county seat of Seminole County, and sits on the Eastern edge of the County, before you cross the bridge on I-4 into Volusia County. iirc former Expos star and future hall of famer Tim "Rock" Raines went to high school there, as did former LA Angel David Eckstein. when i was growing up in central Florida in the 80's, the Sanford area was mostly occupied by poor blacks and rednecks, while the western part of Seminole County was occupied by middle class and wealthy Orlando suburbanites. I have no idea what the demographics are today, it's probably continued Orlando suburban sprawl i imagine. mostly people only went there when i was a kid to visit the Central Florida Zoo, which was the Orlando-area public zoo.

amazing...a gator understands geography...but Sanford is much closer to Tampa than Chicago is

[eCat]

sad commentary from both sides

--------------
Much has been made about Mitt Romney, in 1983, putting his family dog Seamus in a kennel on top of his roof and driving from Boston to Canada, with said canine Seamus making his displeasure known in a rather scatological way.

Democrats have signaled they have every intention of making sure the American people — especially dog-lovers — know the tale. In January, senior Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod tweeted a photo of the president and Bo in a car, with the snide observation: “@davidaxelrod: How loving owners transport their dogs.”

The Romney campaign signaled Tuesday night that they are not about to cede any ground when it comes to a candidate’s odd past with man’s best friend.

And the Obama campaign shot back, with a spokesman suggesting the Romney team was attacking a child, since the Obama act in question took place when he was a kid.

The Daily Caller noted that in President Obama’s best-selling memoir, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” the president recalls being fed dog meat as a young boy in Indonesia with his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro.

“With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy),” the president wrote. “Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.”

[Bklyn]

Seamusgate and Fido-gate are both idiotic non-issues. It won't move the needle on who goes where come November.

[Bklyn]

“I tell him, ‘Baby, my cash money,’ ” the woman said in her first public comments on a spat that would soon spiral into a full-blown scandal.

The dispute — he offered $30 for services she thought they had agreed were worth 25 times that — triggered a tense early morning struggle in the hallway of the posh hotel involving the woman, another prostitute, Colombian police officers arguing on the women’s behalf and American federal agents who tried but failed to keep the matter — which has shaken the reputation of the Secret Service — from escalating.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/world ... andal.html

[Jungle Rat]

I don't get the outrage. Obama wasn't there. It was the "scout team" and it ain't illegal down there.

[Bklyn]

They have an internal policy for conduct. It seems it may have been broken.

[Jungle Rat]

And I should care because? Because I really don't.

[Bklyn]

Guns and Americans

Just after seven-thirty on the morning of February 27th, a seventeen-year-old boy named T. J. Lane walked into the cafeteria at Chardon High School, about thirty miles outside Cleveland. It was a Monday, and the cafeteria was filled with kids, some eating breakfast, some waiting for buses to drive them to programs at other schools, some packing up for gym class. Lane sat down at an empty table, reached into a bag, and pulled out a .22-calibre pistol. He stood up, raised the gun, and fired. He said not a word.

There are nearly three hundred million privately owned firearms in the United States: a hundred and six million handguns, a hundred and five million rifles, and eighty-three million shotguns. That works out to about one gun for every American. The gun that T. J. Lane brought to Chardon High School belonged to his uncle, who had bought it in 2010, at a gun shop. Both of Lane’s parents had been arrested on charges of domestic violence over the years. Lane found the gun in his grandfather’s barn.

The United States is the country with the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world. (The second highest is Yemen, where the rate is nevertheless only half that of the U.S.) No civilian population is more powerfully armed. Most Americans do not, however, own guns, because three-quarters of people with guns own two or more. In 1973, there were guns in roughly one in two households in the United States; in 2010, one in three. In 1980, nearly one in three Americans owned a gun; in 2010, that figure had dropped to one in five.

Men are far more likely to own guns than women are, but the rate of gun ownership among men fell from one in two in 1980 to one in three in 2010, while, in that same stretch of time, the rate among women remained one in ten. Gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, higher in the country than in the city, and higher among older people than among younger people. One reason that gun ownership is declining, nationwide, might be that high-school shooting clubs and rifle ranges at summer camps are no longer common.

The day before T. J. Lane shot five high-school students in Ohio, another high-school student was shot in Florida. The Orlando Sentinel ran a three-paragraph story. On February 26th, seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin left a house in a town outside Orlando and walked to a store. He was seen by a twenty-eight-year-old man named George Zimmerman, who called 911 to report that Martin, who was black, was “a real suspicious guy.” Zimmerman got out of his truck. Zimmerman was carrying a 9-mm. pistol; Martin was unarmed. What happened next has not been established, and is much disputed. Zimmerman told the police that Martin attacked him. Martin’s family has said that the boy, heard over a cell phone, begged for his life.

Zimmerman shot Martin in the chest. Martin did not survive. Zimmerman was not charged. Outside Orlando, the story was not reported.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012 ... ntPage=all

[Bklyn]

And I should care because? Because I really don't.

Well, you asked why is there outrage from some people. I kinda explained it. You don't care...and a bunch of people don't. I'm just telling you why some do...especially those who run the Secret Service. They hate headline risk.

[Jungle Rat]

I would say there is a big difference between a "white hispanic" man shooting a "black" kid after an alleged confrontation and a kid going into any school (no matter what his skin) and just opening fire for no reason. To even compare the two is idiotic.

[Jungle Rat]

And I should care because? Because I really don't.

Well, you asked why is there outrage from some people. I kinda explained it. You don't care...and a bunch of people don't. I'm just telling you why some do...especially those who run the Secret Service. They hate headline risk.

I think we have better things in this country to worry about than some SS agents blowing their wad on some Columbian hookers. Than again, it is an election year.

[Bklyn]

I would say there is a big difference between a "white hispanic" man shooting a "black" kid after an alleged confrontation and a kid going into any school (no matter what his skin) and just opening fire for no reason. To even compare the two is idiotic.

I don't think they were comparing the two in terms of reasons, background or motives. I think the author was simply taking two national stories, that happened a day apart from each other, involving guns and tying it to the larger story about the proliferation of guns in our society. The article itself is more about the weapon and our history and relation to it, as Americans, moreso than comparing those two events specifically.

I think we have better things in this country to worry about than some SS agents blowing their wad on some Columbian hookers. Than again, it is an election year.

I think it will get a little overblown because it is an election year, but not too much. More than anything, it is just ripe for good copy. It involves sex. Intrigue. Foreigners. Government. Newspapers love this, election year or not. No way it wouldn't get big publicity here.

Also, if my security detail wants to get some hoes in advance of my arrival to a foreign locale, then they should do it at the local termás and not in the hotel room. I understand the contention that potentially exposing foreign persons to confidential material (travel plans, agendas, itineraries, etc.) could pose a security risk.

I don't want to take a bullet or a bomb because Lt. Dan got wasted on Absolut and chocha and Luisa Maria got the relevant info to turn over my travel routes to a death squad commissioned by Ted Nugent.

[Jungle Rat]

Yeah but if ya got the job done and it was all set up for the next crew, why not?

[Saint]

you think James West would try to stiff a hooker? fuuuuuck no!

[sardis]

There are accounts of cocaine being consumed at the party. That could be a real problem...