The Not Happy Thread

I agree with Dante as well. I'd rather have 10 guilty people go free over one innocent person locked up. I can understand the outrage, and I feel it too, because I fully believe the mother killed her (as I also believe was the case with Jonbenet Ramsey, a similar case from the 1990s). But all the evidence is circumstantial. "How to make chloroform" Google search could have been for a crime/thriller novel she was writing, for example.

I do think that the decomposition evidence in her car was much more solid than the chloroform Google search, but again, circumstantial. Someone hypothetically could have stolen her car and used it to hide the body without her knowledge.

Again, I believe that Casey Anthony WAS guilty, so the "what-ifs" I listed above are totally hypothetical. I just think that when it comes to putting someone in prison, you've got to err on the side of caution rather than erring on the too-careful side. After all, we're talking about the government having the power to take away virtually all of a person's rights. That can't be done unless there is NO reasonable doubt.

 

You see, we have laws relating to media coverage of ongoing court cases. If the coverage is prejudicial, then criminal proceedings can be brought for contempt of court. It happened with the Woodgate/Bowyer case in 2001, when two Leeds footballers were accused of GBH in a racially-motivated assault. The Daily Mirror were taken to court and fined a rather large sum for their coverage, and the case had to restart.

 

In the U.S., the judge can't silence the press outside of the courtroom, but they can take certain meaures to avoid prejudice within the courtroom: writing a notice to kick out reporters, postponing the trial to avoid the surrounding hype, trying the case in a city where people are less familiar, etc.

There was a case where a doctor was accused of killing his wife (can't remember the name) where there was so much pretrial prejudice that his guilty verdict was overturned and the case retried.

 

Yeah, the First Amendment pretty much prevents the judge or government in general dictating how the press approaches a subject outside of the court room. Which is as it should be, imo.

 

Totally agreed...freedom of the press.

 

My shift tomorrow is 5 hours, 15 minutes. Which, yeah, isn't that long, it's not nine to five or anything, but time when I'm working goes SO. UNBEARABLY. SLOW. And after standing on my feet for so long, it freaking HURTS. Yeah, not looking forward to working tomorrow.

 

I was visiting a friend in Hawaii when I came across a Huntsman spider on the ceiling in my room. It took us a while to catch it, mainly because we didn't have anything big enough to trap it in. My friend was brave enough to place his hand next to it for size comparison. That thing was bigger than his hand, and I'm fairly certain it was over 7 inches across. We eventually caught it and set it free. Needless to say I had a lot of trouble sleeping that night. Probably won't be going to Hawaii anytime soon.

 

That sounds wicked intense. You're a grocer, right? My shoulder blade area got really sore after an 8-hour shift of being a file clerk (reaching up on shelves all the time), when that was my job a few years ago, and that didn't even involve bags of groceries. (And I'm pretty fit, not wimpy or anything).

Eeeeew! Reminds me of the time a four-or-five-inch hissing roach crawled out of my bathroom air vent late at night, and the time a smaller but still big one crawled out of the sink drain. I live in Florida and they range from small to huge. My friend who's from Jamaica also has some pretty bad roach stories. Spiders are gross too, but...I think roaches are worse. That's just my opinion.

A seven inch spider would probably freak me out too. This includes the legs, right? Not just the middle of the spider?

 

A seven inch spider would probably, quite literally, cause me to shit my pants. And then move.

Gigi, you should get some of those squishy insole things to put in your shoes. Seriously. When I switched back to retail after I graduated college, my feet and back were killing me, and I got some of those...bliss. They helped way more than I expected them to.

 

I think it's a good idea to get those, and I probably will. Bagging doesn't sound bad, but it gets pretty intense. And it never slows down at work either.

 

It was seven inches including the legs. If the body had been seven inches, I probably would've called the cops.

I agree that cockroaches are a lot worse. If you see one of them, you can be sure that many more are nearby.

 

^Oh omg, I know what you mean. Do you wear flat shoes, like high-tops? 'Cause I do and I can't stand the pain. My feet have been bothering me a lot lately, and I've been trying to find a replacement pair. My mom says crocks are really good. And this co-worker of mine said running shoes are good to get.

 

They're more dressy and flat, which probably doesn't help matters, but they're the only shoes I have that fit the all-black dress code.

 

^Running shoes ... typically my feet hurt a lot less in sketchers too.. the padding is better...

 

^Ooh, that sucks. We have uniforms we have to wear but it's not like we have to stick to a color dress code. What about insoles? Dr. Scholls maybe? I have a pair in my sneakers right now and they ease the pain a bit. But I have to switch them out every other day to keep my feet from getting used to them.

 

^Most feet specialists recommend switching between two pair of shoes.. I know that it's hard when you've only got the one pair .. but if you can swing it get two pair...

 

I think I'll get insoles, yeah. We have a pretty strict uniform code and it sucks.

 

I'm really angry right now. I read this news article online about a kid in high school in Indiana who put an inflatable sex toy in the bathroom stall at school for a senior prank -- and he's facing jail time because some bureaucrat accused him of terroristic behavior (because someone thought there was a bomb in it or something, which there was no reasonable evidence of. Ridiculous).

Seriously? The pranks my parents' generation did for their high school pranks involved much worse things.....and they were punished, but with detention and such, not with some heavy-handed and preposterious government threats that will ruin their future.

What kind of society are we creating with stuff like this? A society where a harmless funny school prank can lock a kid in jail, stick a felon label on him and ruin his life? A society where people must tiptoe around in fear that any slight daring joke, even one with no harmful ramifications, will land you with serious criminal charges because someone thinks you "look suspicious"? This kind of stuff makes me not want to have kids, for fear of what their future would be like. Abuse of power infuriates me.

 

Yeah, stuff like that is terrible, and made worse by the fact that it's not the kind of problem that can be solved by just voting for someone else. It's a combination of the public's taste for sensationalism, the capitalistic drive of the media and the electioneering of public officials that turn innocuous incidents into ridiculously heightened dramas in the public sphere.

 

The public official aspect is the worst of the components you've listed. It makes me furious, seething, every time I read a story about a school admin or government worker who abuses a person or threatens/violates their individual rights - especially when done under moronic and arbitrary circumstances.

 

Yeah, there've been a few police cases lately that just kinda confuse and depress me, like the people arrested for dancing at the Lincoln Memorial, or the woman in New York who was arrested for obstructing justice by filming a police officer from her front lawn (a charge he entered her property unlawfully to administer). I mean, I get that most police are people who want to protect their communities, but jesus, I dunno whether the cops in cases like those are just moronic or dangerously drunk on power.

 

Oh God the dancing case...that was deeply disturbing....

EDIT: Also just found out that someone was raped on a street corner less than a block from where I live last night. The perp is still out there. I did a sex offender list check, and you want to know how many sex predators live in the 5 miles surrounding my building? 161.

 

They aren't necessarily all sex predators - at least not if the rules in Florida are the same as Missouri. Public urination can get you on the list, consensual sex between teenage boyfriend and girlfriend where one person is underage, etc. And then you have the real rapists, molesters, and sex predators. The lists available to the public online don't always specify exactly what the crime was.

 

If the judge doesn't throw that case out immediately, then there's something seriously wrong

America ...*Rolls eyes*

 

You can see one reason why I'm not happy in my blog on here.

Also, I have the flu, and I still hate my job because it cuts into the rest of my life far, far too much.

And a friend/co-worked told me about his marital problems last night...got tears in his eyes and everything. Wow. I don't know what to do aside from offer a shoulder to cry on (IN A MANLY WAY) and any advice I can think of...but I'm very empathetic, so that kind of stuff brings me down too. So, yeah. I'm down now.