greg1647545532

You are repeating what Zimmerman told police, and assuming it's a proven fact. Witnesses did not see Martin "escalate it", and witnesses did not see Zimmerman get attacked walking back to his truck. Nobody even saw him walking away. He claims that's what happened, police released that claim, and the media has reported it. It's simply a story at this point.

If you repeat it often enough, does it become true or something?

Wait wait wait... isn't it your argument that M said to Z, "Why are you following me?" At which point, Z tried to return to his truck and was attacked from behind? If that's your argument, why was Z running? Seems suspicious.

What's important to remember is that the police appear to have closed the case early on, believing Z's story and calling it justifiable homicide. There was never going to be an opportunity to prove him guilty if it hadn't been for the media frenzy. Now that the city is (finally) moving forward with a case, we're stuck with the media frenzy. But it served a useful purpose, IMO.

Which hurts Zimmerman more than helps him. If he was returning to his truck, why would Martin think he was following him?

Agreed. However, it doesn't jive with the witness testimony. That's all. Not saying it's not a possibility. The witness accounts could be incomplete or incorrect. But it certainly seems that the confrontation took place on that sidewalk.

Nowhere in there does it say a witness saw Martin go after Zimmerman.

I could be wrong, but I haven't seen anyone report that a witness has said this. I'd be happy to read a cite.

There's a lot of inference in there taken as fact. Zimmerman claims that he stepped out of his truck to check a street sign, and was getting back in when Martin came up on him from behind. AFAIK, no witness has corroborated this. Someone on another forum made this map of the neighborhood. Note where Martin's body was found, on a sidewalk between two rows of townhouses. It's not exactly consistent with Zimmerman's story. Either Zimmerman followed Martin behind those buildings, or Martin stumbled a long way after being shot. However, witnesses said that they saw Martin on top of Zimmerman, then later they saw Martin laying on the ground and Zimmerman standing over him. Nobody saw who started the confrontation. Nobody saw the altercation from start to finish. The "broken nose" story has been put out by Z's lawyer. The police only stated that he was bleeding from the nose. Personally, I think if his nose were broken there'd have been a picture leaked to the press of Zimmerman with two black eyes, which is usually what happens when your nose gets broken. "Slammed his head into the ground" is what Zimmerman is claiming, but it's uncorroborated by eyewitnesses. The police only noted that he was bleeding from the back of his head. For all we know, he fell during the scuffle. We really don't know anything about the fight itself. We have one side of the story, and we have tiny bits of eyewitness testimony.

Because usually the police do their job and properly investigate the crime? Seriously, if my daughter (cute little blonde girl) were shot and killed by a black guy who admitted to shooting and killing said cute little blonde girl, do you honestly think the dude would still be walking around free several weeks later? The police would be falling all over themselves to round up brown people.

After ending my telephone conversation with the emergency dispatch operator, I began heading back to my home, where I planned on completing the sweaters I was knitting for orphans in Sudan. It was then that I remembered that my good friend Trayvon was visiting his father, and surely that was the man I saw walking home. Imagine my embarassment! I decided that it wouldn't be fair to let the police rough up the poor lad, so I turned around to return to the place I last saw him. "Excuse me!" I called. "Oh Trayvon! Lovely night isn't it? Amazing how the moon reflects off the clouds. Say, what have you got there? Skittles? My, I do love me some Skittles. But as you can see, I already possess a character of, how shall we say, rather rotund proportions, so I must not partake. But thank you for your kindly offer. I just wanted to warn you that I made the, gosh, how should I put this, ever so understable mistake of alerting the local constables of a suspicious person in the area. Little did I know at the time, dear friend, that it was merely Mr. Martin, traversing the streets of our fine neighborhood on his return trip from a snack merchant." It was then that things got ugly. Trayvon said that he didn't think our neighborhood was particularly fine at all. In fact, he said he believed it sucked! Such offensive language from the mouths of babes. I wouldn't stand idly by while he disparaged our fine community, so I said, "Trayvon, what would your father say if he heard you talking like that? Perhaps we should go tell him now, what do you think?" And Trayvon replied, rather angrily, "Fuck you, spic cracker beaner honkey. I bet you don't even have the fucking gonads to shoot me point blank in the chest." Well, I was taken aback, to be sure, but I did my best to regain my composure. "Now Trayvon," I stumbled, but the remainder of my thoughts were soon aswirl in floating stars and tweety birds. As I regained my composure, it become apparent that I had been socked, right in the nose! Well, I had no idea it was to come to fisticuffs, but if he was stewing for a fight, I wasn't about to go down easy. Except that I went down easy. You see, I have a bad knee here, from the time I rescued that family from a burning apartment building. Already bewildered from a shattered nasal bone, I was unable to maintain an upright stature as Trayvon shoved me to the earth. "Trayvon, how could you! We were supposed to go yachting in the Hamptons this summer!" I cried, as my head cracked the pavement. Blow after blow, he rained his rage down on me. I pleaded with him to take mercy, but he was clearly engaged in the recreational use of marijuana. Reefer, as a I believe the negroes like to call it. I had nearly lost all hope by the time young Trayvon grabbed the sidearm out of my holster. "Don't do it!" I screamed, as he held the barrel firmly against his own chest. His last words to me, coldly uttered, were, "You're going to hang for my death, Jewboy." And then he closed his eyes and discharged a single round into himself." I was beside myself with grief. When the detectives arrived, I couldn't bear the thought of the Martin family learning that their son had committed suicide. For you see, I'm a devout Catholic, and my religion believes that the souls of those who end their own lives are not destined for eternal rest. So I did the only noble thing I could do in that situation -- I took the blame for his death. Oh, forgive me! I could have done so much more to save the life of this troubled youth. Perhaps if I had shared his Skittles after all, none of this would have ever happened.

I suppose I can agree with all of this. I guess I just don't see how "He had no skills, panic set in, and he shot," can be viewed with anything other than contempt. As a legal defense, it's probably good enough. But in the court of public opinion? Pure shitstain.

Fair enough. Personally, I think there's something in between "cold blooded killer" and "lawful gun owner fearing for his life," and that something is "dude gets popped in the nose, gets mad, shoots kid, claims self defense." I also think there's an element of the cops making the same assumptions that Zimmerman did -- black kid, up to no good, wearing a hoodie, etc. So when the story that Zimmerman told them fit nicely with their built-in prejudices, everything seemed neat and tidy. But I really don't want to go down the race road because I don't think it's important. I know Zimmerman guessed wrong about Martin when he called 911 and decided to follow him. I think he overreacted in the heat of the moment. And that's probably we're we'll have to agree to disagree.

He'll lose the inevitable civil suit. You're right, one way or another his life is going to be shitty for a long time. So I guess I should take some comfort in that.

Like you said upthread, so much is based on what we've read and has yet to be proven. "There was obviously a fight" is speculation at this point. You read he had a broken nose, but that's also speculation at this point. You're assuming that Martin caused Zimmerman to fear for his life, which is taking Zimmerman's word that the shooting was self-defense. Speculation. So, given the facts in evidence, all I know is that Zimmerman confronted a kid who was innocently walking home, and the kid ended up dead. If he hadn't confronted him, or if he hadn't been armed, no dead people. Dude fucked up.

And he was wrong. Wrong wrong wrongity wrong. That's all I care about. I'm sick of innocent people getting killed when people get it wrong. Oops! I thought he was suspicious! Ends up he wasn't! My bad! Slap my wrist and I'll be on my way! I don't know what charges I'd even want brought against the guy, but my internal justice alarm wants to see people punished when they get it so god-awfully wrong.

I predict that there will be no conviction, because Zimmerman has a plausible defense given the lack of witnesses and physical evidence. That said, fuck that guy. Kid was walking home with a bag of skittles and ended up dead. Anything that happened in between was Zimmerman's fault for sticking his trigger-happy nose where it didn't belong. If he had just minded his own business, there'd be one less dead person. If he hadn't been armed, there'd be one less dead person. Legally he may have a valid defense, but it pisses me off that someone can initiate a confrontation and then shoot their way out of it when things get too real for them.

Learning how to drive fast and lots of horsepower are mutually exclusive, though.

There's no sales tax on house sales, but the owners' new property tax would be based on the assessed value. I think you'd have a hard time convincing the IRS that this was a legitimate $1 sale as opposed to a gift. You may have to pay capital gains tax and the recipient may have to pay income tax, but the rules appear to be way over my head: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/itax/tax_adviser/20060531a1.asp

Yeah, it's a bit much. Almost cheating, I'd say.

The google groups interface has changed a lot, but it's still there and I can still pull up usenet posts I made from the mid-90s.

This. What I want in a car hasn't changed much, but my circumstances have changed quite a bit. I had to decide, many years ago, that it was better to have a car that worked and did some of what I wanted, than a car disassembled in my garage that might someday do everything I wanted. I also haven't been able to stick with a DD for more than 3 or 4 years because I kept having kids.

I know it's last minute and I'm not sure if this has been posted here, but I'm doing a small road rally in Cincinnati this weekend with my parents and kids. You can still sign up if you want to attend, or you can support their charity via my sponsor page. Info: http://cincysportscar.com/index.php?topic=617.0 Sponsor page: http://www.razoo.com/story/Greg-Bennett-Fundraising-For-Leprechaun-Run-6-Charity-Road-Rally-Fundraising-Team?referral_code=share The charity is an animal shelter in Batavia. Let me know if anyone has questions. I really should have posted this sooner. Thanks.

The problem I see is that the SCCA and it's members are constantly advocating a "run what you brung, anything with 4 wheels and a motor" attitude towards autocross. From the SCCA FAQ: So if I just wanted to hit the lot and have a good time, I'd take my Mazda5. It'd be slow, but who cares? If I were paying money for a car I'd expect it to be class competitive, I'd be doing it because I don't have the money to build a class-competitive car, and I'd expect the builder to have some credentials in terms of winning things. I also probably wouldn't be a rookie. On the other hand, I've been offering to loan out my track car to my friends for years (free of charge), and I finally got a taker for next month, so there's definitely some interest for people who have nothing else to drive (in this case, dude drives a Silverado).

+1. I find it interesting that my facebook and forums are filled half and half with "Watch this video" and "KONY2012 is a scam organization." The meme that it's a scam has spread almost as fast as the video, and the savagery with which people are attacking the organization doesn't seem to match the evidence of their scaminess. Oh noes they earn a middle class income! Having lived in DC where a lot of non-profits are located, the notion that the employees of non profits can make up to eighty eight thousands of doll hairs per year is completely yawn-worthy. It almost feels like people want this to be a scam organization fighting against a non-problem. If you don't want to make it your business, that's fine, but the mockery and the "0 fucks given" seem more like a defense mechanism, like if you pretend that America isn't inconsistently heartless then it must not be true.