Fezmid

Just like conceal and carry was supposed to lead to wild west shootouts in the streets? Didn't see that happen and you won't see these escalations you speak of either.

Actually, the prosecution did add the charge of manslaughter to the list of possible charges Zimmerman could've been convicted of. And that didn't stick either. I also find it really strange that everyone's saying Zimmerman was stupid for calling the police and following Martin. Isn't that what neighborhood watches are SUPPOSED to be doing, watching and reporting suspicious activity to police, just like GZ did? Yeah, people are claiming that he was stalking TM even after he was told not to, but the evidence doesn't support those claims -- they don't support anything other than GM was looking for a street sign to report back to the police. That part really confuses me.

Why is that a stupid law? If you're getting pummeled and think you're going to die, you should just lay back and take it like a man? I don't believe I heard any witnesses say the gun was drawn at all -- and if TM really had seen GZ with his gun out, and he managed to get to his house, why would he circle back and follow GM back? So the evidence suggests that the gun was holstered the entire time.

I won the fantasy football league that a friend of mine does, and made out with roughly $500-$600. Not sure if that counts or not. When I was in 2nd grade, there was a contest to guess how many jelly beans were in a jar. I used math to figure it out and won the jelly beans (teacher made me give the jar back, so the prize was worth what, a buck? ). I won my court case against my slumlord when he tried charging me my security deposit plus an extra $1000 because he had to replace the carpet, paint the walls, and caulk the tub after I had lived there for ~6 years. He ended up having to pay me $800 because in MN, you can sue for twice the deposit plus $200 penalty if a landlord wrongfully withholds your deposit (the judge must've been nice and only charged him the deposit plus $200, even though the trial was totally just like an episode of People's Court, including the slumlord saying, "I raised my right hand and promised to tell the truth, isn't that good enough?!?" ).

You missed my favorite: 6) When police told Zimmerman there was video of the incident, he replied, "Thank God!"

The American justice system won -- because if Zimmerman was convicted based on mob rule, we'd be in big trouble. But I agree with you that no individual "won."

Fair enough. But I'm tired of people saying "poor Martin," when he was even more culpable in this situation than Zimmerman was. There's a HUGE difference between following someone in your neighborhood (who was darting between bushes instead of taking the main road, which does look suspicious) and punching someone, breaking their nose, and then getting on top of them and "ground and pounding" them on the sidewalk.

Used to be 250GB -- I don't know if they've upped it recently or not. I popped the case and plugged in a 1TB drive into mine though. (note that this violates your warranty, blah blah blah).

You obviously didn't watch the trial at all. FACT: Trayvon Martin was only a few yards away from his home when he turned around and went back to find Zimmerman. This was evidence that the PROSECUTION'S WITNESS said FACT: The only non-gunshot injury Trayvon Martin had was on his fists -- consistent with punching someone. No other wounds were found to indicate that Zimmerman was fighting Trayvon and in fact, another witness SAW Martin on top of Zimmerman "ground and pounding" him. FACT: It's not illegal to follow someone around in a public place. If you're being followed and decide to pummel that person, you're at fault.

You do realize that stand your ground had absolutely nothing to do with this case, right? Do you also know that there was a witness who testified that he saw Zimmerman getting a beat down from Martin ("Ground and pound" is the phrashing that was used on the stand). And another witness (from the prosecution) said that Martin was near his house but apparently decided to not go inside. So there was more than one witness. So if a "vigilantes with a gun" killed ZImmerman, it wouldn't be anywhere near the same as what happened to TM, unless Zimmerman was beating the crap out of someone (and other testimony said that on a scale of 1-10, Zimmerman was a 0.5 when it came to fighting).

Broadband Internet was available - I've had it since '99, and the last playoff game was played in January, 2000. In addition, DVRs were available as well - just not very common. Still depressing though.

So let me ask you this. If you had gotten out of your car, punched the cop, broken his nose, then got on top of him and started pushing his head into the concrete -- would he have been within his rights to shoot you dead on the spot? Because THAT'S what the evidence says happened. It has nothing to do with being African American and everything to do with TM being stupid and attacking someone. Following someone is not a crime. Talking to someone is not a crime (even if it's accusatory like, "What are you doing here?!"). Punching someone in the nose, on the other hand, is a crime.

You're mistaken. Capella University, for example, has a .edu, and they're publically traded: http://www.capella.edu/ http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/cpla

Anyone see Stevie Johnson's tweet about the case? "Living in a world where you fight dogs; you could lose everything (Mike Vick).. If you kill a black man you're not guilty! #INjusticeSystem" https://twitter.com/...233842404753409 And then there's Roddy White's, which is extremely distasteful: "All them jurors should go home tonight and kill themselves for letting a grown man get away with killing a kid" https://twitter.com/...247500937629696 I'd link to the original Bleacher Report article that lists all sorts of tweets, but that's apparently not allowed here...

I have my BS in computer science and my MIS in Computer Information Systems. First, the reason I did it was so that I'd be able to teach as an adjunct faculty member when I'm in my 50s and 60s -- retire from high stress IT but still make a few bucks. I knew it'd also help my career in the short term, but that wasn't my reasoning. My previous company had a tuition reimbursement program where they paid for $5k/year of tuition. I managed to time it so that they paid roughly $15k, and I paid roughly $15k. I received my master's degree from Boston University, going through their online program. I looked at a lot of different programs and this one stuck out because it was a great blend of management and technical courses. In one class I built a data warehouse on Oracle (the football play by play database I've talked about before); in another, I built a database system for a Netflix-like company. In another, I came up with a mobile strategy for a made up company. And in another, I created an entire security policy/framework for a medical devices company (fake). It was a great experience. That said - it was also a VERY difficult and time consuming program. It was all online, but there were lectures once or twice a week, for roughly 1-2 hours. The nice part was that if you missed the live lecture, you could watch it recorded later. Homework, however, took a LOT of time -- I'd usually spend roughly 10 hours on Saturday and 4-5 hours on Sunday doing homework assignments. Some classes were worse - like the data warehouse class - and there were many times I had to take a day or two off of work and spent that time doing homework on top of the weekend stuff. I pretty much had no social life for 2+ years. Did it help my career? Hard to say. I learned a lot - so from that perspective it was great. I also left my old company shortly after graduating, and I don't know if my degree helped me get this job or not. I've now been promoted to director of IT Ops a few months ago, so while I can't pin it all on the degree, it had to have helped a little bit (one of the first things I was tasked with at the new job was to build a security program from scratch - much more involved than the class I took, but still, the class gave me a good foundation). Hope this helps.

Wow, the Florida DA office is really corrupt, aren't they...? http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-07-13/story/state-attorney-angela-corey-fires-information-techonology-director-who Sad, but true.

Actually, assuming TM was the aggressor (which the state was not able to disprove), he does have the right to detain TM: http://en.wikipedia....t#United_States It's dangerous (because if you're wrong, you can be sued yourself), but the law gives you the right.

Was the rest of the movie worth watching? The last 20 minutes were laugh-out-loud awesome.

They were fired BEFORE CBS aired the comments on television. They aired it because of all of the negative buzz online -- there was question whether they'd air it at all. Aaryn dug herself an even bigger hole last night -- Amanda went to tell her that she needed to tone it down because some people were getting offended, and she dismissed it, said that was ridiculous and that she's not going to change anything... And I think that shows that CBS hasn't told her that she has no job anymore...

"The only evidence about the shooting was from who? The defendent. Self-serving statements." The prosecution just admitted they have no evidence.

I added the "Don't use evidence" part, but they literally said, "use your heart and your common sense." And also said he should've stayed in his car. EDIT: He did it again: "This case isn't about stand your ground, it's about stay in your car." He's also going on and on saying, "Zimmerman lied. Why did he lie?" Even if Zimmerman DID lie, it doesn't PROVE it wasn't self defense.

State: "Don't use evidence, use your heart and your common sense." Game, set, and match. They have no evidence and they even admit it. They also made the dog argument of, "He should've stayed in his car."

Well played by the defense -- "The prosecution played five calls and you've heard them. There's actually a 6th in evidence where Zimmerman is calling giving concern about children playing and cars zipping by them. Now the state doesn't have to show you things that make my client look good, but remember to listen to that tape too."

I watched the last 20 minutes of the movie last night. It was actually hilarious.

I really wanted to root for Kaitlin and McCray this year since they're both from MN... But yeah, not going to happen. McCray seems cool though.