2 Broke Girls, 1 Cup

[captqitn]

I was hoping for a little bit more from New Girl  (I have a pretty big crush on Zooey) but the big problem was probably that they gave away every joke and twist in that long-format preview a month ago.

Very glad that her character was quirky and three dimensional and different, but the dudes came off pretty flat.    They felt like a three-headed dude monster.    Hopefully that will change with time and episodes that feature them separately.

[Tripp]

yeah, they showed a commercial for New Girl right before it came on that basically showed the entire episode..

[Berunda]

R.I.P. Troy Davis. America is a slightly uglier place this morning.

[captqitn]

Yes, it is.

It's really disturbing to see the judicial branch fail so spectacularly in broad daylight.

I really thought it would eventually reach a reasonable person with power.

[Bizarro]

I thought the dudes on New Girl were sketched out kinda promising for a sitcom.

[Doctor Rock]

Canada FAIL

I hate, hate mandatory minimum sentence laws.  Not just hate them... I despise them.  I'm against them on principle.  As I'm against the whole "get though on crime" approach of the fucking tories.  Crime rates, and in particular violent crimes rates, have been going down, probably for demographic reasons (aka ageing of the population) for more than a decade.    Besides, mandatory minimum sentences have been used in the US for a long time now.  All they do is fill up jails.  And we need more people in jail like we need an extra anus.  It's yet another case of ideology trumping reality. 

[Berunda]

Eugene Robinson earlier this year on Troy Davis:

"The very idea of executing someone who may in fact be innocent should also violate the nation’s conscience. Mr. Davis is incarcerated. He’s no threat to anyone. Where’s the harm in seeking out the truth and trying to see that justice is really done?

And if the truth can’t be properly sorted out, we should be unwilling to let a human life be taken on mere surmise.

There was no physical evidence against Mr. Davis, and no murder weapon was ever found. At least three witnesses who testified against him at his trial (and a number of others who were not part of the trial) have since said that a man named Sylvester “Redd” Coles admitted to killing the police officer.

Mr. Coles, who was at the scene, and who, according to witnesses, later ditched a gun of the same caliber as the murder weapon, is one of the two witnesses who have not recanted. The other is a man who initially told investigators that he could not identify the killer. Nearly two years later, at the trial, he testified that the killer was Mr. Davis."

[Doctor Rock]

In that, in a nutshell, is why the death penalty is wrong. 

[Bizarro]

Why do you think so many conservatives support the death penalty in cases like this?

Some combination of these?
-expression of outrage over the crime itself, so strong it overpowers interest in the facts
-distrust in the legal system (they see the appeal as some crook's attempt to exploit a technicality)
-faith in cops (they couldn't have framed someone)
-he's black

[Bizarro]

Another question for today... do you think REM was just phoning it in the last few records trying to run out the string on that huge contract? As in, maybe those records sucked because they were ready to quit but didn't want to give up $16MM per record. Also, maybe it was because if they'd have given back the dough and not made the records, it would have exacerbated the talk about how the contract was a mistake in the first place?

[Bizarro]

From Trey's FB:

[captqitn]

As pointed out by a good friend, there is a scary overlap of people who believe:

-   The government can't be trusted to do anything right and should be dismantled.

-   The government never makes a mistake when it comes to executions.

[Bizarro]

I hear you. But those same folks also make a huuuuuuuuuuuge distinction between "their" government people (military and police) and "other" government people (bureaucrats and lawyers).

The cops said a guy did it, so he did, no matter what those damned lawyers try and say.

[Bizarro]

I wish that other guy who was said to have confessed to various people that he was the real killer (and testified against Davis) would go public that he did it now. It could very likely kill the death penalty.

[Bizarro]

Davis's supporters said there was no physical evidence against him, but the police spokesman on the radio said shell casings implicated him. Anyone know the details on that?