Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Our third winner

Well, better late than ever, I guess. It's time to review the candidates, and crown a new idiot with the "WTF was he thinking?" award.

Our first candidate was the moron who called for the overthrow of the Bush Regime (remember, Bush=Hitler.) He argues that Bush refused to heed a summons from Congress, and that this provides evidence of his intent to overthrow the Constitution and set himself up as El Presidente For Life. (Amazing that when Chavez does this in Venezuela, the Left cheers. When Bush allegedly plots this in the US, it's A Bad Thing. Partisanship conquers all)

At any rate, we can't give this jackass the award. He of course believes this inherently. In his pathetic, ignorant view of the world, it makes perfect sense. Again, we have to bow to the insanity of the Left. While a normal person (i.e. Me) can sit here and scratch his head and think "WTF??", it seems logical to the leftists. Sad but true.

Sorry, pal. You're a fool, but you're acting completely logically. For a fool. No award for you.

*****
Our second candidate was HBO, for their new hardcore sex series "Tell me you love me". A hardcore show during prime time. Really good idea.

But I guess they can't win either. Handjobs are something that men like, especially if the woman giving it is attractive. And the woman (I guess she qualifies as an actress, though I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a documentary or not) in question appears to be hot. So while most men would prefer the real thing, and from an honest-to-God-woman-who-looks-like-an-attractive-woman-they-might-know-rather-than-a- silicone-inflated-porn-star, doing the deed will likely get some audience. It might not last too long, but at least initially, the audience will be there.

And besides, they got a couple seasons out of Deadwood, which seemed to exist only for the reason of using the F word every sentence. I'm an ex-infantryman with a potty-mouth, and even I found it to be too much.

So again, sorry. HBO might be kinda dense, but they don't quite rise to the level we require.

*************
Our third nominee was Nebraska Judge Jeffre Cheuvront, for refusing to allow an alleged rape victim to use the word "rape" in court. Ditto for any other witness. Kinda hard to prove a crime if you can't describe it.

Reminds me of the tale I once read of a woman testifying on the witness stand that the accused had made an inappropriate comment to her. Since it was so awful, to protect her virtue she was allowed to write the comment down, and then it was passed to the jury to read. When it reached an attractive woman there, she read it and passed it to her neighbor. Unfortunately, he had been dozing while the witness talked, so he missed the basic story. When he got the note from the woman next to him, he winked at her and then pocketed the note, refusing to give it up, since he said it was "personal".

But onward.... The judge in this case would ordinarily rise to the level of stupidity that would earn him the award, but there are circumstances which prevent it. First off, this is the second trial of the accused, Pamir Safi. The first one couldn't return a verdict.

This kinda set off some alarm bells in my mind, but not strongly enough.

It turns out that, as far as I can piece the story together, it's too much a matter of "he said/she said". I gather that the "victim" Tory Bowen, admitted to meeting the accused at a party, getting drunk and then finding a flat surface (or not) and doing the thing that drunken coeds often do with men they meet at parties. And doesn't deny that this first time was consensual.

The problem arises from the apparent fact that, after they had consummated their new relationship, they apparently went back to the party, where Tory did some more drinking. Later, they apparently left together, and Pamir assumed that her earlier... cooperation... meant he still had a green light, despite her alleged inability to consent to the second time.

This is a toughie. If she was drunk and he had sex with her when she was passed out, that would seem adequate to satisfy me that it was rape. However, if she consented a couple hours earlier, and was still hanging out with him and drinking afterward, then that would seem to be a matter of Tory having a guilty conscience. I.E. The old "I don't usually do this, but...." problem.

The first time she could shrug off as being drunk and horny. The second time? Well she's either a slut, or she was raped!

Guess which one the average woman would choose?

So I can't award the judge the prize. I still don't think it was a good call on his part, but it's impossible to decide if she was raped or not- if she had sex with him a few hours earlier, and it was consensual, then how can one "prove" via normal investigations that the second time was rape?

Which I guess is why the first trial ended with no real verdict.

***********
So now we come to our final candidate. Michael Vick. Let's see.... you're a multi-millionaire when you're 20, due to your incredibly physical gifts. One of the faces of the most popular sporting league in the US. Besides millions of dollars in salary, you earn millions more in endorsements. And you decide to gamble some pocket change on dog-fighting, which is illegal.

And not just that. According to the charges against you, when a dog doesn't meet your standards, i.e. isn't willing to fight to the death for your entertainment, you slaughter it on the spot. Through such humane methods as electrocution and (still my own personal "favorite") slamming it to the ground over and over.

I question whether Vick and his cronies rise to the level of "human", after acts like that.

So.... for risking his entire career, his millions of dollars, his future, his (relatively) good name, the image of the entire NFL, and possibly his freedom, in order to watch Man's Best Friend kill another animal, Michael Vick gets this week's "WTF were you thinking?" award.

Congratulations, Mikey. Now I hope you burn in Hell.

4 comments:

lrbinfrisco said...

"Our third nominee was Nebraska Judge Jeffre Cheuvront, for refusing to allow an alleged rape victim to use the word "rape" in court. Ditto for any other witness. Kinda hard to prove a crime if you can't describe it. "

This has got to be one of the dumbest statements that I've read this year. How does is the word "rape" necessary in describing the crime of rape? Rape is a summary conclusion as to what the crime was. A description would be on what objects organic or otherwise were placed in what orifices of the alleged victim without obtaining legal consent. One of the most common definitions of rape is forced sexual intercourse. This description is perfectly accessible without invoking the word "rape" or any of the other words banned by by Judge Cheuvront. There are plenty of truely lame judicial decision which cannot be supported by law nor constitution. Judge Cheuvront's decision is not one of those. Sure it prevents the alleged victim from using inflamatory language which might prejudice the jury to choose her side based upon emotion and not facts in evidence. But I would hope that all of us would applaud a judge who is trying to get a jury to make an impartial decision based on facts and not emotion. The banned words no more prevent the description of the crime than Webster's dicitonary not using the single word "rape" to define the word "rape" prevents "rape" from adequately being defined. Any semi-intelligent person fluent in the English language can easily convey what occurs in a rape without using that word.

History Snark said...

Fair enough. But what word would you suggest be used instead? "Sexual assault"? Is that any less inflammatory? Perhaps "brutal assault on a helpless, unconscious woman"?

In the original post, I quoted from Ace of Spades something he heard from a judge once: "The question isn't whether it's prejudicial to your case, it's whether it's unduly prejudicial. Of course it's prejudicial to your case, otherwise it wouldn't even be relevant to the case at all."

I think that for everyone to call it "their sexual relationship" is unfair, since that gives an image of consent- which might actually be the case in this instance.

But the judge also refused to allow use of the word rape in the context of "rape kit"; they were not allowed to refer to the defendant as "assailant", the woman couldn't be called a "victim" and so on.

The word is less damaging than the alleged act.

But thanks for your comment.

lrbinfrisco said...

From reading over the published details of the case it appears that the accuser claims she went to a bar had several drinks. While drinking she met the accused and they got friendly, as in chatting with each other while sitting togther. She left with the accused when the bar closed and claimed to not have remembered anything until she became conciously aware during the middle of intercouse with the accused. She did not have any memories of consenting to that intercouse or of even being concious when it began. She could paraphrase my statements above for her testimony. No used of the prohibited words there.

Rape by definition is either forced sexual intercouse or intercource where one of the partners could not give permission. For example sexual intercourse with an unconcious person would be considered rape. By stating that she had no concious memories of intercourse nor to consenting to it, it would leave it to the jury to decide if A) they believed her and B) if having believed her do they think that this means she just blacked out memories because of alcohol use.

What the judge doesn't want is jury members convicting because they were prejudiced with emotion and not fact. The accused can't know for certain that she was or was not raped is what she says is true about not remembering. Alcohol can affect memories of people where they do or say things while under it's influence and cannot remember them later. I've experience this several times with friends and family members. I've also had long and detailed conversations with non drinking friends and family members while they were completely asleep. They remembered nothing of the conversations even a few hours later. In fact I had to record some for a roommate once before he'd believe me. Now, I'm not saying this is the case with the accuser, put it's a possibility. The state's burden is to show that there is no reasonable explanation other than that the accused committed the alleged crime. This case doesn't appear to have sufficient evidence to do this. Instead the prosecutor to a degree and the accuser to a much larger degree appear to be relying on emotion to sway the jury to their side. It's hard to do that if the most inflamatory words are not allowed to be used. Facts can be conveyed just fine. But dull factual descriptions don't inflame emotions very well.

The sad part is that the state is wasting so much money prosecuting a crime which it appears not to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt while thousands of crimes in that state go unsolved for lack of financial resources and which could possibly be proven beyond a reasonable doubt if more resources were devoted to them.

History Snark said...

Agreed with most of what you say. Bottom line, all I'm saying is that if a man is on trial for rape, it seems to me that using the term "rape" in the courtroom is not going to be unduly prejudicial.