We have been following the investigation into the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. The shooter, George Zimmerman, 28, has not been charged and reported a suspicious character to 911. Martin was returning from a 7-11 after buying Skittles. He was carrying the candy, a small amount of cash, and an iced tea. The family and many others have called for the arrest of Zimmerman, though the accounts of the shooting have been murky. Previously, we discussed the need to hear the 911 tapes, which have now been released and are linked below.
Zimmerman is reportedly a habitual caller into the police and is heard on one of the tapes complaining that ““These a**holes always get away.” Zimmerman states on the call that Martin appeared “up to no good . . . It’s raining. He’s just walking around, looking about . . . He’s just staring looking at all the houses.” Zimmerman says on the call that it is Martin who confronts him: “Something’s wrong with him. He’s coming to check me out.” However, he later admits that he is following Martin, which the police dispatcher discourages.
Police Chief Bill Lee said the 911 calls show that the incident was not a case of racial profiling. He said Zimmerman could not say whether the suspect was black or white. However, on the tape you hear Zimmerman say “He looks black” and then a few moments later, “He’s a black male.” While he is at first equivocal, he does identify his race. That does not mean that this is a case of profiling, of course.
However, family member have been critical of the handling of the case by the police and what they view as the police bending over backward to defend Zimmerman. The family had to file a lawsuit to get these tapes. After a hearing, the police finally relented.
The tapes certainly contradict some statements by the police. However, I am not sure that they substantially alter the status in the case. The evidence still is largely based on Zimmerman’s account, though such contemporary records are generally admissible. The tapes both help and hurt Zimmerman.
The statement by Zimmerman that “these a**holes always get away” certainly shows animus and he clearly follows the youth. However, that does not translate into evidence of intent to kill. I am more interested in the level of force used by Zimmerman and the two gunshots heard on the tape. It is possible that audio creates a misleading impression of two shots but that would seem an important forensic question. It is hard to believe that Martin would allegedly continue any confrontation of Zimmerman after a warning shot unless the shot was fired in the midst of a struggle over the gun. Zimmerman can cite the tape for his statement that he believed that Martin had something in his waistband and appeared on drugs. He can also cite his contemporary description of Martin approaching him.
Putting aside the complaints regarding the handling of the case by the police and the conflicting statements given by officials, there remains the question of whether there is sufficient evidence to base a charge against Zimmerman. I would like to see the coroner’s report on the trajectory and distance of the gunshot wound as well as audio analysis of the gun shot or shots. I would also like to see evidence of the abrasions on both men. Zimmerman was reportedly bleeding from the struggle but we have not heard many details on Martin’s other injuries.
Zimmerman would be wise to secure criminal counsel. There is probably enough here for an indictment. The most salient facts against him are (1) the statement on the 911 tape showing animus, (2) the disregarded instructions not to follow Martin, (3) the advantage in weight and possession of a firearm in the struggle, and (4) the lack of any weapon or proof of criminal conduct by Martin.
What do you think about the state of the evidence?
Here is the Zimmerman tape: 911 Tape (Zimmerman)
Here is a witness tape: 911 Tape (1)
Here is a witness tape: 911 Tape (2)
Source: CNN
sonofthunderboanerges1, April 13, 2012 at 5:25 pm
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I’m fine w/YHVH…..and yes, the one that causes, that is All around, about, within, with-out, that re-causes…that 1 is the 1 I was referring to….. I have no clue what sex s/he is…maybe ALL of them! (maybe some I don’t even know about yet…. 😉
Haiku Trayvon
Drizzle, suspicion.
Are these the ingredients?
Enemy: Stand Still!
(Florida winter,
Air can be unwelcoming
to a skinny kid.)
Thuds, heavy breathing.
What am I to you, stranger?
Yet the night is calm.
“Tree grows in Brooklyn”
And in Theresienstadt,
still there were flowers.
Grass we could roll in,
hedges we pull the leaves off,
Someone’s azalea–
Was it sand and beach?
A climb up some steep mountain?
Visit, memories.
Air quality: good.
Young man, you could keep breathing
If you were not shot.
Mike Spindell, Hi, How are you?
Today I couldn’t help looking for a book. (I had spent nearly an hour speaking with a judge and was going to spend an hour working with an independent Arab journalist on an article about Yemen and in between the two activities, I thought, “Wow, why don’t I try to read something to educate myself about the thread’s recent discussion about god and all that?”) So I picked up The Religious Case Against Belief by James P. Carse (Penguin Press, London, 2008). I know, I still don’t do citations right.
So here, on p. 12:
“Galileo was dedicated to the truth however it emerged. But what we see in his life is that there is no end of truths, and not one of them beyond challenge. There is always something new and unexpected to be learned. What drove him, in other words, was not his knowledge but his ignorance. He KNEW that he did not know. He also knew he never would know it all.”
Perhaps I will read the rest of the book after devoting 30 days to a project related to the never-ending-litigation. Anyway, it will be a gift in the end. I cheat that way. I buy a book, read it, and then give it to someone as a gift! Techniques of the poor and stingy.
I never remember really being curious about how we got here. For a few years, when I was very young and impressed with the idea that there were great thoughts in the world that everyone HAD to have opinions about, I tried to bully myself into forming beliefs about things that I had neither studied nor felt curious about (please don’t call the grammar police on me), but I can’t even remember what I came up with, if anything. I think Pascal’s formula ws probably the most interesting one: the chance of god is so tiny, but the possibility so rich, that if you multiply the two you really come up with a significant thing. He didn’t say it in that clumsy fashion; I was lazy to look it up on the www while typing; I had the Carse book right here in front of me at the time I sat down to write.
Haiku God
Perfect weather, light,
my shape fitting in the world,
Do pleasures say God?
Any other day,
brutal cold, marauding sun,
Am I abandoned?
Malisha,
Budding trees abound
I steel myself for long drive
going home good night.
@Woosty’s still a Cat – I really didn’t say that NUMB3RS is an awful TV show. I just don’t like 3 actors in it. They use a real mathematician as a consultant but I just know he cringes every time those 2 fakers start pontificating about how a psychopath will act. Everyone needs to Wikipedia that word “psychopath”. It’s not what you think it means. We US taxpayers allow the hiring of psychopaths in our intelligence community to protect our national security. With the exception of Ollie North and G. Gordon Liddy (et al) we need them – so to speak. I dig any TV show about FBI stuff though. My favorite is Burn Notice on USA Network.
@Gene H. – Yes I feel happy with the SpecProc’s actions and remarks recently. However, I think she is aiming a little high with the Murder 2 when it’s more like a Manslaughter 1, but I think I see her strategy. Aim high giving her some wiggle room with GZ’s attorney when he comes into her office to “do a deal”. If she gets a Murder 2 he could get life. But with Man1 he could get 30+ because it involved a child and a gun (they tack on extra for that). Either way he’ll be a very old man before he gets parole.
Oh and BTW I accepted your drop-it proposal tacitly. Please do not think I’m tacitly inviting you into another loggeria-style debate if I should inadvertently bring the topic up again with *others*. I think all of us know where you stand on that debate. I will not be baiting you… trust me…
@Bron – Oh and BTW your Rense.com web link is NOT the entire story on Plum Island. They have a lot of explaining to do to the US public when the local police dept. not only was called to a horribly deformed Australian Wombat on the shore not to long ago, but now a horribly deformed MAN washed up too. He was in common street clothes, young, African-American male, and of large build at 6′. They have no idea who he was but just like the Wombat his fingers where elongated to grotesque sizes. Huffington Post 15-Jan-2010
“OK Gene this hill isn’t worth taking. I think everybody *knew* what I meant – a higher power. I will concede to you on this to keep the peace.”
Oooo. A non-capitulation capitulation. One usually has to talk to a professional politician to see one of those.
“I thought we agreed that we were both done with this topic.”
Agreement requirese mutual consent. I said I was happy to drop the topic, but you continued on the topic and then agreed for me. Your contintuation and invalid consent-by-proxy pretty much guaranteed I was going to continue at that point.
“Can we now climb back on George Zimmerman the actual topic of this thread? Any comments about that? I would be interested in your P.O.V. on that topic – really.”
Sure. As I said, I’m perfectly willing to drop the other subject. On the Martin case, I think right now, the right thing has been done and appropriate charges have been filed based upon the circumstances. A great injustice due to what looked to be the “good ol’ boy” network in play giving Zimmerman a walk has been avoided. Now the challenge is to see that Zimmerman get a fair trial given the media frezy that has developed around this case. The evidence needs to be presented. The arguments need to be made. A judgment on that evidence and arguments needs to had that is impartial and fair no matter where the evidence leads.
@Woosty’s still a Cat – By implying that God could be a “SHE” implies that you think this supernatural entity is HUMAN. That’s called anthropomorphism. I know you object to the use of the English Pronoun: HE. But if you check the origins of that pronoun I THINK you will see that it was a gender-less expression. Since YHWH (God) ARGUABLY created humans with genitalia and procreative organs does not infer that He himself is a male human. A Catholic priest named Athanasius of Alexandria was the first person to invent the concept of *Trinity* which BTW the word does not appear in the Bible. This concept falsely has one believe that Jesus is also Almighty God and Jesus was a human in the 1st c. CE. However, Jesus routinely prayed and worshiped a non-human supernatural “meta”-“physical” (or higher lifeform – not to be confused with metaphysics) being OTHER than himself known to him, and us, as YHWH (or Yahweh : Hebrew:The one that causes).
@Bron – Just for the record this sh*t was not started by the Obama Administration. This dates back to President Truman and every POTUS since then. Guess what? They want to move to the middle of CONUS. They are prepping for it now. It is being vehemently opposed in Congress though. Why do we need Biological Warfare anyway? Isn’t it the same as nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction? The British started using BIOW on Native Americans in the 17-18th c. (I think) with smallpox infected blankets and in the 1960’s BIOW was tested on US citizens (w/o informed consent) in the NYC subways with pathogen-filled light bulbs and in Minnesota out of a hospital smoke stack. Now the US Navy wants to force a cow blood substitute (HBOC-201) on Americans WITHOUT inform consent. The FDA said No f***ing way! I guess the USN never heard of BSE?
Oh and BTW remember that bout of H3N2 Flu (or some sort of influenza) you had back in the late-60’s. Well you can thank the Soviets (i.e. Brezhnev) for that. Straight from the jet stream over Novaya Zemlya. Take massive doses of L-ascorbic acid (from Rose Hips) daily on a full stomach (if you can tolerate it). Walmart sells it cheap. It’s a antioxidant prophylaxis not a remedy. So start early!
@Gene H. – OK Gene this hill isn’t worth taking. I think everybody *knew* what I meant – a higher power. I will concede to you on this to keep the peace. I thought we agreed that we were both done with this topic. Can we now climb back on George Zimmerman the actual topic of this thread? Any comments about that? I would be interested in your P.O.V. on that topic – really.
@Mike Spindell – Very eloquently put!
Darwins’ Theory has always made sense to me to the point I accept it as conceptually true. However, that being said I don’t think it negates the possibility of a creative force informing the Universe. Nevertheless Genesis has always bugged me due to its internal inconsistencies. It can only be seen as allegory, a form which our ancestor’s understood far better than we do. The imprimatur of making allegory into history was laid down to keep the masses in their places, by misinterpreting the message in the allegory.
Goodnight all, long drive over this weekend and I’ll be out of touch. I’ve really enjoyed this thread so far.
Bron, I had to clean the sticky off the bottom of my shoes after checking out that web-site….
SOTB:
http://www.rense.com/general67/plumislandlyme.htm
now aint that some shit? fucking government. and they want to control our health care? no fucking way. we would all end up being research monkeys. can you imagine that? 300 million participants in bacteriological or virologY.
HEY! NUMB3RS is an excellent show! And I do believe that much of it is feasible tho real life stuff is probably not so easily crammed into a 1 hour time slot….and as far as G*d is concerned, well you are free to express atheism but s/he may find that to be somewhat arrogant…
😉
sonofthunderboanerges,
You’ve mistaken me for 1) somebody who cares if you attack atheists or not – I was merely pointing to the tactic – and 2) somebody impressed by people who make up the meanings to words. The word used was “metaphysics” which has a specific meaning and derivation. Quite frankly, your claim to be using “the original Ancient Greek meaning of META PHYSICAL” is bullshit.
“I am using it’s root meaning which is: meta- (Greek for higher [than]) and physical (Greek for or the ‘human soul’).”
The term “metaphysics”, including its conjugation “metaphysical” come from the ancient Greek (which in this instance has the same vocabulary as Medieval Greek) meta (μετά – meaning beyond or the next generation) + fysiki (φυσική – Medieval translation “physika”, meaning “physics” in English or describing the physical processes and phenomena of a particular system or the physical properties and composition of something, derived from the neuter plural form “physikos” meaning “of nature”. The OED defines “metaphysics” as:
metaphysics /ˌmetəˈfiziks/, n.pl.(sing.),
the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
abstract theory or talk with no basis in reality: his concept of society as an organic entity is, for market liberals, simply metaphysics
Metaphysics has two main strands: that which holds that what exists lies beyond experience (as argued by Plato), and that which holds that objects of experience constitute the only reality (as argued by Kant, the logical positivists, and Hume). Metaphysics has also concerned itself with a discussion of whether what exists is made of one substance or many, and whether what exists is inevitable or driven by chance.” [emphasis added]
Oddly enough, your “definition” of the word has no basis in reality too.
The word for “soul” in ancient Greek is not fysiki. It’s psūkhē (ψυχή) which later translates to psūkhikos and into English as either “soul” or “psyche”. The root of the word “psychology”. The term for “beyond soul” is most accurately translated as “metapsychology /ˈmetəˌsīˈkäləjē/, n., speculation concerning mental processes and the mind-body relationship, beyond what can be studied experimentally.” (OED)
Therefore the defintion you use for “metaphsyics” (and your explanation of it) is simply made up. Anything that is “beyond nature” in any way is not observable, measurable or repeatedly testable. The phrase “very real and verifiable metaphysical world that exists all around us” is contradictory. Nothing about metaphysics or metapsychology is verifiable and any assertion that it is real is simply an assertion of belief, not fact.
“You can keep saying God doesn’t exist but never vocalize exactly why you feel that way. ”
Because there is no scientific evidence to prove that assertion, although you are making a false representation of my position vis a vis a “god”. I didn’t say God or a god does not exist. That’s a straw man. My first contention was that you were misusing and/or didn’t understand the word “metaphysics”. My second contention was that evolution and natural selection are scientific facts that require no divine supervening force to explain the processes. Your statements beg the question (as did Newton’s) that God or a god exists. My statements make no such assumption but instead go to the etymology and meaning of the word “metaphysics” and the testable veracity of evolution and its mechanisms as science. Yours are statements of belief. Mine are statements of historical and empircal fact. As to my actual position on the existence of God, technically I am an agnostic/Deist and my position is best summed up by the Buffalo Springfield lyric “There’s something happinin here/What it is aint exactly clear”. If there is a god, he/she/it is not concerned with what humans do. To think so is the height of anthropomorphic arrogance. If there is a god, this being would be understandable in no human context other than perhaps as Aristotle (and the Deists) defined the idea of a “Prime Mover”. The Bible beyond the words “Let there be” is simply a tool created by men to control other men through supersition, fear and manipulation by and of guilt. This belief is perfectly compatible with the practice of science and does not require faith over proof. However, my beliefs are immaterial to the facts. Just as I believe I’d like to kiss Emma Stone, that belief is irrelevant to the facts of whether she’s amenable to the idea or not. Just so, your belief that natural selection is the metaphysical “hand of God” (I know those aren’t your exact words, but a paraphrase) is immaterial to the scientifically proven fact that no divine supervening factor is required to explain the processes of either evolution in general or natural selection in specific.
Science is the realm of the real; the quantifiable and testable. Metaphysics and beliefs are the realm of speculation; no proof required or generally possible. Natural selection is science – good science at that – and very real, but it is not a “belief system”.
Watch: George Zimmerman’s first court appearance (and nervously roll his eyes)
I think his next court date is: 29May-2012
His affidavit says he is 5′ 8″ and 180 lbs and he said “punks” not “coons”. Oh well…
@All – Sorry to bring this thread back on point but here’s the latest:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/12/2745357/prosecutors-zimmerman-profiled.html
They are allowing him Jolly Ranchers? Why? Where’s the bread and water? 🙂
@Bron – I will admit this… There is a lot mainstream academia DOESN’T KNOW about viruses and mutations. Thanks to our *friends* at Plum Island NY (Dept of Homeland Security – Directorate for Science and Technology) and the illegal* 60+ year old OSS/CIA Operation Overcast/Paperclip (mass defection of WW2 war criminals), the world is being introduced to a lot of mysterious mutated viruses. Thanks to the late Dr. Erich Traub we now have Lyme Disease (released in my state in Old Lyme not far from Plum Island). What’s next? Mutated avian-virus breakout? It seems people like regurgitating other peoples work even if it is nefarious work.
*POTUS Truman made an ExecOrder which would have made OOPC illegal and incidentally, still is.
@Malisha – Actually the program is called U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP). MK4 is just one of 3 dolphin teams (4,7,8). The other 2 are a mixture of seal lions and dolphins.
@rafflaw – Re: NUMB3RS – Well I’m turned off when I see that guy from Taxi. And those two other bozos remind me of Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory TV show. They are all pompous academics and coincidentally atheists (aka “band-wagoneers”). Why are they? IMHO no one has ever done a pathological (i.e. study of the path) report as to how an atheist, or agnostic, gets to where they are today. Of course there are pet “theories” but no one has really vocalized it in a investigative report. Now… I’m talking about a philosophical viewpoint not plethora of scientific technical regurgitation of other people’s SPECIOUS theories of whatever.
@Malisha – You are right about dolphin therapy. You could go to a place in Mexico where you can do this. The US Navy has a secret program called MK4 but it is very strange and no one can visit unless you have a clearance. I think they are in CA, LA, and FL. Not sure about other areas. They are using then in Straits of Hormuz right now.
I went to Sea World in Orlando FL to interact (outside the pool) with wild dolphins. What an experience! I also got totally dissed’ by an Orca*! What a snob! (LOL)
*The same one that killed that girl – the trainer? I’m glad I didn’t try and interact with it.
Having read “The Tao of Physics” many years ago and from a layman’s perspective keeping up with the developments in modern physics, like “string theory” and Quantum Phyysics I’ve concluded that we really know so little of the workings of the Universe that all things are possible. All things are possible because the Universe, so far defies our understanding.
Given that, the notion of a “Creator”, or “Creative Force” is as probable as other explanations. Religion, however, except in the use of its rituals meditatively, does turn me off when the allegories of its “Holy Books” are taken literally. The idea that some temporarilly dominant species, on a backward planet, understands the working of this universe via the revealed wisdom in books that have been constantly edited and re-edited for millenia to serve a society’s elite seems silly to me. That in some of these writings there is some philosophical wisdom to be found on how to live ones life makes sense to me. Beyond that the belief that these internally contradictory writings are immutable expressions of creation doesn’t seem convincing.
Because of the above, I count myself as a deist in that I think the odds are very slightly in favor of a creative force informing the universe. The improbability of the turns in my own life and my current continuing existence
give me a glimmer of a hope that there are workings in this Universe beyond my ken and that of any other human.