Ooooh! Spooky! It's Friday the 13th today so you'd better be careful! :eek: It doesn't bother me. It's a Friday so I'll take it. I just hope that it's not bad luck for my Vancouver Canucks who play Game 2 of their playoff series against the Dallas Stars. Even you non-hockey fans must have heard about Game 1 on Wednesday night that was the 6th longest playoff game in NHL history. The NHL playoffs are sudden-death overtimes if regulation ends in a tie so no one goes home until one team scores. They mean it too! The game started at 7:11 pm and ended at about 12:35 am. They played two full hockey games plus an entire period less 1:35 minutes. Can you imagine that? The Canucks won the game in quadruple overtime to lead the series 1-0. It was pretty awesome to watch these guys who were obviously and understandably exhausted. There was hitting throughout too. There is simply no other sport like it.

Some X5 content: My '02 with about 66,000 miles on it is going in to the dealer for brakes. Luckily I had purchased the BMW Extended Maintenance and it will be covered. BMW usually doesn't machine rotors so I might get a new set of rotors. That alone will pay for the plan and I have already had it in for a couple of services. I also have to get an alignment to address my tire wear post in The Tire Rack Forum. I'll be getting some new tires soon so I want to prevent the new set from getting screwed up. It'll be my fourth set of tires. I sold the stock 18's early on to get 19's. I then got the original Pirelli Scorpion Zeros followed by my current Toyo Proxes ST's. I'm not sure what I'll get next but it's between Yokohama Advans and the new Pirelli Scorpion Zero Asimmetricos. I'm leaning towards the Advans because they are highly rated by our sponsor, Tire Rack. (See the info in the thread I linked.)

I was trying to think of what to write this week and I came up with something that a couple of people posted about: the Duke lacrosse case. (Funny side note: Adam Corolla supposedly decided that if he ever gets into porn his name will be "Duke Lacrosse". ) As you might have heard or read in the posts, all charges were dismissed against the three Duke lacrosse players. It took the State Attorney General to step in and make that decision. The District Attorney had to recuse his office because of allegations that he was acting unethically. It came as no surprise to me because I had thought from the very beginning that the case was extremely suspect and I also thought that the DA, Mike Nifong, was putting his foot in it bigtime.

There were many facts that came to light that should have taken the case in the right direction, that is the direction towards dismissing or better yet, not filing charges. Those facts were ignored by Nifong. I had thought to myself that he was biting in that case hard for political reasons. Apparently there were political reasons. In any event, he was very quick to file charges and absolutely smear the defendants in the media. He tried the case to the media from the get go. All along I thought "this guys is a frigging moron". So the bottom line is that the truth came out and justice prevailed. It is unfortunate that the accused had to go through a year of hell when there were so many glaring exculpatory facts. Fortunately, the cases of people wrongfully accused as rare. I acknowledge they happen but they usually get sorted out. 99.99% of people accused of a crime are good for it. There might be an explanation or excuse but they did in fact commit the act they are accused of. As I always say, there is no such thing as innocence, just varying degrees of guilt.

So what went wrong? I think there were really a few things. First and foremost, Mike Nifong is to blame. He was over zealous and was driven by political reasons and that in turn was fueled by Reason 2. Nifong was grandstanding in front of the cameras, playing to the popular opinion, saying what he thought made him sound good. In fact, he handled the case personally. I don't know how big his office is but it is highly unusual that the elected District Attorney would handle a case no matter how serious. It just doesn't happen. His statements to the media were inflammatory and irresponsible. Ultimately his actions were highly unethical and went against everything the District Attorney represents. The DA is supposed to represent The People and keep justice at the heart of everything. The DA is obliged to enforce laws and seek the truth. If there is not a honest and reasonable belief in the guilt of a person then prosecution should not be pursued. In this case, there were so many problem with the case and problems with the "victim's" story right from the start. For example, she gave numerous inconsistent statements with material facts being changed. Also, the photo line-up she was shown was not done in a proper manner. Instead of having her choose from a "6 pack" of photos with a suspect's photo and 5 other random similar photos, they showed her a team picture of the lacrosse team and head her point out who she thought had raped her. (Article about this.) There were so many things that should have killed the case but Nifong ignored them all and pressed ahead, perhaps purposely ignoring those facts. He also had video from an ATM that showed one of the accused withdrawing money when the alleged rape was taking place! What's more is that the other stripper there stated that the rape could never have happened and that the accuser was a liar. Why Nifong ignored the evidence and even withheld some of the evidence we will really never know.

The second thing at fault were the activist groups that jumped on the case and made it into a race issue. I believe that this helped fuel Nifong's fire to get "the rich white boys", perhaps to appease the minority vote he wanted to win. I believe that too many so called activists or rights groups are too quick to cry racism and do so irresponsibly. They incite diviseness and "stir the pot", generally to the detriment of all involved, but always to the benefit of themselves. (Al Sharpton anyone?) People are too afraid to criticize these groups for fear of themselves being branded as a racist so these groups go unchecked. They definitely stirred the pot and made matters worse. They clouded the case with accusations of racism and when such a hot issue is raised it will detract from the truth. I also believe that every time these groups cry racism when it's not the issue, they devalue the cause and lose credibility. Race is a issue in our society and there are racists out there but there are also those on the polar opposite of those racists and by virtue of that may themselves be racists by being so extreme.

The third reason things went out of control was the media. They love a good story and there is nothing that makes a news producer salivate more than an emotional story with sex, well-to-do college kids and a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks, charged full of racism. If Nifong was the wood and the activists were the gasoline, the media was the poker that stoked the fire and kept it going. Is it more exciting to splash accusations of guilt across newpapers and magazines or more exciting to suggest that people wait for all the evidence to be gathered and to take a cautious approach? With the media, they will always go for the cheap thrill and by doing that in this case they convicted the defendants from the beginning. Like the activists, they served to encourage Nifong. I think he enjoyed the attention he received from the press and he liked seeing his quotes printed and repeated on the news. He used the media and the media used him.

I must add one other factor that must share in a significant portion of the blame. The accuser herself. What was she thinking? Who knows but my guess is that she was thinking that she'd try to win the lawsuit lottery. Either that or she wanted her 15 minutes of fame. Either way, she should be charged with filing a false police report and perjury. I hope she understands the damage she did to race relations in North Carolina and the damage she did to rape victims past, present and future. Her lies will forever taint any future legitimate accusations of rape. She is another example defense attorneys will use to argue to juries that it is possible that rape victims "make it all up".

Now for some less heavy news:

Did you see that movie "The Warriors"? Well apparently The Lizzies still exists in New Jersey.
How to pay your fines and get revenge at the same time.
Less oil production = more profits? Economic genius!
When a regular shredder just isn't cutting it.
When nature calls, you've got to answer.
Canadians are serious about their hockey.
With all the new airport security because of terrorism, now you've got one more threat to worry about. I think I prefer a nice car bomb.
Maybe I'm old fashioned but isn't this putting the cart before the horse? I wonder if they come in white?
How Mexican drug dealers want to win you over.
I don't care how tough you think you are, this guy has you beat.

Have a great weekend!

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