Half Sigma

Mark O’Mara requests a new judge

Reported by the Orlando Sentinel, Mark O’Mara requested a new judge for his client, George Zimmerman.

Either (1) Mark O’Mara has been reading my blog and took my advice; or (2) he just knows what he is doing without my help.

Looking at mug shots

The Orlando Sentinel has a feature that allows you to view Orlando County mug shots.

Most of the criminals are black, and of the ones that aren’t, and if they aren’t Hispanic, then they look like white trash or at the very best prole whites. (The prole whites are usually charged with DUI or domestic violence, while the white trash are charged with the more serious crimes.)

Then after looking at 33 mugshots, I came across this guy. I thought, this guy looks middle-class, what is his mugshot doing here? The record only mysteriously said that he violated parole. Why would this guy be on parole?

So after doing some digging, I discovered that his crime was being caught in a sting operation to entrap men looking to meet underaged girls on the internet. He was convicted of the crime of "Traveling To Meet Minor To Commit Unlawful Sexual Offense."

And his parole violation was for driving with a suspended license, which was suspended for reasons related to his original "sex offense." Once the system gets its hooks into you, you are screwed for life. The lesson here is don't go to meet underage "girls" that you meet on the internet.

Hearsay

An out-of-court statement is inadmissible to prove the truth of the matter asserted: unless it falls under a hearsay exception. An out-of-court statement is always admissible to prove that it was said, if the saying of it was relevant.

This means that Mark O’Mara cannot introduce evidence that Trayvon Martin’s father said the voice on the 911 call was not his son’s. That would be an out-of-court statement admitted to prove the truth of the matter asserted. O’Mara will have to call the father as a witness so he can state this directly. If the father (as he will likely do), says the voice his not his son’s, then O’Mara can introduce the evidence of the out-of-court statement to impeach the witness.

There’s no hearsay problem with introducing evidence that Trayvon Martin said “you’re going to die” because that would be admitted not to prove the truth of the matter asserted, but rather to prove that it was said. The saying of it might cause Zimmerman to fear for his life and then be justified to use deadly force.

Of course it has been a really long time since I was in law school, so if I get any of this wrong, I am sure I will be corrected in the comments.

Earliest news coverage of Zimmerman/Martin

Here’s a video containing local news coverage of the shooting.

This video is worth watching because it shows the coverage of the incident before Zimmerman became the most evil person to ever live since Hitler. This coverage is fair and neutral. It features an interview with “John,” the witness who says that he saw the guy in yellow (that’s Zimmerman) on the ground being beaten up. There is an unbiased explanation of why there wasn’t enough evidence for a manslaughter charge. One of the points was that detectives said that Trayvon’s father said the voice heard on the 911 call screaming for help wasn’t his son’s.

Unfortunately, I believe that in order for Mark O'Mara to get the part about Trayvon's father admitted into evidence, he will have to put the father on the witness stand, otherwise it's hearsay.

Another reason not to go to community college

As reported by KMOX St Louis:

KIRKWOOD (KMOX) – It’s the latest video seen around the world, capturing a huge fight at a St. Louis Community College campus.

The incident, which happened Monday, begins with a woman getting into an argument with another woman while holding her young daughter. One of the women begins to attack the woman as she holds the child.

Eventually, she backs away and puts the child down and the two really start to go after each other.

More fights erupt. At one point, a pile of people rolled around in the bushes while throwing punches at each other.

The first woman even shrieks, “Where’s my baby?!?”

First faculty members, then campus police step in and try and calm things down. A circle of stunned students stood and watched.

Of those involved, three were arrested and charged with assault. Five were expelled from the college.

Based on the news story, you might think the people fighting at this “college” were white people, but nope. It’s a bunch of black people fighting with each other.

Yet another example of why you don’t want to attend, or teach at, a community “college.” And also why you want to heed Derbyshire's advice about avoiding blacks.

A higher-resolution version of the video can be seen here on YouTube.

Short post about women and men

Saw the following comment somewhere else on the web:

Anyhow, in every human society, whatever men do (it isn’t always important what it is) is high-status. Whatever women do is low-status.

So let’s explore this issue. Men play World of Warcraft. High status? I think not.

It’s actually women who determine what’s high status in society, so the reason why certain male-dominated activities are high status is because they have the approval of women.

As far as the original topic, which was whether men should “go Galt,” my research into the GSS revealed that being married is one of the key things that increase happiness. Having children does not increase happiness; it’s only being married that increases happiness.

Also my sociological research shows that smart ugly woman from a high social class are least likely to screw you over. These are the opposite of the type of women that Mystery and those guys would try to pick up.

Mark O’Mara, please read!!!

Judge Jessica Recksiedler said her husband works for the law firm of Mark NeJame, who's been hired to act as a CNN analyst for this case. She has offered to step down if asked.

You should take advantage of this and ask for a new judge. You will be better off with an ugly male for a judge, and not an attractive woman. Ugly men are independent thinkers. Jessica has watched the news and she probably is going into this believing that Zimmerman is the most evil person to ever live since Hitler.

I doubt there will be any plea bargaining

There is talk on the internet that Angela Corey overcharged Zimmerman so she could get him to plea bargain to a lesser offense.

I don’t think that’s what happened. The charging affidavit just follows the spin that Ben Crump has been selling the whole time. That Zimmerman, who is the most evil man to ever live since Hitler, saw Trayvon, assumed he was a criminal because he was black, so he chased him down, then when Zimmerman caught up to him, Zimmerman started beating him up. Despite Trayvon’s cries of help, Zimmerman shot him to punish him for his imagined crimes. Based on these (false) facts, Zimmerman would be guilty of second degree murder.

I think that Corey believes her own BS.

It would be a bad idea for Zimmerman to agree to any time in prison, because once he’s put in with the general prison population, he probably won’t even last as long as Jeffrey Dahmer.

Thinking about the affidavit

Actually, there’s a lot to learn from the charging affidavit.

I’m not familiar with Florida rules of criminal procedure, but I presume the prosecution has no obligation to put exculpatory evidence into this affidavit, because the purpose is to demonstrate “probable cause.” It’s not a trial where the defendant has a right to present evidence. So not surprisingly, it only contains facts and innuendo that’s favorable to the prosecution.

The affidavit doesn’t contain any new facts or new witnesses we don’t know about. This demonstrates that the prosecution has a very weak case. The prosecution is not going to hide any good incriminating evidence by not putting it into the affidavit. The prosecution wants to put its best evidence into the affidavit to ensure a finding or probable cause.

We now know that there are no witnesses who saw Zimmerman beating up Martin or saw Zimmerman throwing the first punch, otherwise it would be in the affidavit. The major witnesses for the prosecution are DeeDee, Martin’s girlfriend, and Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s mother, and neither of these witnesses were actually there to see anything. I personally have serious doubts about DeeDee’s veracity. I hope that Zimmerman’s investigators can find some good dirt on her in order to impeach her testimony.

Zimmerman judge is a hot babe!

Well, at least a lot closer to being a hot babe than most other judges.

This is probably bad news for Zimmerman. She will be less logical than an ugly male judge. She has probably already bought into the idea that Zimmerman is the most evil man to ever live since Hitler.

False facts in charging affidavit

The affidavit against Zimmerman contains “facts” that we on the internet know to be false.

The affidavit says that Trayvon “attempted to run home,” but which implies he was prevented from doing so by Zimmerman. We know that Trayvon ran away, and then came back to accost Zimmerman.

The affidavit says “Zimmerman disregarded the police dispatcher and continued to follow Martin who was trying to return to his home.” A reasonable listening to the phone call, and the location of the altercation, demonstrates that Zimmerman did not ignore the dispatcher. He said “OK” and was returning to his car.

Sybrina Fulton’s accidental remark

She said:

I believe it was an accident. It just got out of control and he couldn't turn the clock back.

In other words, she believes that Zimmerman is not guilty of what Florida calls “second-degree murder,” which requires the jury to find that the defendant had a “depraved mind.”

Too bad that’s not going to be admissible at the trial.

* * *

I take that back, it MAY be admissible at trial to contradict her testimony or impeach her credibility. The prosecution may use her as a witness to [mis]identify Trayvon's voice on one of the 911 calls.

Thomas Kinkade obituary

I’ve written about Thomas Kinkade before:

Thomas Kinkade, artist for the proles
Landscape paintings and Christianity

Sadly, he died a few days ago. I say “sadly” not because I love his paintings, but neither do I hate them, and it’s always sad when someone dies at a young age. Kinkade was only 54.

I think that Kinkade was pretty talented at painting landscapes, but only had mediocre skills at painting figures. I think if he had chosen to paint more naturalistic landscapes without the fake colors and glowing lights, and without humans in them, he would have been well respected among a very small clique of landscape painters and collectors. It’s a small clique because landscape painting is out of favor. The elites don’t like that kind of art. Prole Christians like landscapes, but they also have bad tastes which Kinkade pandered to.

Kinkade became the most hated artist among the elite because he became wealthy painting for that prole Christian market. On the other hand, much wealthier artists like Damien Hirst receive no opprobrium from the elite even though Hirst is ten times the scam artist that Kinkade is.

A reader suggested that I could sell my own landscape paintings if I marketed them as having some sort of Christian connection. It's said to be a growing market.

Mark O’Mara seems like a promising choice of attorney

There’s more about Mark O’Mara at a CNN article

O'Mara replaces Zimmerman's previous lawyers, Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig. They told reporters Tuesday that they had lost contact with their client and could no longer represent him.

O'Mara said the family contacted him after referrals from other lawyers.

He is a well-known criminal defense attorney who is no stranger to high-profile cases and TV cameras. In 2004, he successfully defended Shamir Suber, who was charged with second-degree murder for plowing into the back of a car and killing its driver while trying to evade police. Suber was eventually convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Zimmerman was alone Wednesday when he turned himself in to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's office in Jacksonville, said department spokeswoman Joyce Dawley.

If you remember, Craig Sonner is a DUI attorney who has never been involved in a homicide trial. That’s why Sonner finally called in Hal Uhrig who did indeed have more experience, but I don’t get the impression that Zimmerman himself had anything to do with that selection.

What Mark O'Mara needs to do now is get some private investigators to dig up dirt on Trayvon Martin. If they can find the bus driver that Trayvon allegedly punched, that would be a huge boon for Zimmerman's defense. But I don't know where Zimmerman is going to get the money for that. Too bad he can't afford to hire the guys that O.J. used to dig up dirt on Mark Fuhrman.

Brian Dunn, former CEO of Best Buy

You may not know that Brian Dunn recently “resigned” from being the CEO of Best Buy because there is some sort of probe into his “personal conduct.”

What’s unusual about him is that he’s not a college graduate:

Mr. Dunn, 51 years old, was a rare CEO in modern American retailing: a onetime store salesman who worked his way to the top over nearly three decades at the same company.

He never attended college, joking that he went to the "university of retail." He fondly recalled his days selling stereos on the store floor in the 1980s, when he sported a long, swirly haircut and would crank up the soundtrack from "Miami Vice" to draw in customers.

He looks rather prolish in the photo at the Wall Street Journal. I wonder what qualities he had that enabled him to rise to CEO?

Special evidentiary hearing for Zimmerman

George Zimmerman is entitled to a special evidentiary hearing because he claims self defense.

But will any judge be willing to become Public Enemy Number One by finding in favor of the most evil person to ever exist since Hitler?

* * *

Zimmerman’s new lawyer is Mark O’Mara. He seems like less of a bozo than the last lawyer. And he has prior media experience, which is important in this case.

Zimmerman will be charged!

News conference at 6pm.

My original take on the selection of Angela Corey as special prosecutor is that it was really bad news for Zimmerman, that she would go all-out to get him convicted. “Angela Corey is going to want to become the hero who convicts the most evil man to ever walk the face of the earth since Hitler,” I wrote on March 23rd.

But then I made the mistake of reading the blog of MacRanger who claimed to have inside information that Zimmerman wasn’t going to be prosecuted. That guy turned out to be wrong about everything. What a moron.

Zimmerman needs to find a quality criminal lawyer fast, and not some DUI attorney from a 5th tttier law school.

SECOND DEGREE MURDER

Back on March 28th I predicted that “Zimmerman is going to be charged with a lesser type of murder, such as ‘manslaughter.’” And today the prediction has been proven true. Zimmerman is charged with “second degree murder” which is the Florida equivalent of manslaughter.

* * *

Commenters have corrected my false assumption about Florida's criminal law statutes. In florida, "Second degree murder" would appear to be a more serious charge than "manslaughter."

§ 782.04(2) The unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual, is murder in the second degree and constitutes a felony of the first degree, punishable by imprisonment for a term of years not exceeding life or as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

But remember that "manslaughter" and "second degree murder" mean different things in different states. There's very little uniformity in murder statutes.

A Berber atheist speaks out on Azawad

A reader who claims to be a Berber atheist wrote the following in a comment:

Puh-lease, it's easy for western powers to accuse any separatist group as a group of terrorists or islamists in order to protect their interests there ( the french company AREVA, anyone ? ). "Stability" is also another excuse. Seriously, can we talk about stability if we already have Al-Qaida in the region ( supported by the Mali gvt in order to justify military bases and also to crack down any rebelion by the tuaregs(berbers) ) and that it's been a very long time that NO STATE IN THE REGION has done ANYTHING against it ?

Can we talk about Sharia or Islamism if the MNLA, the tuareg movement who liberated Azawad and declared independence, already said that their aim is a secular democratic state ? Yes you've heard correctly : SECULAR. Here you have the declarations of their spokesmen in French ( if you don't speak that language, I can do nothing for you ) : http://tamazgha.fr/L-Azawad-est-independant.html and here : http://tamazgha.fr/Declaration-de-proclamation-de-l.html . The berber culture in general is secular, and so is the tuaregs'. For example, in tuareg culture, if one divorces from his wife, his wife gets everything from him and he has to leave. In tuareg culture, women are considered sacred because they are the source and guardians of tuareg knowledge and culture, and they're relied on to pass it on to next generations ( actually, it's thanks to them that our alphabet, Tifinagh, got saved although it is thousands years old ). In tuareg culture, it is the men who are veiled ( not of chastity, but because of the climate of the desert ), not the women. You CANNOT find these things in the awful Sharia law, which has nothing at all to do with tuareg culture.

Actually, if you think about it, you'd see that the only press agencies linking the tuaregs to islamists are AFP ( French agency ), ElWatan ( Algerian agency, and Algeria has no interests in a tuareg state because it fears that its own tuaregs demand independence ), Al-Akhbar ( Mauritanian agency ), and various Malian ones. Seriously, are you expecting these states to welcome the independence of Azawad ? Of course not, they will try to paint it in every awful color to make sure it gets negative response from the international community, and it works well thanks to people like you who believe every shit they read.

The tuaregs only want independence and the right to fully assume their identity, to develop their land where they wouldn't be marginalized by an anti-white community ( sorry, racism goes in both ways, there is anti-whites racism too and that's what tuaregs, who represent only 10% of Mali population, suffered from ). What's wrong with that ? Why don't the western powers open their eyes ? They want to preserve their interests with Mali ? But then, wouldn't it be better to make deals with Azawad, which is perfect because it is a nuclear society : big territory + very small population ( only 1 million ) + many resources which couldn't be accessed due to Al-Qaida presence, which wouldn't pose a problem because it suffices to cooperate with the MNLA who already proposed to eradicate Al-Qaida from its territory.

It has nothing to do at all with the islamist spring in arab countries ( mostly Egypt ) where people clearly chanted "death to isreal/usa" or "people want sharia" slogans in the streets. By the way, the OCI ( Organisation de Coopération Islamique ), which comprehends nearly all islamic states, refused the independence of Azawad ( which for me is great, because it shows that there's no foreign Islamic agenda ( no sharia country can survive without help from gulf kingdoms ) ), in opposite to the countries which had the islamic spring ( the Sharia regimes are mainly supported by Qatar and Saudi Arabia).

Of course, if the international community continues to isolate the tuareg and threatens to use force against them, then yes, you must expect the tuaregs to be forced to work with Al-Qaida as an ally, but then, it would be YOUR fault, not ours. The international community wanted to erase the tuaregs from history, but they responded present and they will be.

Oh and by the way, I'm a berber atheist, in case you'd accuse me of being a muslim who just seeks to give excuses for the tuareg rebellion .

A rambling blog post about class

In order to feel good about themselves, humans need to feel that there are other people below them on the totem pool. This is a sad but true reality of human nature.

Because of this important human need, we humans spend a lot of time trying to figure out how the social class immediately below us is different and inferior. On the other hand little attention is usually paid to the higher class, because thinking about the class higher than you doesn’t give you any good feelings, and in fact can cause cognitive dissonance. It’s because of this that people know a lot about the difference between themselves and the class immediately below them, but very little about the difference between themselves and the class above them.

One (but certainly not the only) important differentiator is money. Having more money makes you feel superior to those who have less money. But money just sitting in a bank account doesn’t demonstrate this very well. Thus did Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption.” But you should also be aware that people who spend money seldom think about conspicuous consumption, because a lot of this behavior works on the subconscious level. Driving around in a ten-year-old Hyundai just causes people to have feelings of inferiority when they see other people drive by in more expensive cars. We are less likely to feel envy of people’s bank accounts because they are invisible and there’s a social taboo for people to speak about them.

I think the people who are most opposed to an increase in the minimum wage are those making slightly more than the minimum wage. For the guy making $12/hour, an increase in the minimum wage from $7 to $10 would be a mighty blow to his feelings of success. But people making six figures are so far insulated from making $7/hour that they just don’t suffer the least bit of worry that increasing the minimum wage would lower their own status.

There are other ways to feel superior to other people besides having more money than them. This is what Class X is about. If you voluntarily (or involuntarily) choose a career that doesn’t offer the greatest monetary rewards, then you look to other ways to feel superior. This is what the whole SWPL movement is about, participating in a culture that makes you feel superior to proles making the same money as you.

Back in the 1980s, Tom Wolfe observed in Bonfire of the Vanities that expressing racist opinions of blacks is considered low class. This is even more true today. The lowest class of whites can feel superior by looking down at the blacks, but higher class whites feel superior over the lower class of whites by having a kindler and noble view of blacks. This is one of the challenges for those of us trying to present the truth of HBD. It's akin to trying to convince people of the superiority of malt liquor, or the fun of summering at Seaside Heights (also known as the Guido Riviera).

Azawad

I was thinking of writing about Azawad before Steve Sailer beat me to it.

I don’t think the issue is as opaque as Sailer makes it out to be. The northern half of what used to be Mali and is now Azawad is Berber, while the southern half is black. Azawad will likely become an Islamist state aligned with groups like Al Qaeda. This is blowback from Obama’s meddling in Libya. We should have left Kadaffi in charge.

The Wikipedia entry for Azawad may be missing some information, but considering that the country has only existed since April 6th, it’s impressive that there’s already a fairly detailed Wikipedia entry.

Zimmerman's attorneys withdraw!

What’s going on here?

First of all, Zimmerman’s attorneys can’t withdraw from the case, because as of the present, there is no case. Zimmerman has not yet been charged with anything.

Zimmerman apparently couldn’t take sitting around in silence, and has decided to be more proactive in presenting his side of the story. Of course the standard advice from defense attorneys is to keep your damn mouth shut. But I’m not sure it’s good advice in this case, as the “case” is being tried in the media rather than in the courtroom. Anything Zimmerman says can be used against him if he is ever tried in court, but maybe that doesn’t matter if his story is consistent and he’s truly innocent. Lawyers are so used to dealing with guilty clients that they don’t know what to do when they have the extremely rare innocent client.

The fact that the two lawyers were working the case pro bono may have contributed to their eagerness to withdraw. Also, I previously pointed out that Sonner is a DUI attorney who has no experience with anything like a murder case. Zimmerman needs some private eyes who will dig up dirt on Martin (like how OJ's private eyes dug up dirt on Mark Fuhrman, although the same private eyes were unable to find the "real killers").

Zimmerman calling Angela Corey is an interesting move. He probably tried to plead his side of the story to her, but I'm not sure if she's a person with normal human emotions who would have any sympathy for him.

Julian Zelizer has good advice for Mitt Romney

Julian Zelizer, who is a history professor at Princeton, has good advice for Mitt Romney. He says that Romney should pick a boring Vice Presidential candidate.

This is the best advice I’ve ever seen in the MSM. It also mirrors exactly what I have previously written in my blog. I hope Romney reads that column.

The point is that really good VP pick does very little to help a candidate, but a bad VP pick can be very harmful. You don’t want to pick a Sarah Palin, a Dan Quayle, or a Geraldine Ferraro. (Zelizer didn’t mention the last two, but I think they are the two worst VP picks of my lifetime after Sarah Palin).

The primary purpose of the VP pick is to demonstrate that the Presidential candidate has made a wise choice in choosing someone who is able to take over the government if the President dies and there’s a national emergency. The Presidential candidate should not choose a VP to generate excitement or to rally the base. Zelizer correctly points to George H.W. Bush, Al Gore, and Dick Cheney as being excellent choices for VP.

Using this logic, Rubio would be a bad choice for Romney. Romney doesn’t want a candidate who’s so exciting that he will take away from Romney himself. Of course, using that logic, Chris Christie would also be a bad choice, because Christie is pretty exciting.

Rob Portman would be a good choice. I don’t know much about him, but he seems kind of boring, and he graduated from Dartmouth and then from a Top 14 law school, so he can’t be all bad.

Most wanted man in America

Osama bin Laden was taken off the FBI top-ten most-wanted list, because he was killed, and today he was replaced by a third grade teacher whose crime was to surreptitiously install a camera in the bathroom and take prurient photos of the little boys and girls (it’s not clear which sex he was into), and presumably he would look at the photos and jerk off.

Is this guy really one of the ten most dangerous criminals? I think the FBI is just pissed that he has been able to evade capture for four years.

Listen to Chris Christie

As reported by NJ.com:

Addressing Bush and other national Republicans, Christie said he hasn't seen a less optimistic period in the country in his lifetime.

"Government's telling them stop dreaming, stop striving, we'll take care of you," he said at a theater at the New York Historical Society. "We're turning into a paternalistic entitlement society. That will not just bankrupt us financially, it will bankrupt us morally."

"We'll have a bunch of people sitting on a couch waiting for their next government check," Christie said.

Christie makes a valid point, although we need to have a public debate about whether this is “moral” or not. It’s a debate that’s not happening, because in the liberal fantasyland, people aren’t living off of government checks, they are temporarily relying on a “safety net” while they work on their job skills.

Christie doesn’t address the problem that some people receiving government checks have nothing useful to contribute to the economy. That’s why I previously recommended that we require people to play a game like World of Warcraft for a living:

[T]here’s already slave labor in China making virtual gold playing World of Warcraft. So it’s not too much of a leap of imagination to think that one day, the U.S. government will pay its citizens to do pointless virtual activities (but which, through clever programming, seem meaningful to the participants).

Goodbye Rick Santorum

On March 14th I wrote:

The headline news is that Santorum "won" last night, but if you look at the actual delegate count from last night, Romney is actually the winner. . . . Once the primaries move to Romney-friendly areas of the country, Santorum is finished. Good riddance. The GOP needs smart people like Romney, not religious nuts with unexceptional mental abilities.

And then in response to a comment about a “brokered convention” I wrote:

Journalists have been dreaming of the Holy Grail of a brokered convention for decades, and it has never happened in modern times. It's within the realm of theoretical possibility, but it's certainly not something I'd bet on actually happening.

People really ought to listen to me more often.

Ozzie Guillen suspended for five games

Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Florida Marlins first said that he “loves” Fidel Castro, and then clarified to say:

"I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but (he) is still there."

This is within a Time Magazine article I cannot read, so it’s hard to say whether this is being taken out of context.

He broke the rule that you’re not allowed to find any good qualities in America’s enemies. Bill Maher got in similar trouble for saying that the 9/11 terrorists were not cowards: “Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. Not cowardly.” I have to agree with Bill Maher on that one.

I don’t approve of the way that employers punish people for free speech. The lesson here is “don’t hold any politically incorrect opinions, or you will lose your job.” (Except that Guillen gets to keep his job.)

* * *

“Roger” writes in a comment:

Entertainers must cultivate a likeable public persona or the audience will vote with their feet. Baseball and indeed all sports is mere entertainment. In Cuban So Florida (and many other places in Fla) it is just bad business to praise Castro.

This is good advice for all entertainers, but entertainers violate the rule all the time by sticking their noses into liberal causes, as well as just plain stupid causes. I wish Jenny McCarthy would STFU about autism.

* * *

“Sid” writes:

The kamikaze pilots were crazy, but they were at least taking out military ships. The 9/11 hijackers were targeting people who couldn't hit back.

They were still just as dead. And American pilots risked their lives in WWII to bomb civilian targets in Japan and German. Were they cowards?

Journalist loses white guilt

He parked his car, with an expensive SWPL bike on top in a black neighborhood near Catholic University. When he goes back to his car, the bike is gone.

He racistly assumes that it was blacks who stole his bike and not monks, nuns, or Catholic students. And he says he no longer feels white guilt, even though his liberal friends disapproved:

When I got home I vented to my friends. I told them I was going to scour those neighborhoods until I found the bike. In reply, a liberal friend gave me a lecture about profiling and told me to just forget about the bike. “That person needs our prayers and help,” she said. “They haven’t had the advantages we have.”

New trend in black-on-white violence?

In Florida, black youths beat up 27-year-old white man after shouting “Trayvon.”

Is this the early stage of a new and disturbing trend?

Meet women at art museums?

“Dumbo” writes:

Museums, especially art museums, can also be good places to meet interesting women, some are receptive to conversation about art, but you have to know what you are talking about.

I don’t see that. There don’t seem to be many young single women at art museums. They are probably too busy shopping for clothes.

* * *

This weekend, maybe I will take my camera and an f/1.4 lens to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and take some photos of the people.

And yes, you are allowed to take photos in the museum, so long as you don't use a flash.

Pretty girl with Canon S90/95/100

Today I observed a pretty girl taking a photo with what looked like a Canon “S” series camera: an S90, S95, or S100. I have a Canon S90 (which I reviewed here), so I’m pretty familiar with what they look like.

Whenever I see a pretty girl using a premium digital camera, I always look twice because for some reason I expect premium cameras to be used by geeky guys. Certainly none of my female relatives have premium cameras. However, outside of my immediate family, there are women who use better quality cameras like DSLRs or premium compact cameras.

* * *

By the way, although I was initially positive about the S90, I have now decided that the Canon “S” series cameras have inferior lenses. The larger Canon “G” series has a better lens. I can’t tell the difference between a photo taken with my Canon G9 and one of my Olympus interchangeable lens cameras. Or if there’s a difference, the photo taken with the G9 is often sharper. But photos taken with the S90 have much poorer contrast because of the inferior lens.