Hey Hey it's another day

[miko2]

This is a little story of someone I know through a coworker. I don't even know his real name, so we'll call him George.

One day last year George got drunk with a friend and they crashed his car. Both were thrown from the car. George barely survived with a broken neck but eventually made a full recovery. George's friend died at the scene.

Now all this is being told to me second or third hand, but one thing that seems to be clear is that the two were thrown from the car. The first witnesses and the paramedics who were first on the scene confirmed this, but the first police officer who arrived after the paramedics inexplicably wrote down in his report that the two were found in the car buckled into their seats, and that George was behind the wheel. This is the story he told everyone else who showed up afterwards, and this was the basis for the State's court case against George.

You would think that, with witnesses who were there before the cop, it would be an easy thing to defend such charges, or at least raise serious doubts about who was behind the wheel. George and his friends contend that while it was his car, his friend was driving. He often let others drive his car, something they weren't allowed to state in court. He also had no prior arrests or any other problems in his past, which was inadmissable in court.

Most importantly, he's from a lower middle class background, like a lot of the people I work with. His lawyer, therefore, wasn't so hot, and the state's lawyer was pretty good. So in the end, the state proved that he was behind the wheel and responsible for his friend's death, despite any evidence that this was the case.

My first response is that they were both drunk and on the road so George is probably getting what he deserves either way, but the other thing this story illustrates is that, once again, those who can afford good lawyers will avoid jail time while those who are too poor will wind up in jail.

We recently had a State Surpreme Court Justice caught driving drunk. Her blood alcohol was nearly three times the legal limit. But the Democratic Party rallied around her in support, because they're afraid of losing one of their own. Not that the Republicans would act any different, mind you.

But basically, people who have money and power can get themselves out of messy situations much easier than those without. In that respect the poor will always be at a disadvantage, and every legal system in the world will not be completely fair or impartial.

Of course, the flip side is that our prisons are crowded and they're cutting the budget, so it's not likely that George will serve time in an actual jail...

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One of those NPR talking head shows was quoting George W. Bush from his Presidential campaign yesterday. As best as I can remember the quotes were:

"If the United States acts arrogant, then we will be percieved by the world as arrogant. If we act humble, then others will respect us."

and

"We don't want to be nation-builders."

Granted any politician will say anything at all to get elected, but still, you gotta wonder if he even remembers making such statements?

Another show I listened to kind of clarified European confusion about the U.S. for me. A BBC reporter said that the United States keeps telling Europe "You have to be involved in this. Your involvement is crucial." And at the same time says "Your involvement doesn't really matter because we're doing this with or without you." Well, we have been saying both of those things, but I hadn't thought about quite how it sounded in that way before.

Anyway, I tend to agree that we've handled the whole courting of European support thing incredibly badly but that we probably wouldn't have convinced France and Germany no matter how we handled it.

I'm kind of ambivalent about the whole thing. On the one hand, I don't believe that Saddam Hussein represents a huge threat to our national security at the moment. Iraq is a long way from creating nucelear weapons, and while they could likely sell chemical or biological agents to terrorists, it would not be an easy thing for them to do with the whole world watching their every move. North Korea is a much bigger threat, in my opinion, and Kim Jong is easily the equal of Saddam when it comes to evil dictators.

But getting rid of Saddam can only be a good thing, I think.

And it's clear that we're going to do it no matter what. I get tired of Bush saying we don't want to go to war, we're being forced to go to war, war is our last resort, when clearly it's not our last resort and we really do want to blow up Saddam, and we're not being forced to do it, we just think it's a good idea. We should just come out and say so, and stop the charade.

Given that, I think the sooner we do it the better. Get it over with quick, and then see if our economy can rebound. This whole mess is going to be costly. Great Brittain will help us and probably for Tony Blair it will be political suicide. Saudi Arabia and Turkey will probably help us (let us use their land) and that could be political suicide for both ruling parties. We're going to be mired in the clean-up for years, and that will cost us a great deal. I'm really afraid that we're going to be half-assed about rebuilding Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan. What we're doing and the way we're doing it is going to have huge negative repercussions on the US for years and maybe decades.

Plus they're probably going to pre-empt my NCAA college basketball tournament, the bastages!

In other news, as my friend genebreshears pointed out, Congress bravely renamed their caffeteria french fries "freedom fries". Take that, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys!