My long tale of last year's jury duty (Voir Dire, Testimony, Verdict, Reflections) just drew a comment from a public defender named Bill: [Note: In all accounts of this trial, I'm using fake names for the people and locations.] While I can't second guess your decision, since I didn't hear all of the evidence, it surprises me how important you felt that Jose claimed the cop … [Read more...] about Jury Duty: Followup
Archives for May 2007
A Strange But Familiar Logic
Rogier van Bakel posts a bit of a horror story about trying to adopt a dog from a shelter. Oddly, the attendant don't want to let him visit the kennels, instead asking him to look through a binder and pick a dog for her to bring out. Even after he finds a dog, a big friendly Saint Bernard, the people at the shelter give him the run-around, apparently because they don't want … [Read more...] about A Strange But Familiar Logic
Making New Friends With Cell Phones
A few nights ago I was getting ready to go to bed when I heard my cellphone buzzing away in the pocket of my jacket. It does that periodically when I've missed a call, so I pulled it out to see I had missed anything important. It wasn't a missed call. It was an instant message. Who the heck would send me a message at 2 am? Curious, I opened the message and got a picture. … [Read more...] about Making New Friends With Cell Phones
Friday Catblogging
Here's a picture of Dozer doing what he does best: And here's a special guest cat, spotted on a neighbor's balcony: … [Read more...] about Friday Catblogging
Second Thoughts on Hate Crimes
(My discussion of hate crimes arises against the background of Bush's veto of a new federal hate crimes bill, but I'm not discussing that bill at all.) A few days ago I blogged about hate crime laws. These laws increase the punishment for "hate crimes," which are crimes that are motivated by bigotry. Beat a guy because he cut you off in traffic, that's an ordinary crime. Beat … [Read more...] about Second Thoughts on Hate Crimes