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Oh, defense is absolutely permitted flights of fancy, and that’s a good thing. That’s the entire reason there is a jury of peers, to distinguish if the prosecutor’s case is sound and if the defense’s flight of fancy is reasonable. And defense does not have to give any testimony or alibi (also a good thing), but giving a series of obviously false statements/alibis that are documented & admissible and then not ever officially correcting them with a more reasonable alibi is certainly something a jury can and should consider as relevant evidence - which is why lawyers tell their clients to say nothing from the first second, not to say bunch of stuff first but then shut up afterwards. In my opinion, the case against her (at least on the facts, though apparently not the presentation) was 100% solid for manslaughter - but not even close to premeditation - purely based on Casey’s behavior, and the defenses many flights of fancy seemed laughably unreasonable and like desparate hail-mary’s.

I’m just surprised that what to me (still) seems so obvious does not seem obvious to folks with your opinion (including my wife!) and how your opinion seems so unimaginably unconvincing to me. So I’ll respectfully continue hpefully not too much longer...

“If Casey was just “hanging out” with her boyfriend listening to music inside and the baby was outide and tripped and fell on something that knocked her out and she slipped into a pool and drowned, Casey would feel like a “bad mother”, feel guilty, but not want to go to jail for that. She would reason that there would be nothing gained for society by her going to jail for an accident. Fear of dealing with the law for negligence relating to a child is very understandable.”

I don’t see reasonable evidence for this scenario, based on her behavior. It seems like an unreasonable strecth. She would have had to wrap up the body & unceremoniously dump it herself, and then immediately go on a 1-month party spree while not inadvertently giving away any hint to her acquaintances that something unusual has happened, and not having created a halfway believable cover or alibi in that month, and then not have shown any emotion at all when the frantic 911 calls happened on 7/15 or on the days when she was questioned by the police. then for over 3 years she was repeatedly - dozens of documented times - asked by family, by her father & mother, by friends, by police, and by investigators if it was really an accident she was trying to hide, and she denied the truth. Even when police - again documented perhaps a dozen times - told her “we don’t believe your story, we believe it you murdered her, are you sure you don’t want to change your story to something more believable. Then only on the 1st day of the trial had her lawyer claim it was an accident that was someone else’s fault, that someone else forced the cover up, and that she went aong with because she was the manipulated psychological victim (when Casey herself is the one exhibiting the behavior of a manipulative, narcisistic sociopath). Extrememly reasonable to conclude this is all just another self-serving lie, that in light of all other evidence she is directly reponsible for the non-accidental death of Caylee (that is, guilty of manslaughter), not enough to convince me of premeditation, but not even close to threshhold of reasonable doubt.

RE the gas cans from your previous post - I don’t know if he testified during the trial, and if so if anything new came up, but a friend of Casey’s reported to police that in June 17th (I believe, but definitely before the 20th) Casey called him that her car had run out of gas, that he picked her up, took her to her parent’s home where nobody was home, where Casey broke a lock on a shed and took the gas cans (I believe I recall that he also said this was when she borrowed a shovel from a neighbor, to break the lock on the shed to get to the gas cans - but I’m not 100% sure on that), and then he drove away leaving Casey alone with the car & gas cans. Unless that original statement to police has since been impeached or unused, I think there is a very good reason to believe George did not put the gas cans in the car, and I think there is a good reason for why he woud report them stolen - because he came home & found his shed lock broken & things missing. I read a lot of original materials but did not see that much of the trial, so if what I recall about this guys original statement is accurate (particularly the part about the shovel), and if this guy did not testify or ir he testified something different, or if the prosecution seemed to indicate that the gas cans & shovel meant anything different than her-car-was-out-of-gas-in-a-specific-place and nothing-strange-at-all-happened-except-that-she-didn’t-let-me-help-pour-gas, I can be convinced of at least prosecutorial stretch. But not reasonable doubt.

Your hard-working-single-mom analogy is a good study, and I will comment, not because I want anyone to dislike Casey, but because I believe her pattern of behavior is strong evidence of how she felt about her child - that she could not be bothered to do the basic things a parent would do for her child:
- The hard-working-out-of-luck-single-mom scenario “could have been a case that would sound very similar to this one” - I don’t think it does, because the single mom in your scenario is behaved before, during and after the death like a responsible parent who cares for her children. The way Casey behaved before June 2008, during the period of June-July 2008, and for the past 3 years is how I would expect a textbook psychopathic/socioapathic killer to behave (with the stereotypical behavior of parasitic + narcisistic lifestyle, pathological lying, criminal behavior, irresponsibility towards family or school or employment, lack of emotional attachment & lack of empathy).
- “a single mother who works from about 4pm to 12am” - Casey spent her entire motherhood deliberately not working and living on the graces of her parents and petty crime.
- “leaving two children alone at home” - Casey had 2 parents who vountarily cared for Caylee at any time it was needed. Casey deliberately took Caylee out of that house & to nobody-knows-where-because-Casey-won’t-tell, hundreds of times over 3 years, because she was not willing to make the sacrifice of being employed to provide for her daughter.
- “She tries very hard, but has to “let loose” now and then” - Casey did not try at all, did not even try to get a job, and stole from her family to support her daily party habit.
- “Gets no help at all from the government” - mom & dad provide all, any other help can easily be gotten by getting a job & then not getting fired from it becasue of not showing up.
- “Lives separately from her troubled family that offers very little help to her” - the family (and some perrty crime on Casey’s part) was the sole source of money, food, clothing, shelter for Caylee. And there is no credible evidence either way to suggest if it was the family that was troubled to start with, or if the family was troubled becaused they lived for 22 years with a parasitic, narcisistic, sociopathic, pathologically lying family member.

Which is all why my conclusion has been:
- Absolutely without any shadow of a doubt at all she is a clinical psychopath & what is sometimes called , capable of infanticide. Fantastically unreasonable to conclude anything else (although that doesn’t prove murder yet).
- Circumstances, behavior over 3+ years, and lack of
plausible & reasonably believable exculpatory evidence show beyond reasonable doubt that she caused the death of the child & led the world on a wild goose chase for years to avoid punishment. Maybe I put more weight on a person’s behavior and “profile” than others, but I find it unreasonable to think anyone else on the planet caused Caylee’s death.
- Premeditation not even close to proven.

“Why is the news media blaring about ONLY this ONE case ?”

Agree with your sentiment here 100%. This is on TV because TV & viewers view it as just another type of reality show at everyone else’s expense. Which makes our entire society a bit sociopathic too.

It’s not even “direct” vs “circumstantial” evidence. The talking heads at least were complaining that there was no mechanism of death from the coroner, no DNA, no fingerprints. But none of those are direct evidence either, they are all cicumstantial - they show a circumstance that may corroborate some other evidence. I honestly don’t understand what kind of evidence shy of confession, of a videotape of the murder itself that would be considered beyond reasonable doubt in this case.

It sounds like this is your theory below. I’m sorry, we can agree to disagree, but that’s looks more like a flight of fancy than reasonable doubt, and with those standards I don’t see anybody ever being convicted of murder ever again:

- George, the person who perjured himself trying to cover up 1 affair he had at the most emotionally vulnerable period of his life, could reasonable be considered guilty because his story could be interpreted as a conspiracy to kill his granddaughter and frame it on his daughter, because he got emotional when being publically accused of that, and because he tried a halfhearted suicide attempt when his granddaughter’s corpse was found.

- The grandmother, the one who made repeated frantic & emotional 911 calls to report the child missing, had to drag Casey to get on the phone to give an unemotional response to the dispatcher, has been openly showing a wide range of emotions for the past 3 years, and obviously perjured herself with the obvious intent of sparing her daughter’s life - she’s complicit in the infantile & the framing of same daughter.

- It is reasonable to assume that Casey is not responsible for her daughter’s death & its coverup, even when by the defense team’s own admission: For several years she lied about having a job and about taking her daughter to a non-existent nanny on an almost daily days, but has never accounted for what really was happening with her child for those hundreds of days over several years; She claims that she knew her 2-year old baby died in some accident, but she has never once explained the details of the accident or how she was or was not involved; Immediately after her child’s death, she went on a 31-day booze-boys-and-hot-body-contests party; She was so un-shaken by her baby’s death that her roommates & party friends did not notice that anything at all exceptional was happening in her life until they saw news reports about the missing child; She got a “beautiful life” tattoo and had plans to get a second with a friend; She never reported anything about the baby to the police. Casey didn’t report the missing child report, the grandmother reported it in two 911 calls where the grandmother sounded frantic and where Casey was non-chalant & not volunteering information; When questioned by the police, she invented fantastic lies about what had happened, and appeared , and has still to this day refused to provide an explanation or alibi as to what she was doing when her baby dies (which again, she claims she knows exactly when & where & how it happened); During the first several days she interacted with police, every officer she came in contact with noted that “at no time during any of the above interviews did Casey show any abvious emotion as to the loss of her child. She did not cry or give any indication that she was legitimately worried about her child.” On her phone call home after being arrested for suspicion of having killed her own child, she got noticably angry when asked by 3 different people to explain what had happened to her child, and was only interested in getting her boyfriend’s phone number, who she admitted would have no information to offer to her or the police about Caley; She never provided an alibi for where she was when the baby died or her level of involvement or non-involvement.

Really? Wow.

“Convictions are made on circumstantial evidence all the time”

Hannity today made one of the dumbest comments he’s said in a while (and he’s said some stupid ones). He said that the case was based only only on circumstantial evidence, and it lacked any DNA evidence, fingerprints, a smoking gun, etc.
Uhm, DNA evidence IS circumstantial evidence.
Fingerprints ARE cincumstantial evidence.
A “smoking gun” IS circumstantial evidence - “I didn’t see him shoot her, but when I arrived at the scene he was holding a smoking gun.”

Cases that relied solely on circumstantial evidence:
- Scott Peterson for 1st degree murder of Laci Peterson - only forensic evidence was 1 strand of Laci’s hair in Scott’s boat.
- OJ Simpson’s original double-murder case.
- Tim McVeigh.
- Bobby Frank Cherry, for killing 4 girls when bombing Birminghams’ 16th Street Baptist Church, convicted decades after the crime was committed.

Anyone presented all of the following evidence whose reasonable conclusion is that she was a good loving mother is incompetent to be a juror for anything at all:
- The defense showed a few smiling pictures of Casey & Caylee and looking happy.
- The defense stated during argument and several witnesses confirmed that they had no evidence that the mother physically abused or neglected the child prior to the child’s death.
- Casey claims that she knew her 2-year old baby died in some accident, but she has never once explained the details of the accident or how she was or was not involved;
- Immediately after her child’s death, she went on a 31-day booze-boys-and-hot-body-contests party;
- She was so un-shaken by her baby’s death that her roommates & party friends did not notice that anything at all exceptional was happening in her life until they saw news reports about the missing child;
- She got a “beautiful life” tattoo and had plans to get a second with a friend;
- She never reported anything about the baby to the police. Casey didn’t report the missing child report, the grandmother reported it in two 911 calls where the grandmother sounded frantic and where Casey was non-chalant & not volunteering information;
- When questioned by the police, she invented fantastic lies about what had happened, and appeared , and has still to this day refused to provide an explanation or alibi as to what she was doing when her baby dies (which again, she claims she knows exactly when & where & how it happened).
- During the first several days she interacted with police, every officer she came in contact with noted that “at no time during any of the above interviews did Casey show any abvious emotion as to the loss of her child. She did not cry or give any indication that she was legitimately worried about her child.”
- On her phone call home after being arrested for suspicion of having killed her own child, she got noticably angry when asked by 3 different people to explain what had happened to her child, and was only interested in getting her boyfriend’s phone number, who she admitted would have no information to offer to her or the police about Caley.

I have no idea exactly how that poor baby died. But it is clear that Casey is a clinical psychopath who is directly responsible for her death and who has no sense of empathy or remorse for her actions.

Read the original investigative report to see the depths of Casey’s depravity and delusional, narcissitci behavior:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-casey-anthony-interviews,0,100606.htmlpage

Now read the clinical definition & diagnosis of psychopaths:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Characteristics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist

The Anthony family certainly is dysfunctional, which the lawyers tried to twist into “reasonable doubt” - but it is dysfunctional mostly because Casey is a clinical psychopath who lays waste to anything and everything around her for her own pleasure. Chilling.

Casey Anthony is very obviously 100% clinically Psychopathic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Characteristics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist

Read what investigators saw just during the 1st week of interacting with her (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-casey-anthony-interviews,0,100606.htmlpage) to see the depths of her inhuman & unmotherly lack of emotion or empathy; the unimaginable levels of her pathological lying; her extreme narcissism and utter ego-centrism; her delusional lack of either understanding or caring about the consequences of her actions.

“We needed another national security agency to protect us from websites that stream sports events?”

I guess copyright infringement = terrorism.
Which is not that far from criticizing economic/monetary policy = terrorism.
Or from subversive speech = terrorism.

Flying in an airplane is a privilege given to you by the benevolence of your government, not an inherent right you have as a human being. Answering criminal charges is a privilege, not a right. Testifying in court is a privilege, not a right. Crouch down and lick the hand which feeds you.

/sarc

The Social Security proposal doesn’t go nearly far enough. Raising the retirement age by 2yrs over the next 65 years does nothing to reduce the average length of benefits collection or the ratio of workers to retirees, plus anyone can opt to retire early as is hapening today in droves. And it leaves the medical cost boondoggle untouched.

The tax program at first glance looks like a pretty decent start towards a simplified & flatter tax code. The controvercial headline item is that it proposes getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction, but the good part is that it also proposes lowering incomes tax rates to below Reagan-levels across all tax brackets for individuals and corporations, plus eliminating the AMT and a few other credtis & deductions.

We should be all for lowering rates across the board and eliminating the government cheese that is targeted deductions.

won’t

“Russia is denouncing communist past and going back to Christianity.”

No, I don’t think that Putin and Medvedev are directing the building of hundreds of new church buildings for pious reasons. They’re doing it for control.

Silly. O’Connell was a horrible capaigner who let her opponents trick her into humiliating herself. Angle was also a poor campaigner who should have been able to easily dispel silly smears, but somehow could not figure out how. On the other hand, Rand Paul and Ron Johnson proved to be very effective campaigners.

We have a new bunch of potential rising stars coming out of the Tea Party movement. Some like Paul and Johnson proved themselves in the field of battle and should be supported. Others like Angle and O’Connell proved lacking in campainging skills, so better candidates should probable be found to replace them. As simple as that.

“OK, somebody what to ‘splain this?”

Colorado is electing a new governor this November. GOP ran 2 losers against each other in the primary. Maes is the GOP loser who won the right to lose against the Democrat. And now Tom Tancredo is also running, certain to split the GOP vote to even above (or it is below) loser level.

What was once seen as a likely GOP pickup became a darn shame and is now a royal fiasco. Way to go, guys.

The US was putting together invasion plans & casualty estimates while observice the Soviet invasion of an insanely defended Berlin, at a cost of 1.5 million casualties including over 500,000 dead over a mere 2 week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

“In a study done by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April, the figures of 7.45 casualties/1,000 man-days and 1.78 fatalities/1,000 man-days were developed. This implied that a 90-day Olympic campaign would cost 456,000 casualties, including 109,000 dead or missing. If Coronet took another 90 days, the combined cost would be 1,200,000 casualties, with 267,000 fatalities.”

“Adm. Leahy, more impressed by the Battle of Okinawa, thought the American forces would suffer a 35% casualty rate (implying an ultimate toll of 268,000).[45] Admiral King thought that casualties in the first 30 days would fall between Luzon and Okinawa, i.e., between 31,000 and 41,000.”

“A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7 to 4 million American casualties, including 400,000 to 800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan.”

“Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty years following the end of World War II—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.[48] There are so many in surplus that combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan are able to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers on the field.”

After Nanking, Bataan, Wake Island, Manila and Okinawa in the Pacific alone it would have been a war crime to not to end the war so quicky & decisively.

After the catastrophe in Italy, D-Day, Market Garden, Bastogne, the Bulge, Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, battles for Romania & Poland & Hungary, and the insane standoff in Berlin just 3 months before, anything less than dropping the bomb would have resulted in an apocalypse making Stalingrad & Berlin look like picnics.

“Where’s it going to collape to?”

It could collapse through the “roof” of the massive deposit of oil, sending all the oil in that well into teh Gulf in one massive, uncontrollable, uncontainable rush.

The well is like a massive water-balloon - except that it’s a balloon filled with petroleum and various gasses. The Gulf floor sits on top of it, which is soft and muddy sentiment deposited from the flow of the Mississippi River. On top of that is a mile of water.

Talk about “the integrity of the well” is “don’t panic the masses” talk meaning that the loose ocean floor could be destabilized enough that the massive balloon bursts, suddenly & violently mixing the mud and the 1-mile of water above with millions of barrels of petroleum and gasses below. This has been the main worry since the first time they tried top-kill and discovered even worse leaks in other places - that the balloon itself was ready to burst.

I don’t want to get all chicken little, but a well failure and an ocean floor collapse would be the worst US environmental disaster since the Dust Bowl. The economies of the entire Gulf area would be devastated - like Detroit except from Miami to Houston.

“Where’s it going to collape to?”

It could collapse through the “roof” of the massive deposit of oil, sending all the oil in that well into teh Gulf in one massive, uncontrollable, uncontainable rush.

The well is like a massive water-balloon - except that it’s a balloon filled with petroleum and various gasses. The Gulf floor sits on top of it, which is soft and muddy sentiment deposited from the flow of the Mississippi River. On top of that is a mile of water.

Talk about “the integrity of the well” is “don’t panic the masses” talk meaning that the loose ocean floor could be destabilized enough that the massive balloon bursts, suddenly & violently mixing the mud and the 1-mile of water above with millions of barrels of petroleum and gasses below. This has been the main worry since the first time they tried top-kill and discovered even worse leaks in other places - that the balloon itself was ready to burst.

I don’t want to get all chicken little, but a well failure and an ocean floor collapse would be the worst US environmental disaster since the Dust Bowl. The economies of the entire Gulf area would be devastated - like Detroit except from Miami to Houston.

Yup, good riddance.

At one extreme are those cultures where 8yr olds are in actual or de-facto slavery and recruited into armies. Those cultures die because of the low regard they have for future generations.

In the healthy middle are those when an 8yr old is almost reaching the age where they are responsible enough to be trusted with important things, and where 8-10 yrs is the age when their responsibility is tested and forged. Leaving 8yr olds with 3yr olds for short periods of time if perfectly acceptable and for longer periods of time should not be frequent but is perfectly permissible. These are the cultures that take risks, grow and thrive. Think USA in the 1700s to just past the turn of the last century, and today some pasts of the developng world.

At the other extremes are where Europe is and the US seems to be heading - where we are so paranoid of everything where a law like this can make it on the books. These cultures crawl off into the corner of a closet, and wither away in fear.