Reckless Adjudication

Every once in a while you'll hear about a judge making a particularly... um... questionable decision in a case. Like we've all heard the one about the young man who was let off the hook for rape because of the judge's "boys will be boys" mentality. I firmly believe that we do need judges to fill in the grey area where the law is not specifically hammered out. There needs to be someone wearing that robe that can look at a case as objectively as possible and make sure the rule of law is kept up to code.

And then there are cases like this. A young man in Nebraska City, NE was ruled to have not been driving recklessly even though he was in a high speed chase with police at over 128 mph. Basically, County Judge John Steinheider ruled that because the driver didn't kill anyone or put anyone else other than himself in immediate danger, his actions couldn't be considered reckless. Um, what now? He didn't put anyone else in danger? What about the cop car chasing him? Typically, cop cars are driven by real, live people. Last I checked, having to chase some jackass at 128 mph increases your chances of dying in a giant fireball of a crash.

That being said, there would have been scenarios where even this judge would have been compelled to enforce the law. As he put it, "If you had had a passenger, there would be no question of conviction. If there had been other cars on the roadway, if you would've went into the wrong lane or anything, I would have convicted you."

Speaking of police, although we may not always like them, do serve a purpose in society. One of those purposes is to arrest people that drive over the speed limit or in this case, over two times the speed limit. The laws are in place to deter people from taking part in such illegal activities. If the enforcement of these laws is undermined, even a little bit, what is the point of having them at all? You should just assume that if you drive over two times the speed limit, you will get jailed or fined. But apparently if you get the right judge in Nebraska, you can push your F-16 right to the edge of the envelope as long as you are only fleeing the police.

Other quick things:

The Appleton Smoke fantasy team won this weekend's game by one point and will start the playoffs as the two seed in the eight team tournament. Now I need the Seahawks to keep trying to win games so that they aren't sitting Shaun Alexander after 5 carries, in effect crippling my team. Hey, it's real to me.

Richard Pryor passed away this weekend after years of struggling with MS. I won't sit here today and say that I was Richard Pryor's biggest fan, but you have to respect what the guy did for comedy. Along with other folks like George Carlin, he paved the way for comedy that didn't have limits and where nothing was taboo. He wasn't afraid to say what he wanted, when he wanted and I always respected that about him, even though I may have not always thought he was extremely funny. From him, more than any other comedian, I saw that it was OK sometimes to make fun of yourself, even if the subject matter is pretty messy.

I've never watched SNL and said to myself, "Dang, man. I just cannot wait until that Alec Baldwin hosts the show again."

Congratulations to the Grand Valley State Lakers for winning their third D2 football national championship. I only shudder a little bit saying that sentence because it reminds me of the battle on the internet message boards of days gone by with Laker fans spitting out crap like, "David Kircus will be a good number two receiver in the NFL." He hasn't. Or the claim of, "GVSU should go Division I and play in the Big Ten. They could beat half the teams in the Big Ten right now." No, they shouldn't. And no, they can't. I can only imagine what's getting posted right now. Probably something along the lines of, "Cullen Finnerty invented the eyebrow."

I'm finished,
Nate