Wrath of Dagon

You're leaving out the small detail that it was Germany that lost, else the world would now be one big concentration camp. There are no Israelis in Gaza, there are many in the West Bank, so not exactly the same situation.

If Hamas takes over the West Bank, there will certainly be another Intifada and a huge amount of violence, almost certainly followed by full Israeli re-occupation with all that entails. As far as Netanyahu, he can always pull a Sharon and form a new centrist party if his coalition collapses over the peace treaty. Most Israelis do want real peace, and if they get a reasonable agreement some way would be found to implement it.

Wouldn't you think it a better idea then if Obama put pressure on the Israelis so that they suddenly had something to lose, and pushed for more frequent elections on the Palestinian side? What's the point in pushing Israel when the Palestinians have no intention of negotiating true peace? http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3908/ramallah-peace-process And the last time we pushed for Palestinian elections, we got Hamas. Btw, Israel is so evil they're providing medical treatment to the enemy for free : http://news.yahoo.com/syrians-brave-risks-seek-treatment-israel-155233310.html

How is the situation dangerous as opposed to all other talks that have been attempted? Would you prefer the Obama administration did nothing? It's dangerous because when it collapses, the Palestinians will want to retaliate in some way, even though neither party really believes in negotiations, since Abbas is too weak and unpopular to concede anything and so it's not worth it to Israelis to concede anything. So yes, beyond some usual platitudes, Obama should've done nothing.

Kerry has created a very dangerous situation when the talks almost inevitably will collapse.

Oh, they were surrounded, it's just that Hitler was a famous anglophile and let the brits evacuate from Dunkirk, almost half a million of them in fact. Brits were his big pals. They gave him Czechoslovakia, then they gave him Poland, they helped him sell plundered gold, they even declared a phoney war on him when they were put under pressure from their own citizens. They let him prepare for a real eastern action, because at that time Germany didn't even have enough ammunition to last a week, so they couldn't just go ahead and start a REAL war on him now, could they. Actually it was 200 thousand British, and about another 140 thousand French and others. Let them escape? Let's at least not make up history. Meh. Apart from the Battle of Britain and (marginally timewise) El Alamein- which involved 3 understrength jerry divisions instead of an Army Group for Moscow and a full army + bits of a panzerarmy for Stalingrad- Britain lost every major battle against the germans over the same time period too. German losses in the first 6 weeks of Barby were more than their losses over the entire war up to that point even with the poor russian performance. Soviet forces were also proportionately hugely greater than the British, so that's neither here nor there. The point is the disasters for the Soviets (whatever the reasons, and I don't mean to denigrate the bravery of the Soviet soldier in any way btw) were orders of magnitude greater than for the British, so to draw any kind of equivalence there is ridiculous.

I guess I missed the part where millions of British soldiers were repeatedly surrounded and wiped out by the Germans. Until Kursk, with the notable exceptions of Moscow and Stalingrad, the war on the Eastern front was a series of catastrophic disasters for the Soviets.

Obama administration immediately orders 350 million units.

Mini-nukes is probably the best chance of nuclear energy making a come back in the US : http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/30/mini-nuclear-plants-next-frontier-us-power-supply-or-next-solyndra/

The defendant in Florida does have to present some evidence of self-defense before he's allowed to claim self-defense in court : http://www.ohioverticals.com/blogs/akron_law_cafe/2012/04/zimmermans-low-burden-of-proof-on-the-issue-of-self-defense/

To claim self defense, in most states, you have to show some evidence that it was self defense (because claiming self defense is an affirmative defense), although the bar is set low, and then the prosecution has to prove that it wasn't self defense. SYG doesn't change the burden of proof, it only drops the requirement of the duty to retreat to claim self defense. In Ohio to claim self defense, the defendant has to prove by preponderance of evidence that it was self-defense. Edit: Here's another case of self-defense: http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/07/houston-gas-station-shooting-syg-or-not-break-it-down-with-aoj/ I guess you could say the woman should've retreated when she was first threatened, but why does she have to?

Excusable homicide was also in the judges instructions, although no one ever claimed it was excusable (i.e. unintentional). The judge has to include all parts of the law which may be relevant, it's up to the jury to determine what the facts are and which parts of the law apply.

I tremble for my country when I think how they lie : http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/07/how-not-to-correct-the-record.html

If it was so, then why police didn't for example investigated Zimmerman's background before media involement albeit they did so for Martin? Or did majority of media outlets give false information about the case in this matter? I'm not sure what you mean by their "background". I'm not aware of anything that indicates they didn't investigate everything that was relevant. And yes, I think media outlets either outright lied, or concealed, or misinformed either on purpose or from ignorance or stupidity. Watching the coverage it was unbelievable how many facts were constantly misstated.

Police didn't say there was no need for investigation, they said there was not enough evidence to bring charges. When people say someone's Hispanic in the US usually they really mean he's mestizo. American speech is full of euphemisms.

Here's the supposed inside story, the role of Hamas is mentioned as well : http://news.yahoo.com/disputes-between-morsi-military-led-egypt-coup-205809544.html

You said Z had a flashlight. That is pretty easy to see, in the darkness and all. Because he'd been told not to follow and it's generally a Bad Idea to not follow police instruction- especially if you end up shooting someone? Going by the timeline you linked to that has Martin arriving home at roughly 2.40 of the call after a 30 second jog, then spending a few minutes talking, then walking back. Going by wikipedia's timeline to clarify matters there's a (minimum) 2.20 minutes between Z hanging up and Martin's phone going dead, and it ought to take Z maybe 30s to walk back to his vehicle, at most. It's pretty much inescapable from that that Z didn't go straight back to his vehicle after hanging up. That isn't direct evidence that Z followed Martin further than he admitted- though the gf's testimony suggests that Martin felt that, at least- but if he took the stand you'd guarantee the prosecution would want to know what he was doing for that time and why he wasn't back at his car earlier. Here's the transcript of the phone call: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/326700-full-transcript-zimmerman.html It's pretty clear that Zimmerman saw Martin run in the direction of the back gate so he headed in the same direction. It's also clear he lost him and had no idea where Martin was. Z mentions in the police interview that at E he reached the street that went all around the neighborhood (his own street), so it's quite possible he walked some way along it and then returned. None of that changes the fact that Martin had to come back towards Zimmerman.

I found Glock 17 more comfortable to shoot than Beretta 92, Beretta is a bit heavy.

If he had two free minutes, he could easily have got to Martin's house and back (there's no evidence he did though) since that is what everyone agrees Martin did, with a break to talk to his girlfriend at or around his house. When you only have one living witness and it's the guy accused it's very difficult to establish the truth about such things, but it certainly appears to be fact that Zimmerman had ample time, and opportunity, to get back to his car to wait for the police but it was only a few yards from where he had stopped where the incident occurred despite the weather conditions being unpleasant enough to warrant comment. It may not be fact but it is very likely that if Zimmerman simply returned to his vehicle, even at a slow pace, and waited for police then the last part of the incident would not have happened. We know Z was returning to his vehicle since that's where the fight happened, but unless he made it all the way and stayed in the car and Martin wasn't already waiting for him after Z finished talking to the police dispatcher the confrontation would've still happened. Even if Z was looking for Martin for those entire 4 minutes, there's almost no chance he would've found him in the darkness, thus Martin wouldn't have seen him, and couldn't feel he was being stalked because of it. Besides, if M did see Z before 4 minutes were up, he'd probably mention that to his friend and the confrontation would likely start at that moment instead of them both heading towards Z's car. Edit: Besides Z told police dispatcher on the phone he was heading towards the back entrance (E), why would he lie at that point?

And the facts are far from conclusive. There is no record of what interaction Zimmerman and Martin had before Martin started punching him. Judging from Zimmerman's comments during his police call and Martin's comments talking to his(girl?)friend, both were likely to treat the other party with hostility, so an unfriendly exchange could easily occurred between the two before things got physical. We can not prove who started the fight, if either party tried to provoke the other, or anything other than that Martin was kicking Zimmerman's ass before he was shot. But we know Martin came back towards Zimmerman's car, and the only plausible reason would be to confront Zimmerman, if Martin just kept running home, nothing would've happened. For defense purposes of course it doesn't matter so long as the jury strictly follows the law, all you need is some evidence it was self defense and reasonable doubt. But to determine if Zimmerman was morally culpable, we do have this extra evidence.

No, what you have to do is look at the facts, not "believe". I think it would depend on who tried to use deadly force first.

This sounds promising: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/us/ideas-to-bolster-power-grid-run-up-against-the-systems-many-owners.html?ref=science&_r=1&

Well, Zimmerman apparently thought it was "****ing cold" yet took far longer than necessary to walk to his supposed end point and back, despite the weather- so much so that Martin could cover ~three times the distance at a "slow jog", in ~30 seconds, then walk most of that distance back after talking "a few minutes" just in time to- coincidentally, no doubt- find Zimmerman who had not managed to get back to his car in that time but had actually walked around a third of that distance from his 'end point' (E) towards Martin (F on the map; and away from his car). The link says that Martin covered around 5 times Zimmerman's distance, at either a walk of slow jog, and waited 'a few minutes' talking to his girlfriend yet Zimmerman had moved only around, what, 10 yards? since supposedly stopping his pursuit at roughly the point Martin arrived home, and ending his police call around half way through that 'few minutes' Martin was talking to his girlfriend. So, what was Zimmerman doing for the time it took Martin to talk for x seconds and walk all the way back to where he met Zimmerman? Enjoying the ****ing cold? There's simply no way Zimmerman went back to his vehicle directly or in any timely manner, based on the timings from that link. So, not exactly difficult to knock holes in the narrative- well, except legally, if the guy refuses to take the stand- just impossible to prove any alternative. Actually the defense claimed Martin first punched Zimmerman where the sidewalks meet, not at F where the body was found, as evidenced by Zimmerman's flash light and another item found at the first location. The fight then moved to location F where Zimmerman was pinned on the ground, as evidenced by other items found scattered along the way. The elapsed time was established at trial as being around 4 minutes, 2 of which Zimmerman spent talking to the police as evidenced by the phone recording. How to account for all of the other 2 minutes I'm not sure, but it's possible Zimmerman looked around some more before he went back to the car. He couldn't have been at Martin's house since he didn't even know he lived in the neighborhood, let alone where his house was, and from him talking to the police we know he couldn't have run after Martin, so he wouldn't be able to see him in the dark until they encountered again at the sidewalk T.

By "following", he meant he went to see if he could see where Martin had run, since by that time Martin had run off already. He spent about 2 minutes talking on the phone to the police dispatcher, after he hung up he turned around and went back to his car, it's in the timeline I posted earlier. Btw, there's a good interview with one of the jurors with Anderson Cooper on CNN tonight.

So he's being stalked by a stranger, yet goes back in the darkness to get the license plate instead of calling the police? Also he was on the phone with his friend, and never mentioned doing anything like that. The theory must be plausible, not "Martians did it". But even if he did go back just to check the license plate, it still shows Zimmerman couldn't have been following him or the confrontation would've happened 4 minutes earlier, or do you think they both made a very slow circuit back to Zimmerman's car?