Can we leave the composition of poetic Pit posts to Fenris, please? His are generally amusing and accurate.
I’ll chip in…but I’ve already committed some scratch to andygirl’s “Adopt a Lesbo” movement.
…choices…choices
Jodi, I’m in!
Just make sure everything is either black or white. We wouldn’t want to have any shades of gray enter these guys lives.
Oh me too-but can it wait until Friday? That’s payday!
Cheesesteak-in a court of law, you ARE innocent until proven guilty-at least, according to the Constitution.
Can’t say as I disagree with you, VW_Woman
His4ever, if you wanted to jump on the martyr bandwagon, wouldn’t that be: “Can’t say that I disagree with you, VW_Woman”?
Or do you disagree with her, and therefore, you “can’t say” <something>?
I’m glad to see that we’ve contained the contamination.
Guin in a court of law, you are 100% correct. Courts, however, only decide what punishment the gov’t can use. It’s a bit of semantics, I guess, but “guilty” and “legally guilty” are different things which are too often interchanged.
I’ve got $5 to contribute, Jodi you ARE taping this, right?
Coldie, it’s an attempt at a yokel-ism.
C’mere an’ set fur a while wilst ah tell yew ‘bout it. You bein’ a furriner an’ all, you ain’t familiar with folksy rural-esque yokel-isms.
Y’see, more often 'n not, it’ns done as an attempt to sound “down home” and “jes plain folks”.
Granted, there are people for whom this is a legitimate dialect and more power to 'em.
However, to those who adopt the dialect to be “folksy” lemme say “Ah hope you all wake up one day to find ‘possums nestin’ in yore knickers”.
Bre’r Fenris
COLDFIRE, ya ignant Yurpian, “can’t say as” is an acceptable, if colloquial (mostly Southern), construction of that sentence. For that matter, you don’t really need the “that” that you used; "you could just say “I can’t say I disagree.” But so far as colloquialism goes, she also could have said “I can’t say as how I disagree,” which is also used. It sounds pretty rural, though. A person who’d say “can’t say as how” for a negative statement might well say “bein’s [for being; pronounced bee-uns] as how” for a positive one (“Bein’s as how it’s supper time, let’s go eat.”) and at that point we’re clearly in Clampett territory.
Huh. Well, the Queens English only takes one so far, obviously. Blimey.
Re: The Poconos – Not my cup of tea. Make it Six Flags and you’ve got a deal. 
comes now
the urgent man
whom duty calls
to answer
impugning fingers
swarming,
quick, grasping
lithe, snatching
crawl with
quiet, scuttling
politics
over the husk
of a real life
no justice for the abandoned
a sea of dead promises
and credulous notions
the fashion of the time
the way of all things
see the man
ADAM-12
Yeah, I figured I’d say something, bein’s as how your English skills are so pathetic and sad.
[sub]Note to the humor-impaired: Yes, I know his English is actually quite fluent. That’s the point. Don’t make me hit you with the clue stick.
And I’ll shut up now, bein’s as how I can’t code.
Dialects are fascinating, and I like learning about them. So thanks!
Now, git!
[sub]Am I catching on yet?[/sub]
“Now, git” – very good.
Next: Banjo lessons!
:eek: I must have missed that when I read the constitution. Cite please? Guilty until proven innocent, and even then still guilty in the press and eyes of the public. Where is Fatty Arbuckle when you really need him?
We all make these grand pronouncements. But anyone can talk the talk, who here can walk the walk?
Nope. It’s not in the constitution.
However, I did find this cool site about things that aren’t in the Constitution, but folks think they are.
cheesesteak,
This made my jaw drop. There are two huge errors in the above statement:
Error 1: The “government” have nothing whatsoever to do with it - it’s the law. The law predates all current governments. Yes, governments can enact legislation to amend the law but you are talking about the ancient legal principle of “innocent until proven guilty”.
In modern democracies we have this thing called the “Separation of Powers”. The idea of this is that the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government are all kept separate and independent from each other. This is to prevent a dictatorship arising.
The “government” isn’t trying to prove anyone guilty of anything. They leave all that stuff to the Judiciary. The Judiciary forms its opinions based on past and current law not on whatever the sitting government wants.
Error 2: The “government” doesn’t “treat you as innocent (pretty much)”. You are presumed to be innocent until a court proves otherwise.
You are not “treated” as innocent, you are “presumed” innocent. There is a big difference.
It is, of course, a fact that some guilty people get set free by the courts if they are found innocent. I agree that they are still guilty but the problem is: how do we decide who’s guilty and who’s innocent?
The way we decide is by having a legal system. Sure, it’s not perfect but then no human made system ever could be. We just try to make it as good as we can.
And under our current system a person is innocent until proven guilty.
Then you said:
Eh?
Courts decide more than just the punishment, they also detemine the guilt or innocence of a person.
I accept that someone may be found innocent by a court but, in actual fact, still be guilty of the crime (maybe they got off on a technicality) but the fact is we have no way of knowing for sure whether or not Person X committed said crime (since we do not possess Godlike powers).
Often, you can never really know whether or not someone committed a particular crime, you can only take your best guess. And the best mechanism we have available for making that guess is the legal system.
So your distinction between the “legally guilty” and the “actually guilty” is, in practice, meaningless.
There’s no way to know who’s “actually guilty” without being God. Since neither you nor I are God, we have to rely on the best (human) tool we have, which is the legal system.
This means that, whatever you may privately think about the OJ case, he is officially innocent.