George Hincapie

I don't know how many of you have ever watched the Tour de France. Alisa and I got super addicted to it a few years ago, and watched as much as possible for Lance Armstrong's last three tours. If you didn't ever see Lance riding in the tour, you really missed out. He was incredibly exciting to watch. I know some of you may say, oh man, the tour, bike racing, that has got to be boring. I can tell you right now, that Alisa and I watched 160km+ races start to finish, and they were exciting. I can't explain it, because I don't find them too exciting now, but they were awesome in the three years we watched Lance race.

But this post isn't about Lance Armstrong, its about George Hincapie. Who is Hincapie? you might ask. Well, he was Lance's right hand man. He is currently riding in his 13th Tour de France, and in August will be in his 5th olympics for the USA. I am a huge George Hincapie fan, and if he were really in the GC race for the tour (GC is the term for overall leader, so if he were in contention to win the whole thing), I would be more interested. George is the consumate team guy. In the tour, you will find that the other 8 dudes, on successful teams, are there for one reason, to get their GC guy to win. George raced in all of Lance's victorious tours, and is, in my mind, a big reason Lance was able to win them. This guy is awesome. He has been successful in his own right, he has had the yellow jersey in the Tour, and he has won other races besides the Tour de France.

This may be a post many people couldn't care less about, but I wanted to give a big shout out to George Hincapie, thirteen time Tour racer, (soon to be) 5 time olympian. I will be excited to watch him in Beijing.

Pet Peeve: people who don't understand the law.

This is the second, I believe, in my Pet Peeve line of posts. My first was about the constitution, so its kind of related.

Now, much like the constitution, I don't expect everyone to know or understand all the minutia or vagueries of the law. However, if you are going to go on a rant about this and that, calling for prosecutor's heads, or planning the demise of a judge's career, then I think you should at least know what it is you are talking about.

I use this story as an example. I know some of you never, ever, go to the links I provide, which frankly really cuts down on how much you can understand about what I am saying, but for you, this is a story about Kamilyn Hadley, who left her child in her car, and the child died. Now, this post is not for me to say how I feel about what she did. It is clear that it is a tragedy, and I cannot fathom such a lapse in the regular everyday thought process. But, this post isn't dedicated to hashing and rehashing her guilt or how she should be punished, she is merely going to be used as an example. Or, maybe more specifically, the comments on the trib story will be used.

If you go to the above link, and read the comments that people left, you will find pages of wild eyed anger. Anger at her, anger at the prosector, but mostly anger at the judge for this 'travesty'. My post here will mostly be in response to some of the rantings of a poster named Utahlady. This 'lady' spews her vitriol mostly surrounding the idea of getting Judge Allphin voted off the bench, and putting in place a law that would be minimum 15 years for this crime. There are two massive flaws with her anger. I'll touch on each in turn.

First, a judge can only (or at least should only) rule on what is in front of him. In this case, what was in front of Judge Allphin was a class A misdemeanor. From my experience prosecuting misdemeanors in SLC, I can tell you this, the vast majority are resolved through plea agreements. The vast majority never spend one moment in jail. Probation is the rule rather than the exception, and this is even more especially true for a first time offender. That is the way of it, you can disagree with the why, but one cannot argue against the reality that that is how misdemeanor prosecution is handled. Anyway. Judge Allphin had a misdemeanor in front of him, the most he could find her guilty of was a misdemeanor. The biggest penalty he could give her would be a year in jail. He could not have punished her any more than that, period.

To be angry at the judge for not giving her serious prison time is asinine.

Second, several people voiced the desire to change the law, to make this crime punishable by 15 years, minimum. Here is where my biggest pet peeve comes into play, and also the idea that people ranting, should really understand at least a little about something, before the go off on a rant. Let me lay out a little basic criminal law. In order to be guilty, one has to have intent (if you've seen law and order, or legally blonde, thats the Mens Rea, criminal mind). The only exception is in strict liabilty, which there is only one strict liability crime that I can think of, so that doesn't pertain. Here are the different intents as spelled out in Utah Law (you'll find this at Utah Code Annotated 76-2-103 for anyone interested).

Intentional

Knowingly

Recklessly

Negligently (and since this is criminal law, this refers to criminal negligence)

In the example of the recent death of the baby, it seems that everyone can agree that it was negligence, some just want it to be punishable as if it were one of the higher culpabilities.

These different intent levels are a foundational part of criminal law. They put into law the idea that the more one knows about the consequences of ones actions, and the more willingly one does it, the more culpable. In my opinion it is one of the least arguable portions of criminal law, period.

Unfortunately, in cases like this, people think (or don't think) with their emotions. Luckily, these people rarely have enough power to do anything. And, luckily, we have Judges like Michael Allphin.

In the interest of openness, it should be mentioned that Judge Allphin was my Stake President for years and years. I personally know him, and think he is a great man. That does not, however, affect the legal analysis I put forward.

Pride of the Yankees ****

So, Alisa and I just finished watching Pride of the Yankees. Its the story of Lou Gehrig. It stars Gary Cooper. He is excellent in it. I am a big Gary Cooper fan, I really enjoyed Sergeant York, (don't bother with High Noon, it was horrible).

This movie was well done, and sad. Of course, it would be impossible to not have the movie be sad, its a tragic story, but its one filled with happiness as well.

Again, we both really enjoyed it, and highly recommend it.

The Eye of the World

I am reading Jordan again. Don't know exactly what got me in the mood for it, but it has been a while since I read the first book cover to cover. I have probably read each book in The Wheel of Time an average of 5 or 6 times. It is my favorite series, bar none (Tolkein is still in my opinion the best, but for rereadability, for me Jordan wins).

This book is fabulous. I had been under the mistaken impression that Jordan had gotten a lot better over time (with the exception of books 8-9), but as I am reading The Eye of the World again cover to cover, no skimming, I realize how engrossing this book really is. I first read it over Christmas break 96. I bought it with my usual Hastings gift certificate that I got for Christmas from Ruth Ann (still one of the greatest ongoing gifts ever, just look at my bookshelves). I finished it in a couple days, and that was with all of the activities that we did over the holidays to contend with.

I would strongly, strongly suggest this book to anyone. I would dare you to read it, and not immediately upon finishing want to read the next one. I have especially enjoyed going back, and being reminded of how the characters all were at the start.

Breanne currently has borrowed The Eye of the World (I have at least 3 copies of it), I hope she is reading it, or planning to.

Even for those of you who don't particularly think you enjoy, or would enjoy fantasy, I would suggest this book, I doubt that any of you would be disappointed.

Movie catch up.

I love netflix, but Alisa and I were a little slow on this one, so I am going to give a couple reviews to catch up.

King Arthur: ***. I really enjoyed this one. I had heard mixed reviews, mostly saying it was just okay, but then I caught a few minutes of it on cable a couple weeks ago, and thought, this looks okay. It was great. It has its weaknesses, biggest in my mind are 1. I don't buy for a second one of the final sword fights between the Saxon leader and Tristan 2. Why, oh why would you open the gate to Hadrian's wall and let the saxons in. Just throw your wode covered archers up on top of it, and fire away as the advance, duh. But, it was great. Ioan was Lancelot, the bad guy from Casino Royale that cries blood was Tristan. Good movie overall, recommended.

Bella: ** 1/2 to ***. This was a movie that Breanne did a post on a bit ago. I enjoyed it. Some parts were much better than others, it was fabulous at times, and at times a bit slow. The main character, the chef, was great. Some of the supporting cast I found uninteresting. On a whole it was a movie I enjoyed, it was sad, but does a good job laying out a compelling story of redemption. Worth your time to see, I believe.

SCOTUS

So, for those of you that don't know, scotus is an abbreviation for the Supreme Court of the United States. Don't worry if you didn't know that. I didn't know it for a long time. Also, really only two type of people use the abbreviation. People who want to sound really smart, and people who are actually smart. The way to tell the difference is that someone who wants to sound smart will act like they can't believe you didn't know what SCOTUS means, everyone knows what SCOTUS means. Those of us who are smart, will just explain it to you, because lots and lots of people don't know what it means.

Anyway, the Supremes (another way the court is referred to, mostly in legal circles, this way has always made me laugh, makes me think Diana Ross is deciding major constitutional issues), just made two fairly big decisions in recent weeks. I have been meaning to put in my two cents on the issues. One of them, I believe, is one of the biggest most foundational constitutional rights cases heard in quite some time luckily I agree with their decision, the second I disagreed heartily, but honestly am not that surprised.

First: District of Columbia v Heller. In this ruling, the supremes struck down a D.C. law that banned all handguns, including in the home, and required that rifles be dismantled or have a trigger lock on them. In this ruling the court found (for the first time) an individual right to bear arms, or own and possess guns. Gun rights, quite a contentious little thing. And the editorials and opinions have been flowing freely around this one. Why? Well, to someo extent some people just don't want anyone owning guns. They believe, extremely naively in my opinion, that if regular joe schmo citizens didn't own guns, violence would magically disappear. Some actually have disagreements with the interpretation of the second ammendment itself.

Now, I will be the first to admit, I will agree with anyone who says the second ammendment was screwed up from the start. The guys back in the day really dropped the ball on this one. Why did they feel the need for the preamble portion of this amendment? The whole crafting, from the standpoint of trying to interpret it hundreds of years later, is truly abysmal. You don't see the first amendment saying "The free exchange of ideas being necessary to keep the public informed, congress shall pass no law restricting the freedom of the press, or assembly, etc." That preamble, though not meant to control what follows (in my opinion), just screws things up.

Anyway, that aside, I agree with the outcome, I do believe the constitution was meant to give an individual right to bear arms. No, despite what some doom and gloom people say this does not make all gun control unconstitutional, there are already restrictions on every single right enumerated in the Bill of Rights. This one, I think, they got right.

Second: Kennedy v Louisiana. In this case the supremes held a LA law allowing for the death penalty for child rapists to be unconstitutional. If you are interested, the full opinion can be found here I'll warn you that in the facts section, they do have to lay out some of the facts of the crime, it isn't pretty. I read the entire thing, including dissents. I agreed with Justice Alito's dissent. I think the court got this one wrong.