cheney says, "BOOM! HEADSHOT!!!"

[-mogwai]

i can't wait until george w goes hunting with cheney ;)

here's the article

the police report of what happened

pic taken of cheney's lawyer friend right before he was shot

cheney's reaction

[Pesto]

hah..

The Daily Show last night had my laughing my buttox off

[Tim Burton]

We should all thank the VP. After all, he shot a Lawyer, now if we just send the rest to Gitmo....

[Tim Burton]

hah..

The Daily Show last night had my laughing my buttox off

If you find the video online please post it.

[Sovereign]

At least it wasn't buck shot (AFAIK)....

[-mogwai]

We should all thank the VP. After all, he shot a Lawyer, now if we just send the rest to Gitmo....

yeah, that'd be a great idea. a complete unchecked state where no one has the right to a defense. that'd be great.

[-mogwai]

update:

the bush administration thought it'd be best to joke about the headshot http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/200 ... 25155.html

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/m ... emId=59065
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/m ... emId=59070 <--- best clip
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/m ... emId=59068

according to texas penal code 22.05 b, cheney should be under arrest:

22.05. DEADLY CONDUCT. (a) A person commits an
offense if he recklessly engages in conduct that places another in
imminent danger of serious bodily injury.
(b) A person commits an offense if he knowingly discharges a
firearm at or in the direction of:
(1) one or more individuals; or
(2) a habitation, building, or vehicle and is reckless
as to whether the habitation, building, or vehicle is occupied.

however, cops REFUSED to question cheney until 12 hrs after the incident. wtf?

alcohol involvement?

[T-Shirt]

however, cops REFUSED to question cheney until 12 hrs after the incident. wtf?

alcohol involvement?

A next morning police "interview" (investigation?) was arranged by the secret service, however they did turn away a local deputy later in the evening.

[Kerii]

Haha, that Duck Hunt clip was comedy gold.

[Pesto]

you know whats bad is that lawyer is from here in austin, and he owns several buildings down town austin. one of which burned down about a week ago (prior to getting shot in the FACE). what luck eh?

[infinitevalence]

Luck... no, Karma... Yes

[Apoptosis]

Boom Headshot... oh man i love that video

[Amy]

according to texas penal code 22.05 b, cheney should be under arrest:

22.05. DEADLY CONDUCT. (a) A person commits an
offense if he recklessly engages in conduct that places another in
imminent danger of serious bodily injury.
(b) A person commits an offense if he knowingly discharges a
firearm at or in the direction of:
(1) one or more individuals; or
(2) a habitation, building, or vehicle and is reckless
as to whether the habitation, building, or vehicle is occupied.

Huh...I was under the impression that he did notknowingly discharge a firearm towards his friend.

Everyone is joking about this, but I feel horrible for our VP. Can you imagine what it's like to accidentally shoot your friend (or anyone for that matter) while hunting? It happens all the time, just not to someone so prominent. I bet he feels really guilty about the whole thing.

[bigblockmatt]

my issues with this whole this is that all the political people say there are more important things that we need to be spending our time and money towards...then why is there such a big media event about this? ya it happened. stupid thing to do, it happens to alot of people. get over it, it doenst effect anyone but the vp and the dude he shot. move on


aahhh....sorry bout the little rant.

[Tim Burton]

update:

the bush administration thought it'd be best to joke about the headshot http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/200 ... 25155.html

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/m ... emId=59065
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/m ... emId=59070 <--- best clip
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/m ... emId=59068

according to texas penal code 22.05 b, cheney should be under arrest:

22.05. DEADLY CONDUCT. (a) A person commits an
offense if he recklessly engages in conduct that places another in
imminent danger of serious bodily injury.
(b) A person commits an offense if he knowingly discharges a
firearm at or in the direction of:
(1) one or more individuals; or
(2) a habitation, building, or vehicle and is reckless
as to whether the habitation, building, or vehicle is occupied.

however, cops REFUSED to question cheney until 12 hrs after the incident. wtf?

alcohol involvement?

Uh, you do realize that there was 28 "hunting accidents" and ZERO were prosecuted. It is an expected danger and the state realizes it is a legitimate risk.

yeah, that'd be a great idea. a complete unchecked state where no one has the right to a defense. that'd be great.

Obviously you have never read the Death of CommonSense by P. Howard, nor have you read The Case Against Lawyers by C. Crier. Lawyers do more to harm our freedom today, than any other group. Heck, there are law firms that literally copyright law, get it passed, and then sue anyone who publishes the the law tomes without paying royalties from them. Thank goodness most get thrown out, but small publishing companies who can't spend millions on defense usually settle out of court.

Howard maintains that the growing dependence on law and regulation has had serious consequences for the quality of public discourse in America. Instead of fostering cooperation, our legal culture in effect undermines it.

http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/howard.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/044667 ... e&n=283155

The Case Against Lawyers is both an angry indictment and an eloquent plea for a return to common sense. It decries a system of laws so complex even the enforcers cannot understand them. It unmasks a litigation-crazed society where billion-dollar judgements mostly line the pockets of personal injury lawyers. It indicts a criminal justice system that puts minor drug offenders away for life yet allows celebrity murderers to walk for free. And it excoriates the sheer corrpution of the iron triangle of lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians who profit mightily from all this inefficiency, injustice, and abuse.

http://www.courttv.com/onair/shows/crierlive/book.html

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11654

Even then you act like a lawyer is the check to the State. LOL! No, it isn't. In fact, it has to be the exact opposite. In the Americas there were plenty of lawyers, but they weren't the freedom fighters you make them out to be. It was them who helped the King legislate and oppress the masses.

It is lawyers who today make sure that Starbucks doesn't give you a long straw for a tall (small) cup, all thanks to a lawyer who sued for a lady poking her eye, because she used the long straw.

It is the lawyers who have made the criminal system so corrupt that criminals constantly get off on technicalities. It used to be that courts were places to find truth and dispence justice. Now, it is a place that rules and regulations help the guilty get away with crimes.

[-mogwai]

good job, tim. you completely evaded all common sense.

1, a "hunting accident" isn't a true accident until everyone involved was being a responsible hunter and used their guns according to safety rules. that didn't happen in this case, so it is therefore not a hunting accident. rather, it is negligence.

shooting in another hunter's direction is reckless and puts that hunter in imminent danger of serious bodily injury. also, cheney would have had to have had some idea where whittington was as whittington said that he ran out to get a downed bird. if he didn't, that is also irresponsible and negligent because you're never supposed to shoot without knowing or surveying your 170 degree frame of shooting area; to go past the 170 degree frame is reckless, irresponsible, and unsafe practice.

also, cheney never had a permit to even hunt the quail, as far as i understand it.

2, without the right to a defense to prove your innocence in the face of a jury of peers, you lose one of the most valued rights this country has to offer it's citizens. whether or not your partisan author friends care to agree or disagree is beside the point. once our guilt and innocence is decided by someone else without the ability to defend ourselves, we've lost any sense of freedom we once had.

am i a fan of all lawyers? of course not. that's ridiculous. you don't think it angers me to the core that michael jackson is free and probably out sac-tickling some 10-year-old indonesian kid right now? you think i like the fact that most white-collar criminals (like your buddy cheney) will probably never be tried in court? you don't think i feel disgusted that rodney king got beaten within an inch of his life and the cops that did it got to walk free of punishment? what about oj? you think i feel glad that he was never convicted of the murders he committed?

of course there are some scheisty lawyers out there who do it for the big bucks and the spotlight and get obvious criminals to walk free. however, they're necessary to ensure freedom from prosecution from a government, whether it be national, state, or local. without defense or due process, we would be found guilty of anything we were suspected of doing without any second thought by those in power, which goes completely against the doctrines upon which this country was founded.

we have the right to a speedy trial by a jury of our peers and we have the right to an attourny to help defend us if we are incapable of defending ourselves in a court of law and it is unconstitutional for our government or any american governing body to deny us those rights. we have the right to find a lawyer to help defend us, but lawyers also have the right to deny the case. if no lawyer will take our case, the court appoints a lawyer for me to do whatever i tell him. if i tell him that i am innocent, whether he believes i am or not, he took an oath to try and defend me to the best of his ability.

do i think the american legal system is fair? HELL no. it's not (as i found out first hand today) and it probably never will be. however, the fact that we have other people in this country from various walks of life and that there is never a rash that spells out "guilty" on the foreheads of those who commit crimes so we can pick out who's innocent and who's not, we have to treat everyone as equals (as the constitution states) and not convict based solely on evidence, testimony, and probability without your case being presented to a jury of peers.

to deny people those rights is to be unfair, uncivilized, and unamerican.

3,

The Case Against Lawyers is both an angry indictment and an eloquent plea for a return to common sense. It decries a system of laws so complex even the enforcers cannot understand them. It unmasks a litigation-crazed society where billion-dollar judgements mostly line the pockets of personal injury lawyers. It indicts a criminal justice system that puts minor drug offenders away for life yet allows celebrity murderers to walk for free. And it excoriates the sheer corrpution of the iron triangle of lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians who profit mightily from all this inefficiency, injustice, and abuse.

these are all things with which i agree. however, i do not see why taking away a man's right to defend himself is the way to remedy the issue; i only see that as moving towards authoritatianism/despotism.

[Amy]

Why do you guys always have to turn everything into a political debate? It's okay to keep things light once in a while. Anyone wanna lock this thread??

According to Dictionary.com:

ac-ci-dent: an unexpected usually sudden event that occurs without intent or volition although sometimes through carelessness, unawareness, ignorance, or a combination of causes and that produces an unfortunate result (as an injury) for which the affected party may be entitled to relief under the law or to compensation under an insurance policy

There are actually several sources cited for this entry, and almost all of them go along these lines.

Also, both of you, Tim and -mogwai, do us a favor. If you're going to have a debate on something, don't flame. By telling the other person that he "evaded all common sense" is insulting and pretty darn close to a flame. You both make good arguments but fail to back many of them (you do back some of them) so it is difficult to see your points of view. And, finally, once again, lighten up for a change!

[-mogwai]

i was just talking about this in class with my friends, today. they didn't understand the difference between an "car accident" and a "car crash".

whenever they said this, i said "didn't you ever learn about this in driver's ed.?" and they told me that they never took it. my friend from boston and i started cracking up about it because on the east coast, we have to take driver's ed. before we can even get behind the wheel... and even after you pass driver's ed., you have to keep a log of hours with an instructor.

anyways, that's probably why a lot of people might not see the difference between an "accident" and "negligence/irresponsibility."

for example, i'm going to be a chiropractor. if a repeat patient comes in i adjust their back and break a bone without checking an x-ray or medical history or orthopedic tests, it's not called an accident. it's called negligence. however, if i were to adjust a repeat patient after orthopedic tests, checking the medical history, checking the x-rays, and if everything looks and feels normal and a bone broke when i adjusted, that's an accident.

the difference is that i would be held accountable for the negligence, but not as much for the accident because it was not something that was a preventable or predictable outcome from an outsider's perspective.

see the difference?

so, let's apply this to cheney:

accident - cheney's dog jumps up and knocks cheney over, causing cheney to turn and fall, at which point his gun fires and strikes his buddy in the face.

negligence - cheney's buddy goes out to get a kill. cheney sees another bird flying and follows it to the general direction of where his friend is standing 90 feet away (obviously visible, plain as day, wearing blaze orange). he fires, thus shooting him in the face.

[Amy]

I see your point on the accident. You are basically using it as an insurance or legal term rather than the literal. I agree that incidents like this, according to the definition you use, cannot be considered to be "accidents." However, I have not read anything that indicates what the conditions were. When I visualize what happened, I imagine them in tall grass and weeds, perhaps even over 5 feet tall. I am under the impression that his buddy was getting his bird, and Cheney fired in the direction of where his buddy would have been normally, and he was thinking that his buddy was back behind them getting his kill. Also, I wonder how far away was his buddy? Was he just over a small hill where only the top of his head would have been visible? I am not trying to make excuses for Cheney, but I have to give him the benefit of the doubt that he honestly thought he knew where everyone in his party was before he fired. Was he in the wrong? Yes. Should he pay for the medical bills and maybe some extra compensation? Definitely. Should he be prosecuted? No. By my definition, what he did was still an "accident.' He did not intentionally shoot his friend.

Oh, and on the permit thing -- the $7 permit he did not have went into effect like 5 or 6 months ago, and many hunters are not aware it exists, yet. He did have a license to hunt in the state of Texas.

[T-Shirt]

Oh, and on the permit thing -- the $7 permit he did not have went into effect like 5 or 6 months ago, and many hunters are not aware it exists, yet. He did have a license to hunt in the state of Texas.

But Ms Armstrong (the owner of the ranch) almost certainly did know of the requirement, should have checked his license and arranged for him to purchase one. (I'm guessing 'privite hunting facilites' can probably sell rent or loan you whatever you need. (and probably charge a big fee))