The brownies are to celebrate the arrival of the second half of our stuff, which includes the exercise bike. What? It makes sense to me.

I haven't tried one yet, so I don't actually know if I made brownies or made a mess. The trick is always the baking. Our oven has several settings (top and bottom radiant heat, bottom radiant plus fan, fan heat only, etc) and I never know which to use.

I've also made a ton of baby food, done three loads of dishes, two loads of laundry, and scrubbed down all the baby equipment. I'm now going to sit on my butt.

I'm now going to sit on my butt.

Way ahead of you there, babe.

Way ahead of you there, babe.

Brenda! Get off Raq's butt, she has plans for it!

Hoping to find crumpets and tea remaining.

Busy weekend. Last night's Bar Mitzvah was nice. We ended up drinking back at the host's house until the wee hours. Today is a big brunch thing.

We also have the big Nascar weekend happening but things are off to a rocky start. We have this approaching tropical storm named Gamma complicating life. Last night's race was rescheduled for 8:30 this morning. I don't know if the afternoon race will be pushed back. The more stuff is pushed back the closer the storm gets.

I hope Gamma fizzles out because we have huge debris piles everywhere. There are so many people with damaged roofs. Ugh.

Emotionally, I'm with MM, too. I catch you molesting a child --> I get to kill you.

But even just serving once on jury duty was enough to show me how completely fucked the system is, and I had a pretty strong emotional reaction to that too. There are good people in the justice system, and for the most part they are all trying to uncover the truth and render honest and fair verdicts, but there's so much room for error I don't even know where to begin. According to everything I've ever read about how the human brain and memory works, eyewitness testimony's just about the least reliable form of evidence ever. People make things up all the time and they don't even know it.

He's not claiming this is virtuous or fair, just what he wants.

Understood, particularly in the light of MM's own experience-which I'm very sorry to read about.

I'm not looking to further a kerfuffle. I simply worry about a system (and I'm not talking about MM's fantasy justice system) that relies on a demonstrably unachievable level of certitude.

And with that, I'm out of Bitches again for a while. If anyone wants to rant at me, I'm on email.

Okay, now I'm just confused. I was really enjoying this discussion, and didn't realize we were kerfuffling at all.

If anything I've said has upset anyone, I'm very sorry. We can stop talking about it.

My kerfuffle meter is very sensitive at the moment. I'm probably overreacting, Jessica.

I just don't come into Bitches very much anymore, and I didn't want anyone to think I was ignoring them if they took exception to what I wrote.

Okay, now I'm just confused. I was really enjoying this discussion, and didn't realize we were kerfuffling at all.

I really enjoy getting other people's opinions on sticky subjects like this. I realize mine's not the only opinion--nor the "right" one. People have interesting takes on their own individual experiences. I like to hear what people have to say.

Cash, I'm very much with you there. Sometimes, I don't even offer my own opinion because I'm too interested in the discourse that others are contributing to. I'm one of those people who is very wishy-washy. I can see both sides of the story so well, that I often have a hard time taking a firm stance of my own. I'll end up saying "what they said" to both sides and then people get pissy with me (I'm thinking my daughter here, no one on the board :).) In this instance, I'ma say "what Jessica said" because I've served on a jury, also, and I know how totally subjective the jury can be in its decision making. I was unprepared for that and found myself going along with the majority because I had no confidence that any of them would listen to what I had to say anymore than what they'd heard out in the courtroom. I do think we made the right decision, but for all the wrong reasons.