Lucy scare you all off from commenting? Where is everybody today?!

Give the li'l lady a machine gun, and size won't matter.

I already threw in my comments in the middle of the gay marriage discussion, which I apologized for at the time. I am not fuming now. But will add that the whole procedure is ludicrous. By that I mean that any officer is vulnerable to a skilled fighter. A punch to the groin, a swift poke at the eyes, or dozens of other possible attack variations could enable someone to take a weapon from a disabled officer. An undersized woman is obviously even more at risk from a typical male being escorted down a court hallway who isn't cuffed.

How did we get to the point that the justice system tossed common sense out of the courtroom? Perhaps this has been developing along side the burgeoning making of new laws from the bench. I don't remember such power being used and abused to this extent during the 60's, 70's, or 80's. Could be a good example of give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. All the voter sanctioned state initiatives that have been held up by a single judicial ruling, all the instances of cases being thrown out of court on the flimsiest of technicalities, not on the merit of the case, but rather on the judge's *interpretation.* Which more often than not is based on his own social biases, right, left, or whatever. Our court system seems to have taken on the appearance of a bunch of Olympic ice skating judges. This is not follow the money, but follow the agenda. Justice is not part of the equation anymore, but more the rewriting of law in accordance with some political or moral backdrop, and with blatant disregard for precedent.

What's my real beef? You can't vote for most of these judges save a handful of superior and municipal court officers. Where is the representative aspect of government in this scheme? Judges have the power to become little dictators creating new law at will with no one to stop them except the next higher court which just happens to be more judges with their own agendas. I doubt this is what the founding fathers had in mind with the triad of administration, congress, and justice, each supposedly capable of preventing abuse of power by the other two components. A judge can't be removed just because you don't like his decisions. Congress can't make any law that some judge can't also rule is unconstitutional. Uh-oh, looks like the teeter totter just broke.

Her luxurious hair makes me weak in the knees!

Hi Allan –



>>Justice is not part of the equation anymore



There is "law", and there is "justice". They sometimes have very little to do with one another, unfortunately for all concerned.




L'Amerloque

I have no problem with judges. All but a few are much more concerned by how they would with an appeals court overturning on of their rulings, than with following their political hearts. It seems to me that many of the judges involved in all the rulings that inspire the 'liberal activist judge' rants are Rebublican and Republican-appointed. In Ashcroft's tirade about the judiciary, while the door was hitting him on the ass, he mentioned at least one case where activist Scalia wrote the ruling that shut him down.

Physical requirements is the answer to this courtroom thing.

If a woman can carry a 180 pound sack down 10 flights of stairs, like the men do, then she can be a fireman. If she can bench 200, then she can be a cop. While we're at it, make sure the men can bench 200 and give all the city cops a 20% pay increase for hazardous duties. The state can take the money from the suburban cop that cited me for loitering and smoking as a teenager.

Considering the specific nature of this criminal (martial arts enthusiast, ex-ballplayer who makes weapons out of the lining of his shoes), the atlanta thing might have gone down the same with a male cop, anyway. But, then again, if he sees a guy his own size, he might not want to risk a scuffle in which he could be shot. There really should have been two officers on him.

Sigh.

Insert the word 'look' after the word 'would' and change 'on' to 'one' in sentence 2.