Denver cosmetologist, Susan Cole, claimed to have PTSD, so Denver District Judge Anne Mansfield quickly dismissed Cole from jury duty. But Cole is also an author, and when she was on a local radio talk show a few months later, she openly bragged about how she'd scammed her way out of the jury box. One problem: Judge Mansfield was listening that day.
Is the U.S. election really a neck-and-neck race, like the pollsters in the mainstream media keep reporting? Not really. It would be close, if the popular vote indeed decided the Presidency, but it's the Electoral College that determines who wins. That's why Obama and Romney don't bother to campaign in California, New York, or Texas; the outcomes there are "givens." The swing-states are where the action is -- and this time around, Ohio is the "swingyest" of them all.
As I prepare for my kayaking trip from San Francisco to Hawaii, my pseudo-brother says "you know you'll be in the Red Triangle, don't you? It's where all the Great White Sharks are!" I count out how far I might paddle in it and realize I'll be sleeping with the sharks for two or three days. My mind races, I imagine what my kayak might look like from the sea below. Will I be tasty? Or even tempting?
Somewhere, somehow -- in some corner of the baseball universe or the baseball-watching universe -- there is somebody who does not understand why everyone loves the Oakland Athletics. Moneyball is not the reason. It's not their salary or their ongoing rivalry with the concept of capitalism. That's too easy.