JShankel's Comments (2240)

“Mr. Polanski? Yes, about your escape plan. We've run into a bit of a snag...”

“Well, then there should be no problem producing a suspect. You'll let me know when that happens.”

“Fair enough. You'll let me know when anyone produces a suspect.”

“Including yours.”

“Sorry, not spoiled at all. I admit that I thought it was homicide, but was not so quick to presume the motive.

Not to interested, generally speaking, on scoring political points on people's pain and misery.”

“Just what's in the AP, like everyone else. But if I have no reason to rely on part of it, I have no reason to rely on any of it.”

“To make it look like a murder so his family will get $600k.”

“Generally, yes. Just not death by disease or suicide. Act of God might be ruled out, too (ie death in a hurricane) or it might be in.”

“From the article above:

"He scrawled the word "fed" upside down on his chest, taped his Census Bureau ID to his head, stuck a red cloth into his mouth and placed another piece of tape over it."

Though on second reading that working is ambiguous. Could have been upside down from his point of view, being right side up.”

“Yeah, I gotcha. Maybe those of us on both the left and the right who are members of the "reality based community" should stand against the common enemy: wingnuttery.”

“No, no, no, it's much more likely that he bought insurance with the intention of killing himself and staging to look like a murder but was then killed by real extremists in exactly the same way as he planned to kill himself.

It's then most likely that the extremists staged the scene to look like a suicide that was staged to look like a politically motivated murder, thus completely not getting their point across.

It's then most likely that the Kentucky State Police, the Kentucky M.E. and the FBI all decided that rather than crack this case, it would be much better for everyone to commit fraud and obstruction of justice in a major public case that is most likely going to be independently investigated by the family.”

“I'll join in the generalized liberal apology if one comes together, but I don't owe one on a personal basis.

Took a lot of heat from my fellow lefties when I suggested that this could be a suicide.

I thought it was meth cookers myself, but you never know.”

“Nah, we'll just designate them as "unlawful combatants" and then disappear them. It's old school, I know, but it works.”

“It was upside down, not backwards. He didn't do it in a mirror, but if someone else wrote it, they would have had to specifically write it upside down, which would be a strange thing to do.”

“Why would someone who wanted to make it look like a suicide write "Fed" on the victim's chest?

What? They were trying to make it look like a suicide that was staged to look like a murder?

And if the point is to terrorize "feds" and shut down the census, wouldn't you want to make sure suicide was ruled out?”

“Right. The police do not share that kind of information during an investigation.

I'm sure the family will be suing to see it. And yes, I'm familiar with the "let me tell you what you're going to tell me you saw" theory of police investigation. I lived in L.A. for four years.

But I'm going to need some evidence of misconduct on the part of the police before I assume it. Their conclusion is plausible. Airtight? Totally conclusive? No other possible explanation? No.

But if they had said "someone, possible a member of a hate group, killed this man" you'd believe it, right? Even if they said their conclusion was based on interviews with "credible witnesses?"”

“If you don't trust the evidence, then how do you know anything happened at all?”

“Apologize for what? I never said I thought this was politically motivated. My guess was that it was a homicide, but I had no theory as to motive.

Glad to hear it about Vince Foster, tho.”

“And there's plenty of that to go around.

Conservatives hate and mistrust the government but don't believe that police brutality ever happens.

Both sides have people who only believe investigations that come to the "right" conclusions. When they do, investigators are hard working saints, tirelessly defending justice. When they don't, investigators are either corrupt or "politically correct"

It's both a left and right wingnut disease. I'll try a few out, see what you think:

* The case against Lee Harvey Oswald is more compelling than any other specific theory of the JFK assassination

* There is no evidence that the Bush Administration had any pre-knowledge of 9/11

* Vince Foster appears to have committed suicide

* OJ Simpson almost certainly killed his wife

* Barack Obama was born in Hawaii

If any of those statements fill you with the urge to jump up and start emailing links, you might be a wingnut, left, right or center.”

“Been reading a lot of John Grisham, I see.

Maybe he had evidence that big company was poisoning the local water supply! Being a census worker, he had contact with everyone in the community.

Maybe he checked the records going back 20 years and found that the residents born in the 1980s had higher incidents of cancer than everyone else. Maybe his cancer was caused by the same thing, only years earlier!

And maybe his daughter, Julia Roberts, just got divorced from her abusive husband and has moved back in with him so she can focus on raising her precocious son.

And maybe Julia's son witnessed his grandfather's murder and only HE can identify the real killer.

And maybe Julia's only hope of saving her son, finding her father's murderers and cleaning up the town's drinking water Lies with a crusty but charming local lawyer (Clint Eastwood?) and a rough-and-tumble private eye with a mysterious past (James Gandolfini?)

Actually, I think I'm on to something here. Nevermind. Where did I put that typewriter?”

“As soon as we hear conservatives admit that Vince Foster killed himself.”

“His accidental death policy almost certainly didn't cover death by cancer. A) he already had it and B) it wasn't medical insurance.

Therefore, if he wanted his family to get the $600k, he needed to die some other way.”

“Which was not a documentary and starred Jon Voight, who we all know is one of..."them­."”

“No, because there's actual evidence that those things won't be happening.

What evidence do you have that the police here are lying? They may be mistaken in their investigation. That's possible.

But a lie? Show me one lie. A LIE. That is a thing they are claiming to be true which you can demonstrate is false.

And "I don't believe Southerners" isn't demonstration.”

“That's why we try to hire investigators who are more qualified than fifth graders.”