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Lowell Observatory Pushes To Name an Asteroid "Trayvon"
Flash Modin writes "The observatory where Pluto was discovered is pushing to name an asteroid after a black teenager killed in a controversial confrontation in Florida last year. William Lowell Putnam III says his family has identified with the cause of African American rights, and thus an asteroid named after Trayvon Martin is perfectly appropriate. Putnam is the sole trustee of the observatory, which was founded by Percival Lowell during his search for canals on Mars. Astronomers at the observatory discovered the asteroid in 2000, but it has not been formally named. Putnam has already asked the Minor Planet Center once to designate the asteroid 'Trayvon,' but they told him the designation was 'premature.' Now that there's been a verdict, the observatory is reapplying in hopes the naming body will see things different."
injecting stupid political games into space has got to be a new low in astronomy
It's being followed by a pale asteroid named Zimmerman.
Table-ized A.I.
I don't really think naming celestial bodies after victims is a good idea.
Astronomers usually want to inspire hope, and looking up at things named after victims just doesn't seem right.
Blow it up!
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Trayvon Martin referred to his intended victim with the racists epithet, 'Creepy-Ass Cracker' before attacking him. George Zimmerman defended himself from the racist. Trayvon died because he was a racist thug on drugs.
Putting aside the fact that Martin was a racist thug who got killed by someone in self defense...and that merely bringing his name and media/court situation up he was involved in that is currently still getting people across the country all pissed off at each other if its even discussed...and that this is probably just an attention-whore publicity act...and that I doubt he had much to do in the field of the sciences...what was I talking about? Oh, yeah let's name an asteroid after him. Whatever.
"William Lowell Putnam III says his family has identified with the cause of African American rights, and thus an asteroid named after Trayvon Martin is perfectly appropriate."
So a teenager whom a jury said was shot in self-defense (or there was no convincing evidence otherwise) is perfectly appropriate? Might as well name the asteroid "Al Sharpton".
How about a black scientist, like George Washington Carver? Or Mae Jemison or Guion Bluford, since this is space and asteroids we're talking about? Maybe a Rosa or a Frederick or a W.E.B. might have done a thing or two for civil rights and African Americans?
“As I see it, the social fairness showed to Trayvon Martin was very sadly lacking.”
Oh, I don't know, dominating the cable news cycle for months on end, hundreds of thousands of people taking selfies wearing hoodies and national black leaders/celebrities calling for a Double Jeopardy trial and/or punishment for George Zimmerman seems to show some kind of social backing.
Why don't we start enshrining every person that gets shot in a bar fight next?
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
The "stand your ground" law never entered into the Martin-Zimmerman situation on the street, or in the courtroom as a matter of law. You seem to be fixated by the idea of it despite the fact it is irrelevant. You may want to consider counseling if you can't stop thinking about it. The thoughts you are expressing don't really seem appropriate.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Checking the transcript, it seems Zimmerman identified him as "looks black" - nonetheless, I believe the testimony was that he didn't know Martin's race when he started following him. He only knew for sure when Martin turned to confront him the first time as he was on the phone with the dispatcher.
Regardless of the details of the case itself, it's pretty clear that Martin was a racist (he used racial insults against Caucasians). He does not deserve to have an asteroid named after him, and if the civil rights movement picks him as a symbol, it will only hurt their cause.
Yes, let's name all of the asteroids after attempted murders who got justice. Nothing political or controversial about that.
I'm looking forward to smoking some illegal drugs, putting on bulky clothing and going out an shoplifting some stuff, then attacking the first cracker that gives me a dirty look. All the evidence of my motivation can be suppressed, and I'll get a space rock named after me too.
Wow. I hope you realize your version goes a lot further than the court verdict.
The court found that there wasn't sufficient proof that Zimmerman initiated the fight, or that he didn't have reasonable grounds to fear for his life.
That's a long way from determining that Martin, initiated the confrontation, tried to kill Zimmerman, shoplifted (first I heard of this), or was going to smoke drugs that evening (irrelevant even if true).
I stole this Sig
Wait, what?
Trayvon Martin was literally beating Zimmerman to death. Any hit of Zimmerman's head to the pavement--witnessed by one of the prosecution's witnesses--could have been his last moment alive, without Trayvon even needing to find the gun to use against him.
The fact that you are too stupid or ignorant to recognize that is obvious in the fact that you missed the_Bionic_lemming's point: if Zimmerman did not act, then he would be dead or badly injured by a thug or "bully", completely regardless of the thug's race, gender, sexual orientation, or anything else that you want to associate with the shooting.
After all, who else is going to "ground pound" someone for following them in their neighborhood? Oh, I know: a bully.
Here's to hoping that it's not the_Bionic_lemming that is beaten into some form of social enlightment...
"When Putnam originally suggested the name to Minor Planet Center, they responded, "That's real retarded, sir."
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Trayvon was a bully actually. He was bragging in a facebook post about how he slapped a bus driver for something to the effect of looking at him wrong. When caught red handed painting graffiti, he was found with burglary tools and women's jewelry in his backpack by a school staff. Also, apparently the stuff he bought at the convenience store just before his death were for the purposes of making "Purple Drank".
Yeah, and this is the guy they want to name an asteroid after.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
So exactly what African American rights is it that William Lowell Putnam III says his family has identified with, and why are they any different than the rights any other person living in the US has? Is it the right to beat up someone because you find them creepy?? To pummel someone just because you think they are following you, even though they haven't made any overtly threatening moves? Simple because someone is a racist and thinks that if a light skinned person is following them the 'crackah' must be up to no good??
.. name your asteroid Trayvon. It will still be an insignificant speck of dust in the universe. Kind of fitting really ... an insignificant asteroid named for someone that tried to kill someone else. That if he had lived could very well be in jail by now.
Or is it some other made-up rights that I'm not aware of???
It's only controversial to those that tried their best to turn it into a race thing instead of a self-defense thing. The racists that forced Florida to have a wasted trial with no real evidence for the prosecution just to appease so many racists. Those that want to ignore the evidence presented in court and play 'what if' games that don't use any facts at all but assumptions made my people who weren't even there.
Go ahead
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Hes referring to the doctored recordings where Zimmerman is made to sounds like he uses a racial epithet. Didnt a news organization have to apologize for airing the doctored recording?
Holy fuck a court of law enforcing the law based on the laws! Where are we people? This is the United States of America, we stand for mob justice and only caring about rights when we feel like it. We need to go to war with Florida to show them that in this country, we take acting like a stupid fuck and talking about shit that we know nothing about seriously.
Anyway, SYG was never mentioned, it was pure self defense. The worthless thug attacked first and wouldn't have let the fat one withdraw even if he had wanted too. Jump to the end: scum ended up dead. The only tragedy here was the fact that the black community cares nothing for justice and only wants to throw a fit and stage stupid walks.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57591520-504083/george-zimmerman-trial-neighbor-testifies-trayvon-martin-was-straddling-zimmerman-moments-before-fatal-gunshot/
He saw. I'll take the victim's word when the back of his head is bloodied alongside a swollen face, and an uninvolved party corroborates the story immediately following the incident. Trayvon did not have a mark on him, so it's pretty clear who was on the bottom given the visible, physical damage to Zimmerman.
If you are willfully blind to the evidence, then that's your own fault, but it's time that you stop spreading ignorant information. You may want Trayvon to be innocent, but absolutely nothing points to it, including his own offline and online antics and the prosecution's lead witness admitting that Trayvon used racial slurs immediately before the fight.
some mouth breathing moron thinks he has a right to walk around with a gun
He does. Someone should re-read the constitution, and the law in florida. Just because YOU have contempt for your rights, doesnt mean the courts do.
play cop
He WAS on the neighborhood watch in an area which had suffered a rash of break ins. Come on, this was widely reported.
innocent civilians
Yes, heres the thing, a jury found that Martin WASNT innocent, and that there was grounds for a plea of self-defense. That, too is a right that citizens have.
laws that somehow support this disgusting behavior
Most societies that you would want to live in have both an adversarial court system, and a defense for killing on the grounds of self-defense. Thank goodness that is the case here. What laws, specifically are you thinking of-- hopefully not the "stand your ground" law which had absolutely no relevance to the case?
stand your ground laws, carry/ conceal laws: they have to go
Ah, yes, you were, which indicates you were successfully distracted by the media in a discussion on irrelevant laws. Look through the court transcripts and see if "stand your ground" had any relevance: You will find it did not. The issue at stake was whether Zimmerman was justified in killing Martin in self-defense.
You seem to have bought into the race-card-Zimmerman-was-a-racist story that was spun up by the media, so I really suggest you go back and look at the facts, not the op-eds and commentary that was spun up around the whole issue. The amount of bias that came out in this whole ordeal was astounding, from the doctored recordings, to the doctored photos, to the claims that Zimmerman was white, to the claims that white-on-black violence is anywhere near common (in reality, 80+% of violence is intra-racial-- white-on-white, black-on-black, etc).
But even if those didn't exist, you cannot reasonably compare a controlled fight on a special stage with doctors and judges standing around to stop the fight if it gets out of hand with a street brawl on concrete and no one there.
I don't think it's a reasonable fear but reasonable people panic all the time.
A stranger is on top of you, bashing your head on the ground with no sign of stopping. You don't think that it's a reasonable fear that you're going to lose your life?
Trying to name an asteroid after Martin is an overt political act that has no place in the naming of such bodies. It's absurd and wrong.
I feel like we're sinking deeper each and every time I find myself saying "We have just reached a new low in stupidity."
The feeling is correct. It's like reading out the altitude in a free falling elevator,
you could never speak fast enough to keep pace with events...
but the direction is certain and the conclusion will be no surprise...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
"Amateur Cop" is a thing in the US. Zimmerman was part of a police-sponsored neighborhood watch program, in which people take it upon themselves to ... well, watch the neighborhood. The opening of this whole thing is that he saw a guy that "looked suspicious" (for whatever reason), got out of his car, and followed at a distance. That's pretty normal.
The "At a distance" thing is important, and something a lot of people missed. Trayvon turned down a street and went south; Zimmerman passed that street heading east, watching to see where Trayvon was going while reporting to the dispatcher. What Zimmerman was not doing was following Trayvon down the road in the shadows, inching closer, trying to get a bead on the little black kid; everyone wants to perpetuate this "stalking an innocent teenager" thing anyway, but that's not what happened.
What happened after that is less understood. Somehow Trayvon got to his house (south), then came back 100 meters (north) and a confrontation occurred. This became a physical altercation, which ended with Zimmerman shooting Trayvon to death. The murder argument comes down to an argument over whether or not Zimmerman was being beaten to death (or reasonably believed he was being beaten to death)--this is why you keep hearing that Trayvon was "armed with concrete" and smashing Zimmerman's head into the sidewalk.
Zimmerman had a permit to carry a gun because he's a shitty fighter. If he wasn't such a useless lump of shit, maybe he could have fought back and controlled the situation. He's lucky Trayvon didn't just take his gun and shoot him to death with it. Non-US people might find the concept of regular citizens carrying guns a little displacing--it's not a thing people do in England, for example--but in the US, people actually carry guns in case they're attacked. Beyond that, shooting Trayvon to death is just the natural result of being in a situation where he thought he was gonna die--that is, the natural action is to try to not die, and the only capable way he could think of to not die was to kill Trayvon.
Everything between the confrontation and the death is unclear. Fortunately for Zimmerman (and the rest of us), because nothing here screams "violent premeditated or negligent homicide", the only rational thing to do is accept "self-defense" and move on. Unfortunately, people are not rational and start screaming for blood, trying to blame Zimmerman while dismissing the very real and strong possibility that he was, in fact, going to die if he didn't shoot Trayvon right there. So we have this mess.
I don't understand the "Civil Rights" involved. They say Trayvon's rights were violated. What rights? He was observed in public; if he wasn't doing anything bad, the police wouldn't have even been able to search him. He could have 20 pounds of cocaine and stolen jewelry on him, and the cops could show up like "we heard reports of a suspicious person," and he's like "Everything's alright here," and they're like "Can we search your bag?" "No." That's it. Nothing actually happening here? The cops don't even get to frisk you. Other people are entitled to observe you, the police are entitled to pass through the neighborhood and ask you if you're alright and whatever, but if you're not obviously committing a crime (even if you really ARE, but it's not visible and they have no probable cause to assume you're a criminal) then they can't do shit. You could have burglary tools and a bomb in your backpack and they can't even check it to make sure you just have school books (unless somebody reported seeing you using burglary tools to try to break into somewhere).
I guess the only civil right here might be the right to, you know, not get shot to death; and you immediately waive that right when you're in the process of murdering someone.
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Gun ownership is UP
Violent crime is DOWN.
Google it yourself.
Pretty simple. An armed society is a polite society.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Smartphone ownership is UP
Violent crime is DOWN.
Cat videos on Youtube are UP
Violent crime is DOWN.
Justin Beiber album sales are UP
Violent crime is DOWN.
Google it yourself.
Pretty simple. Looking for a rough correlation in two variables in one country is almost meaningless.
I stole this Sig