Via Digby the latest on the Marissa Alexander case.

Ms Alexander has been granted a new trial and been released on bail, but we still don’t know why she was charged or convicted of assault.

These are the undisputed bare facts of the case: during a confrontation with her husband Ms Alexander fired one round into a wall in her kitchen.

Her husband had been convicted of domestic violence for attacking earlier. She had an active restraining order against him. She had a valid concealed weapons permit.

From my perspective as a former law enforcement officer I don’t understand why this went to trial. She was in her home, and the husband was violating a judicial order even being there. The state had already proven he was a threat to her. This is a classic self-defense situation, made even more clear cut by existing court records [i.e. you don’t need to believe her about her husband being a threat, the courts said he was].

Ms Alexander was given “a 20-year prison sentence under the state’s mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines because she had fired a gun during the assault.”

Her husband wasn’t hurt in any way in the incident, but Ms Alexander was given 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot.

Of course it makes no difference to this case, but another undisputed fact is that Ms Alexander is an African-American. [/sarcasm]

Dr Masters sums up the season that wasn’t:

The end of the unusually quiet Atlantic hurricane season of 2013 is at hand. The final tally of thirteen named storms was above the average of eleven for a season, but the two hurricanes (Ingrid and Humberto) and zero major hurricanes were well below the average from 1950 – 2012 of six and three, respectively. The 2013 season ranked as the sixth-least-active Atlantic hurricane season since 1950, in terms of the collective strength and duration of named storms and hurricanes (ACE index), which was just 33% of the 1981 – 2012 average. The 2013 hurricane season was the first time since 1994 no major hurricanes formed, and was only the third below-normal season since the high-activity period for Atlantic hurricanes began in 1995. NOAA and the U.S. Air Force Reserve flew 45 hurricane hunter aircraft reconnaissance missions over the Atlantic basin this season, totaling 435 hours–the fewest number of flight hours since at least 1966, said NOAA in a press release summarizing the 2013 hurricane season.

All of the major players predicted an active season, but the assumptions behind those predictions were wrong. Tropical weather is not acting like it has for decades.

There was a large Saharan Air Layer, dust in the atmosphere picked up over the desert, and consistently high wind shear which hampered development, but the sea surface temperatures were more than warm enough.

Some of it may be because of droughts on land causing large masses of dry air aloft, but things are not working the way they did when the prediction models were developed.

We need more satellites to watch these systems as they are changing their behavior. So far the changes have led to ‘Frankenstorm Sandy’ followed by a nothing season. It would be nice to know what to prepare for as early as possible.

Yes, it’s the time of year when the Sun dies and must be re-born through an elaborate ceremony that involves some form or type of sacrifice, such as finding gifts for people you can’t stand and smiling brightly as you receive yet another gift based on an urban legend that you actually like truly stomach-wrenching color combinations.

Of course there was a time when the Solstice sacrifices were more visceral and the evergreen was covered in things that pleased only ravens and such, but we have put all that behind us by opting for the possibility of electrocuting one another and causing chaos on the power grid.

What a brilliant idea: moving a large supply of pre-kindling soaked with highly flammable resins into your house, loading it down with petrochemical-based ornaments, lacing it with heat-producing electrical devices, and surrounding the base with cardboard boxes and tissue paper. You just can’t have a traditional celebration without a proto-bonfire in your living room.

I do think that followers of Mithras might want to curtail their typical birthday service in light of Mad-Cow Disease, but global warming will certainly make the services in the oak wood in traditional druidic robes more comfortable.

When you put up your stocking on the mantel and put out the turnips for Gouger, Rooter, Tusker, and Snouter as well as the pork pie and sherry for the Hogfather, you can rest assured the Sun will come up, because it just slipped around back to return the lager it rented.

Enjoy! You have nothing to fear, except that sniveling little creep with the camera/phone at the office party or the eggnog that was put out rather early causing you to suspect that the bits on top aren’t nutmeg. [The pictures probably won’t appear on the ‘Net and the brandy will surely take care of the salmonella.]

A Calendar of Coming Events

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