FIPID

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

FIPID - 09/13/13

Fun Interesting Pertinent Information Dissemination

Top Picks
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The Most Beautiful Dead: Photographs of Europe's Jeweled Skeletons (If you like it, put a ring on it and a crown, and a necklace, and a pendant and a bracelet...)

Left with nothing (Just because you can doesn't mean you should. This shows that some successful business people are heartless.)

The wealthy 'make mistakes', the poor go to jail

The hustlers and parasites who make up Washington's political establishment
“THIS TOWN” may be the most pitiless examination of America’s permanent political class—aka “the gang of 500” or “the Beltway establishment”—that has ever been conducted.

Syria Intervention Would Reaffirm Obama’s Biggest Flip-Flop
“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat,” Obama told the Boston Globe. (2007)

Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran
The U.S. knew Hussein was launching some of the worst chemical attacks in history -- and still gave him a hand.

2,060 Minutes: Gordo Cooper and the Last American Solo Flight in Space

Study: Marijuana most widely used illegal drug but most deaths caused by painkiller addictions

IFIXIT

Chomsky: Why the Israel-Palestine 'Negotiations' Are a Complete Farce
The negotiations provide a cover for Israel's takeover of the territories it wishes to control and should spare the United States some further embarrassment at the UN.

Be sure to check the left eye

Volvo Trucks - The Hook

Politics and Business
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How a Cabal Keeps Generics Scarce

Bank CEO Admits To Using Bailout Money To Buy A Luxury Condo In Florida

JPMorgan Chase May Have To Pay $6 Billion To Settle Financial Crisis Lawsuit: Report

Apple is the patent trolls' No. 1 target, with 171 suits since 2009

Ohio used driver's license photos for facial recognition software two months ago without informing the public.

Congress Asks Eric Holder To Explain Why NSA Supplies DEA Info Which It Then Launders To Go After Americans

NSA Admits: Okay, Okay, There Have Been A Bunch Of Intentional Abuses, Including Spying On Love Interests

Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

Grounded TV Marti plane a monument to the limits of American austerity
At an airfield in rural Georgia, the U.S. government pays a contractor $6,600 a month for a plane that doesn’t fly.

L.A. sheriff: Pay for preschool, not prisons
“Either you have to pay now (for preschool), or you’re going to have to pay a guy like me later,” Baca said. He oversees a jail system with 19,000 inmates.
About 60 percent of those behind bars in Los Angeles are high school dropouts, said Baca, adding that many struggled in school because they did not have the benefit of preschool during their earliest years.
“When children go to preschool, they get to kindergarten with social confidence,” said Baca, 71, who worked as a part-time teacher in middle and high school and adult education classes for 30 years, in addition to his criminal justice career.

Science and Technology
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Just Thinking about Science Triggers Moral Behavior

Anti-patent-troll ads launch on radio and in print in 15 state
"At this point, trolls have gotten so aggressive—frankly they've gotten greedy," said Internet Association President Michael Beckerman in an interview with Ars. "In the early stages they were going after very large companies focusing on tech and Internet. Then they found they could extort restaurants, and retailers, and coffee shops, and hospitals—now even charities are getting threatening letters."

Developers force Microsoft to release Windows 8.1 early

Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

Farmer ants draft parasite ants as mercenaries

Study: Natives most affected by Amazon mercury
A study of mercury contamination from rampant informal gold mining in Peru's Amazon says indigenous people who get their protein mostly from fish are the most affected, particularly their children.

In South Florida, a Polluted Bubble Ready to Burst
On wind-whipped days when rain pounds this part of South Florida, people are quickly reminded that Lake Okeechobee, with its vulnerable dike and polluted waters, has become a giant environmental problem far beyond its banks...
Following its post-Hurricane Katrina guidelines, the Army Corps of Engineers chose the estuaries, rather than test the dike’s vulnerabilities.

As a result, the St. Lucie River estuary in the east and the Caloosahatchee River estuary in the west, which depend on a naturally calibrated balance of salt and fresh water, were overwhelmed....

A breeding ground for marine life, estuaries are crucial to the ecosystem. As algae caused by pollutants quickly spread and fresh water overpowered saltwater, oysters died in droves. Manatees, shellfish and the sea grasses and reefs that help sustain the estuaries all were badly hit.

Fun, Interesting, Disturbing and Offbeat
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What is a free PC program everyone should have?

Cliteracy 101: Artist Sophia Wallace Wants You To Know The Truth About The Clitoris

Crocodile holds man hostage on remote island for 2 weeks

Dead Dog in Reservoir Helps Drive Venezuelans to Bottled Water
The carcass of a dead dog floats on the lake that supplies tap water to 750,000 Venezuelans. Witch doctor Francisco Sanchez has just dumped the previous night’s sacrifice from a cliff, contaminating the resource that has become more scarce than gasoline in Caracas.

Mission Congo: how Pat Robertson raised millions on the back of a non-existent aid project
The televangelist claimed Operation Blessing was giving vital aid in response to the 1994 Rwandan crisis. A documentary opening at the Toronto film festival paints a less flattering picture.

Noam Chomsky to become new X-Factor judge
In his first outing as judge, Chomsky quickly made his mark. ‘Your act is part of a propaganda state promoting a culture-ideology of comforting illusion’, he told one hopeful young girl, before adding, ‘I’m saying yes.’

Absurd Creature of the Week: 10-Foot Bobbit Worm Is the Ocean’s Most Disturbing Predator (video included)

The World Capital Of Counterfeit Dollars
Over the past decade, $103 million in fake U.S. dollars "made in Peru" have been seized — nearly half since 2010, Peruvian and U.S. officials say. Unlike most other counterfeiters, who rely on sophisticated late-model inkjet printers, the Peruvians generally go a step further — finishing each bill by hand....
For all their skill, says Portocarrero, Peruvian counterfeiters' handiwork will always get tripped up by the infrared scanner banks used to authenticate currency. That, he says, owes to their continued reliance on standard "bond" paper, the variety used by consumers that is available in stores and that easily disintegrates when wet.

Videos
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GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY PENIS!

I went to film a juvenile kestrel in the backyard when suddenly...

How Differential Gear works

Pics

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Face swap: kids and their dolls

Jaguar hunting a caiman (Awesome power)

Monday, August 26, 2013

FIPID - 08/26/13

Fun Interesting Pertinent Information Dissemination

Top Picks
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Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior

Is Government's Renewed Push On Mortgage Fraud Too Late?

Are Innocent Citizens at Risk of Police Seizure of Their Cash, Cars and Homes?
It's called civil forfeiture. The seizures have long been a tool in the fight against illegal drugs. And the program is an enormous moneymaker for local police departments....

But many folks are unfamiliar with the idea of civil forfeiture, which is actually a case brought against, directly against a piece a property, where you don't need to be proven guilty of a crime for your goods to be taken away. And many of the conventional protections that you have under the criminal process are not afforded to you in a civil forfeiture case.

Modern-day Robin Hood | 60 Minutes
Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones' charity -- the Robin Hood Foundation -- fights poverty with the hard-nosed, business sense of Wall Street.

NSA Surveillance and Mission Creep
Last month, I wrote about the potential for mass surveillance mission creep: the tendency for the vast NSA surveillance apparatus to be used for other, lesser, crimes. My essay was theoretical, but it turns out to be already happening.
Other agencies are already asking to use the NSA data [and] The Drug Enforcement Agency is already using this data, and lying about it. (includes links to sources)

Perfect Moment | Scott Adam's Blog (Creator of Dilbert)
I also remember what it took to get to this place. I think of all the days in my youth when I worked on my uncle's dairy farm doing back-breaking labor under the boiling sun. I think of all the mornings I got up before dawn so I could shovel snow or mow lawns to earn money for college. I think of the four jobs I held during college. I think of the three years I worked my day job while going to school at night to get my MBA. I think of the six years I worked full-time at Pacific Bell while creating Dilbert morning, nights, and weekends. I think of the ten years I worked without taking a day off.

Russell Moore: From Moral Majority to 'Prophetic Minority'
'The Bible Belt is collapsing," says Russell Moore. Oddly, the incoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission doesn't seem upset. In a recent visit to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Moore explains that he thinks the Bible Belt's decline may be "bad for America, but it's good for the church."

My first job: Hauling hay
"If we hauled a thousand bales in a day, we got $2.50," he said. "What the job taught me was possibly the value of money and how hard it was to earn it, and you didn't spend it foolishly."

CIA documents acknowledge its role in Iran's 1953 coup

The true cost of college and reasons for it

The Losses of Dan Gable

Politics and Business
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National parks take out the trash (cans)

US should leave Edward Snowden alone

A Message to Trayvon Martin Sympathizers

Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

More NSA Spying Fallout: Groklaw Shutting Down

For You To Borrow, Some Libraries Have To Go Begging

You give religions more than $82.5 billion a year

How low can you get: the minimum wage scam
Wonder why benefit spending is rising? Simple: corporations get away with crappy wages, so government has to make up the rest

Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years
“When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system,” said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

Science and Technology
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Gym workouts and sunbathing do more for your brain than crosswords and Mozart

Death-defying free dives push boundaries | 60 Minutes

Fun, Interesting, Disturbing and Offbeat
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Wozniak Says `Lot of Things Wrong' With Jobs Movie

No, You’re Probably Not Smarter Than a 1912-Era 8th Grader

The 19 Best Movies That You Didn't See in 2012 - Indie Gems to Watch

Police: Intruder who was strangled by female nurse was a hit man

Formicophilia
Formicophilia, a form of zoophilia, is the sexual interest in being crawled upon or nibbled by small insects, such as ants. This paraphilia often involves the application of insects to the genitals, but other areas of the body may also be the focus. The desired effect may be a tickling or stinging sensation, or the infliction of psychological distress on another person.

Lion Attacks an Intruder in Its Den at Taipei Zoo
A lion attacked a man who jumped into its zoo enclosure here Wednesday and shouted, "Jesus will save you!" at the animal, an eyewitness said.

Videos
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What Might Happen If A Football Coach Coached Soccer

Pop Sci BodyGuard Glove- POP SCI

Sprinter joins a rugby team.

Ozell Williams like to jump and flip and spin

Stopped engine aerobatics

Pics

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Dingo lunch

Untreated seropositive rheumatoid arthritis

Thursday, August 8, 2013

FIPID - 08/08/13

Fun Interesting Pertinent Information Dissemination

Top Picks
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Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords
Secret demands mark escalation in Internet surveillance by the federal government through gaining access to user passwords, which are typically stored in encrypted form.

"The income of the top 1 percent nearly quadrupled from 1979 to 2007, but the typical family’s incomes barely budged." | PolitiFact

Famous 5-4 Decisions by the One Percent Court

Egypt May Not Need Fighter Jets, But The U.S. Keeps Sending Them Anyway
The U.S. started sending M1A1 Abrams tanks to Egypt in the late '80s. In all, the U.S. sent more than 1,000 tanks to Egypt since then — valued at some $3.9 billion — which Egypt maintains along with several thousand Soviet-era tanks.
"There's no conceivable scenario in which they'd need all those tanks short of an alien invasion," Shana Marshall of the Institute of Middle East Studies at George Washington University, told me.
A thousand tanks would be helpful for large land battles, but not for the threats facing Egypt today, such as terrorism and border security in the Sinai Peninsula, according to Robert Springborg, an expert on the Egyptian military at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. In fact, he said, at least 200 of the tanks the U.S. has sent to Egypt have never been used.
"They are crated up and then they sit in deep storage, and that's where they remain," he told me.
The story with F-16 fighter jets is similar. Since 1980, we've sent Egypt 221 fighter jets, valued at $8 billion. "Our American military advisers in Cairo have for many years been advising against further acquisitions of F-16s," Springborg said. Egypt already has more F-16s than it needs, he said.

Why I changed my mind on weed | Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent

Which Nations Hate The U.S.? Often Those Receiving U.S. Aid

NSA Phone Snooping Cannot Be Challenged in Court, Feds Say

Russia makes it illegal to insult the “feelings of religious believers”

20 Places to Educate Yourself Online for Free

Terrifying video shows moment a pair of divers were almost eaten by two hungry humpback whales

After WWII, Europe Was A 'Savage Continent' Of Devastation

Intro - Imagine a world without institutions. No governments. No school or universities. No access to any information. No banks. Money no longer has any worth. There are no shops, because no one has anything to sell. Law and order are virtually non-existent because there is no police force and no judiciary. Men with weapons roam the streets taking what they want. Women of all classes and ages prostitute themselves for food and protection.

Story - This is not the beginning to a futuristic thriller, but a history of Europe in the years directly following World War II, when many European cities were in ruins, millions of people were displaced, and vengeance killings were common, as was rape.

THE COMIC-CON 2013 COSPLAY GALLERY (850+ PHOTOS)

VOLVO'S NEW 'TENT' ELECTRIC CHARGER (Check out the photo)

Do Women Earn Less than Men?

Politics and Business
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Enigma codebreaker Alan Turing to be given posthumous pardon (Never should have happened. Never should have happened to a hero.)

Why a former NSA chief just made a big mistake by dissing hackersFormer NSA and CIA chief Gen. Michael Hayden speculated on Tuesday that hackers and transparency groups would turn to cyberterror attacks if the United States captured NSA leaker Edward Snowden. He went on to dismiss Snowden supporters as “nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twenty-somethings who haven’t talked to the opposite sex in five or six years.”

Proof Of Politics: Indiana Fudges Truth On Health Exchange Rates To Make Obamacare Look Bad

Blond beauty set to sue NYPD over sexy photos swiped from iPhone
Pamela Held, 27, of Deer Park, is poised to sue the city and the Police Department, accusing a cop of invading her privacy by forwarding the provocative images from her iPhone.
Held’s nightmarish ordeal unfolded the night of Feb. 6 when five cops in a police van pulled over her Sentra in Ridgewood because it had no inspection sticker. The cops found prescription drugs in the car, so the officers, including Christian, hauled Held and her pal to the stationhouse.
When cops began grilling her about her whereabouts that night, Held told them she was visiting a friend and had text messages to prove it. She gave one officer the security code to open her phone and pointed out the messages. Then police left the room, with the phone, while she was processed on misdemeanor drug charges.

Halliburton pleads guilty to destroying Gulf spill evidence

Texas childbirth death rates rise
"...nationally the risk of death associated with a full-term pregnancy and delivery is 8.8 deaths per 100,000, while the risk of death linked to legal abortion is 0.6 deaths per 100,000 women. That means a woman carrying a baby to term is 14 times more likely to die than a woman who chooses to have a legal abortion.

In Texas, the statistics are worse. In 2011 Texas women died in childbirth at a rate of 24.63 per 100,000."

US lawmaker compares Edward Snowden with Mahatma Gandhi

Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes

Experiments in Speed

Experiments in speed. Inspired by those great men of the salt flats, those men that in the 60s pushed the Land Speed Record from the 300s up towards the 600mph mark in jet-propelled cars built in their sheds. We decided to do what we do: build a bicycle, but this time, in the spirit of those pioneers of speed, build it to see how fast we could go…

Best of Street Fighter II "Best of Church Edition" Starring Benny Hinn

The Landfill Harmonic Orchestra

SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE DUCKTALES (Weird but interesting)

Indian singer

How much does that cost?

Pics

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Eight-ton orca leaps 15ft into the air to finally capture dolphin he wanted for dinner after two-hour chase

Motorcycle accident at 70 mph

US and Canada Border. Follow the line down the middle.

Walrus on a Russian submarine

Red wasp sting in the nose

Survived lightning strike

Friday, July 19, 2013

FIPID - 07/19/13

Fun Interesting Pertinent Information Dissemination

Top Picks
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Carter blasts clergy on women's rights

Religious leaders help perpetuate male power and female mistreatment, the former president said.

‘America has no functioning democracy’ – Jimmy Carter on NSA

Jimmy Carter: Unchecked campaign contributions are 'legal bribery' (Jimmy is on a role this month)

Your Choice In Utensils Can Change How Food Tastes

PISS TESTING IS A FAILURE | Vice (Profanity)

'Pernicious' Effects of Economic Inequality

Sinkholes: When the Earth Opens Up (lots of pics)

NASA uses 3-D printing to make a rocket engine injector at 70% reduction in cost and a 66% reduction in manufacturing time.

The Drone That Killed My Grandson
"I LEARNED that my 16-year-old grandson, Abdulrahman — a United States citizen — had been killed by an American drone strike from news reports the morning after he died. The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen...My grandson was killed by his own government. The Obama administration must answer for its actions and be held accountable."

A Philadelphia School's Big Bet on Nonviolence
In a desperately poor, dangerous part of town, Memphis Street Academy decided to ditch its metal detectors and focus on supporting students. Violence dropped by 90 percent.

Politics and Business
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Schieffer: House farm bill 'like welfare for the wealthy'

Costco CEO: Raise The Minimum Wage To More Than $10 Per Hour

Paid via Card, Workers Feel Sting of Fees (Surprise! Sneaky companies take advantage of workers.)

Don’t let DOMA fool you — the Supreme Court is restricting your rights

Life without parole? No child deserves that.
...an investigation by the Center for Law and Global Justice found that the United States remains the only nation in the world known to sentence children to life without parole — a sentence to die in prison.

Law and Justice and George Zimmerman
The exoneration of Travyon Martin's killer is a stark reminder of the limitations of our judicial systems and the choices we make about the laws under which we live.

Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

Justice Samuel Alito Might Have Quintupled His Net Worth in 2012

Fifty Years of Murder in America, Mapped

Here’s Why JP Morgan Is Being Accused of Enron-Style Shenanigans

Science and Technology
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Why You Have To Scratch That Itch
Things that made a normal mouse scratch like crazy had no effect on mice with no Nppb. But when those mice were injected with the substance, they scratched, too.

Here Be Dragons: The Mythic Bite of the Komodo
The truth, of course, is of little comfort to anyone planning to visit the islands where dragons roam. Don’t worry, you won’t die of sepsis from a Komodo bite. You’ll just die when the gigantic lizard with inch-long serrated teeth dripping with hemorrhagic venom tears your flesh to shreds.

Energy production causes big US earthquakes

Can Caresses Protect the Brain from Stroke?
Neurons cut off by a stroke may have the inherent ability to reroute blood flow and save themselves.

All Charged Up: Engineers Create A Battery Made Of Wood

Fun, Interesting, Disturbing and Offbeat
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From funny to fit; man sheds 155 pounds

Take the Impossible “Literacy” Test Louisiana Gave Black Voters in the 1960

In the Words of the Presidents
Jefferson coined more than 100 new words including pedicure; card-player Harry Truman popularized the phrase fair deal; George Washington added 37 terms to the lexicon, including hatchet man; and Teddy Roosevelt denounced irresponsible journalists as muckrakers.

Ohio Man Rips Off Part Of His Penis After Taking Hallucinogenic Mushrooms: Police

Leah Remini Flees Scientology (The King of Queens actress)

The Ultimate Weight-Loss Incentive: Dubai Will Pay Dieters in Gold

Christman Genipperteinga
He was a German serial killer in the 16th century, who is said to have murdered 964 individuals, from his youth and over a 13-year period, from 1568 until his capture in 1581.

Beer drinking king dies in competition tragedy
"He had drunk six litres of beer, and when he won he lifted the trophy."
"Then he just started to vomit without stopping and he never spoke again,"

Videos
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Talented bear

Now that's a victory dance

Master craftsman makes a hatchet handle

Pics

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Complete Idiocy Makes for Pretty Amazing Fireworks Photos

Can haz halp pleez?

Monday, July 15, 2013

Zimmerman Trial

Justice System On Trial In Court Of Public Opinion | NPR

The George Zimmerman trial has prompted a national debate on race and the American justice system. It's a far-reaching, and important, discussion, says legal expert Andrew Cohen in his recent column on The Atlantic. But it is also one that by definition is kept out of the courtroom. Host Jacki Lyden talks to Cohen about the differences between the courtroom and the court of public opinion.

JACKI LYDEN, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. Coming up, how one African-American parent explained the Zimmerman ruling to his son.

But first, one of the outcomes of the trial of George Zimmerman is likely to be what the jurors were able to consider and whether a legal trial can fully satisfy divided public, even when it's the only constitutional means we have.

Legal analyst Andrew Cohen examines this question in a piece for TheAtlantic.com in which he considers the limitations of our legal system. He joins us now from Denver. Andrew Cohen, thanks for being with us.

ANDREW COHEN: It's my pleasure.

LYDEN: First of all, you write that the Zimmerman verdict exonerating him is, quote, "a blunt reminder of one of the limitations of our justice system" because, again, quoting you, "criminal trials are not searches for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." And as you say, they never have been. Could you explain what you mean, please?

COHEN: Sure. Well, what I mean is a trial is a challenge of its attested evidence. Judges throw out relevant evidence all the time. They don't allow jurors to see it. Prosecutors argue to keep certain evidence away from the jury. The defense argues to keep certain evidence away from the jury. And in this particular case, we know that there was a lot of evidence that both sides wanted to give to jurors that the judge didn't allow.

The reason why this wasn't the racially tinged trial that it could've been is precisely because the judge forbid it. So we look at trials and I think sometimes we ask too much of the judicial system. We ask too much of lawyers and judges and jurors. We're not necessarily going to get the whole answer. And clearly, we don't have the whole answer even though the legal process - at least the criminal legal process now against Zimmerman is over.

LYDEN: You say trials aren't moral surrogates. And it's almost in your view as if there are two trials going on here. One is the evidence and George Zimmerman's account of his conduct. And the other is the law itself, this Stand Your Ground law, which many people would hold excessively broad. That's an interesting parallel.

COHEN: Well, the point I was trying to make in the piece and the point that I sort of lived with for the past 15 years or so as I've covered the law is that a trial is a microcosm. It is a sliver of the truth. And you can't have a trial like this and have both sides arguing about the extent of the self-defense law, for example. The reason George Zimmerman is innocent today or free today, anyway, the reason why he wasn't convicted last night, in part, is because of the broadness of the Florida law.

If people are upset by the verdict, if they don't think it's a just verdict, the solution is to try to change the law to make the self-defense defense more narrow so that it doesn't apply in situations like this. That's - the larger point I'm trying to make is there is the court that has now been concluded, and there is the court of public opinion.

And the court of public opinion is allowed to take in all of the things that are reality, the moral, the ethical, the racial components to this story in a way that the legal system not only isn't built to do but isn't allowed to do under the Constitution. The judge's job over the course of the past few weeks has been to give George Zimmerman a fair trial, to observe the bill of rights, to observe the rules of evidence. And she did that very well.

LYDEN: Let me just ask you about that. You think that she did a very good job, and that's one of the points you make here.

COHEN: Yeah. I don't think you can fault this judge in any material way. She made some ruling against prosecutors that precluded them from bringing in evidence. She made some ruling against the defense, which they objected to very strongly. Remember, just a couple of days ago, the defense objected to the inclusion of the manslaughter option, which, of course, ended up being something that wasn't relevant.

So this is a judge who kept control over her courtroom in a very high-profile case, a case that easily could've spun out of control because of its racial component. And I think that neither side really is complaining about the judge. And when you get that in this kind of a case, it means the judge has done the job she was supposed to do.

She isn't supposed to or allowed to bridge the racial divide that we have in this country. She's not supposed to look into the larger issues about racial classifications and so forth. That's not her job, especially as a trial judge.

LYDEN: Andrew, civil rights groups have been calling for a civil trial, a wrongful death civil action against George Zimmerman. What do you think? What do you expect there?

COHEN: Well, I think we'd expect that to be quite different than the one we've just seen. The rules of evidence are a little bit more lax in a civil case. The burden of proof is different in a civil case. It's only preponderance of the evidence rather than reasonable doubt. And there's no Fifth Amendment protection against self-incriminations.

So if we were to see a lawsuit, a civil lawsuit by the Martin family, George Zimmerman would have to testify under oath. He would have to be subject to cross-examination by the Martin family attorneys. And that may be, alone, an incentive for the family to go after him, even though it's apparent that he doesn't have a whole lot of money at the end of the day.

We've seen it in the O.J. Simpson case, we've seen it in other high-profile cases where the civil case looks very much different than the criminal case does. And I would bet if we get a civil case here, that's going to be the case.

LYDEN: Andrew Cohen, thank you very much for speaking with us.

COHEN: It's my pleasure.

LYDEN: That was Andrew Cohen. You can find his piece at theatlantic.com. He's also a legal analyst for CBS News.