The Chewbacca defense

Leighton downplays W-B debt of $100M

Now lets read this excerpt and, remember, stay on target;
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Karen Ceppa Hirko told City Council Thursday the city is more than $100 million in debt, and questioned how it would be paid.

However, Mayor Tom Leighton said residents shouldn’t be concerned and he learned this week the city has maintained its “A” credit rating from Standard & Poor’s.
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The first thing I thought when I saw this? The South Park episode.
It went like this:
Cochran, "Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!"

Gerald Broflovski, "Damn it! ... He's using the Chewbacca defense!"

Cochran, "Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests."

It's the Twinkie defense. It's basically Leighton saying, "Don't look at this, look here..... A shiny object... Yes pay attention to my shiny object, not to the other thing....."

You should also read this.

He never answered the question. Maybe because he didn't get our city out of McGroartys debt, like he has claimed, he just made it long term debt. And then he added to it. Like paying over $30 million for a $12 million parking garage. and $3 million for a camera system, which I understand, wasn't in the right position to record the machete attack.

Speaking of the Attack.
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A long-simmering battle for racial supremacy at a Wilkes-Barre high school precipitated the nearby machete attack Thursday that nearly cost a 15-year-old student his hand as he swung his arm to block another boy from a potentially fatally blow, according to students and parents whose children attend the school.
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And
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Students, repeating details of the attack that had circulated through the school, said a Dominican perpetrator cracked a bottle over the head of a black student, threw him to the ground and swung at his throat with a machete in an attempt to slash or decapitate him. The 15-year-old who was struck, also black, stuck his arm in front of the other boy's throat, saving his life but sacrificing his wrist, the students said.

"That kid who got his hand chopped, he saved the other kid's life," Norbert said Friday. "If he didn't put his hand in, they would have killed him. They would have chopped off his head."
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I know that this attack is supposed to be a gang vs gang thing, but what hit me was one student putting himself in harms way to protect another.
I have 2 hopes.
I hope the boy has a full recovery (even if he was 'involved' a person willing to defend another can be a plus to society)
And I hope this does NOT escalate.

Dan Emplit WBFD
AKA Don Quixote