at California beaches: link to news.
"Lucas Ransom, a 19-year-old student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was bodyboarding with friend Matthew Garcia off Surf Beach some 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles on Friday when the shark pulled him under the water. He resurfaced with his leg nearly severed amid what Garcia told The Associated Press was a wave of pure red."
Horrible.
Still in shock at the death of Fran Crippen.
Former Member
of the 51 fatal shark attacks in the past decade worldwide, 3 were in florida, 3 in california, and 1 in hawaii. 13 in australia. 8 in south africa.
flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/statsw.htm
Florida has almost three times as many shark attacks, but 1/4 the fatal shark attacks as Aus. Australia has about 20% larger population. I'm guessing that Florida has a large number of tourists that swim.
So, it looks to me like the land down under is the place to go to feed the sharks! ("I'd give an arm and a leg to save an endangered species.")
Over the past 2 decades, more than 250 people in the US have been cleared from wrongful convictions. In total, the exonerees served more than 3250 years before being cleared, which is more than 46 lifetimes (3250/70).
innocenceproject.org/Content/How_many_people_have_been_exonerated_through_DNA_testing.php
innocenceproject.org/Content/How_much_time_did_the_exonerees_serve_in_prison.php
innocenceproject.org/Content/How_many_innocent_people_are_there_in_prison.php
By comparison, sharks have taken less than half that number of lives from US coastal waters over that same time period (past 2 decades) (few of the 20 were open water swimmers, many were surfers)
flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/statsus.htm
Who should we be more leary of: lawyers or sharks?
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Remember, it was lawyers who founded the Innocence Project and lawyers are getting the wrongfully convicted freed. Just as with sharks - you should be leery of some lawyers! (Of course, I'm an attorney!)
For anyone interested in the topic of the wrongly convicted, an excellent read is "Actual Innocence." It's by the Innocence Project guys and is a disturbing read. Overzealous prosecutors are only one part of the "problem." Faulty police techniques and crime "labs" with shoddy practices also contribute to the convictions of the actually innocent.
