Fox Trot surprised me so much today that I just stared at it for a few minutes.

A story in today's Seattle Times, quoted on TalkLeft, prompted what quickly turned into a rant I've needed to release for some time. The criminal justice system is broken, and we have to fix it. The only way I can think of is to impose the highest standards on those in it, and to reward them appropriately, not like we do today. Most importantly, though, this affects you: at current rates, one out of every fifteen people will spend time in prison in their lifetime. If it's not you, it's someone you know.

At the time I post this (2004.08.22, 2:10PM CDT), the Olympic coverage on NBC's broadcast network is showing a Women's Beach Volleyball match between Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs of the USA vs. Stephanie Pohl and Okka Rau of Germany. The venue is the Olympic Beach Volleyball Center, and the commentators are Chris Marlowe and Karch Kiraly, as usual.

On CNBC, at the exact same time, NBC is showing a Women's Beach Volleyball match between Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar of Brazil, vs. Ana Paula Connelly and Sandra Pires of Brazil. The venue is the Olympic Beach Volleyball Center, and the commentators are Chris Marlowe and Karch Kiraly.

You know it's all tape-delayed, and you know things aren't shown in order, but it's still damned disorienting. (For the results ahead of time, see NBC's Beach Volleyball page; like most of the pages for individual sports, it shows you the full news regardless of NBC's tape-delay schedule.)