By Nathan Barton

Good morning.

As many as 1,000 potential jurors may be called to fill out questionnaires that will eventually lead to the selection of a panel that will decide the fate of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, officials said Monday.  This is, of course, ridiculous and stupid: far better to get rid of the selection process except for maybe a dozen “yes-no” questions, such as “are you related to the defendant or any of the victims or arresting officers?” and “can you understand English?”  The present process has almost destroyed the jury trial by encouraging AND ALLOWING the judge and the two attorneys (or teams) to select barely sentient jurors who are willing to be used as pawns and shills by the judge, and are often incapable of deciding what they want with their coffee.

Now this is pretty neat: an astute motorist turning the table on the cops:  in a state where the use of unmarked cars by police is strictly limited and does NOT allow for traffic stops for ordinary driving offenses, this private citizen politely pulls over a cop in an unmarked car and gives him a citation! Of course, with too many cops, this sort of thing could have very easily led to a dead, tazed, or beaten citizen.

Half of America’s doctors give Obummercare a grade of D or F. The Physicians Foundation recently asked 20,000 American doctors to grade Obamacare. The results were not good for the president’s signature law. Okay, it is easy to see why they would rank it this way.  My question is WHY do they not take some action(s) to fight this?  Why not pressure their societies and representatives to jettison the whole thing?  Why not encourage their patients and staff to do the same, to get rid of it?  Why not find ways to work around it? It is NOT because they are stupid, clearly.  It is not because they are not politically savvy.  Why?  Perhaps because despite their complaints, too many of them figure that they are gaming the system to their personal benefit?

Mama’s Note: Unless the doctors are heavily invested in some medical insurance scams or big pharmaceutical companies, they don’t stand to gain a dime under Obamacare. Doctors and other health care professionals have been abandoning Medicare in droves for years now, and Obummercare is the caca frosting on that poop cake.  Lots of good information on Obummercare and the future of real, free market medicine here at Oklahoma Surgery Center blog.

Reason magazine points out that there is little justification for California’s plastic bag ban.  Indeed, Paper and reusable bags are much worse for the environment than plastic bags.  But we are messing with an article of faith in the “new” environist religion, which is trying to ban plastic bags for many reasons, including the fact that they make shopping too easy and use “fossil fuels” in their production.

A reminder of what blessings we DO still have in this nation: a comparison to the UK in Freedom Outpost tells us why we should be grateful we are no longer part of the British Empire or Commonwealth.

The FBI Director, arrogant and boastful, is telling firms attempting to make it harder for government to violate the Fourth Amendment that the FBI will decrypt the phones “for them.”  This is, almost certainly, an empty boast: I do not believe that the FedGov can compete with either Apple or Google for info tech savvy, even if they find hackers willing to try.  But more important, what are we doing letting this piece of garbage get away with threats like this?  Have either Apple or Google broken any of his precious laws?  Indeed, the FBI has demonstrated it is FAR more lawless than the average info tech company, and maybe ANY of them.  Comey wants Congress to pass a law forbidding encryption of phones:  a law that if Congress and the Fuehrer are so STUPID as to pass will, I think, be ignored and flaunted by millions of people.  Why should MY phone, MY laptop, MY computer, MY PADD, be any LESS secure than my desk, my briefcase, my office, my house, or my brain?  It is MINE, and it is my God-given right to privacy that government has NO business violating.  One of the few things that makes this police state barely tolerable is that we have better and better means of protecting our privacy against scum like Comey.  And his boss.

It is worth noting that not ALL law enforcement types are buying this scumbag’s song and dance.  Last month at a Homeland Security conference in South Dakota attended by almost 500 people across the state from emergency management, law enforcement, emergency services, and military, one of the sessions was provided by a Black Hills firm teaching people how to IMPROVE cybersecurity of their professional, business, and personal communications and equipment.  Not one person asked how to bypass the security systems he described and encouraged them to adopt.

Wyoming was forced today to pretend that “marriage” can be between two men, or between two women, when Cheyenne decided not to waste time and money to appeal to the Nazgul in DC (Supreme Court) after a federal judge illegally and unconstitutionally overturned its law defining marriage as “one-man, one-woman,” becoming the 33rd State to be forced to pretend that judges can redefine English at will.  Hopefully, the Wyoming Legislature will just cancel ALL laws regarding marriage, which isn’t the business of the State anyway.  And many of us pray that the Legislature will also pass a Bill of Secession to end the federal tyranny so we can get on to dealing with the tyranny that even Cheyenne exercises under the pretext of “democracy.”

Students at the University of Texas signed a petition to bring Ebola patients to the Fifty States. Okay, this is a quite cute, but rather stupid stunt which tells us nothing we don’t already know.  Namely that most college students are pretty brain-dead.  And while they are pretty generous, it seems to be mostly with someone else’s money.  Their parents, with 16 to 30 years more experience, might be a bit more understanding.  At the same time, panicked claims that NO “typical” hospital can handle Ebola patients are utter nonsense: ANY hospital that isn’t staffed by idiots and has basic tools and materials can protect its staff and others from infection by an Ebola patient, and provide necessary sustainment support (I forget the medical term) to the patient to keep them from sliding into Stage II – and with the time to prepare, what is necessary to help people survive Stage II as well.  One of the major reasons for the 70% death rate in Africa right now is NO MATERIALS, NO SPACE, NO EQUIPMENT.  And shortages of basic things like clean water, food, and even basic medicines.

C-NET is a pretty mainstream on-line magazine, so its story this week about “This is why people use  phones to film police” is both refreshing and a bit surprising.  It has links to lots of stories about stupidity in cops dealing with smart phones and other methods of recording their stupid, cruel, and often illegal and immoral acts.  It is worth reading both to enjoy and to learn a bit more to protect ourselves.  If it happens in Ankeny, Iowa, there is NO place in the Fifty States that won’t have an idiotic officer throwing his weight around.

North Korea was going to try two Americans for “hostile acts” against the country or regime.  One was leaving a Bible in a hotel room, which of course is very DEFINITELY a hostile act, but not (of course) an act of aggression.  Assuming it was in Korean, such a thing could ultimately lead to bringing down the regime.  But now North Korea has released the one who left the Bible, reasons unstated. The other one set for trial tore up his tourist visa and said he wanted to defect to North Korea. Apparently that is also hostile to the state.  But a Korean-American already convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison, presumably for preaching, is still in prison.  The antics of North Korea remain an enigma. But then, unless you understand that government is more about personal power of those in office – and wealth, of course – every government is an enigma.