Monday, July 15, 2013

Double Jeopardy

Amendment V.  "Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb."

They put this in the Bill of Rights to even things up.  The government has the money to keep on trying for a conviction, long after any citizen has been driven into bankruptcy.  So the Bill of Rights limits the government's efforts to ONE try.  If the defendant gets off, then the government is forbidden to try again.

The Trayvon Martin partisans are soap boxing to hit Zimmerman with federal civil rights violations now that he has been acquitted.  That's double jeopardy, pure and simple. 

No where to put violent madmen

They dropped him off at a Manchester hospital, Friday.  A decision to commit him to the state mental hospital involuntarily was made.  But the state hospital was full.  So they left him in the ER.  All night, all weekend.  By Monday he was good and mad and assaulted an ER worker, breaking his jaw and knocking out four teeth. He them slugged a nurse hard enough to break her cheek bone. 
   In short, New Hampshire is so short on state hospital beds that dangerous nut cases are parked in hospital ER, awaiting a bed to open up. 
   Here we had a violent case who was bad enough to get committed, and NH didn't have anywhere to put him.  They left him hanging around until he injured two people.
   What chance do we have of committing a school shooter before he kills children?

Sunday, July 14, 2013

The View from the Ivory Tower

" No one now doubts the what the Arab public wants is elected constitutional government."  So says this week's Economist magazine.
 Is that right?  Or does the Arab public just want life to suck less?  The two worst cases, Egypt and Syria are running out of food, have run out of jobs, and feature armed terrorists running around loose.  Both countries have failed to feed themselves, the only thing preventing mass famine is food imports, which they lack the money to pay for.
   Has the Arab public given up on imposing Sharia law, driving the Jews into the sea, and exterminating the Shia (or the Sunni depending upon which side they are on)?
   Me thinks the Economist is merely passing on the bloviations of  properly raised young upper class Brits.  I doubt any of their writers speak Arabic and has lived on the economy in say Cairo. 
   
   

Saturday, July 13, 2013

The Fat Lady Sings

Jury just acquitted George Zimmerman.  Maybe we can put this distasteful case behind us, now?  Please.

Dawn over Marblehead

The clock radio came on, as usual this morning, and they are running a piece on a miraculous new educational concept.  Radical it is.  They  mix athletics with class room teaching.  I listened to a long learned discussion of the wonderful neurological effects, and how much more ready to learn to children are after exercise.  They made it sound like the greatest innovation since Socrates.
   Of course this is something any parent knows.  Children are full of bounce and energy and you have to get 'em out of doors and run off steam if you want 'em to sit still indoors.   I used to take 'em out down hill skiing.  After even a half a day skiing Cannon, they would be so tired that they would fall asleep on the living room rug in front of the TV.
   I wonder if the ed majors running our school still do recess.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Child Abuse ???

The prosecution in the Trayvon Martin trial is beginning to doubt that they can make second degree murder stick.  So they are adding some lesser charges that the jury might find easier to convict upon.  The prosecutors are now charging Zimmerman with child abuse, 'cause Martin was under 18.
  Child Abuse?  Shoot a stranger dead out of doors and it's child abuse?  Is this sort of crime that the good legislators of Florida had in mind when they passed the state child abuse law?  
Ham sandwich nation. 

Bye-bye manufacturing jobs.

Sturm Ruger, a noted old line American firearms maker,  announced that they will open a new factory in North Carolina, rather than expand their existing plant in New Hampshire.  The company cited the lack of a right to work law in NH as one strong reason for building else where.
   Damn.  We nearly had right to work up here.  It passed the house and senate only to be vetoed by former governor Lynch.  We had enough votes to override Lynch's veto in the senate, and were only a dozen votes short in the house.  Every union in New Hampshire, and a whole bunch for out of state, opposed right to work with every breath in their bodies.  It would have passed without  that die hard opposition.
  Thanks, unions, for sending all those good manufacturing jobs off to North Carolina.