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March 3, 2003

Jury Duty:
Recently, my wife was called to jury duty in a Michigan court. I don't know how it is done in other states, but in Michigan the jury pool used to be taken from the list of registered voters. Think about that. It means that half or more of the eligible people were getting out of jury duty because they were too lazy or stupid to register to vote.

However, these same people were not too lazy or stupid to apply for a drivers license. So, the State of Michigan finally came out of the Dark Ages. They discovered they could double the pool of jurors by taking it from the list of licensed drivers and they did. That took an unfair burden off of the people who were voters and spread it out a bit.

Strangely enough, that is not why they did it. They did it because of pressure from minority groups. These people who were too lazy to register complained that they were being treated unfairly. It seems they were not being tried by a jury of their lazy peers. When they broke the law they were being tried by a jury of people who cared enough to vote. Now it's more democratic. People who don't care can try them. How-bout that?
Markus:

Our Nature:
You can force clay into a mold and make it look different, but you cannot change the inherent nature of clay. Operant conditioning is a procedure on human beings, much like molding clay. We say, boys are this and that, or girls are this and that, but it's bull. Our current boys and girls are what we have forced them into being. They are the manufactured products of operant conditioning. It would be nice if we could stop conditioning our kids so we could finally find out what human beings are really like. It would be nice to rediscover our inherent nature. I suspect it would be beautiful.
Gaffer:

Feeding People:
Food and medicine are still the most powerful weapons America has. We should use them much more often, and with a great deal more empathy. We should just do it and not crow about it. We should not make the recipients feel like beggars or poor relatives. We should do it with love. In democratizing the world, this becomes extremely important. For the cost of one Stealth Bomber we could probably feed Afghanistan for a year.
Evie:

Dolly:
ABC news, February 14, 2003.
The cloned sheep died at age six. A normal sheep's lifetime is 12 years. I am not surprised. Dolly was not a normal sheep. The poor thing had half a life time. Maybe those crazy cloning people are starting to figure it out. It seems to me that Dolly was born six years old. Though she appeared to be an infant, her biological clock was set to six years not zero. Now what about this human baby the crazy cult claims to have cloned? If they really did, the thing that looks like a baby will be the age of its donor. How old was that? Maybe thirty. That would give this poor kid a life expectancy of about fifty years. If you were the kid, how would you feel?
William:

Approval Rating:
Bush, in his saber rattling about Iraq has successfully turned the nations attention away from his bungling failure in Afghanistan and his bungling of the economic situation. He has a very high approval rating. Now, what will happen when he invades Iraq and our soldiers start getting killed? He should have checked with Lyndon Johnson's associates on this one. The people are not going to approve when American soldiers get killed.
Gaffer:

Smallpox:
If we start massive vaccinations, fifty people out of a million could get sick. Two might die. Knowing that, there are some first line medical people who are refusing to take the vaccination because they will not be allowed to sue the manufacture if they get sick or die. That is massively dishonest. Pretty much every one of these scum heads either prescribe medication or perform procedures with much greater risk levels than that. These people are simply cowardly obstructionists.
William:

Hamtramck Chili:
The stuff: 1 cup diced onion, I tbsp. Corn oil, 1/2 lb. ground round, 2 hotdog sized kielbasa chopped, 2 cans Brooks chili hot beans, 2 cups chopped tomatoes, 2 cups chicken stock, 1 Tbs. chili powder, 1 Tbs. paprika, 1 tsp. ground cumin, 1 tsp. turmeric, 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper.

The mixing: In a 4 qt. sauce pan on med heat, brown onion in oil. Add ground round and simmer while breaking meat into rice sized pieces. When meat is browned add kielbasa and simmer 1/2 hour. Add all other ingredients and simmer for 1 hour or more. The longer it simmers, the thicker it gets and the better it tastes. Serve with cheddar cheese, chopped onions, and crackers.

This recipe will serve 1 teenage boy, 2 Polish Longshoremen, 4 normal people, or 27 French Hairdressers.
Eugene and William:
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