Meth, meth and more meth.

Came down to a women victim vs. the word of the accused male.   Neither was very sympathetic as both admitted to heavy drug use during a 3day bender.

Prosecutor spent a whole day proving the testimony of both witnesses with physical evidence placing both in a car with another man when the alleged incident took place.

She said he tried to choke and stab her.  He said they where cooking meth and got into a fight over a knife while they both tried to remove lithium from batteries.

The prosecutor/victim had a story which said they kidnapped her after the two men accused her of being a NARC.  We the jury had to believe this story in order to not have a jurisdictional issue.  Most of the crime occurred in another county but since they originally kidnapped her in my county the law said we could convict him on all five counts.

Problem was we didn't believe the kidnapping beating story.   We knew something happened in the car in the other county but we believed his story that they had gone their to make and smoke more meth.

A few on our jury still wanted to convict him because he was obviously not a nice guy and he did harm her in the fight.

I pointed out that since none of us believed anything bad happened in our county it didn't matter.   We where told by the judge in his instructions that the prosecution had to prove a crime was committed in our county to convict and the state didn't prove that.  The holdouts himmmed and hawwed for a while but eventually gave in as the law was pretty clear.

We found him not guilty on all counts.

I must say it was very enlightening to sit in that room with someone's life in your hands.  I will never look at a jury in one of the high profile cases the same way.   Knowing what I know now I will give the jury the benefit of the doubt in the future because in these high profile cases no one can know what it's like to sit in that box and hear only what they want you to hear compared to all the chatter and back in forth we're privy to.

Kids in their 20s, recent grads, are getting harpooned by this economy. How is Obama going to get them to the polls this time?

That is the statement that needs to be made. And,  Ryan's replacement is something else: it is subsidized private insurance with varying premium support and  less coverage.  It is unstated what private insurance structure would serve as a foundation--prior to Medicare in 1965, a major issue was capabilities for private insurance with that immutable pre-existing condition, old age.

Ironically, an effective individualized  coupon market would require all individuals to enroll, some might say, a mandate.  With Obamacare repeal a part of the overall plan, that base is unavailable.  But one thing is likely, that the coupons would provide for the purchase of less coverage  and result in higher premiums. The re-shaped iteration that allows options for Medicare or the privatized Ryan program, is not sustainable for either program and will cost recipients substantially more each year

Here's Glenn's take:

A new military-themed reality show from NBC, entitled "Stars Earn Stripes," debuts tonight. The show "enthusiastically melds warfare and fame," as a Washington Post review today put it. It features eight celebrities (using the loosest definition of that term) -- such as husband-of-Sarah Todd Palin, former Superman Dean Cain, and former boy band member Nick Lachey -- paired up with "military and law enforcement veterans, including a Green Beret, a SWAT officer, two Marine sergeants, a retired member of the Delta Force and two Navy SEALs", whom NBC hails as the "Bad Ass Operatives." They're all under the "command" of Gen. Wesley Clark, who once actually thought he should be President, as he co-hosts this reality show with former Dancing with the Stars host Samantha Harris (subjecting oneself to the two preview videos below, one wonders how much NBC had to pay to purchase Gen. Clark's dignity in full: probably more than the Terror group MEK paid him to become its loyal shill).

Together, says the LA Times quoting NBC, the "stars" and the Bad Ass Operatives will participate in "missions reminiscent of counterinsurgencies that have taken place all over the world," with "real bullets" and "real danger." Just in the first episode, says the Post, "they have to leap out of a helicopter into a lake while weighted down with automatic weapons and full gear; swim to a motorized raft; wade ashore under enemy fire; destroy a lookout tower with a grenade; shoot at paper `enemy' targets with live rounds; wade through mud to seize the enemy's ammo cache and then, finally, blow it all to kingdom come." In this maiden episode, one of the Bad Ass Operatives marvels at Todd Palin's skill in performing one of these tasks, and exclaims: "[He] is an animal! Good God! . . . . He's just straight-up Rambo!" The Bad Ass then adds: "Next time I go to war, I want Todd Palin on my side." Another Bad Ass Operative vows to take "Nick Lachey, guy in the boy band, and turn him into Nick Lachey, bad boy guy with a gun."

Needless to say, this is all being done To Honor The Troops. The winner will receive $100,000 to donate to a military-related charity of their choice.

[snip]

UPDATE: Nine Nobel peace laureates have called on NBC to cancel this show, pointing out that "war isn't entertainment" and "people--military and civilians--die in ways that are anything but entertaining," adding: "Trying to somehow sanitize war by likening it to an athletic competition further calls into question the morality and ethics of linking the military anywhere with the entertainment industry in barely veiled efforts to make war and its multitudinous costs more palatable to the public." The list of those peace laureates singing the letter includes 1984 winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1987 winner President Oscar Arias Sanchez, and 2003 winner Dr. Shirin Ebadi, though -- shockingly - it does not include the 2009 winner and current American President, Barack Obama (the one who, according to MSNBC's Harris-Perry, has "an impressive record on foreign policy for hawks": quite a strange attribute for a Nobel Peace laureate). Numerous anti-war groups have also been circulating a petition against the show and "war-o-tainment," which can be signed here.

"Bad Ass Operatives?"  Seriously?

How much money do you figure NBC has that it could just donate to military-related charities without turning war into a cheesy TV show?  Oh, wait - I guess NBC doesn't want to give its own money - just some teeny portion of the money it makes from this dreck.

Fast Times also proved to be the launching pad for the careers of a number of other Hollywood notables, including Forrest Whitacker, Nicolas Cage (who was billed under his real name, Nicolas Coppola), Eric Stolz, Anthony Edwards, Jennifer Jason Leigh and director / screenwriter Cameron Crowe.

And it reinvigorated the career of veteran character actor Ray Walston, who deftly played the tyrannical history teacher Mr. Hand, and proved the perfect foil to Sean Penn's stoner-surfer Jeff Spicoli. (There's one sight gag in the linked clip that will only be relevant to those of us who are over 40.)

Romney's aides have stressed publicly in the 24 hours since Romney electrified conservatives with his choice that the pick was the governor's alone. They have been less forthcoming on the flip side: That much of his staff opposed the choice for the same reason that many pundits considered it unlikely -- that Ryan's appealingly wonky public image and a personality Romney finds copasetic will matter far less than two different budget plans whose details the campaign now effectively owns.

"Everybody was against [Ryan] to start with only Romney for," said one top Republican, who is skeptical of the choice and griped that Romney's top advisors have "been giving Mitt everything he wanted in this campaign."