OT: Jury Duty

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d like 100yo.

who died very young - and survival times.

them survived to three score and ten. Infectious diseases did kill off adul ts of all ages from time to time, and heart disease killed off quite a few in their fifties and sixties. Tycho Brahe died at 55 when his bladder would n't empty, but Newton survived to 84. Neither was exactly a member of the u nwashed masses, but wouldn't have bathed every day either.

Everything I've ever read has these people dropping like flies in their mid

-40s, and this adjusts for infant mortality.

Life was a miserable abomination, people lived in one-room hovels, the food supply was not nutritionally complete and half-rotted, too much exposure t o the elements, and, for most, a life of drudgery. That is not a recipe for longevity. The situation only got worse as they urbanized, places like Par is and London were unbelievable cesspools.

d like 100yo. "

ell the whole story. Certain diseases killed the very young, slewing the av erage and giving the impression that life expectancy has been medically enh anced. Also, there used to be deaths from other causes affecting the figure , like ten thousand sixteen year olds dying in battles. Infant mortality re ally beat the number down as well.

Diseases and getting killed figure into their miserable lives as a whole, w e're not talking about potential lifespan, we're talking about what they ac tually achieved, and it was not good at all.

ew of them survived to three score and ten."

all end all.

elderly men - my father got a re-bore, which solved his problem, and I now take some pill that stops the prostate from closing down the urethra in the first place.

iddle age which medical science now fixes - though not always all that fast or painlessly.

urgery, and no fun - but I'm still alive now, and pretty much as good as ne w. Something similar killed my great-grandfather when he was in his sixties .

the same time and he's fine too. That wasn't on offer for our grandfather, who also died in his sixties.

die eventually, but in a lot of cases medicine can help a lot. Many sevent y-year-olds can tell you all about it.

servations about the sustainability of your "modern medical science."

You aren't equipped to have deep reservations. You've got shallow doubts.

n want the docs to fix you. (It is not you personally - It includes me and a horde of others.)

Doctors are fairly enthusiastic about getting patients to change their life

-styles, but not all that patients are prepared to listen to the message, a nd fewer have the kind of disposition that can do it.

't do oil changes. We wait for the engine to blow up, and then fix that."

Stupid. You are encouraged to go to the doctor to get your blood pressure a nd blood sugar levels measured, precisely to allow them to start treatment before high blood pressure and diabetes start doing real damage.

Women get breast X-rays and Pap smears on the same basis. People of my age gets encouraged to check for faecal occult blood, and it the screening tes t comes out positive, the doctors will snip the guilty polyps from the insi de of your colon before they can turn into bowel cancers.

You do keep on reminding us that you are astonishingly ignorant.

I dunno if I would call ignorance on that. It is almost what we are saying, or me at least. We have not increased the life EXPECTANCY. If we look at it discarding the "minefield" as one noted doctor called it, they have gotten nowhere.

If you get this you died, if you got that you died. But if you didn't, you owuld live just as long as you do today. And you would do it without a power wheelchair and a stairlift like so many morbidly obese 35 years olds today.

You had no choice. Like I saw this 800 pound dude on Hoarders once. He couldn't move. WHO IS BRINGING HIM FOOD ? At about 600 pounds, dontcha think they would stop bringing him food ?

There is alot more. Later.

g, or me at least. We have not increased the life EXPECTANCY. If we look at it discarding the "minefield" as one noted doctor called it, they have got ten nowhere.

u would live just as long as you do today. And you would do it without a po wer wheelchair and a stairlift like so many morbidly obese 35 years-olds to day.

uldn't move. WHO IS BRINGING HIM FOOD ? At about 600 pounds, dontch'a think they would stop bringing him food ?

The obese do complain - loudly - if they feel hungry.

Not feeding them is an effective treatment, but it has to be done in a cont rolled environment - for example, once the fat is used up the body starts e ating muscle protein, of which there's a lot in a once morbidly obese body, and that's not a diet that a non-carnivore can survive on, so they do have start eating again at that point (if very moderately).

That kind of care isn't cheap, and the morbidly obese tend not to have medi cal insurance to pay for it, nor any enthusiasm for the process either.

Going into my last week now. It will soon be over. Been taking notes for 9 days. Some jurors are getting upset about repititious questions asked over and over. The attorneys seem to have objections to lots of stuff except repititious questions. I'm getting bored. The judge is cool and reads to us the life stories of past presidents while the attorneys argue. Some objections are for 'leading' questions but the judge said it's ok for an attorney to lead a witness on cross examination. I'm learning new stuff about the law every day. .

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about the law every day. . "

Good, then we will be able to add to the ranks of the folks who know how f***ed up it is.

ing, or me at least. We have not increased the life EXPECTANCY. If we look at it discarding the "minefield" as one noted doctor called it, they have g otten nowhere.

you would live just as long as you do today. And you would do it without a power wheelchair and a stairlift like so many morbidly obese 35 years-olds today.

couldn't move. WHO IS BRINGING HIM FOOD ? At about 600 pounds, dontch'a thi nk they would stop bringing him food ?

ntrolled environment - for example, once the fat is used up the body starts eating muscle protein, of which there's a lot in a once morbidly obese bod y, and that's not a diet that a non-carnivore can survive on, so they do ha ve start eating again at that point (if very moderately).

dical insurance to pay for it, nor any enthusiasm for the process either.

And none of this reveals how much you exercise every day, Bill. :)

Does Slowman ever make sense? ...Jim Thompson

The one that made me want to whip all the lawyers and the judge with a rusty piece of barbed wire was testimony to establish something which had already been stipulated (ie, agreed to as fact by both parties.) And then they wasted half an hour of court time on it...

saying, or me at least. We have not increased the life EXPECTANCY. If we lo ok at it discarding the "minefield" as one noted doctor called it, they hav e gotten nowhere.

t, you would live just as long as you do today. And you would do it without a power wheelchair and a stairlift like so many morbidly obese 35 years-ol ds today.

He couldn't move. WHO IS BRINGING HIM FOOD ? At about 600 pounds, dontch'a think they would stop bringing him food ?

controlled environment - for example, once the fat is used up the body sta rts eating muscle protein, of which there's a lot in a once morbidly obese body, and that's not a diet that a non-carnivore can survive on, so they do have start eating again at that point (if very moderately).

medical insurance to pay for it, nor any enthusiasm for the process either .

XXXX Actually, yes, he does. His comment that most so-called intelligent pe ople just copy others verbatim I appreciated. A non-generous statement: "Even a broken clock is right twice a day." Goes for me, too.

Well, it's over now. The plaintiff was asking for 350K from the city and got nothing. It was a contracting dispute where the contractor totally screwed up the job and ended up paying way over his low bid. The contractor claimed the city provided inaccurate bid information, and the city claimed he didn't know how to read the specs. They both had good cases but some of the pictures showed extremely hazardous (life threatning) working conditions which turned off the jury. I wanted to give the plaintiff some minor compensation for a few of the claims but was outvoted 11 to 1 and he got nothing. Only 9 of 12 jurors are needed to decide a civil case, so my one vote didn't count. I was sorry I didn't take more detailed notes and couldn't argue much with the others. They were a sharp group of people, (our foreman was a mechanical engineer and understood construction) . What really blew the case was an expert witness from MIT who explained all the scientific details and told the attorneys they were full of it and how uninformed the construction contractor was. It was like being in a MIT classroom listening to a professor. He even drew diagrams on a board to make his points. We only spent 2 hours debating and I thought we could spend at least another day on a 12 day case. . . .

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It is a bit hard to follow exactly what people are saying because much of the writing is rather terse and not clearly stated. But this reminds me of an episode of Torchwood I recently saw.

The main character is Capt. Jack Harkness who is normally immortal and having lived a *very* long life so far has a daughter and a grandchild. Jack often has to decide whether to save one life or to save humanity and that one life is usually a person close to someone else in the show. In this episode the end comes down to allowing a million children to be taken by aliens to use as "drugs" for the high they can give the aliens... or to allow his own grandchild to die as the vehicle to repel the aliens. The daughter realized what was happening and was restrained while watching it all happen. Very strange...

This episode was asking the same question as you.

Ok, so we don't have lice so much anymore. What else has changed?

I _do_ believe that Bloggs is the infamous Robert of years past.... since he let slip he's in Richmond. He certainly is deranged in the same style.

Time to send the son tracing where he is exactly. ...Jim Thompson

The distinction here though, one that modifies the ethics of the situation is that is that it is *not known* that that guilty person will actually do any any more bad that could have otherwise been prevented.

A compromise is that it is, arguably, better to have the condition "some innocents are imprisoned for life rather than be murdered by the state" Than "some guilty that, arguably, might deserve execution, are imprisoned for life instead."

Its a no contest for me, although there are additional other reasons I am personally against the death penalty.

Kevin Aylward

Yes I thought that when he first turned up, although not so sure now.

I don't particularly recall him being a "lefty", as you would say.

Why, because he is a "liberal"? Fred is not abusive by the standards of sed, in the way that Robert was at times. So you just want to "track down" everyone who does not share your political views? That might take a while.

It's not bloggs' political views... it's that he is just plain rude... a Phil Allison replica. ...Jim Thompson

It's not that I would really mind being on a jury, but it would be very disruptive when I started screaming in pain from the wounds. I still wake up screaming in pain from the swelling.