Secret Squirrel On Marriage By Contracted Time

Secret Squirrel has previously commented on divorces,on polygamy, and now Secret Squirrel turns his attention to marriages,marriages sans divorce,short marriages, very short ones, 4,5, or 7 year terms to be decided on,as decided on, and thence allow for renewal of said terms in agreement between the partners in these marriages.And so,in doing so, we will have much more stable relationships,and much more agreeable relationships, and solve the problems, of these messy things, that divorces are.Let us look now at stated proposals of marriage by term contract................firstly in and at............

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article2500361.ece

The Times headline reads...........

How to cure seven-year itch? Limit marriage to seven years

"Marilyn Monroe would have approved. The Seven Year Itch, argues Germany’s most glamorous politician, could be cured by making marriage vows valid for only seven years, thus legislating away what is regarded as the most unstable phase of a
relationship.The proposal to turn marriage into a kind of time-share arrangement has shocked Germany. It comes from Gabriele Pauli, who is running to become head of the Bavarian conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party.
..............Her idea would apply only to civil marriages. Vows sworn on the altar, “till death us do part”, would not be amended. Civil marriages would be regarded as a limited seven-year contract. “After that initial period each partner would have to say ‘yes’ again in order to prolong the marriage,” she said. “If they do, there is no reason why marriage should not end up as a lifelong partnership, but in the meantime we will have saved the financial and emotional cost of many divorces.” .....Johann Reisel, head of Catholic marriage counselling in Bavaria, said: “It sounds to me like renewing a mobile phone contract,” he said. “This is just a random number; statistics show that marriages tend to last either three or four years, or significantly longer than seven years.” ................Although conventional wisdom is that every third marriage in Germany ends in divorce, the reality is worse. By one calculation, 43 per cent of marriages in western Germany (including Bavaria) end in divorce. In 1970, only 15 per cent ended this way....."

And yet more at on the same contractual marriage period contract at........

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-482736/Limit-marriage-just-seven-years-urges-twice-divorced-politician-turned-dominatrix.html#ixzz16hH4XbvT

'Limit marriage to just seven years' urges twice-divorced politician turned dominatrix

"A seven-year limit should be placed on marriages to 'avoid financial and emotional heartache', according to a twice-divorced politician infamous for posing in dominatrix gear.According to Gabriele Pauli, a prominent member of Bavaria's conservative party, marriages should only be extended after seven years if the couples agree."The seven year itch often becomes a reality in modern marriages which frequently go through a period of crisis after this time," said the
50-year-old."A time limit would enable couples to save the divorce costs and avoid a great deal of heartache," she added. "It's time that politicians stopped regarding marriage as a super-intact institution and face the facts."She argued that, since a high proportion of marriages end in divorce and many people stay married only for fear of separation or for financial reasons..........."

Well let us consider.The actual divorce rate (the history of divorce is a long one. It has, as French philosopher Voltaire put it, likely been around since the advent of formalized marriage,but in actuality since the 16th century, when Protestants
brought it in) is 50%,this has been seen in America,and now Germany being at 43%, in actual figures.Let use consider now, that the Marriage rate,in any particular given year,is for the USA 9.8/1000,the UK 6.8/1000,and a general average world wide
6.5/1000.The Divorce rate,in any particular given year,is for the USA 4.9/1000,the UK 3.08/1000,and a general average world wide 1.3/1000.

These figures are much more interesting than the percentage of population figures usually presented,for one must take in to account the actual divorces per year, versus the actual marriages per year, to arrive at the proper figure.So,the American divorce rate is actually then 50%,the UK also 50%(on the brighter side Australia is at 33%).The stated average length of marriage in the USA, before divorce, is given at being 8 years.The probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce within 5 years is 20 percent, but the probability of a
premarital cohabitation breaking up within 5 years is 49 percent. After 10 years, the probability of a first marriage ending is 33 percent,compared with 62 percent for cohabitations.Divorce is very much a heavy reality.

So to arrive at these divorce figures, we go with the rate of marriages, per 1000 people, and the rate of divorce at 1000 people....and this is provably,for America, a figure of 50%.Obviously there is a great problem here, at 50%. Also there are
a collossal rate of divorces after a second marriage, in short there the figures show that there is an actual 10% success rate of divorces who remarry. With divorce, property and the fiscal side of things are divided up, in some countries per a legally binding ipso facto marriage contract, a pre nuptual agreement,pre nup as it were, but in others it is a direct 50% regardless, and also may contain such items(in all cases), as child support.

Marriage is a man made social construction anyway, so no real reason for anyone to be shocked by changing the rules.As a matter of fact,biblical marriages abounded with multiple partners,females,polygamy no less, massive polygamy, but allowed
within the bounds and conventions of man, of man the thing that was marriage then with man made rules and regulations of it, the institution of,principle of,marriage.

I was perusing the book, Old Twentieth by Joey Haldeman, and one of the more interesting ideas were the formation of 10-year “marriage” contracts between immortal humans. Basically, people who lived forever needed to find a way out of “’till death do us part”.It seemed they realized there was a problem.Recall even Zeus and Hera divorced.Again in Zardoz we see the problem with immortality, as a life sentence of anything, including punishment, is forever as it were, and leads to boredom in the least.However, we suffer from reality, and a shorter lifespan, but it seems we also cannot cope with the death do us part concept.

But what of a marriage contract,as it were, say You agree to marry someone, with a base contract of 4 years?After 7 years,(or 4, or 5, depending on the decided period of time), you can either choose to renew your marriage or part amicably, with whatever you brought into the partnership, and an equal division of anything generated during the partnership’s 7 year-term (business, residence, loans, etc.),any children so had in the relationship or out of it, being decided by amicable pre nup agreement covering such items as child support,just as it is presently in any given divorce.

There are many advantages to a short agreed upon marriage term......... Here are the 6 best reasons why:

1. Either could always leave,at the end of the termed agreement, so you’ll always value each other in your agreement.

2. You won’t take the relationship for granted – much like life & death,you'll have to constantly work at it,if you wish

to keep, as in renew, the arrangement.

3. You’ll have incentive to work out problems if you each wish to keep it, as in renew it.

4. Divorce, this could be abolished in a say 4-5 year agreed term as it would take that time for a divorce to take,and all things would be covered by the legally binding agreement as set by legal sociologically accepted conventions,the legally binding document be what ever it may be. hold(4-5 being advantageous compared with say the 7 year plan).

5. Forever is a long time… a REALLY long time, but if you’re committed to someone, why not recommit your vows to them after 4 years,after 5 years,after 7 years.After 20 years, you’ll have committed to them as many as 5 times,agreeably so.

6. There's still a commitment. Whether it’s a day, a month, a year, or the rest of your life, you're committed to someone, so setting a limit to it doesn’t cheapen it; it makes the commitment have definition and scope,and with renewals,as
much of a commitment either of you, or both, want.

So there we have it, a cure for the many messy divorces,messy lives, by the legal institution of marriage, marrige by contract, marriage by termed contract,by renewable termed contract,perhaps the better new wave of the future.

Secret Squirrel On The Possible Re-Emergence Of Polygamy

Secret Squirrel has seen a glimmer of hope for Mankind, presently ,the glint of hope, that Man may once again enjoy the luxury of polygamy, a harem as it were,multiple wives,marriages, and let me tell you Squirrel is pleased,Squirrel is happy, Squirrel's hopes have been encouraged,enlightened,they soar to the sound of Darth Vader's breather screen.........Hope...Hope...Hope...Hope...Hope...Hope...

It all starts,basically,in the Book of Genesis............ In the beginning........
Genesis 2:18 (New International Version):The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” and so.......Eve, but doesn't mention wife, mentions helper, and also, that man was to rule over woman,recall there is or was no sex until the apple was bitten and eaten of.........just a helper,not a companion, but helper, then there was...........fornication...and as Eve's punishment she would bear,and did, children, sons and daughters of Eve and Adam due to...well,fornication, and they had sons and daughters..and they fornicated........in incestuous relationships and on to the present day where it continues, amongst all of us sons and daughters of Adam,and Eve for that matter,zounds and zooks incest abounds all round and about and we cannot avoid it.And so they've made rules that we shouldn't do it,but we all know what to do and where they can stuck their laws.....it's in the Bible!And there it all started.......a right grand,great and good time,but times changed, slowly, and with them perceptions of right and wrong, wrong can become right, right can become wrong, depending on ones perspective and whom that particular one is.In the beginning, there was polygamy, multiple wives, harems as it were, and additionally, including more concubines...and then things went wrong fro there..........but there is a glimmer of hope......

Well now....have a look at this.....


http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/joannabrooks/3782/canadian_courts_consider_decriminalization_of_polygamy/

Canadian Courts Consider Decriminalization of Polygamy
by Joanna Brooks



In a case that may have wide-reaching influence, the Supreme Court of British Columbia today opened deliberations in a constitutional reference case to determine whether a small group of fundamentalist Mormons living in a remote B.C. community called Bountiful may practice religiously-motivated plural marriage without fear of prosecution or conviction.Polygamy-practicing Mormons began fleeing to Mexico and Canada in the 1880s, after US Supreme Court Justices upheld the conviction of George Reynolds on polygamy charges in 1879, declaring polygamy an “odious” “Asiatic” practice not protected by First Amendment freedom of religion guarantees. Mormons founded and continue to make up a significant proportion of Canadian towns such as Cardston, in Alberta.

The case is sure to be watched closely among tens of thousands of FLDS and non-FLDS polygamists in the Book-of-Mormon belt and beyond, and may also have implications for Muslims and other polygamy-practicing people of faith,having multiple wives is not morally forbidden among Muslims.


Well now, let us look at what the Bible has to say about polygamy.... and we see, zounds and zooks, the very air abounds with polygamy...(and concubines too lest we forget)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Genesis 29 Jacob, marries Leah,and then her sister also, Rachel,and Bilhah,and Zilpah.

In Exodus 21:10, a man can marry an infinite amount of women without any limits to how many he can marry.

In 2 Samuel 5:13; 1 Chronicles 3:1-9, 14:3, King David had six wives and numerous concubines.

In 1 Kings 11:3, King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.

1 Kings 15:5 - King David married at least seven wives, but it says David did what was right in the sight of the Lord. If polygamy was a sin, David would not be right in God's eyes.

2 Samuel 12:7-8 - David was given his dead master's wives. Also God said he could have given him more than what he had. However, David chose to kill a man to steal his wife and that was where his sin was. God indirectly promotes polygamy in this passage.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - Mentions that adulterers will not inherit the Kingdom of God, yet in Hebrews 11, we see many polygamists listed who inherited the Kingdom of God. Therefore polygamy is not adultery.

Job 27:15 - Job mentions a man who's "wives shall not weep".

In 2 Chronicles 11:21, King Solomon's son Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines.

Genesis 4:19
And Lamech took unto him two wives.

Genesis 16:1-4
Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai ... gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived.

Genesis 25:6
But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had....

Genesis 26:34
Esau ... took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

Genesis 31:17
Then Jacob rose up, and set ... his wives upon camels.

Exodus 21:10
If he take him another wife....

Deuteronomy 21:15
If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated....

Judges 8:30
And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives.

1 Samuel 1:1-2
Elkanah ... had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah.

2 Samuel 12:7-8
Thus saith the LORD God of Israel ... I gave thee ... thy master's wives....

1 Kings 11:2-3
Solomon ... had seven hundred wives ... and three hundred concubines.

1 Chronicles 4:5
And Ashur the father of Tekoa had two wives, Helah and Naarah.

2 Chronicles 11:21
Rehoboam ... took eighteen wives, and threescore concubines.

2 Chronicles 13:21
But Abijah waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives....

2 Chronicles 24:3
Jehoiada took for him two wives....


Of course, there are yet many other references to wives,multiple concubines, multiple wives and concubines,all throughout.

There is not a single verse from the New Testament that prohibits polygamy.The Bible has wall to wall concubines,even the man's wealth is the measure of them.Many societies have had and still have, polygamy, as seen in the Bible,zounds and zooks the very air abounded with polygamy,Africans practice polygamy,Arabs, even yet Muslims practice polygamy..........only the conventions of man have made laws against polygamy.and so too the conventions of man can allow polygamy. Here in the case of British Columbia, the law may change in favor of Mormons to allow them polygamy, but then, should it not do so for Muslims as well, and then for that matter, not to allow EVERYBODY polygamy.Less would be discriminatory.Is it in the nature of man to be monogamist but for the laws?Jesse James, wouldn't think so, nor Tiger Woods, nor a great several of Senators, nor any others of the great numbers whose marriages ended in divorce due to...extracurricular bedroom exercises,night games.In 2007, extramarital affairs were blamed for 29 percent of breakups; in 2006, this figure was 32 percent. Male infidelity accounted for over 75 percent of marriage breakdowns, while women were unfaithful 22 percent of the time.

I personally don't care about how many wives the Prophets of the Bible had, and what was the limit of the many wives back then,nor the additional concubines. My point still stands, and that is Polygamy exists in both the OT and the NT in the Bible,it was there,it was right.It was Man who changed the laws,Man who changed the conventions, and it is Man who can change it all back again.But do you really think that politicians, and/or judges,are going to do us that much of a favour? Sadly, I think not.

Secret Squirrel On Attempts To Emulate America's Previously Unfathomed Monetary System.

Secret Squirrel has noticed something,namely, that the US national debt keeps growing and growing and growing, and American government keeps spending and spending and spending, giving those it spends to, vast amounts,ever increasing amounts, of American currency,for things it purchases or spends on, such as the military,gifts (subsidies and such other named differently gifts)to corporations etc et all, except for it's people on whom it spends as little if possible if anything. Now what with the US debt, being firstly, millions, then billions, and now trillions and whatever else comes next,in the United States, it'll be 1000 billion. In most other countries, it's "quadrillion". The dollar remains a dollar,regardless, to Americans and the rest of the world, regardless of debt, whilst in the rest of the world, America it seems, screams overprinting and it seems that currency is devalued against the US dollar standard of the world,and everybody elses as well,and in turn their against the American dollar and everybody elses as well.

It's the strange way of the world, the world of global currency,high finance,economics and whatever else they call it. It's been noticed the Turks tried to print up a million dollar bill, in their currency, the bir, well they have lots of birs but one million birs can be purchased for the price of 90cents US,in old aged birs,or lirasi as they're known.It's all because old birs go stale and so only new birs are worth it.What's to be said for it all, in light of the above?Well,as the song says, "Money,money,money,must be funny, in a rich man's world."

Well I have fathomed how America is doing this all.It's because the rest of the world has been tied to the US dollar in value and with the US basically overseeing what it claims are monetary overprinting infractions. What the American government does, is quite simply print up Treasury Bills(Certificate or some such),of any value they particularly require,and then they go to the US Treasury Department, which then happily takes said certificate(bills as they were), and then it prints up and gives to the US government,whom ever presented said bill/certificate
the equivalent in currency. This repeats each year to pay the debt world wide and whatever have you, while the Treasury Department debt mounts,but is ignored and everything's all right as long as they have the certificates on file.

One wonders what happens if they should loose said certificate, would this have a reducing effect on the national debt of America? I should think not, because if it did, they surely would be doing just that, in all wisdom. Regrettably the other
nations of the world are not as wise as America being tied to the American currency. One wonders now, if they would wisely tie their currency, to their own currency as the Americans do,thence they follow the American system of setting up a
Treasury Department, printing Treasury Certificates of the desired values, and having their Treasury Department print up their currency as they need.You notice I did not refer to printing up US Treasury Certificates and going to their Treasury
Department as I do believe the Americans would consider that to be counterfeiting and similar to printing false currencies based on their treasury certificates.

What ever shall we do? Not wishing to test the American waters ourselves,we could
try,perhaps, a test printing of a US Treasury Certificate, and have the government of Britain send, say, Rosencrantz Martin Luther King, and Guildenstern Martin Luther King,Jr attempt to cash said certificate for the good of the people of, and on the behalf of, the people and government of Britain. Mind there may be some who would consider that a for of use and abuse of the ignorant,and so not being considered to be politically correct as we are out of the times of The Empire,then moving with the times, we must pursue yet another course of action. We go with an alternate plan. We have say,with some suitable encouragement,I was initially going to suggest Iceland for the test as they're flat broke, or the Irish, equally so, but then again there is the previously mentioned politically incorrect aspect to things with respect to them, and the french who were not mentioned as they would never believe we were doing them any great favour. So, let's say we try with the last friend we have in the world,and equally as in dire straits as we are, we go to the New Zealanders. We encourage them to join our club, The Clube Des Billionaires, The Clube Des Trillionaires, The Club Des Quadrillionaires, much as the sardines are,after all the plan is a real Kipper,and indeed things being as they are, an American dollars based on the system they use to procure them are worth, in reality,in the light of financial sanity, one sardine,except they won't as yet acknowledge it as being so.

So, the New Zealanders set up their Department Of the Treasury. The Government procures a printing press which prints the new Treasury Certificates(Bills, what ever have you as the Americans do and you don't,or perhaps can't), and then they take those printed Certificates, printed with certain required values of currency on them as necessary, be it millions,billions or trillions and whatever else as the years progress, and the New Zealand Department of Treasury then prints up the money as the New Zealand government sees fit. We then sit back and watch the reaction of the US government and the rest of the world to a system parallel to that
of the US government and it's Treasury system.

It works so well for the Americans, it must be just that we never knew how they did it and nobody thought to do what they do.In either case,we'll never know till we try,err till they try, the New Zealanders that is, and having given it the good college try as it were, should the New Zealanders for some strange reason fail as it were, they will still be, after all,our remaining friends.

Secret Squirrel Ponders Britain Acquiring Hawaii

Secret Squirrel has pondered the rightly improper annexation of Hawaii, and discovers that the annexation having been improper and illegal, so too then was the absorption in to statehood of America. But how, then to correct things for the Hawaiian islanders,and can it be done? Looking at the history of Hawaii, Squirrel believes all things can be done,you'll see for yourself a pattern at work,a pattern which can be put to good use. Now,according to the Wikipedia..........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hawaii........

here examplefied where necessary, we see the basic history of Hawaii, a history of overthrow and modification of the governments of Hawaii in whatever form to suit whomever invaded at any specific time.Let's start at the beginning.
The human history of Hawaii includes phases of early Polynesian settlement,the earliest settlements in the Hawaiian Islands were made by Polynesians who traveled to Hawaii using large double-hulled canoes. They brought with them pigs, dogs, chickens, taro, sweet potatoes, coconut, banana, and sugarcane.They lived happily.They were happy in their incestious relationships, brothers,sisters,fathers,mothers,sons and daughters,cousins et all,happy in
their orgyastic fornicational relationships some even yet in marriges,all the while still having as many mistresses(concubines) and lovers as each and either pleased(you recall this type of thing is mentionably of biblical proportions and runs throughout the Old Testament chronical that the Bible is,which didn't seem to disturb anybody except for later era priests and missionaries etc who thought they knew better,the so called Reformationists,those who opposed Orthodoxy in religion and life.In short the people were happily enjoying themselves in and after the exact same fashion of the entire group of civilized European monarchies. The
people lived,in their own right,as island paradise kings and queens,their own,each and everyone as an individual, and on their own.Then there was the British arrival,in 1778,and things would never be the same,things were just too good it seems.These visitors introduced diseases to the once-isolated islands and the Hawaiian population plunged precipitously because native Hawaiians had no resistance to influenza, smallpox, and measles, among others.

For example,during the 1850s, measles killed a fifth of Hawaii's people.The there came the unification,the islands were united under a single ruler, Kamehameha I, for the first time in 1810 with the help of foreign weapons and advisors. The monarchy then adopted a flag similar to the one used today by the State of Hawaii present flag, with the Union Flag in the canton (top quarter next to the flagpole) and eight horizontal stripes (alternating white, red, blue, from the top), representing the eight major islands of Hawaii.

In 1815 the Russian empire affected the islands when Georg Anton Schäffer, agent of the Russian-American Company, came to retrieve goods seized by Kaumualii, chief of Kauai island. Kaumualii signed a treaty making Tsar Alexander I protectorate over Kauai. From 1817 to 1853 Fort Elizabeth, near the Waimea River, was one of three Russian forts on the island. In the early kingdom, Protestant ministers convinced Hawaiian rulers to make Catholicism illegal, deport French priests, and imprison Native Hawaiian Catholic converts.

In 1839 Captain Laplace of the French frigate Artémise sailed to Hawaii. Under the threat of war, King Kamehameha III signed the Edict of Toleration on July 17, 1839 and paid $20,000 in compensation for the deportation of the priests and the incarceration and torture of converts, agreeing to Laplace's demands. The kingdom proclaimed:

That the Catholic worship be declared free, throughout all the dominions subject to the king of the Sandwich Islands; the members of this religious faith shall enjoy in them the privileges granted to Protestants.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu returned and Kamehameha III donated land for them to build a church as reparation.In August 1849, French admiral Louis Tromelin arrived in Honolulu Harbor with La Poursuivante and Gassendi. De Tromelin made ten demands to King Kamehameha III on August 22, mainly that full religious rights be given to Catholics, (the ban on Catholicism had been lifted, but Catholics still enjoyed only partial religious rights). On August 25 the demands had not been met. After a second warning was made to the civilians, French troops overwhelmed the skeleton force and captured Honolulu Fort, spiked the coastal guns and destroyed all other weapons they found (mainly muskets and ammunition). They raided government buildings and general property in Honolulu, causing $100,000 in damages. After the raids the invasion force withdrew to the fort. De Tromelin eventually recalled his men and left Hawaii on September 5.There then came Euro-American and Asian immigrators.And,finally, the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by means of American invasion.Gerrit P. Judd, a missionary who had become the Minister of Finance, secretly sent envoys to the United States, France and Britain, to protest Paulet's actions.[5] The protest was forwarded to Rear Admiral Richard
Darton Thomas, Paulet's commanding officer, who arrived at Honolulu harbor on July 26, 1843 on HMS Dublin. Thomas repudiated Paulet's actions, and on July 31, 1843, restored the Hawaiian government. In his restoration speech, Kamehameha declared that "Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono", the motto of the future State of Hawaii translated as "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.Dynastic rule by the Kamehameha family ended in 1872 with the death of Kamehameha V. After the short reign of Lunalilo, the House of Kalākaua came to the throne. These transitions were by election of candidates of noble birth,an interesting
developemnt of elected regal royal rule,an interesting royal democracy.

The Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 between the Kingdom of Hawaii and the United States allowed for duty-free importation of Hawaiian sugar (from sugarcane) into the United States beginning in 1876. This promoted sugar plantation agriculture. In exchange, Hawai'i ceded Pearl Harbor, including Ford Island (in Hawaiian, Moku'ume'ume), together with its shore for four or five miles back, free of cost to the U.S. The U. S. demanded this area based on an 1873 report commissioned by the U. S. Secretary of War. This treaty explicitly acknowledged Hawai'i as a sovereign nation.In 1887, a group of cabinet officials and advisors to King David Kalākaua and an armed militia forced the king to promulgate what is known as the Bayonet Constitution. The impetus given for the new constitution was the frustration of the Reform Party (also known as the Missionary Party) with growing debts, spending habits of the King, and general governance.

It was specifically triggered by a failed attempt by Kalākaua to create a Polynesian Federation, and accusations of an opium bribery scandal. The 1887 constitution stripped the monarchy of much of its authority, imposed significant income and property requirements for voting, and completely disenfranchised all Asians from voting.So in some sense the Hawaiians had some form of increased democratic dictortorship.

When Kalākaua died in 1891 during a visit to San Francisco,(rather suspiciously), his sister Liliuokalani assumed the throne.Native Hawaiians felt the 1887 constitution was imposed by a minority of the foreign population because of the king's refusal to renew the Reciprocity Treaty, which now included an amendment that would have allowed the US Navy to have a permanent naval base at Pearl Harbor in Oʻahu, and the king's foreign policy. According to bills submitted by the King to the Hawaiian parliament, the King's foreign policy included an alliance with Japan and supported other countries suffering from colonialism. Many Native
Hawaiians opposed US military presence in their country.A plot by Princess Liliuokalani was exposed to overthrow King David Kalākaua in a military coup in 1888. In 1889, a rebellion of Native Hawaiians led by Colonel Robert Wilcox attempted to replace the unpopular Bayonet Constitution and stormed Iolani Palace. The rebellion was crushed.According to Queen Liliuokalani, immediately upon ascending the throne, she received petitions from two-thirds of her subjects and the major Native Hawaiian political party in parliament, Hui Kalaiaina, asking her to proclaim a new constitution. Liliuokalani drafted a new constitution that would
restore the monarchy's authority and the suffrage requirements of the 1887 constitution.

In response to Liliuokalani's suspected actions, a group of European and American residents formed a Committee of Safety on January 14, 1893. After a meeting of supporters, the Committee committed itself to removing the Queen and annexation to the United States.United States Government Minister John L. Stevens summoned a company of uniformed US Marines from the USS Boston and two companies of US sailors to land and take up positions at the US Legation, Consulate, and Arion Hall on the afternoon of January 16, 1893. The Committee of Safety had claimed an "imminent threat to American lives and property".The Provisional Government of Hawaii was established to manage the Hawaiian islands between the overthrow and expected
annexation, supported by the Honolulu Rifles, a militia group which had defended the kingdom against the Wilcox rebellion in 1889.

Under this pressure, Liliuokalani abdicated her throne. The Queen's statement yielding authority, on January 17, 1893, also pleaded for justice,the rare thing that it seems successive Hawaiian governments, whatever the type, never really had.
An immediate investigation into the events of the overthrow commissioned by President Cleveland was conducted by former Congressman James Henderson Blount. The Blount Report was completed on July 17, 1893 and concluded that "United States diplomatic and military representatives had abused their authority and were responsible for the change in government." Not really news, everybody was doing it, on and off.However,Cleveland decided to leave things as they were, and didn't restore the government,nor Queen.There were rebellions, two ,but they were put down.In March 1897, William McKinley succeeded Grover Cleveland as president. He agreed to a treaty of annexation but it failed in the Senate because petitions from the islands indicated lack of popular support.The Newlands Resolution by both houses of Congress annexed the Republic to the United States,in 1898.President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii Admission Act on March 18, 1959 which
allowed for Hawaiian statehood.

Well now, all changes of government worked for everybody by invasion,and worked for whoever invaded next. What I propose we do,is first we encourage the islanders,stating we support the return of the islanders to their happy previous happy way of life.Which, as they all know,were happy in their incestious relationships,with brothers,sisters,fathers,mothers,cousins et all,happy in their orgyastic fornicational relationships, some even yet in marriages,the same and yet still et all whilst having as many mistresses and lovers as they pleased,which, is the way things were in the happy biblical times as well as we all can read.We can make them an offer they can't refuse.This will please most of the people most of the time, except for the priests and missionaries who have turned their back on The Bible and disapprove of those who righteously follow the dictates of the lifestyle of the Old Testament, and happily commit incest with brothers,sisters,fathers,mothers,sons, daughters, and have at the same time countless concubine mistresses and lovers. as they please,married to whomever or whatever have you or they as please also,if it does so.First we try a vote,recalling the Americans do thing and did things with respect to Hawaii in like and such fashion,we vote, and then We then simply happily invade,change the government, annex Hawaii and then incorporate it in to Britain until as such a time comes, when somebody else invades, and we must follow the rules and regulations for such invasions in Hawaii and give it up to the next invader when that occurs, according to the dictates of the day and the right and proper way of things.We shall succeed, the Americans too must follow the rules for Hawaii and give it up. There's just one thing,though, what with the unavailability of any aircraft carriers, we couldn't mount an invasion of any small island.Aye, there's the rub.


Secret Squirrel,

MRL,(MP,Dunny On The Wold),

Minister For Re-Deranged Re-Engineering.

Secret Squirrel On The Happy Meal Ban,Or Don't Worry,Be UnHappy.

Secret Squirrel has turned his attention to the so-called Happy Meal Ban, or at least, the attempt to ban those things referred to as happy meals, namely the inclusion of a child's toy, with the meal the child receives.Secret Squirrel is worried,he's unhappy, and he NEVER got a toy with his meal.So,go on now, what is it really all about?Do you really know?Happy Meals are soon going to come with a sad surprise for children in the US.Lawmakers in California have voted to ban toys from being served up with McDonald’s burgers and fries.Officials claim the free goodies, often promoting a new film or popular cartoon characters, lure children into eating foods with high sugar, sodium and fat.Previously there was an attempt to ban,specifically,Happy Meals.As it occurred ,voting against the measure was Supervisor Donald Gage, who claimed parents should be responsible for their children.

‘If you can’t control a three-year-old child for a toy, God save you when they get to be teenagers,’ he said.

‘Ultimately, parents decide what their children eat and whether a meal includes a toy or not – that is the role of a parent,’ added Jot Condie president of the California Restaurant Association.

‘The county government does not need to serve as the parent of the parents.’

The attempt at this measure,each measure, as the measure is proposed, claims to battle an obesity epidemic sweeping California and the rest of America.
While supporters insist the ban will force restaurants to offer more nutritious food to children.But face it,are they in there every day? No. What do I see,at,say, McDonald's? I see slim secretaries,walk in slim,walk out with a bag of food, or stay and eat, and they're back there the next day, same thing.But they're staying slim.Months later she's still slim,not having to walk sideways to get through the door to get to the food.I see lots of them,it's habitual,it's addictive evidently, this food thing is. Is it really though, what you eat, and not so much as how much you eat?What will you eat, what will your child eat?Their fill.Would you want them to eat less?The obesity rates started to skyrocket in the 80's, there Food companies,and whatever food marketing companies, started putting foods everywhere, encouraging snacking, making it normal for kids and adults to buy all kinds of
sugar laden snacks,choc bars and whatever have you that you see in vending machines all round and about you,and encouraged people generally to drink sodas all day long,by being equally available. The list goes on of available snacks.Yes, you are what you eat,when and where and how much, it all adds up, and those candy bars add up to quite a total from a very small amount.I know plenty of people who go into calorie shock when they look at a cookie and discover that it contains 670 calories.A present proposed Happy Meal law,would not allow the inclusion of a toy in any child’s meal with more than 485 calories, 120 calories for a drink, 200 calories for a single food item, 600 mg of salt or high amounts of sugar or fat.I want a cookie.Well you can have a cookie,yes,but not the toy.

Look now.I lost weight.I was at 180 pounds.I starved.I ate less.I enjoyed it less, I cut out almost entirely........sugar and had no soft drinks.I lost weight, I'm at 155 pounds.I have been so for months,with a constant feeling of hunger,I am UnHappily happily at 155lbs,they say this is good for me, for my height and weight.Yet why, then,am I discontented, and hungry?Why?Why do I WANT to eat more.I would eat more,I could eat more, and be happy, and back to 180, and back to being stated to be,overweight,obese,and yet I would be happy,and not feeling constantly hungry? Did MacDonald's cause that?NO,not one bit,my own cooking?Dare the government blame mine, or anybody else cooking? Ask the government,would they say I'm unhappy as I now am? Maybe not, but they'll say it's all good for me.THEY like me like this.What am I doing this for? I don't know,I'm not happy,I'm really tempted every minute of the day to eat my fill,again.Does the government say it's
the beef,the pork, the chicken?The way it's cooked?I cook the only way I and others know how to cook.Does the government want me to be a vegetarian?I cook a hamburger the same way as everybody else, I place it on and with,and between seasoned buns with lettuce,tomato,pickle et all,just like, and I have cooked it ,too, the same way,the meat.So what is it?Kids are taken out,Happy Meals or not, to places they're happy,to places we take them,to be happy,so they'll happily eat their fill.We don't want them to starve.Happy Meals? Sad for kids.But then,they're learning,that government exists, politicians exist,to make us all unhappy.Worry.Don't be happy, eat your UnHappy Meal, unhappily,that'll for sure keep them happy.Don't worry.

Secret Squirrel Considers Airline-r Safety.

Secret Squirrel has pondered the recent Qantas engine failure and is considering that airline safety is a myth? Well, perhaps, due to various reasons and factors, but certainly not with respect to the airline Qantas.Why? What occurred?A Rolls Royce Trent jet engine, disintegrated in mid flight, piercing severely the wing of the aircraft. The aircraft did not crash, did not turn in to a flaming Concorde,by the Good Grace of God Himself,without a doubt.Airbus SAS and Rolls-Royce Group have begun investigating why an engine on a Qantas Airways Ltd. A380 superjumbo exploded in midflight, forcing an emergency landing in the worst incident since the aircraft began service in 2007.Royce-Royce, the world’s second-biggest maker of jet engines, urged airlines that operate its Trent 900 turbines to conduct precautionary checks.

Well this is Qantas' SECOND Rolls Royce Airbus A380 uncontained engine failure in three months.This time the disintegrating Rolls Royce engine pierced the wing.The passengers were fortunate et all that they didn't go the way of the flaming Concorde.The second engine on the side, failed to switch off,on landing.An interesting Rolls Royce safety feature?Not really, but the debris of the disintegrating engine so wrecked things as to disable the engine control mechanism,firefighters had not only the leaking fuel to contend with,(from engines, and it appears from the damage from leaking fuel tanks that,thank the Good Lord, did not ignite and explode)but this is yet something Airbus itself, must now look in to,and cannot be ignored,requiring,most definately and assuredly in the continuing Airbus manufacture.

Recall also pitot tube problems catastrophically suffered by the Brazillian Airbus aircraft which crashed, and massively other Airbuses, of other types, which necessitated major changes to the Airbus pitot tube system. Qantas GROUNDS all their Airbuses,other airlines do not..............why? Does Qantas maintenance those engines?No,not by Qantas, it's done by Rolls Royce.........so..........other airlines STILL not grounding theirs, why? There is fault here, grave fault, but its at the feet of Rolls Royce, and fortunately,only by the Grace of God, there are no smoking carbonized carcasses of the passengers,the husbands,the wives, the children in sum toto,at their feet also.

Presently Qantas has a safety record amongst all the other airlines that is highly enviable.In it's entire history Qantas has a total passenger loss (death) of 66, the last being 1951............an enviable record of airline operational passenger safety..........and none of the crashes were ,nor have been as yet,of the jet variety.But face it, it was all nearly a nasty accident,wasn't it.BUT not a thing that can be ignored, and by Qantas certainly isn't being ignored.ENGINEERS say an intermediate pressure turbine disc in the No 2 engine of QF32 failed, triggering the explosion that ripped through the engine casing of the A380.The explosion damaged the wing and left a trail of wreckage across the Indonesian island of Batam.But they are examining certain scenarios that could have caused the problem. These include an oil fire in the bearing compartment, blocked cooling tubes or a bearing failure.A less likely cause was a problem with a rectangular part at the root of the turbine blades known as the intermediate pressure (IP) turbine blade platform. An oil fire or bearing failure could cause the intermediate turbine shaft to sever, causing the IP turbine to rotate at twice the normal speed and, potentially, the disc to disintegrate.

The explosion on QF32 was the third technical problem recorded with a Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine and an A380 jet.Two months ago, a Lufthansa superjumbo shut down one of its Trent 900 engines before landing at Frankfurt because of changes in oil pressure.A Singapore Airlines A380 turned back after leaving Paris in September last year because of a Trent 900 engine malfunction.The explosion on Thursday was powerful enough to overwhelm devices ringing the engine aimed at stopping or limiting rare uncontained failures, believed to account for just a few per cent of engine failures.

Normally these devices, made from kevlar and composites, help keep broken parts within the engine or force them to be expelled through the tail pipe,they didn't,they couldn't.The Trent 900 has been the subject of two European airworthiness directives of excessive wear and engineers will see whether those problems have occurred again.Investigators do not yet know why the disc failed, as the superjumbo carrying 440 passengers and 26 crew climbed after leaving Changi Airport in Singapore on Thursday.

The Daily Finance is asking "Should Qantas Replace It's Airbus A380's With Boeing 747's" at

http://www.singaporenewsonline.com/FullNewsPage.php?Link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailyfinance.com%2Fstory%2Fcompany-news%2Fqantas-replace-airbus-380-boeing-747-engine-explosion%2F19703741%2F

I'm suggesting if they wish to continue Airbus A380 use, they should re-engine, with different models of the Trent engine. I should add a recent Trent 1000,a model upgrade,to power a coming Boeing B787 American aircraft,has on test bed,already suffered from catastrophic,uncontained failure.They're making changes to that engine model as I write,and good luck to you too) in the very least,at the very best, re--engine with General Electric proven reliability engines.The airline has stated it is material failure,of which there are certain types, so -called incidental casting defects which can periodically occur,material failure due stresses due to improper material selection in design manufacture, and/or there is the actual design impropriety,which causes everything.

Financially there there is unlikely to be any longer-term reputational damage,though in the short term Qantas's shares ended down 1% at Aus$2,86, underperforming the broader market which advanced 1,2% to a six-month high, as investors had tended to "move on" from previous safety incidents, which have never resulted in a fatal crash for Qantas.In fact the record is utterly spotless, with a slight blemish where a 747 overshot the runway,Qantas' record in the jet era was spotless until a Qantas Boeing 747-400 , carrying 407 passengers and crew, over-ran the runway by 220 metres, ending up in a golf course, while landing in a rainstorm at Bangkok on 23 September 1999, there were no fatalities. At least not yet,not for the longest of times, and again not in it's 90 year on of jet engines times, but we see the care Qantas takes, the very necessary care,far greater care than the great majority of airlines.

As to the grounding of Qantas' 6 present Airbus A380's, well one is reminded of the role Qantas played in “Rainman,” the 1988 film about an autistic man reuniting with his brother on a cross country trip.In this pivotal scene in the airport, Dustin Hoffman’s title character refuses to fly. He spews a stream of airline crash statistics to Tom Cruise’s character, and then lauds the Australian airline’s safety record.

“Qantas. Qantas never crashes,” Hoffman says.

And so still so very true,but only by the Grace of God, and the care of Qantas.It may eventually,but not yet,occur, but not if Qantas can at all help it.But let me tell you if and when these crashes do occur, it is over your dead bodies.

Secret Squirrel Finds Britons At The Mercy Of Criminals.

Secret Squirrel has pondered the expression, "A man's home is his castle.", and finds that in Britain it is not so,nor are his possessions his,indeed they belong to anyone in particular who cares to make the effort to break in to his castle.Indeed in a burglary event, the common Englishman had best help the burglar carry the possession he takes out to the car,and woe betide those who dare to lay a hand on said burglar, in any way shape nor form, in any manner whatsoever,nary lifting a hand to defend themselves nor their possessions,else they face the long arm of the law, and the lawsuit in the court,brought about by, and initiated by, the burglars themselves.Read on a tale of one who did attempt to go against the directives of complete passivity.........



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2600303.stm

Burglar sues farmer
The farmer jailed for the manslaughter of a 16-year-old burglar is being sued for up to £15,000 by one of the people who broke in to his home........But more details of the compensation claim have emerged as Fearon sues Martin for being unable to work since being shot in the legs during the raid........
In October last year, his conviction was reduced to manslaughter by the Court of Appeal and his sentence reduced to five years for the killing and three years for injuring Fearon.

And consider now.....

In 1988, Ted Newberry, a 76-year-old from Ilkeston, Derbyshire, lay in wait on his
allotment shed for an expected intruder, then shot a 12-bore gun at a Mark Revill when he tried to enter. Revill was badly injured and Mr Newberry was prosecuted on charges of wounding, but was acquitted by a jury.........In the allotment shed case, although the jury acquitted Mr Newberry of the criminal wounding charge, the injured intruder won compensation for his injuries (the award was £12,000 reduced to £4,000 because of his contributory negligence) even though he’d been acting criminally...

In short the misrule of the day is " I'm here to rob you, defend yourself and I'll
sue."...........and he'll win too.

In America, it's different,while American law on defense of the home differs somewhat from state to state, the millions of residents of the large, "liberal" states of California and New York, for example, can presume anyone who breaks into their homes means to do them harm and can act accordingly. A more explicit Oklahoma statute, passed in response to a spate of violent burglaries, allows householders to use force no matter how slight the perceived threat. Has this "vigilante" legislation resulted in "excess violence"? Just the opposite, the American burglary rate is less than half the English rate. And while 53% of English burglaries occur when someone is at home, only 13% do in America, where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. Violent crime in the US is at a thirty-year low.

In Britain, there is an unrelenting tide of thievery and burglaries sweeping the land. Day burglary is commonplace and dangerous for the homeowners because burglars know that even if the homeowner is present, they are defenseless and at the "mercy" of the thief. There is really no right to self-defense.In Britain, people live in fear in their own homes, afraid of muggers and burglars ­ not even possessing the right to defend their homes, themselves or their families with anything that could be called a weapon,never mind the fireplace poker, even the bumbershoot is not permitted,and the portion of convicted burglars sent to jail, is at only 40%,the rest are let off with suspended sentences or social services.Society's to blame,for
disturbing them.As it is there are 280,000 domestic burglaries in England and Wales last year but clear-up rates are low at just 13 per cent, and a quarter of all burglars caught by police are let off with a caution.There is no justice, their is no defense of the system, nor is there defense of the person.The criminal at large reigns as King of it all.In America it is the direct opposite,the person is King in themselves, and may defend life,limb,and property to the very greatest fullest extent,even to the extent that the perpetrating burglar looses his or her life in the pursuit of their criminal activities.There a man's home is his castle,and he is his own police constable.

The current English law on self-defence favours criminals over those seeking to defend their own home. Joyce Lee Malcolm - Professor of History at Bentley College and author of Guns and Violence: The English Experience - argues that England must return to its common law traditions and that the traditional common law right of self-defence should be restored.The average Briton's traditional right to defend himself and his family must be rescued from a legal policy gone badly wrong.Seventy-two percent of those polled recently branded the current law on home defence "inadequate and ill-defined."In Britain presently self-defence is considered "vigilantism" and burglars sue for injuries sustained(both those at the hands of the person defending,self,home and property, and also should they injure themselves in some fashion during the physicality of the breakin as well, in short property liability).Clearly it is all so very improper and we must readjust the laws,rules, and regulations of these events such that we follow the American sanctity of home,hearth,person and property,and once again make full meaning of the term,"A man's home is his castle."

Secret Squirrel On The People's Right To Jury Trial

Secret Squirrel has detected in Britain,developing out of legislations brought in by the New Labour Party of one Tony Blair,a very great inequity,inequality, and inequity,of course,namely that of raising the spectre of, and making possible, trial,forced trial, by that of judge alone, circumventing the great and respectable and fair trial by the right of jury of ones peers,a grave injustice visited on the people.This has occurred already in one case,and at the same time there has been now raised the question of should we limit right to jury trial to save cash?This is the question being raised in Britain today.
Well, it seems the improper thing to do,speed up justice, yes, but not having jury trial raises the spectre much more readily of false convictions,the adage being two heads are better than one.Well 6-12 are certainly so very much better considering evidence and what have we.In life, in all truth,false accusations are possible, mistaken identity also rears its head, and are much more likely to be ferreted out by more heads pondering a particular case.

The right to a jury trial in Britain has its roots in the 1215 Magna Carta,to remove the right to jury trial critics state, raises the spectre of Soviet-style trials controlled solely by judges resulting in a Khafkaesque mockery of justice.Recent research shows that Russian juries acquit in nine per cent of cases compared with one per cent of cases tried by judges sitting alone.There is the adage, It is better to let one guilty man go free, than to convict an innocent.The cost of justice? The only cost of justice is that when an innocent is convicted.........

Here we have exampled at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11683903

The BBC's Clive Coleman examined proposals to save money in the legal system in England and Wales, including limiting the right to jury trial.

Theft of a bicycle might seem like a minor crime in terms of the monetary value of the bicycle but it is likely to be regarded as highly important to the accused.
If they are convicted and get a criminal record for an offence of dishonesty, it could affect their life in a major way. Job applications, foreign travel, university applications and a host of other things could be adversely affected by having to declare the conviction.

The right to jury trial traces its roots back to Magna Carta in 1215 and is regarded as a key constitutional right.

The late judge Lord Devlin described it as "the lamp that shows that freedom lives". When charged with an "either way" offense and given the choice between trial by jury and trial in a magistrates' court, many people will elect jury trial.

The reasons vary but some feel that magistrates are more likely to be "case hardened" than juries. Others will say that magistrates cannot be as representative of the community as a jury of 12 randomly selected individuals.

The Commissioner for Victims of Crime Louise Casey said almost 70,000 Crown Court cases each year could be heard in magistrates' courts, saving £30m.

She is keen to stress that trial in a magistrates court is not second-class justice. It is though, a different form of justice.

There is no question that trial in the magistrates court is cheaper, at about half the cost of jury trial. Debate will rage as to whether the saving is worth the sacrifice of the right in some "either way" offenses.

Ms Casey's other proposal to save money which could then go to support the victims of serious crime, is to prevent late guilty pleas which, she says, allow criminals to string out their cases at public expense.
Fixed fees

There are existing sanctions to prevent late guilty pleas. Lawyers who stretch cases out can be punished with "wasted costs" orders. Defendants will get a reduction in the discount on any sentence if they plead "at the doors of the court".

The current guideline provides for a one-third discount if a guilty plea is entered at the first reasonable opportunity. That reduces down to a 10th if the plea is entered at or near to the trial.

Louise Casey refers to the possibility of a fixed fee for lawyers in a case where a
defendant pleads guilty. The fee would be paid irrespective of when the guilty plea is entered.

That raises the worry that some lawyers might be tempted to pressurise defendants to plead guilty early and before a full assessment of the evidence has taken place.

There will be a variety of reasons why. In nearly 50,000 cases defendants change their plea to guilty on the day of the trial.

Defense lawyers maintain that it is sometimes because the Crown Prosecution Service have charged the accused incorrectly, or that case papers have been delivered late.

Some defendants will undoubtedly delay pleading guilty to see if the prosecution can produce the victim and witnesses at court. That may be seen as a cynical gaming of the system, or simply putting the state to proof of the offense.

Much of what the others said is highly accurate. The single largest advantage is exactly the point made above that 12 minds have 12 histories and they must reach a concensus. The other realistic advantage is what another said, the 12 are far more likely to be like the accused than the judge who has been largely removed from what I call a "real life" for some time (i.e. - worrying about gas and grocery money, etc.).The disadvantage of a jury trial is that, in a conservative area, the jury members can be too trusting of a police officer/security officer as being infallible in their perceptions or memory. On the flip side, if the state's primary witness is a no-good sonofagun who has been to court far more than the present accused, the judge will know that and the jury won't, thereby making the judge more likely to believe the accused than the "victim." (to buttress anyone with misconceptions, it is not always possible to get the "victim's" record heard by the jury.) The judges know the fallibilities of the system, sometimes making them better factfinders for a trial, but largely a jury is the way to go.

The jury needs to,and does, reach some kind of consensus, and the theory is that a group is less likely to be carried away by individual irrationalities.English common law and the United States Constitution recognize the right to a jury trial
to be a fundamental civil liberty or civil right that allows the accused to choose
whether to be judged by judges or a jury. The use of jury trials evolved within common law systems rather than civil law systems.Jury determination of questions of law, sometimes called jury nullification, cannot be overturned by a judge if doing so would violate legal protections against double jeopardy. Although a judge can throw out a guilty verdict if it was not supported by the evidence, a jurist has no authority to override a verdict that favors a defendant.
It was established in Bushel's Case that a judge cannot order the jury to convict, no matter how strong the evidence is. In civil cases, a special verdict can be given, but in criminal cases, a general verdict is rendered, because requiring a special verdict could apply judicial pressure to the jury, and because of the jury's historic function of tempering rules of law by common sense brought to bear upon the facts of a specific case.There existed in Ancient Athens a mechanism through which it was assured that no one could select jurors, called dikastaí, for their own trial. For normal cases, the courts were made up of dikastai of 501 citizens. For capital cases, those which involved death, the loss of liberty, exile, the loss of civil rights, the way they voted was kept secret
because the jurists would hold their disk by the axle by thumb and forefinger, thus
hiding whether its axle was hollow or solid. Since Periclean times, jurists were
compensated for their sitting in court, with the amount of one day's wages.

The institution of trial by jury was first ritually depicted by Aeschylus in the Eumenides, the third and final play of his Oresteia trilogy. In this play the innovation is brought about by the goddess Athena, who summons twelve citizens to sit as jury. The god Apollo takes part in the trial as the advocate for the defendant Orestes, and the Furies as prosecutors for the slain Clytaemnestra. In the event the jury is split six to six, and Athena dicates that in such a case the verdict should henceforth be for acquittal. It is thought that the reason Aeschylus chose to present trial by jury as conforming to divine will was because the institution was relatively new at the time the play was produced. Before then, trials were heard and decided upon by the Areopagus, a council of elders of aristocratic descent, who were members for life.

In countries where jury trials are common, juries are often seen as an important check against state power. Other common assertions about the benefits of trial by jury is that it provides a means of interjecting community norms and values into judicial proceedings and that it legitimizes the law by providing opportunities for citizens to validate criminal statutes in their application to specific trials. Alexis de Tocqueville also claimed that jury trials educate citizens about self-government. Many also believe that a jury is likely to provide a more sympathetic hearing, or a fairer one, to a party who is not part of the government – or other establishment interest – than would representatives of the state.

Juries particularly serve as a filter of the small town phenomenon, that of a
prejudiced,corruptable,highly influenceable.............single......trial by highly influenced,influenceable,judge...Da Man..........who will or will not convict on the basis of local notoriaty,patronage,politics,social and civil status,and other such influences.
Whilst those of social status are very much comfortable, for those not so one must
consider the words of Bob Dylan in his song, Most Likely You Go Your Way And I Go
Mine....

Well,the judge,he holds a grudge
He's gonna call on you
But he's badly built and he walks on stilts
Watch out he don't fall on you


The American jury system was inherited from medieval England, where panels of 12 “free and lawful” men in each community were summoned to help the king do justice. For centuries these panels based their decisions on what they knew of local wrongdoing. But as England became more populous, these jurors usually could not rely on neighborhood gossip and increasingly based their decisions on evidence they heard in court. By the time the American legal system absorbed the British model, U.S. jurors were admonished to ignore anything they might know about the case and decide the facts solely on the evidence presented in court.

The British had regarded jury trials as a potential bulwark against oppressive actions by the king, but there was a more pragmatic reason for retaining trial by jury. English law contained harsh penalties, including the death penalty, for relatively petty crimes. British juries served to soften the impact of this by acquitting defendants or finding them guilty of lesser crimes.merican law did not pose this problem, but the American Colonists in the 18th century had their own reason for retaining trial by jury — they used it as a shield to block what they saw as oppressive prosecutions by the British.

Repeatedly, the British rulers indicted Americans for illegally shipping goods in
non-British vessels, only to have local juries acquit the accused. When the prominent American publisher John Peter Zenger was brought to trial for criticizing a governor appointed by the British king, a New York jury found him not guilty and created an early precedent for freedom of the press. So as the Americans moved toward revolution, it was not surprising that in their Declaration of Independence they denounced the British king “for depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury.”And when the new nation adopted its Bill of Rights in 1791, it specified that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” It also provided that the right to jury trials in civil cases should be preserved.

To some extent, the right of trial by jury appears more imposing than it is in reality because in practice the vast majority of accused persons do not invoke their right to a jury trial. They realize that if they go to trial before a jury and are found guilty, their own misconduct will have been highlighted by the testimony and the judge will tend to hand down a heavy punishment. So they enter into a plea bargain with the prosecutor — they agree to plead guilty to a lesser offense in exchange for a reduced sentence. The prosecution often agrees to plea bargains because it is spared the trouble, expense, and uncertainty of going to trial. In many jurisdictions more than nine out of 10 prosecutions are resolved in this way, without a jury trial.

Despite the problems, the jury system is on a sound footing in the United States. Jurors wield the awesome power of the state to punish, or not to punish, citizens. In that sense, they stand above the sovereign — and that has made them the subject of fascination around the world.So what occured in January of this year(it being historically 2010)?Well the headlines read......

First British Non-Jury Trial in 400 Years
The Royal Courts of Justice are leaving this one to the judges, and given what a mess has ensued to date, it’s no wonder:

It is the first time a major criminal trial has been heard without a jury in a British court in more than 400 years. The case in question was that of a £1.75m armed robbery alleged to have been carried out by John Twomey, Peter Blake, Barry Hibberd and Glen Cameron at a warehouse at Heathrow in February 2004.The peerless English justice system may become literally that: eventually no more decisions by one’s peers at all.and ...........

A break with tradition: trial without jury in England

The first criminal trial without a jury to take place in England and Wales in more than 400 years begins tomorrow.

For 400-years trial-by-jury has been a right for all those accused of a crime in the United Kingdom. In 2003, the Criminal Justice Act gave judges the power to order a no-jury trial where "there is evidence of a real and present danger that jury tampering would take place" and where any steps taken to prevent it, such as police protection for jurors, would not be effective. There are some suggestions that this is a money saving exercise .

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326079/Petty-criminals-lose-right-jury-trial-Victims-Commissioner-urges.html

Thousands of petty criminals should lose their right to a jury trial, a report argues today.

Victims’ Commissioner Louise Casey said low-level offenders were ‘clogging up’ the courts system and should be tried by magistrates.

The right to opt for trial by jury in the crown court was a ‘nicety’ of the legal
system.............

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1193877/First-trial-jury-Judge-sit-hear-case-claims-jurors-nobbled.html

First trial with no jury: Judge will sit alone to hear case after claims jurors were 'nobbled'


The accused men were arrested in 2004 for a bungled robbery of a Heathrow warehouse.

Their trial has already been started and abandoned several times at huge cost.A Crown Court criminal trial is to be heard without a jury for the first time after a historic legal ruling yesterday.

Amid concerns of jury nobbling in a robbery case, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, agreed that it could be heard by a judge sitting alone.

It is the first use of this power since it came into force in England and Wales in 2007.

The 'judge only' trial will be the fourth one concerning a heist at Heathrow airport five years ago.

The first two juries were discharged after failing to reach a verdict, and then a judge had to suspend the third trial after he said 'a serious attempt at jury tampering had taken place'.

He added that there was a 'real and present danger' it could happen again.

The case concerns four men accused of stealing sacks of cash from the airport's Menzies World Cargo warehouse after tricking their way in with the help of an inside man in February 2004.


Trial without jury is not actually unheard of in the UK. "Diplock courts" were
established in Northern Ireland in 1972 to try some scheduled offences in order to
overcome jury intimidation during the Troubles.

http://www.metafilter.com/88198/A-break-with-tradition-trial-without-jury-in-England


BUT,just as in medieval England, where they got started, juries prevent government, even democratic government, from pursuing oppressive prosecutions.Proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to jurorscan be a stiff test. While a chance
exists that a guilty man or woman might go free after a jury
trial, the jury system still beats any other system.A judge needs to make jurors
understand they are like deputized judges sworn to fairness. A classic 1966 study by
two University of Chicago professors, Harry Kalven and Hans Zeisel, involving 3,576
criminal trials and more than 4,000 civil trials, asked the trial judges, who heard the same evidence as the jurors, to render their own verdict before they learned what the jury decided. Judges and juries agreed about 80 percent of the time.What about the other 20 percent? The study showed that jurors understood the evidence and the law in those cases, but simply differed from the judges in the perspectives and values they applied to the issues. In short, the juries applied community standards while the judges applied technical legal standards. That study’s findings have been replicated many times.

Sadly this new development in the British court system,was brought about by, and out of,of course, the rule of one New Labour gent(highly questionable),Tony Blair (who also saw to it his wife, one Cherie Blair, was made a judge,again revealing the smarmy side of things judicial,that of political appointment versus a fairer electoral system).A sad,repugnant development, one which the existent incumbent government must,for the general good of the people of Britain, must overturn.Jury trials should be a total and complete and utter right of the people,the only sound option.Trial by judge alone, can and should be,as THEY wish, that being any accused, an option,but the right to trial by jury a specific and unalienable right in the very first.