Headlines of the (last) week

Sometimes I worry for the "American" part of this blog's description. But when I don't have to, I worry even more.

Here is a farce of the American justice system. Don't get me wrong - if I ever had to be tried in court (obviously due to some confusion ;-), and I had a choice of courts, then surely an American one would still come out on top. But every so often you have to stop and wonder.

One of my friends who in grad school jokes about how his jury duty calls consist of going for the selection process and somehow always getting rejected. He claims the less 'provably logical' you are on paper, the better a juror you make. As of recent observations from trial Zecharias Mousssoui's trial proceedings, now it also seems the less English you speak, the better a juror you make.

The word the juror looked up was "Aggravate"which, I guess, is not necessarily an everyday word, but then again, what kind of words are used by lawyers?

My guess is, in the future we'll hear of American jurors uttering:
"Excuse me. Allo? Allo ....what me do here? ... oh. Ok. So if me not under arrest, me go? No? ... "
"May I ask when do we'll get to my case, becoz I didn't mean to kill her ..."
"Your honor, we find the prosecutor guilty as charged!"

Moving on ...

The "Failed States Index" by the apparently not-so-estieemed Foreign Policy has finally been issued for 2006. Ethipia placed 26th on the Rankings . I've to say we've not topped the worst rating for any of the categories even in their eyes. The entire African continet, however, has managed to register all countries but 4 (South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland & Madagascar) at some level in the 'Failed States Index'.

Now, to the BIG question: Pakistan??? What the hell is Pakistan doing in the top 10 list? Pakistan between Afghanistan and Haiti?

I don't think so.

Then again, there are some other interesting in order, like Russia at 43, Ertirea at 54 and China at 57.

Hmmm.'Nuff said.