Or, that time I did. If I can recall my childhood propaganda correctly (and, if not, I’ll just fill in the facts as needed), then Daylight Savings was a plan from Madison Avenue to help farmers squeeze an extra hour a day, for half the year, out of child laborers. That was in 1874 or such. Today, all crops are grown by robots and chemicals, neither of which care a wit about the time of day or the days in a week. Today, all humans remain indoors at all times. Rumors abound of a strange ball of fire in the sky. Few are said to have seen it. Yet and still, twice a year I have to remember to fall over a spring to forward the clock back or something or other. Geesh, this one’s already halfway to Hades… Well, let’s see… Spring officially springs forth in the Northern Hemisphere next week. Good, I suppose. But now, a few things:
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| The Piedmont Chronicles |
Perrin Blew the Democratic Nominee Call
Totally. Completely. Sadly. We can safely dismiss the notion of sagacity. I truly thought it would be the Hon. Elizabeth Warren, High Chieftainess of the Massataxus. Uh, sorry about that. Now, it’s a three-way race in the DNC to see which of the two old men loses to Trump in November. (Cute as she is, Tulsi has no chance). It’s so close that I won’t even try to predict anyone anymore. [Biden]. Ole MB promised additional federal election coverage soon. Great. As my final electoral pontification for a little while, maybe just maybe y’all should have stuck with the original Presidential selection method; it seemed to yield better results. Anyway, some scientific results are coming in: read on:
Express Thy ACE2
The Coronavirus, aka COVID-19, aka nCoV-19, aka “that which is making people sick” is still, if you haven’t heard, going around. Per the WHO’s official count, the number of infections surpassed 110,000 just this past weekend. As of Sunday afternoon, 3,802 people had died of the disease, with most fatalities being of Chinese or other northeastern Asian ethnic origin. 60,000+ have recovered, but if old zombie movies and 1980s “sky’s falling” alarmism is any measure, then by the time this is posted and read we’ll all be in quarantine. As for the Asian impact, some guy, somewhere, a few weeks ago, drew a conclusion about Asian males being disproportionately affected by the COVID:
Let’s get this out of the way, too: while it appears the nCoV19 can infect nearly anyone (it’s a cold virus strain, BTW), it also appears to be much more dangerous to Asians. And, from what I’m hearing, it really savages the Asian male population. But, don’t take my word for it:
Don’t. He’s not a medical doctor nor a biologist. But, the researchers behind the study, Single-cell RNA expression profiling of ACE2, the putative receptor of Wuhan 2019-nCov, are:
We also noticed that the only Asian donor (male) has a much higher ACE2-expressing cell ratio than white and African American donors (2.50% vs. 0.47% of all cells). This might explain the observation that the new Coronavirus pandemic and previous SARS-Cov pandemic are concentrated in the Asian area.
Got that? It’s all in the RNA. Now what? The jury is still out on whether the pandemic is blowing over or blowing up. However, in Georgia, the blowhards are maybe blowing down the blowout?
Forfeiting the Fictitious
Last week, Jessica Szilagyi did a great thing by reminding some of us that the criminal state of Georgia still practices the armed robbery known as Civil Forfeiture. Some of you likely learned of this evil practice, a dread holdover of the worst kind from the English Common Law, for the first time. Again, these are civil, rather than criminal proceedings. Though this theft sometimes does accompany a related criminal case, there are frequently no iniquitous charges associated - the state just takes your stuff. Georgia, like most other criminal states, has a law that mirrors the Imperial model. The Supreme Court was going to look into the matter recently in a case in which a beloved drug dealer lost a luxury SUV. And, here we still remain - so much for the Nine, eh? In Georgia, Superior Court actions to steal private property are either initiated In Personam (against a natural person or citizen), In Personam and In Rem, or frequently, just In Rem. Yes, Latin lovers, that means they routinely sue the thing itself as a defendant. Check your local docket, and you’ll find case headings that look something like this: In The Superior Court of Corrupt County, Georgia: The Criminal State of Georgia v. One Hundred Forty-Three Dollars in United States Currency, 666-BS-2020… Judging the case by its cover is sufficient to disclose the inherent fraud in these actions: there has been no United States currency in public circulation for nearly fifty years. But again, facts are here as relevant as due process.
They sue the fake money! The cash (or other property) cannot defend itself, being even less sentient than the average Georgian. They count on - and get - reams of default judgments, which allow them to stock the coffers so as to further advance additional crimes against the people. Usually, they never prove anything as they don’t have to; they merely say that the inanimate defendant was the result of a crime, and so it goes. By these means, the collective criminal governments of the big nation-shaped kind of place between Mexico and Canada steal more property from Americans than all “ordinary” thieves and robbers combined (and that’s just from uncivil forfeiture, without accounting for the taxes and monetary inflation thefts).
You, the aggrieved lawful property owner and implied (though uncharged) criminal, have little recourse. If the action is In Rem, then you must essentially interplead yourself into the case by way of a standardized and verified reply, which is made under penalty of felony perjury - and they are looking to trip you up so they can charge you with a crime. All burdens rest on the putative property owner to prove a negative, that the Federal Reserve Notes were not the by-product of any criminal activity (the nature of the Federal Reserve Act notwithstanding). The insidious burden must be met and proved specifically as to a provision within the forfeiture law - system rigging, anyone? There is, barring extremely unusual circumstances, no recourse against abuse via a counterclaim or other action.
Most people, faced with these odds, just let the thieves win and count themselves lucky that they are not railroaded into jail. The only thing of interest in the form response is the last requirement: the claimant must state his precise desired relief. In addition to getting the stolen property back, and as this is a relic from times when the Crown did as it pleased, I ponder in other lawful resort to the Common Law might be in order: “Claimant seeks, precisely, the return of the $143 in Fed Monopoly Money, naturally, and additionally claimant demands trial by combat. Swords.” Look for such a demand to go over as effectively as waiving a copy of the Holy Parchment around while shouting, “Constitutione te cogit!” If one seeks justice, maybe look outside of the Georgia courthouse.
That, I think, shall have to do for now. Another education column of some kind - maybe with some really exciting news! - brews in the hopper. Dr. Ironsides has been very busy lately. And, the world will keep pouring out the affairs, interesting, sad, and dubious. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to MIT so they can reset my car’s dashboard clock.
