Wednesday Morning Random Musings

How appropriate it is that I was speaking of jury nullification just yesterday...
First up, from the Associated Press, via this morning's Chron...

TYLER, Texas — A Tyler man accused of growing marijuana in an alleged cost-saving move is jailed on felony possession charges.

Bond is $15,000 for 55-year-old John Daniel Miller III, who remained in the Smith County Jail late Tuesday.

Wow. I had no idea real crime in Texas was so low. They were able to not only spare law enforcement to go to this man's house to detain him, but they were also able to spare some room in the county jail. And since he committed a felony, they'll probably be cleaning out a cell at one of the sites in the state prison system for him as well. So we're obviously running quite low on rapists, murderers, robbers and the like -- so low, in fact, that we're forced to fill up the prisons with people who do things that are wrong only because the government says they are. Something to keep in mind the next time the Texas Department of Criminal Justice goes to the Legislature with hat in hand asking for budget increases and more prison space. "What the hell? You have so much space NOW that you resort to filling it with people like this guy who wasn't really doing anything detrimental to society!" (Can you say "blatantly unjust and unconstitutional malum prohibitum laws," friends? I knew you could!) And of course, this also goes for the agencies at the county and municipal level. Of course, this lunacy does go all the way to the federal level, I know, but sometimes I wonder what would happen if the lower-level government agencies started not cooperating with the feds in the whole War On Some Drugs. I know that's a pipe dream because of the carrot the feds dangle in the form of all the shiny new toys the local agencies get to fight that battle with, but a small-government libertarian can dream, can't he?
Next up, Dear Abby shows why she gives people advice for a living and I don't:

Dear Abby:

How do you deal with a hypochondriac? My brothers and I lost our dear mother to cancer when we were in our teens. Daddy has recently been diagnosed with a pernicious form of melanoma, which has a low survival rate.

Our father has been married to his second wife, "Doris," for 20 years. Doris is a textbook hypochondriac. She denies it, of course, and insists that her health is bad. So bad, in fact, that she didn't see the irony of telling my sister-in-law, who was undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoma, that "no one understands what it's like to live with a chronic condition." Doris was referring to her allergies!

Now that Daddy is facing death, I'm having trouble supporting Doris' emotional needs because her hypochondria is so irritating. What do you suggest?

NEEDS HELP UP NORTH

Dear Needs Help:

You can try talking Doris out of her hypochondria until you're blue in the face, but it will only make her try harder to convince you that she's sick — so stop trying. Instead, every time you see her, tell her she looks terrible, and you've never seen her look worse. It's what she's "dying" to hear, and she'll love you for it!

(FOUL LANGUAGE ALERT!)
My answer to the daughter would have been to tell this sorry excuse for a wife, "Excuse the fuck me? My Daddy, your husband has cancer and you're pissing and moaning about your fucking allergies? It's time for you to sit down and have a nice tall glass of shut the hell up and count your blessings." Yep, as you can tell, that just really yanked my chain. I have absolutely no tolerance for that sort of thing...