Wow. I’m not sure what else to say, other than that if today were April 1st I would be suspicious that this was a joke.

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) — Defense attorney Leslie Ballin called it the “jury pool from hell.”

The group of prospective jurors was summoned to listen to a case of Tennessee trailer park violence.

Right after jury selection began last week, one man got up and left, announcing, “I’m on morphine and I’m higher than a kite.”

When the prosecutor asked if anyone had been convicted of a crime, a prospective juror said that he had been arrested and taken to a mental hospital after he almost shot his nephew. He said he was provoked because his nephew just would not come out from under the bed.

Another would-be juror said he had had alcohol problems and was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer. “I should have known something was up,” he said. “She had all her teeth.”

Another prospect volunteered he probably should not be on the jury: “In my neighborhood, everyone knows that if you get Mr. Ballin (as your lawyer), you’re probably guilty.” He was not chosen.

The case involved a woman accused of hitting her brother’s girlfriend in the face with a brick. Ballin’s client was found not guilty.

Michelle Malkin has some more interesting discussion of the debate around Japanese internment in school curriculum.

When supporters of Bainbridge Island’s biased curriculum say “some things are not debatable” what they really mean is that pertinent facts such as these should be withheld from students. When they say there is no need for additional “context” they mean that students should be taught that internment was solely the result of racism and wartime hysteria; any evidence pointing to legitimate security concerns should be withheld.

She’s referring to an article in the Kitsap Sun and references a couple of related blog entries here, here and here.

Andrew Sullivan today says:

It would be hard to find or invent a more graphic example of evil than that perpetrated by Graner in Abu Ghraib.

Taranto points out:

How about flying planes into buildings? Suicide bombings? Beheading hostages?

He’s got a point.

On this Kerry quote…

“My friends, this is not a time to pretend. We’re here to celebrate the life of a man who, if he were here today, would make it clear to us what our agenda is. And nothing,” Kerry said, his voice rising in anger, “would he make more clear on that agenda than, in a nation that is willing to spend several hundred million dollars in Iraq to bring them democracy we cannot tolerate that, here in America, too many people are denied that democracy.”

The WSJ’s Taranto today says:

They’re such a sour bunch that their way of honoring the man who declared “I have a dream” is to reply: I have a bellyache.

Classic.

Quoted in this AP Story

“Your loyalty to your mission you were given overwhelmed your respect for the truth, and I don’t say it lightly,” Boxer said.