Comedian In-Chief

Just in time for our Monday meeting, the White House Correspondence Dinner, has provided much needed relief. Just in case you missed it, you can see it HERE on the CSPAN website. The main video is Obama, you can find the link to Conan right below it.

Death Penalty for Boston Bomber

We spent almost the entire time at our last meeting talking about the Boston Marathon Bombing. We noted that Massachusetts has no death penalty but the death penalty is still possible because of Federal terrorism laws. But now that it appears that the suspect was not a terrorist, does it mean that he could avoid the death penalty?

The answer is absolutely not. Here is the complaint that is the basis for the Federal charges that was posted on the DOJ website. It states that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev violated two federal laws:

• 18 U.S.C. s 2332a(a) - Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction
• 18 U.S.C. s 844(i) - Malicious Destruction of Property Resulting in Death

Both laws include the possibility of the death penalty, but only the first is related to terrorism. The second law relates to bombings at sites which affects international or interstate commerce. Yes, it is the commerce clause of the Constitution which gives the Federal government jurisdiction in this case. The complaint filed at the DOJ goes to great length in describing how the bombing at the Boston Marathon disrupted commerce. A terrorist connection is not needed for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to get the death penalty.

The complaint also answers another question we had at our meeting. It states that at lest one person was killed from each of the two bombs. We now know that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was directly responsible for at least one of the four deaths that resulted from this tragedy and its aftermath.

Patents, More Harm than Good?

One of today's discussion topics was the upcoming Supreme Court case about DNA patents, which lead to the question if patents cause more harm than good. You can see the harm of patents by looking at the current patents war in smartphones. Here is a diagram of who is suing who:

Can you imagine how such a patent war in healthcare would affect your well being? But aren't patents necessary to motivate the hard work needed for innovation? Here is a TED Talk which addresses where innovation truly comes from.

Making Your Children Pay Your Bills

One of the items on Lowell's handout was overlooked, (BE AWARE, second to last item on the last page). There are laws which may make your children financially responsible for your medical bills. Here is an excerpt from this article in the Baltimore Sun.

The basis of the lawsuit is a so-called filial support law, which requires adult children to be responsible for the care of indigent parents. Twenty-nine states, including Maryland, have such laws, although they vary and can be overridden by other statutes. Maryland, for instance, bars nursing homes from saddling children with their parents' bills, but the filial support law can apply under other circumstances.

These laws have been rarely enforced, but with rising medical cost and tighter States budgets, States may have to start using them.

Odds and Ends

Here is a collection of links about topics, some that came up during our meeting, and some that didn't.

1) The origin of the Universe was covered in this previous post on this blog. In the Lawrence Krauss video, the Universe is a natural consequence of Quantum Physics.

2) Lowell found this interesting article on natural gas fracking. Unfortunately, it missed getting into his handout sheet. Fracking was also covered in this blog post.

3) Ken has kept us informed on MD politics. But occasionally he finds a local issue in a neighboring county that needs attention. Here is a link to a Montgomery County bill which grants special favors to a single company.

4) On this April Fool's Day we had a short discussion about asteroids colliding with the earth. Oddly enough, one year ago our blog had this post about an asteroid that past near the earth on April 1, 2012.

5) Finally, we talked about the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, aka Little Kim. We dismiss his rants as crazy talk, and pay more attention to his association with Dennis Rodman than his treat of nuclear war with the US. What is often missed is the terrible plight of the people of North Korea. Since the southern border is heavily guarded, many North Koreans are escaping north into China, which is creating China's own southern immigration problem. Here is a moving Ted Talk by one of those North Korean refugees.