Well, tsk, I should have had an update posted long before now. Given how excited I was about our bison bill, reports of its demise very nearly didn't make the news, outside of the Chronicle and Gazette. I still haven't seen anywhere close to the full story, though, and have been stewing about it (no big surprise), but no sense beating around the bush, might as well just tell what happened.

Besides, it was masterful political theatre, and my hat is off even though we were pwnd like noobs. Which of course we are, and now I see why those who can afford it have full-time lobbyists at the Legislature.

Anyway, after our remarkable committee hearing, where we filled the old Supreme Court chambers overwhelmingly with supporters, we were of course anxious to find out when executive action (meaning a vote) would be taken. Nobody knew. I mean nobody, including nearly all the committee members, and the legislative staffers who assured us it wasn't on the agenda and a vote wasn't happening right away.

But then GWA board member Jim Wisman was doing some of this amateur (not to mention bi-partisan) lobbying and called a probable opponent of our bill, Rep. Ken Peterson, who told Jimmy it was old news, they'd just killed it.

?!?

But alas, this was true. A completely modified version, stripped down to just the private property rights aspects went up for more-or-less immediate vote, and big surprise, went down in bi-partisan defeat! So at least we got bi-partisan cooperation on something, although in this case it was a Democratic defector we didn't know about (noobs, again...), and so then our Republican supporter Ted Washburn thought "better" (ahem), and maybe someday we'll hear what sort of cruel and unusual measures he faced.

Oh, well.

I was corresponding at the time with relatives in Kazakhstan (no, not Borat, far from it in fact), there on a teaching exchange, who just laugh when I complain about politics. The Blagojevich affair was ongoing at the time also, and I said the Kazakhs undoubtedly put Montana in the shade, but that we might give Chicago a run for it. Except for money changing hands, maybe...

But then fortunately my faith was restored somewhat, thanks to (of all things!) jury duty. My number was up, thankfully at what passes for the "slow" season around here. Nearly 60 other people found themselves in the same boat this past Tuesday morning. I found out much later (along with many other things) this was because there might have been two trials up that day, the other a multi-day felony affair, and so ~100 potential jurors were summoned, assuming correctly somewhere around 1/3 would have vanished from the planet.

But then luckily the felony fiasco was put off due to legal maneuvering, and I'm assured that by purely random means I was one of the initial dozen potential jurors called up. As it turned out, for merely a "careless driving" charge, although we were immediately assured it was far more than that, and they were right.

Oddly enough, this was about charges resulting from a head-on collision between a snowplow and a FedEx driver (on her way to work), back in November '07. This took place on (as I can well attest) frightfully narrow Valley Center Road, which has ditches resembling the Grand Canyon on both sides, although this collision occured just after you get past the worst of it.

This was ironic, and I'm still kind of amazed I was chosen for the jury, as we had our own collision with a county road grader many years ago. Fortunately at much reduced speeds, and in retrospect funny on some levels. A similarly horrendously icy morning, one of those times when you step on the brake and accelerate, we met at the intersection of McIlhatten and Manley roads and slid into each other. Actually I slid into his left front tire, colliding with (this was back in the '80's) the spare tire I had on the grille guard of my Chevy pickup.

Didn't hurt the pickup a bit, but flattened his front tire! And, he got a citation for being in the wrong lane, but as I pointed out in the jury interview, at that time the intersection was basically a one-lane affair (since rectified, a direct result), and the driver and I rapidly became acquainted, not to mention his daughter wound up working for us and is now the neighborhood road grader driver herself! Yes, it's a small world after all.

Still, you'd have thought this could be viewed as prejudicial, but no, to my dismay I was one of the final six chosen, for better or worse.

As I've mentioned, it restored my faith in the "system" somewhat. In this case, I think we had a pretty good jury. The guy we chose head honcho (by a coin toss, and who wore shorts to court in February!) had extensive experience with Commercial Driver License holders and related issues, and certainly the professional ramifications for the FedEx driver (who also handles a lot of their local safety training) seemed uncalled for under the circumstances. Not to mention the attending officers hadn't even bothered to take any measurements, and in retrospect, even moreso now it appears to me conditions must have been like yesterday around here!

The weatherman missed it again, and a storm that was supposed to go north of here hammered the Gallatin for a change. I had a late afternoon appointment in Belgrade, and arrived to traffic chaos. Accidents and flashing lights, at first at manageable levels, but then escalating as rumor had it there'd been a bad one on I-90, and others on the frontage road in both directions, and mercy, it was a skating rink!

So yes, what little "evidence" we had were photos showing a similar situation. Four of us immediately agreed the defendant was "not guilty". I think we were somewhat dismayed it wasn't unanimous, but the others didn't buy some aspects. Again, in retrospect those concerns become even clearer, when we learned after the fact this was an appeal, and she'd been found guilty the first time around. So they'd already been through this once. Once too often it appears.

Anyway, we rapidly came to agreement there was no doubt fault on both sides, but hey, especially given the professional ramifications the charges seemed excessive. Not to mention the circumstances were odd, with charges only filed immediately after a claim was filed by the defendant, in spite of assurances to the contrary by the investigating officer.

So, it's not a perfect system, but in that case I think it worked. Eventually, and at considerable expense to the defendant, who might have a vastly different viewpoint on the "system", but maybe not...

In any case, I found the experience pretty dang interesting, perhaps fun even, not to mention it only took one day, and now I'm off the hook for jury duty for the foreseeable future, so it's all good!

So I should undoubtedly get away from this desk and go skiing. Perhaps foolishly, I didn't go up to Bridger Bowl yesterday, unlike an overwhelming portion of the Bozeman population. Got some worthwhile stuff done, though, and have no regrets. I think I'll break out the skinny skis for an outing here on the west slope of the Bridgers this afternoon, though, before it all melts again! Higher up, it sounds like conditions are still marginal in the extreme, in fact the Avalanche Center recently rated conditions in upper Truman "one of the weakest in the region", so at this rate my Alpine Touring gear might not even get used this winter. But at least my private ski resort isn't going bust, and it'll still be there when conditions warrant digging out the climbing skins.