“but it’s my impression that in the dinkiest courtroom in the smallest podunk town in the USA…”

And if you had read past the third paragraph of the Justice courts article, which reads:

“In the public imagination, they are quaint holdovers from a bygone era, handling nothing weightier than traffic tickets and small claims.”

you would would know that they deal in much more than “traffic violations”:

[A mother of four] went to court seeking an order of protection against her husband, who the police said had choked her, kicked her in the stomach and threatened to kill her. The justice, Donald R. Roberts, a former state trooper with a high school diploma, not only refused, according to state officials, but later told the court clerk, “Every woman needs a good pounding every now and then.”

Though the justices’ pay is often meager — as little as $850 a year — they can set bail, a basic legal safeguard. They hold crucial preliminary hearings in felony cases and conduct trials on misdemeanors. They preside over civil cases with claims of up to $3,000, and landlord-tenant disputes with no dollar limit, including commercial cases involving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I will grant you one thing though, it’s much more fun to trash France than read about this stuff…

There are many of like that, anonymous. All Americans.

However, that said, the article you linked to about the parallel system of small town “justice” courts in NY and other states is certainly a disturbing one. Although these “justice courts” (a phrase that appears to be an oxymoron) seem to mostly deal with traffic violations, they should be abolished or reformed.

As for your question about marital counseling for a couple who disagree about politics, the approach would be the same as in any marital dispute or problem, and it would depend on the dynamics of the particular couple. Political disputes shouldn’t require some unique apprach.

…it’s my impression that in the dinkiest courtroom in the smallest podunk town in the USA, if something like that were to happen, a functioning machine would either be obtained or the court would adjourn until one could be located.

Come on. This from the woman who proclaims “I so love to do research”?

Once again Neo, your “impression” is just plain wrong.

“Some of the courtrooms are not even courtrooms: tiny offices or basement rooms without a judge’s bench or jury box. Sometimes the public is not admitted, witnesses are not sworn to tell the truth, and there is no word-for-word record of the proceedings.

But serious things happen in these little rooms all over New York State. People have been sent to jail without a guilty plea or a trial, or tossed from their homes without a proper proceeding. In violation of the law, defendants have been refused lawyers, or sentenced to weeks in jail because they cannot pay a fine. Frightened women have been denied protection from abuse.”

Nothing “Eurocentric” or “Blame America First” about it, the world just doesn’t operate in the kind of moral absolutes you seem to like to deal in.

Just like in today’s article: “Oh my, can you believe those awful liberals have actually demonized Republicans?” Can you believe they have made Bush supporters “the enemy”?? Isn’t that just shameful???”

As if it would never occur to the virtuous and always fair Republicans to do such a thing.

You know, the “If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists” Republicans, the “If you’re against the war in Iraq you are helping the terrorists” Republicans…

I find it curious that you sort of glossed over one aspect that I thought you would give more attention to. Suppose you had one of those troubled “political mixed marriages” come to you for professional help. How would you proceed?

I think that was his point. Personally, I favor spreading such information around the blogosphere, because if said panel is really that biased, it is an important thing to know.

Though a direct transcript with full attributions would be better.

Sheesh — Well, I tried.

Please don’t go spreading such obviously distorted “facts” around the blogosphere. If these statements were unchallanged in your discussion panels, then the legitimacy of those panels must be called into question.

Just think – “100,000 Lebanese killed” – so this is more than were killed by Allied bombing raids of Dresden, Cologne, and several other cities combined. Bear in mind that these were raids dropping dozens of bombs from each bomber, and hundreds of bombers in each wave, that went on for several days and nights each.

“Southern Lebanon soil samples … radioactive contamination” – this is just the same old depleted uranium (DU) canard that’s been going on against the US and Israel for decades. First of all, DU does not cause these effects, and second, I doubt the Israelis used any DU in this war, as DU is mostly for anti-tank use.

Which organization(s) sponsored these discussion panels? I will bet money that if you let us know, a little Googling will immediately reveal a substantial bias.

Emulating Hizballah, Hamas Launches Satellite TV Station

… “The satellite broadcasts will allow Hamas to disseminate its radical messages not only among target audiences in the Palestinian Authority administered territories, but also throughout the entire Arab world and even among Arab/Muslim communities in South European countries, which fall within the broadcasting range,”
…

The Moral Difference