I wanted to avoid talking about elections

But can't.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/09/13/abc-news-edited-out-key-parts-sarah-palin-interview

OK, I won't talk about it.

A British jury

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cleared-jury-decides-that-threat-of-global-warming-justifies-breaking-the-law-925561.html

Which reminds me of a few Russian juries in the XIX century who let a few revolutionaries go free because they had acted out of noble reasons, see. Those revolutionaries later went on to inflict a massive destruction of the Russian nation (for noble goals, of course), and they could not have done that had the same spirit of idiotism that ruled the juries not informed the whole Russian nation by the time.

Now, I am not quite sure that the Russians have cured themselves of it; but what about the British, and the Western people in general?