Comcast should be blocked

Comcast recently asked for approval to buy NBC. If I Were King, I would block the transaction and go another step: requiring Comcast to divest all programming sources. To me this is a classic vertical monopoly, no different than the Standard Oil of the 1930s that was broken up by anti-trust action. In that case, if I remember my history well, Standard Oil owned oil wells, refineries, distribution and gas stations, the entire vertical supply chain, and thus could unfairly manipulate prices.

In this case, Comcast owns, for instance, Versus and has jacked DirecTV -- a competing distributor of entertainment -- for such high rates on Versus that DirecTV dropped the channel, depriving millions of subscribers the option to get it.

Unfortunately, Congress has become toothless on issues of monopoly and trust and as a result we have a significantly anti-consumer pro-big-business environment.

Comcast should be forced to divest all its programming sources and not be allowed to purchase NBC.

Jury by Peer has outlived its usefulness

Anyone who has sat on a jury knows that the jury-by-peer concept is worn out. Never mind the high-profile debacles like the OJ Simpson murder trial, there are other more important (to everyone but the Brown family) reasons to do away with trial by a jury of peers:

• many trials contain complex technical, financial or other information, making finding "peers" difficult.
• the process of managing groups of people through the process that eventually produces an actual jury for an actual trial is clunky, expensive and extremely disruptive to people's lives.
• many good jury candidates are flushed from the process, while others, who shouldn't be allowed to change a light bulb, skate through (been there, seen it).

So If I Were King, we would immediately hire professional jurors -- at all levels, Municpal, State, Federal. They can be part-time or full-time, semi-retirees or any other person, but they will be managed as a professional group, including:

• be paid a reasonable salary.
• be required to complete some level of basic education in jurisprudence, probably through the local community colleges; this should include some basics in how to avoid being influenced by legal techniques that have nothing to do with the merits of a case.
• be required to pass certain basic tests in literacy.

In addition, jurors would be required to develop one or more specialities, such as in technology, biotech, finance, real estate, etc, so that particularly devious criminals can't get off because their crimes are too complex to understand.

Jurors for a specific case would be chosen by lottery -- the spinning-balls-in-a-cage approach is a nice low-tech touch. Attorneys would get one or two immediate dismissals and that's it. It would all happen in a few minutes and the trial could begin.

Jurors' performance would be assessed by how often they voted with the majority on a case. All cases would be tracked by software that would identify chronic outliers who would get remedial training or be let go if their performance doesn't improve. This is different than saying that jurors would be punished for being in the minority on any one case -- the assessment would only be over the big arc of their cases and take into account that some cases will result in honest disagreement between honest (professional!) jurors.

In the end, fewer cases would probably go to trial (more would plead out in the face of lower probability of getting a "sympathetic jury") and those trials would start and be completed more quickly. Fewer people would be convicted wrongly; fewer would get off due to the many flavors of jury incompetence (stupidity, sloth, reckless bias). Judges could dispense with complex jury instructions and any admonition to "disregard" some tactic by either side would be taken seriously.

Professional jurors: it would save a bundle -- If I Were King.

Crowned

If I had a dollar for every time I've begun a statement with "If I were king . . . " I could afford to buy a kingdom. I believe I am not alone in thinking that some things are just no-brainers if only that pesky democracy we struggle under would just turn the decision over to . . . well, me. Perhaps I think it more frequently than others, but I chalk that up to simply being more opinionated than average.

So the other day, when riding bikes with a group of friends and I rattled off about five "If I Were King" items, I decided since blogs are about broadcasting one's opinions, well, let's put them down and see if there are enough people out there who agree that maybe you'll make me king.

Somehow, I doubt it. And therein lies the problem.

Let's get started!