Santimonious Pantheon

This one is too good to pass over, by the beautiful Mo, (and the NYT) about all the great affairs of the world. Sorry, Marco.

Oh, and I almost forgot; thank God the War (remember, the Iraq War?) is finally over! We only lost 95 (and counting) troops this year, quite an improvement. It didn't turn out to be quite as good for the economy as some might have thought it would. Then, for some, it has turned out quite nicely, thank you.

At least not as many Jewish and eastern (Polish) people (or Russians) died this time. Just kidding. Bad Joke, very, very bad.

All aboard the troop express home in 48 hours! Alright.

Productivity, Global (Office) Warming and Japan

The Hilary Clinton of Japan business productivity and cutting energy are all featured in this Newsweek eyecandy, "Want to Save Energy, Think Japanese" -- always interesting for one who was born in Otaru (that's Japan, up North, where the air is/was could not be cleaner, the mountain waters fresher, the veggies and fish more fresh and nutritious). Wonder what it's like there now?

BECAUSE, I have been reading history in my spare time, by Regius Prof. of Modern History, Richard Evans of Cambridge, The Third Reich at War, my posting has been sparse, sorry.

Here is a HABEAS piece that promises to be of interest, re Tarbles case from UVA profs, Woolhandler and Collins, via bepress (thanks Doc as always).

The Big Bankers and the Bigger Fools Who let them Bank Your Money

Once again, after a few weeks of noting nothing newsworthy, in itself newsworthy an occasion, (besides the bankruptcies of our largest automakers of course, but who didn't see that coming?) I see the New Yorker is on the ball again with a review of a promising new look at the CREDIT DEFAULT SWAP, called FOOL'S GOLD (link here). The "new" financial product is taking much of the blame for the recent implosion of the banking industry, deservedly so, except that the blame should be placed on the person and persons who made them happen without adequate regulation to. The so called "off sight" meetings of the big bankers during this period also looks to be VERY interesting reading.

A morsel of this review:

In June, 1994, when a team from J. P. Morgan went on an off-site weekend to Boca Raton, they conformed to normative behavior in certain respects. Binge drinking occurred; a senior colleague’s nose was broken; somebody charged a trashed Jet Ski and many cheeseburgers to somebody else’s account. Where the J. P. Morgan team broke with tradition was in coming up with a real idea—an idea that changed the entire nature of modern banking, with consequences that are currently rocking the planet.

A pair of state cases

I've been asked to comment on this case as I find time to review it:

http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/04300901rdr.pdf

Initially, I see Indiana has expanded the Registry to include several more categories of crime in addition to sex offenses: these include Murder, Voluntary Manslaughter, under certain circumstances Kidnaping and Confinement (according to the opinion). If we must have a registry at all, which is a bad idea in my opinion for reasons which have been articulated elsewhere here on this blog and by other experts on the topic to whom I have referred and linked at various times, perhaps it should also include financial crimes.

In this age of transparency nothing is private, yet why should government be in the business of publishing lists of people who have done bad things, then punishing people again for failing to self-register? It already does so in Court records should anyone care to search them. The bad guys aren't going to register anyway, so I suppose it makes it easy to identify those; the ones on the registries are not the ones who are committing these crimes. If they are not keeping communities safer, as recent research indicates, get rid of them. They are a waste of valuable government resources at all state and federal levels.

Also, getting to the technical details, ex post facto provisions of the Constitution of Indiana are in play and the court concludes registration laws are punitive in effect if not in intent. That is a contrary conclusion to the US Supreme Court's conclusion in a similar case from Alaska, interpreting that state's laws, which the opinion explains is permissible because an independent view or review is justified and well within the boundaries of the court's powers of judicial review.

Just a case from Maryland that was brought to my attention today:

Doe v. Dept. of Public Safety and Corr. Svcs., CSA No. 22, Sept. Term 2008. Reported. Opinion by Wright, J. Filed May 12, 2009.se

How Many Drops of Water in the Bucket?

Can't believe it's been nearly 2 weeks since I posted, and a month since baseball began. Here is a case in which FAMM (Families Against Mandatory Minimums) played an active role, which just shows that not all mandatory minimum sentences relate to drug offenses.

The case is US v. Polouizzi, No. 08-1830 (2d Cir. April 24, 2009) (available thanks to Doc):

Nothing Criminal

The O's won a nailbiter 10 to 9 last night at Texas in a game that had it all including a double steal by Texas in the bottom of the ninth to no avail as closer George Sherril got the strikeout to end the inning and the game with the winning run on second. Uehara got the win. Almost everybody had rbi or scored. They improve to 5-2. Hitting was no problem either but the pitching was nerve wracking. The rotation needs a little work.

The Texas bullpen held Baltimore to 4 scoreless innings to end the game. The O's Uehara loaded the bases in the 6th and everybody made it around on 3 hits to make it close. Baez gave up a two run homer in the 8th to make it a one run game. Ranger's Kinsler started the 9th with a leadoff double, Sherril gave up a walk before getting the all important K. That's how it ended.

Nothing criminal about that. WP/AP (Stephen Hawkins) on it here.

No Shrimpy Fried Rice?

Why is This News? Because somebody ought to charge her with criminal mischief for wasting the time of at least two valuable public servants and peace officers.

Reform of Criminal Justice Much Needed

And of reforming the legal / criminal justice system, we have this development, the dismissal of indictment against Sen. Stevens, a judge demanding accountability of the prosecutors office, and vows of reform. How far will it go (stealing one of Doc's good lines)? Supremacy Claus sure has talent as evidenced by his biting wit in the comments in the source (see link). Recall that the prosecutors misconduct purportedly caused dismissal, and only the Senator's age prevented his retrial. He's not on his deathbed but what good is it to prosecute the elderly? This is a pragmatic business after all. And of course he's suffered enough, probably lost his status as well as the election. Enough already.

Prison Nation or Nation of Jailbirds?

Getting serious attention, if Lexington can be serious over at Economist. The new crime bill is newsworthy. The article begins:

THE world’s tallest building is now in Dubai rather than New York. Its largest shopping mall is in Beijing, and its biggest Ferris wheel in Singapore. Once-mighty General Motors is suspended in a limbo between bail-out and bankruptcy; and the “war on terror” has demonstrated the limits of American military might.

But in one area America is going from strength to strength—the incarceration of its population. America has less than 5% of the world’s people but almost 25% of its prisoners. It imprisons 756 people per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the world average. About one in every 31 adults is either in prison or on parole. Black men have a one-in-three chance of being imprisoned at some point in their lives. “A Leviathan unmatched in human history”, is how Glenn Loury, professor of social studies at Brown University, characterises America’s prison system.

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Conditions in the Leviathan’s belly can be brutal. More than 20% of inmates report that they have been sexually assaulted by guards or fellow inmates. Federal prisons are operating at more than 130% of capacity. A sixth of prisoners suffer from mental illness of one sort or another. There are four times as many mentally ill people in prison as in mental hospitals.

As well as being brutal, prisons are ineffective. They may keep offenders off the streets, but they fail to discourage them from offending. Two-thirds of ex-prisoners are re-arrested within three years of being released. The punishment extends to prisoners’ families, too. America’s 1.7m “prison orphans” are six times more likely than their peers to end up in prison themselves. The punishment also sometimes continues after prisoners are released. America is one of only a handful of countries that bar prisoners from voting, and in some states that ban is lifelong: 2% of American adults and 14% of black men are disfranchised because of criminal convictions.

It is possible to pick holes in these figures. Some of the world’s most repressive regimes do not own up to their addiction to imprisonment (does anyone really believe that Cuba imprisons only five in every 1,000 of its citizens?). No sane person would rather be locked up in Russia or China than in America. A country as large and diverse as America boasts plenty of model prisons and exemplary training programmes. But all that said, the conclusion remains stark: America’s incarceration habit is a disgrace, wasting resources at home and damaging the country abroad.