Sometimes Justice does appear fair

Florida millionaire found guilty of DUI in man’s death
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-23/justice/justice_florida-millionaire-dui-trial_1_lili-wilson-bentley-gtc-john-goodman?_s=PM:JUSTICE

Of course, we have yet to hear the sentence, so this might still wind up being all about nothing. I wonder, though, if he will get hard time and will be penniless, homeless and destitute when he leaves jail, like nearly every one else. More likely he will get a couple of years in a minimum security facility (him not being seen as a high risk for violence (at least when sober and not behind the wheel of a car)), several years off for good behaviour and with his money growing while he is in jail, he likely won’t have to work again once he gets out, so it won’t matter that he is unemployable.

“…making our democracy look a lot more like a plutocracy”

Can 46 rich dudes buy an election?
http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/26/news/economy/super-pac-donors/index.htm

I suspect the answer is an unequivocal ‘yes’. Of course all Citizens United did was legitimise what was going on all along, the rich and powerful will always have an outsize impact on any ‘democratic’ election, certainly as long as the sheeple will buy lies told them often enough. I suppose there is a tiny chance that if we had an educated and interested electorate the money might not have any impact, but with our moronic popularity contest where the easily led sheeple will do what they are told, money makes all the difference.

To me, though, the outcome remains irrelevant. At the local level (as the bottom of the article alludes to), elections are way more easily bought. At the national level, simply being able to play the game means you have had to sell your soul to whomsoever controls the strings. That Romney remains the de-facto nominee shows the importance of having an infrastructure in place. How many delegates did Santorum lose because he hasn’t taken the time to develop the nation-wide infrastructure?

So, at the national level, I still see the choice as death-by-firing-squad or death-by-hanging (you can pick which belongs to who, it makes no nevermind to me).

This is why I bought agricultural land in the country

The war of the roses … and daisies: Condo owner in legal battle over perennials
A condo association in Portsmouth, N.H., has placed a lien on Kimberly Bois’ home and slapped her with nearly $6,000 in fines plus legal fees, all because of a tidy little flower bed outside of her townhouse.
http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/blogs/the-war-of-the-roses-and-daisies-condo-owner-in-legal-batt?hpt=hp_bn13

I really detest the idea of condos. You might as well be renting! In fact, you are better off renting as when the assholes jack up the HOA fee you can just split, but if you are an owner, you might never be able to sell the damn thing and be trapped there.

Maybe, just maybe, this really is a vast conspiracy

The conflicting Afghan shooting reports
As the U.S. stands by its lone gunman story, we talk to Kandahar villagers who tell a different tale
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/23/the_conflicting_afghan_shooting_reports/singleton/

I commented earlier (see “The echo chamber“), where I was looking at the larger issue of front-line troops being under huge pressure to treat locals as crap. In it I more or less assumed that the dewd did it and the ‘coverup’ was just the normal efforts to keep a US citizen from being impacted by local politics. However, I am starting to think that there might be more going on here. I have read accounts that he got something to drink from his peers that evening before the event happened; what if he was being set up to take the fall for a planned massacre and the drink had some sort of drug in it (like the so-called ‘date rape’ drug GHB). I had supposed that his claims to not remember were spurious or induced by the horror of having to acknowledge what he had done, but what if he really didn’t remember doing it because he really didn’t do it? From the military’s perspective they probably wouldn’t want to investigate that angle because that would require them to accept the possibility that a large number of trusted and likely well-placed individuals have worked together in a premeditated fashion to a) commit a heinous, murderous massacre and b) frame one of their own fellows for it. Accepting that reality might be more than the military can bear so I could easily see ignoring any such evidence being the path of least resistance.

Reading the article above makes it easy to dismiss the reports of more than one gunman. Since the vast majority of these are second-hand reports, they are trivially ignored, who knows what sort of statements were initially made and under what conditions, they could have meant anything. The few first-hand accounts could be viewed with equal suspicion as (though I am not sure of the timing of events) they might be referring to the later investigators rather than the initial shooter. Also, since the local population has grown to distrust the US military, they might be inclined to exaggerate their statements to their fellow locals just for effect. HOWEVER, since the reports of many military-styled individuals being present have presented themselves, and reports emerged almost immediately, it is incumbent on the military investigators to take this seriously and do an open and transparent investigation (there I go again, asking for the moon for a nickle). To me the risk that this might _not_ be an isolated incident of someone mentally breaking is too high to ignore, though what the military would do if they were forced to accept that as a reality I can’t even imagine.

Ya gotta think this makes sense

Stop subsidizing soaring college costs
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/22/opinion/bennett-college-costs/index.html?hpt=hp_bn6

It makes a huge amount of sense to me that if there is no price pressure on producers then there is no profit pressure, hence no benefit to producing something more efficient. If schools fail to attract students because the price of their product is higher than the product’s value (I am starting to finally see some of this now even with the presents of student aid), then the school either changes its ways or goes out of business. It might take a few years for the situation to improve (the situation is pretty damn dysfunctional at present) but I feel quite certain that if we simply eliminate student loans (meaning no more loans to people with no proof of ability to repay, to students or parents!) the schools will drop the costs of attending (or go out of business, something I think a whole lot of law schools need to do). Perhaps the quality of higher education never actually improves, but if the cost to obtain the crap that is being offered now drops enough, then the payback to get it eventually reaches positive.

Another “We shouldn’t even be having this conversation” moment

ACLU: Facebook password isn’t your boss’ business
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/22/tech/social-media/facebook-password-employers/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Proof, as if it were needed, that governments are required to exist as counterweight to the idiotic tendency of society’s elite (business owners, in this case) to abuse anything they can possibly get away with. I can accept the need for the pee test if you are going to be ‘operating heavy equipment’ or acting in some highly trusted capacity (national security, vast sums of money, etc.), but not to work at McDonald’s (actually, I am not aware that McDonald’s, WallMart, etc. actually do drug testing, I expect because it is too expensive) because if you are impaired on the job you can cause a lot of damage very quickly. Sure, you might only get impaired off the job, but if you are getting illegally impaired at home, you clearly have the potential to take the risk to get so impaired at work. Personally, since I think this whole ‘war on drugs’ thing is a total waste of resources (I do not buy into the arguments that society is worse off if drugs are illegal; even if usage goes up because it becomes legal (I don’t find those arguments persuasive at all) and more people get hurt as a consequence, I still view that as a smaller price to society than the hugely massive impact the ‘war’ has had on our society), I think if you just own up to being a druggie and are scrupulous about being sober on the job, then fuggedaboutit. If there is reason to suspect someone is impaired at work, take them off the job, give them a piss test and fire them if they fail (naturally, the levels would have to be high enough to show they were impaired).

So, back to the Facebook thing. Since Facebook is Constitutionally protected free speech (except when you are a member of the military suggesting you won’t follow orders from the President), it is therefore a violation of the Constitution, let alone privacy, that companies insist on this sort of access. It is no different than viewing your email, listening to your phone conversations or bugging your bedroom. It should not be necessary to have a ‘Facebook’ privacy law. Simply enforce what laws already exist. The fact that the laws were put in place long before Facebook came into existence is no reason for a (rational, but therein lies the problem) person to think that the same laws don’t apply now.

News both good and bad

BofA: Families facing foreclosure can rent
http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/23/real_estate/bofa-mortgages-foreclosures/index.htm?hpt=hp_t3

The first thing I feel obligated to state is “why the hell is this only just now being considered?”. While I expect wide spread engagement in this approach will go a very very long way to smoothing out our rough housing road (simply absolving people of crippling debt (what bankruptcy is supposed to do, but forces people out on the street) opens up options for them which creates vastly increased potential for society to begin its recovery from the Great Recession (which really should have been called a depression, but hasn’t been for political reasons)), I am worried that investors will once again get bilked by BofA packing crap properties and pawning them off to investors. BofA (among many, many others) has a very extensive track record of ripping people off, so my first reaction to this is deep skepticism. If it is honest (which is where I am having the problem) then I think, if it catches on, it will be a great thing.

Trayvon vs George

There are a bunch of interesting articles on CNN this morning and several about the ‘situation’ regarding Zimmerman’s shooting of Martin. I have commented (perhaps not on my blog, I am not sure) about this before and how it is crystal clear to me based on the evidence I have heard (note that it is quite possible the evidence made public has been distorted, the government does that all the time) that Zimmerman, at a minimum, should have been arrested for suspicion of voluntary manslaughter. I find it inconceivable that any honest police investigation would simply take the word of someone that it was self-defense and based on the 911 tapes alone (before all this other evidence appeared), it is impossible to have any sort of (honest) conviction that Zimmerman is telling the truth. Some evidence is now put out that likely Zimmerman wasn’t the frothing neo-Nazi out to kill as many niggas as he could, since it seems he is Hispanic (as opposed to white) and is well connected in the ethnic (read black) community. That, however, does not absolve him of making a racially discriminating decision by going after a young black guy in a predominantly white (or so I have heard) neighborhood. And, it does not absolve him of taking aggressive actions that he was advised _against_ by the 911 operator. And it certainly does not absolve him of shooting the unarmed (and nonthreatening, based on the accounts of his girlfriend) Martin. So, to me, whether Zimmerman is white, black or Hispanic, he should have been arrested and investigated for, at a minimum, voluntary manslaughter and only after (were it to happen, but that sure isn’t looking like it is the case) an appropriate investigation should he be cleared.

As a by the by, it seems that Zimmerman went to Osborn high school in Manassas, VA. I went to Osborn Park (not sure why they named the two schools so close together so close in name). When I went to Osborn Park, there were like a handful of non-white kids in the school and probably just 2-3 that were black. We didn’t have much problems back then (way before gangs, drugs, guns, etc., etc., etc. became so common), and other than noticing them because they stood out in the crowd, I don’t think there was any other reason to be aware of them (of course, it is racist to use the terms ‘us’ and ‘them’ based on skin color, so just by having this conversation it is clear our society is light years away from being race neutral). Zimmerman, being quite a bit younger than I (about 20 years) probably went to a completely different (culturally speaking) school than I did. Manassas was quite redneck back then and the ‘damn foreigners’ (note that I was considered one of those ‘damn foreigners’ because I wasn’t a 3+ generation local) were only just starting to make some headway. I am quite sure that Manassas, today, is a mixing bowl of cultures and that whites like me are probably almost a minority (I am sure almost all the rednecks are gone, they couldn’t afford the rent/taxes anymore).

Having been born white in a culture politically dominated by powerful white people, I have had the luxury of not being specifically targeted by the police (which is not to say that I haven’t had plenty of run-ins with the Law during my ill-gotten youth, just that all those run-ins were because I was doing something wrong (or behaving in a clearly suspicious manner)), so I don’t feel in my bones the lack of trust that most blacks report:

Why black people don’t trust the police
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/22/opinion/granderson-florida-shootings/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

I can see where they are coming from, intellectually, though. Still, I get a bit from the ‘other’ side, as I have a couple of cops in my circle of friends and family and based on conversations with them they have developed a certain jaundiced view. Since they generally are only interacting with people who are in trouble with the law, then tend to start to view society through a lens colored by those experiences. They start to develop some understandable paranoia (I understand it, but am not sympathetic to it, but then again I have never had to worry about getting killed because I ignored it). They start to view ordinary citizens who have never had any complications with the law as potential offenders. They start to worry about their own family and start to see evil in what the rest of us view as normal behavior. It is likely that Zimmerman started to fall into that mindset and thus was emotionally incapable (at the time) of realizing that he was doing something wrong. He then reacted based on the story he had created in his head and when he was met with resistance (meaning Martin didn’t immediately drop into the prone position and put his hands on his back to be cuffed) he probably felt he was being attacked and reacted accordingly. This isn’t meant to excuse anything (being drunk is no excuse for running someone down either (and why don’t more of those people spend the rest of their lives in jail?)), just meant to understand that he might not have been intentionally lying when he stated he acted from self-defense.

I am reminded of a fellow Marine reservist I knew years ago (more years than I care to count). He worked at a mental hospital in DC (I believe it has been closed now) and he said that to survive there he and his fellows had to develop eyes in the back of their heads. They had to work from the assumption that they would be attacked at any moment by the patients and no matter how nice and friendly that little old lady was to your face there was a very good probability that as soon as you put your back to her she was going to swing a chair at your head. Of course prison guards have to develop the same skills, but in that case we as a society can excuse all sorts of behaviors (which as a consequence, I am quite sure, routinely leads to abuse by the guards) because we know they are already convicted criminals. The problem becomes when the police start to treat ordinary citizens the same way and the problem is exacerbated when someone like Zimmerman, who isn’t a cop and thus lacks the extensive training that law enforcement professionals get, develops the same sort of attitudes and then acts on them.

Thankfully, it seems that the local community leaders are working to ensure that an open and transparent investigation is going to take place and while at this moment it is hard to envision a situation where Zimmerman can walk away without any charges, if the investigation is indeed open and transparent, if that is indeed the conclusion hopefully society at large can accept the outcome.

Gangsta banks

Gangster Banks Keep Winning Public Business. Why?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/gangster-banks-keep-winning-public-business-why-20120322

Why? Simple: it is anonymous tax payers that get screwed and in any case the politicians are corrupt. This is telling:

“I haven’t found an investment bank that hasn’t had some problem in the last three years,” California Treasurer Bill Lockyer said in a telephone interview. “We do business with them all. I think they provide good service. I think they’ve been highly ethical with us.”

This is coming from an official whose state, California, has seen multiple bid-rigging cases in recent years, from Riverside to San Mateo to Sacramento to Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, for starters. So a quote like that is pretty sad. It tells you that the system works fine for state officials and banks — and no one is representing the people who actually lose out.

It would be quite simple to create some sort of on-line Dutch Auction for these sorts of things and the whole thing could be managed for a flat fee (and a small one that that! I would be happy to do it for a few million a year!), all totally transparent and totally free from corruption. The tax payer would not be cheated yet horrifyingly Wall Street wouldn’t get huge fees for doing nothing.

Sadly, something like this has exactly zero chance of happening (but please feel free to make a fool out of me!), even if it somehow started to develop enough critical mass the banks _already_ own the politicians that would invent new road blocks, just like they did for the Postal Service.