Detailed Abstractions

The 9th Circuit strikes again…. via LA Times (here):

SAN FRANCISCO — A sharply divided federal appeals court in California on Monday exposed Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to billions of dollars in legal damages when it ruled a massive class action lawsuit alleging gender discrimination over pay for female workers can go to trial….

Now I don’t claim to be a lawyer and haven’t even played one on tv, but part of the dissent seems obvious to me:

…Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote a blistering dissent, joined by four of her colleagues.

“No court has ever certified a class like this one, until now. And with good reason,” Ikuta wrote. “In this case, six women who have worked in thirteen of Wal-Mart’s 3,400 stores seek to represent every woman who has worked in those stores over the course of the last decade — a class estimated in 2001 to include more than 1.5 million women.”…

Maybe they like being overturned (here from 2007)?

…The 9th Circuit also has a long-running streak as the most overturned, which went unbroken this year. The Supreme Court reviewed 22 cases from the 9th Circuit last term, and it reversed or vacated 19 times….

Via WSJ, The Big Brown Union Bailout

If you can’t beat ‘em, have Congress hobble ‘em. That’s the motto of some in corporate America, and Exhibit A might be United Parcel Service’s campaign to get Washington to impose its labor woes on rival Federal Express. This would be one more union bailout at the expense of business competition and economic efficiency….

This is a continuation of this administration’s policies to pay off unions at the expense of others (DA posts here).

Via Reason.com, GM’s Phony Bailout Payback

Uncle Sam gave GM $49.5 billion last summer in aid to finance its bankruptcy….  So when Whitacre publishes a column with the headline, “The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full,” most ordinary mortals unfamiliar with bailout minutia would assume that he is alluding to the entire $49.5 billion. That, however, is far from the case….

I say if you want to buy American, buy Ford – no bailout money and still going strong.

& cool science news via e!Science (here):

…In a study published as an Advance Online Publication in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on Sunday, physicists at Ohio University and the University of Hamburg in Germany present the first images of spin in action….

9 charged with bullying Mass. teen who killed self via the AP (here):

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — Insults and threats followed 15-year-old Phoebe Prince almost from her first day at South Hadley High School, targeting the Irish immigrant in the halls, library and in vicious cell phone text messages.

Phoebe, ostracized for having a brief relationship with a popular boy, reached her breaking point and hanged herself after one particularly hellish day in January — a day that, according to officials, included being hounded with slurs and pelted with a beverage container as she walked home from school.

Now, nine teenagers face charges in what a prosecutor called “unrelenting” bullying, including two teen boys charged with statutory rape and a clique of girls charged with stalking, criminal harassment and violating Phoebe’s civil rights….

Assuming the facts, this was criminal behavior with or without the heinous result:

…Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel, who announced the charges Monday, said the events before Phoebe’s death on Jan. 14 were “the culmination of a nearly three-month campaign of verbally assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm” widely known among the student body.

…At least four students and two faculty members intervened to try to stop it or report it to administrators, she said….

So far we seem to be good – charge those directly responsible.  Now what about those administrators who did nothing?

…School officials won’t be charged, even though authorities say they knew about the bullying and that Phoebe’s mother brought her concerns to at least two of them….

& here is the unspoken problem:  government imposed monopoly on schools for which no one is responsible.  Thanks to a strong union and forced funding of these failing institutions we end where the adults charged to protect her are not responsible at all.

Maybe it’s just me, but criminal charges seem consistent with the law.   Sure, a civil suit will likely exist and be successful.  But the end result is the taxpayers who have to support the idiots who allowed this to continue will have to pay for their mistakes.

I’m just saying – it’s possible a justice system which can’t or won’t hold these people accountable combined with a civil system that will punish taxpayers, not the administrators, doesn’t incent future administrators to do better next time.

Maybe there’s a reason they weren’t charged?

…No school officials are being charged because they had “a lack of understanding of harassment associated with teen dating relationships,” and the school’s code of conduct was interpreted and enforced in an “inconsistent” way, Scheibel said…

Oh…. now I get it.  They’re not responsible because they’re too stupid to understand kids their jobs.

It seems at least 4 children, 2 teachers and 1 parent knew enough to try to get help to intervene, but since the administrators just don’t understand kids these days – it’s not really criminal.

What would’ve been criminal would be for Phoebe’s parents to keep her home from school, without proving they were educating her consistent with state guidelines.

But what’s not criminal is doing nothing to prevent this little girl from being criminally harassed daily.

*Side note:  Bravo to the children that stood up against this behavior.  They should be celebrated for doing the right thing and will hopefully be secure in the knowledge that they at least tried.  While the adults did nothing, they tried.

• Here come’s the CFPA…. known as the Consumer Fraud Protection Act, which is shaping up to confirm my theory on the titling of bills.  Meaning it will not protect anyone, including consumers, from anything, including fraud; which I thought was already against the law….  More @ Reason by Tim Cavanaugh here.

• More psychology study showing evidence that concealment or perceived anonymity can lead to more unethical behavior.  via Time here

• Via Calculated Risk, Home Builders $2.3 Billion “Gift” from Taxpayers, demonstrating our government’s utter indifference to the economic realities associated with propping up businesses which should naturally contract during a correction.

• Cato on the government’s continued refusal of basic facts showing government employees earning more on average than their civilian counterparts (here)

• Obama administration to reverse decision on trying terrorist mastermind in NY & instead opt for a military tribunal – via WSJ here

• For light reading, America’s Craziest Cities @ The Daily Beast where they rank cities based upon stress, drinking, eccentricity, and number of psychiatrists.

I heard about a recent sobriety checkpoint in my area and what seemed to me a ridiculous use of resources compared to the payoff.  This being quite some time ago, I almost lost the story, but thanks to Google Cache… here it is:

St. Charles police Detective Derek Piasecki reported this morning that a DWI checkpoint this past weekend resulted in 29 arrests. The checkpoint stopped a total of 1,797 drivers at Highway 94 and Portwest Drive. Of those, 920 were westbound, and 877 were eastbound.

Here’s a breakdown of the arrests:

* 25 for driving while intoxicated

* 3 for driving with a revoked license

* 1 for failure to comply

A total of 23 officers from the St. Charles and St. Peters police departments and the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department worked overtime between 10  p.m. and 3 a.m.

Maybe it’s just me, as from the websites I’ve viewed people seem to be not only ok with this, but actually wanting more of it.

Looking from just the numbers however, you have 23 officers working 5 hours @ at least time 1/2.  This equates (23*5) to 110 man hours or (23*7.5)  or 172.5 hours of paid time to arrest 29 people while stopping 1768 other people.

This equates to (110/29) approximately 3.8 man hours per offense, with only 25 actually being arrested for the offense the checkpoint was supposed to stop.

Not only is this an incredibly inefficient use of resources, but to me, seems to be overkill.  98% of the people that were stopped had no other offense than driving in the area the police officers were targeting.

Additionally, this particular stop was announced before hand, making the actual offenders not only stupid for drinking and driving, but also clueless and uninformed.

Of course some can argue that it is worth it to help push down the scourge that is drinking and driving.   Statistics are hard to come by because the only ones compiling them are groups with interests of conflict, but taking their numbers – which includes any fatal accident where alcohol was involved (even if the drunk was passed out on the shoulder of the road and was run over) – about 45 people die daily from drunk drivers.

Maybe for some this makes up for the stunning inefficiencies, for me, I’m not so sure and therein lies the question:

If you have to stop 1787 people to find the 25 you are looking for – is that considered a success?

First, when writing about such a controversial topic, I will start with a disclaimer.   True child predators should not be allowed out of prison ever.  To me, the rape of a child, is the same basic act as destroying that child’s life.  Therefore, the punishment should fit the crime.

Having said that, as with most things happening around the world today, potential solutions like Meghan’s Law have gone further than needed.  Which might be ok, as over doing it isn’t necessarily wrong in all cases, but in this case, we’ve overdone it to the point that Meghan’s Law isn’t useful for the average citizen.

In an article titled, America’s unjust sex laws published in the Economist, they try to tackle this very question: Is Meghan’s Law and other similar laws working as intended.

For background, several years ago victims’ rights groups and other lobbyists started pushing for Meghan’s Law:

…In their grief, the parents started a petition, demanding that families should be told if a sexual predator moves nearby. Hundreds of thousands signed it. In no time at all, lawmakers in New Jersey granted their wish. And before long, “Megan’s laws” had spread to every American state..

Which means anyone labeled as a sex offender:

…this means that their names, photographs and addresses are published online, so that fearful parents can check whether a child-molester lives nearby. Under the Adam Walsh Act of 2006, another law named after a murdered child, all states will soon be obliged to make their sex-offender registries public. Such rules are extremely popular….

So what is at issue?

…In fact its sex-offender laws have grown self-defeatingly harsh (see article). They have been driven by a ratchet effect. Individual American politicians have great latitude to propose new laws. Stricter curbs on paedophiles win votes….

How do we know?

…In all, 674,000 Americans are on sex-offender registries—more than the population of Vermont, North Dakota or Wyoming. The number keeps growing partly because in several states registration is for life and partly because registries are not confined to the sort of murderer who ensnared Megan Kanka. According to Human Rights Watch, at least five states require registration for people who visit prostitutes, 29 require it for consensual sex between young teenagers and 32 require it for indecent exposure. Some prosecutors are now stretching the definition of “distributing child pornography” to include teens who text half-naked photos of themselves to their friends….

What does all this mean?

Well, first it means that the information itself is worthless.  If I look up online right now the sex offenders within my zip code (which is possible in my jurisdiction) I honestly don’t know if the old guy is married to the person he supposedly raped in high school due to solely statutory  reasons, or if he kidnapped and raped a 12 year old girl.

One should worry me, the other not so much.

The second problem is with the court system itself.  With a hypothetical that has been used in the past, let’s say someone is being prosecuted for a sex crime and they are innocent.  During the trial, the prosecutor knows it’s not going well.  But all isn’t lost.  with the new potential punishment, innocent defendants can be put in a position of facing either:

a) please guilty, a low amount of jail time or

b) take your chances and possibly be known as a sex offender for life and long jail terms

Not much of a choice at all, especially if you are innocent.

Please don’t get me wrong here.  I think cops and prosecutors try to do the right thing as they see it most of the time for most of the people.

But allowing the less than stellar prosecutors and cops (who do exist, like in any other profession) to be able to hold something so sinister as a lifetime of scorn, while padding their win record is beyond the pale.

Of course, like health care, cash for clunkers, and any other government law, so long as voters are willing to listen to only slogans and work just to see their side win, rational debate will not exist and hundreds of thousands will be punished unnecessarily.

It’s strange for a veteran such as myself to start believing that this country isn’t interested in real freedom anymore, but here we are.  Reality is what it is…