Silk Road Bust & Pardon

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How is that I had not heard anything about this? I was aware that Silk Road got busted, but after 2015 it dropped off my radar. I suppose that's what I get for hanging out on the fringe, or maybe I'm just on the wrong fringe.

Chucky's Seven Levels of Hell

Dante's 7 Circles of Hell

I don't think our criminal justice system is working very well. By all accounts our prisons are pretty horrible places, expensive to build, expensive to maintain and overrun by gangs. I would also say they were ineffective in accomplishing their intended purpose if I knew what the intended purpose was. Are we trying to reform people? Punish them? Enslave and exploit them? Remove them from civilized society? Or are we just trying to keep the prison-industrial system going and keep all the contractors and prison guards employed?

I'm thinking farms and ranches would be better for maybe half of the people in prison. I think a lot of people would be happy just to have something to do. Of course there are those who are just going to rebel against anyone telling them what to do. Well, if they do, they can go down to the next level.

Homelessness seems to be a big problem. Maybe a big campground would help. This would be level one. Any vagrants, people caught loitering or jaywalking, having too many parking tickets, we'd put them on a bus and send them to the campground. They are free to go where they want, but if they show up in the city again doing the same bullshit, we put them on the bus and send them back to the campground. Probably have to be 50 or even miles outside of the city to where the land is cheap enough you can afford to establish a campground.

Let the campground govern itself. Anybody they decide is misbehaving goes to the next level - a campground encircled with a fence. Every month or so the people in this second level decide whether anyone of their number can be trusted enough to be elevated to the first level. Anyone they decide is misbehaving according to their rules to cast down into a lower level. That level only meets quarterly to decide on who gets parole. Each successive layer has a higher fence and a longer time between meetings of the parole board.

This is Sparta Scene (full) HD
THE VTER

The bottom level is a circular area surrounding a bottomless pit. You get on the wrong side of the people on the seventh level and into the pit you go.

Rittenhouse

 

Koreans smoking cigarettes up on the roof back in 1992

Chicago Boyz has a good post on lawlessness. vigilantes, America and the Rittenhouse trial. Via Flares Into Darkness.

I have read some reports that describe the prosecution of Rittenhouse as either malicious, incompetent or both, so I have to wonder who was pressuring the prosecutor to pursue this nonsense? To me, the whole thing sounds like a cluster fuck. I'm hoping someone prosecutes the prosecutor. And then we have this:

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger pointing a rifle. In the courtroom. 
SEAN KRAJACIC/THE KENOSHA NEWS/POOL/AP PHOTO

Does he think he's Alec Baldwin and he's making a movie? He's got his finger on the trigger for Pete's sake. And last but not least:

Nick Sandman (top, with MAGA hat) and Kyle Rittenhouse

We don't know how much Nick actually got from his lawsuit, but that's just the first one. More to come.

P.S. Finally realized that the media doesn't care if they slander someone or not. All that matters is whether they get viewers or not. If they get sued and have to pay, well, that's just the cost of doing business. It's certainly not going to stop them from doing it again. And they're going to keep on doing it as long as people can feel righteous anger. About something. Doesn't really matter what, just keep everyone pissed off, and they seem to be doing an excellent job of that.

Crimes Against Humanity

Lafarge Logo

Stolen entire from Wretchard.com

France’s top court on Tuesday overturned a decision by a lower court to dismiss charges brought against cement giant Lafarge for complicity in crimes against humanity in Syria’s civil war.

Quashing the lower court’s finding on complicity, France’s highest court of appeal ruled Tuesday that “one can be complicit in crimes against humanity even if one doesn’t have the intention of being associated with the crimes committed.”

“Knowingly paying several million dollars to an organisation whose sole purpose was exclusively criminal suffices to constitute complicity, regardless of whether the party concerned was acting to pursue a commercial activity,” it added. - AFP

Is this going to put a new spin on kidnapping cases?

The Death Penalty & Politics

Scene of the Boston Marathon Bombing

Crime & Consequences has a good post up about the upcoming Boston Marathon Bomber case at the Supreme Court.

I am ambivalent about the death penalty. On one hand I think it is a suitable punishment for violent crimes. On the other, the trial system is not always a reliable arbiter of justice, as we have seen from the numerous stories of people unjustly convicted. My other objection to the death penalty is how appeals to death sentences go on seemingly interminably, consuming the court's time and resources while more run of the mill cases get short-shrift.

Our prisons are another disaster. I would like to see prisoners put to work on farms or road building. The current system seems to be hamstrung by the prison guard unions, prison building contractors, state budgets, and angry people who just want all the criminals locked up.

Then there is the whole problem of what is the purpose of incarceration. Is it to punish the criminal? Reform him? Educate him? If he can be reformed, reforming would be good. Some of those are too far gone and cannot be reformed, but how do you tell?

Sing Sing

Bebo Best & The Super Lounge Orchestra - Sing Sing Sing (Dance Video) | Choreography | MihranTV
You can sing a song, or you can 'sing' to the coppers about a crime which is liable to result in someone getting sent to Sing Sing Prison in the village of Ossining, New York. That's all just a little background for this line pulled from the Paul Manafort trial:

“This vernacular to ‘sing’ is what prosecutors use. What you’ve got to be careful of is that they may not only sing, they may compose.” - Judge Ellis

Via Brian Micklethwait

P.S. This video is the only version I found of this tune that actually has anyone singing. All the rest are just instrumentals.

Funny Money

Poking around on YouTube and I come across a video from Russia Insider about a Russian citizen, arrested in Greece, being extradited to the USA. The charge is money laundering using Bitcoin, not that it matters. This quote summarizes the situation nicely.

"Unfortunately, in most cases, such decisions are politically motivated. The fact is that Vinnik is a Russian citizen, and, in the presence of two similar requests, the decision should have been made in favor of his extradition to Russia, but in most jurisdictions, the United States has such an unspoken preemptive right to extradite citizens upon their requests. And, in my opinion, in this case, this is what happened." - Yevgeny Korchago, Chairman of the Lawyers Board

I suspect that the news coverage of the Harvey Weinstein dust-up is likewise politically motivated, though not at such a high level.

Capital Punishment

We watched an old episode of Law & Order on TV the other night. It started off with the execution of a man by lethal injection. They made sure it was plain that he was guilty and deserved to die. The next day I read a passage in Otherland about a lethal injection execution from the viewpoint of the executee. No wonder I'm writing about this.

I am of two minds on Capital Punishment. On one hand there are people who certainly deserve to die, and I am sure the threat of execution does provide a deterrent effect. On the other hand getting someone executed in the Justice system is a disaster. It costs millions of dollars to go through all the required legal contortions, and then it seems like half the time they end up executing the wrong person anyway. (I was gonna say "the wrong guy", but let's give the girls a fair shot, shall we?) I say just lock them up and save us all a lot of grief. No more money wasted on capital punishment appeals, no more executing the wrong guy. No more hair pulling and gnashing of teeth. Well, that last may be asking a bit much.

And then there's lethal injection. Who thought this up? To my mind it is the worst of all possible methods. Endless waiting, being strapped down to a table, not even a chair. And then we use some kind of procedure that looks like something out of a doctors office. What the heck is up with that? No wonder people aren't getting their kids inoculated anymore. Seems to me a bullet in the head would be the most humane way of killing a person. Pull the trigger, and bang, it's all over. You wouldn't even need straps or a chair or any special equipment. Any officer's service revolver would do the trick. Might be a little messier, but death is generally pretty messy.

All I can figure is that there are some closet sadists out there who really want the victim (executee?) to suffer. I can understand that. Instant death often seems to be too good for what some of these people have done. But they aren't allowed to actually torture someone, so they clothe their horrendous execution procedure in weasel words.

Reminds me of a scene from Full Metal Jacket where a team sends one of their men across an open field to check out some buildings. He gets taken down by a sniper. The shot only injures him and he's screaming. The sniper keeps firing intermittently and hitting him, but not killing him, which puts pressure on his teammates to do something. Eventually they track down the sniper and shoot her. She is disabled but not dead and is asking the Americans to shoot her. They stand around a bit arguing the merits of letting her suffer (payback for what she did), but the squad leader ends up shooting and killing her, sparing her further misery.

And while we are talking about confusing humanity with sadism, there was a story I read about horse racing a while back. Can't remember the name of it. But there are race tracks and there are race tracks. Some of them are well run, and some are a little scruffy around the edges, in more ways than one. The protagonist, who works at a "respectable" track relates the tale of a horse that had the misfortune to break a leg at one of the scruffier tracks. It happened on the home stretch, right in front of the Grandstand. They executed the horse on the spot, with a gun. The protagonist derides them for their behavior, saying something to the effect that they could have at least taken the horse around back where it would be out of sight before they "put it down".

Whose welfare was he concerned about? Certainly not the horse's, he's gotten a broken leg, he's not going to get up again. Standard procedure in Western Civilization is put down an injured animal if there is no hope of recovery. So he wants the horse to lie there in misery while he is hauled off behind some barn for the coup-de-grace? Seems like he's more concerned about the sensitivities of the patrons, which I can understand, they are ones who are funding this operation. But don't call it "being humane". Matter of fact, I think all horses who are injured racing should be executed in front of the Grandstand. Maybe then some pressure would be brought to bear on those people who are breeding fragile animals. And make no mistake, some thoroughbreds are very fragile. That's what happens when all you are concerned about is winning.

Criminals

St. Paul Travelers Building

I just got a check in the mail for $29.28. It is my share of the proceeds from a lawsuit against St. Paul Travelers (Insurance Corporation, I imagine). The net proceeds from this lawsuit was $53 million against claimed losses of $737 million. Evidently at one time I had some shares of this stock in my retirement fund, which means I got to sign on to a class action lawsuit. Probably required no action on my part other than sitting tight and not making a fuss (no, I'm not gonna be part of no common class action lawsuit! I'm gonna file my own suit! I'll show those no good so and soes!)

So me and the other 123,588 claimants recovered 6.7% of our losses, losses I was not even aware of. I imagine the lawyers all collected several million dollars each, which made the ten years (five years? six months? 3 minutes?) they spent on this case worthwhile.

This sort of thing happens once or twice a year. Occasionally I will look into it a bit, just out of curiosity, and generally what I find is that once upon a time someone told a big fat lie. What the heck is the matter with people? Why do they do stuff like that? Probably because it will help divert large sums of money into their pockets and they don't think they will get caught. And given the amount of time and effort it takes to take down even one of these lying scumbags, a lot of them probably get away with it.

From a statement from the law firm that prosecuted this claim:

St. Paul II arose from the industry-wide insurance scandal involving American International Group, Marsh McClennan, the St. Paul Companies and numerous other insurance providers and brokers. Investigations involved charges that the insurance industry had formed a cartel, through bid rigging, kick backs and the payment of illegal contingent commissions, resulting in higher premiums to customers, and illegally earned revenues for the cartel’s participants. St. Paul’s alleged participation in this cartel, and its misuse of finite insurance, has lead to approximately 22 investigations, including a formal SEC investigation, and an in-depth investigation by the Office of the Attorney General for the State of New York.

And you know, we don't really know if they did anything wrong. Given the obfuscation factor of accounting practices and the law, it could be just that some legal beagle discovered someone had forgotten to cross a T, and realized they could make it into a hanging offense. On the other hand a million bucks isn't what it used to be. Small potatoes like this might not be worth the trouble involved in corrupting the legal system. Now a billion dollars, that might make it worthwhile.

All this fuss and I get a check that will cover lunch for two at the Road House. Geez, prices have gone up (no Shinola Sherlock). Ten years ago I used to get lunch for $5 at the Happy Panda. Now lunch costs $10, plus $2 for iced tea. We should go back to the Panda.

Update January 2017 replaced missing picture.