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Crime & Federalism

Discussing recent news and court opinions, with an emphasis on federalism, criminal law, and civil rights actions.

Post Frequency: 8.6/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 15:45:19

When Socialism Met Capitalism

Posted on December 29, 2008
A few days ago I noted one major hole in John Rawls' theory of justice, namely, corruption. This New York Times article offers more evidence of the problem of government redistribution:A tight-knit group of former senior government officials who were central players in the savings and loan bailout of the 1990s are seeking to capitalize on the latest economic meltdown,...

Irrational About Retirement

Posted on December 27, 2008
How many years will it take you to save for retirement? How many decades? If it will take you 40 years to save for retirement, why won't you spend a few hours learning about how to best protect your retirement? Even simpler: Spend just a few minutes reading this article...

Sentencing Madoff

Posted on December 27, 2008
Who here has ever had to worry about paying bills? I have. What sort of feeling is that? Imagine we could take that feeling and put it into a pill. We then forced people to take that pill. The difference is that, with our special pill, the pain would never go away...

New York Times Prohibits Criticism of Caroline Kennedy

Posted on December 26, 2008
On Dec. 16, 2008, in a post entitled, "Caroline Kennedy Will Confirm Existence of Media Bias," I noted: I eagerly await the mainstream media's treatment of Caroline Kennedy. Given her (non)qualifications, it should be scorched earth treatment, right? If Caroline Kennedy is not burned by the media, then the debate over media bias will be over...

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A Skeptic Gets Fleeced

Posted on December 26, 2008
A guy who literally wrote the book on gullibility lost a bunch of money by investing with Bernie Madoff. Here is his story.He lists a lot of reasons for why people are gullible. He omits the most-important one: Ignorance of psychopathy and sociopathy...

The Law As Fiction?

Posted on December 26, 2008
An economist who did not predict the biggest economic downturn in decades, has this to say of law:At risk of offending my many friends in the legal academy, I think that law is a shockingly phony discipline. Virtually everyone - liberal, conservative, Marxist, libertarian, or whatever - imagines that the law conveniently agrees with what they favor on non-legal grounds...

Happy Holidays

Posted on December 24, 2008

Sherdog SpyWare?

Posted on December 23, 2008
Sherdog.com, a mixed martial arts website owned by Jeff Sherwood, has for years allegedly infected visitors' computers with spyware. Check out this site for more information. I wonder if it's possible to bring a class-action lawsuit against Sherdog? I suppose that damages would be too individualized...

Obama to Decriminalize Marijuana?

Posted on December 23, 2008
He's certainly smart enough to understand why decriminalizing marijuana is the only rational and just thing for the government to do. There is hope, indeed.

Read This Post F*ckface

Posted on December 23, 2008
We all know, at least at the margins, that there is a right way to phrase requests. Telling your employee to, "Print some copies, monkey," probably isn't the best way to achieve compliance. And, unsurprisingly, there is a science to phraseology. Some phrases are scientifically-proven to be persuasive than others...

Body Language Pop Quiz

Posted on December 22, 2008
Can you spot a fake smile? Take this quiz to check yourself. And, yes, I got them all right. How did you do? If you didn't get at least 18 out of 20, there's a quick fix. I'll post it in the comments after people have had a chance to play the game.

I Must Have This

Posted on December 22, 2008
Where can I purchase one of these? My Googling skills have failed me. It's called an angled bookshelf.

My Amazon.com Wislist

Posted on December 22, 2008
No, I am not looking for freebies. Some of these books are on hold at the library, and I've bought a few already (I need to clean the list up), so purchasing them wouldn't be helpful. But if you check out the blog, you might want to check out what I've been reading, too...

Was Marie Douglas-David Any Different from a Prostitute?

Posted on December 22, 2008
Why is being a trophy wife legal, but being a prostitute not legal? Does anyone really believe that this woman married that man for love? While married, he gave her money. She gave him sex and attention. It's an exchange that should be legal. Yet for millions of women who work in the oldest profession, it's not...

Barack Obama as Alpha Male, Part 342

Posted on December 22, 2008
Harvard Law? Check. President of the United States? Check. Smoker? Check. (Yes, smoking is cool.) Need more evidence? Well, here you go....

What is Rawls' Answer to Corruption?

Posted on December 22, 2008
This column illustrates why I'm a libertarian:It's easy to look at the Blagojevich case and see a failure of personal ethics. It is about character. But it's also about how government itself creates the very conditions for corruption. Think of all the special privileges governors can bestow: subsidies for stadiums, public-works contracts, special taxes and fees, not to mention myriad...

Albanian Proverbs

Posted on December 21, 2008
I was going to write a post entitled, "The Difference Between Knowledge and Wisdom." I thought the phrase clich�, so I entered it in Google. While the phrase is clich�, it did bring me some wisdom. (Because there is wisdom in clich�s?)These Albanian Proverbs are amazing...

Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work

Posted on December 21, 2008
We all work and live with other people. But do we really understand other minds, other personalities, other people? It seems not.The people who trusted Bernie Madoff lost billions of dollars. How could he have done such a thing, they ask themselves. He was so charming...

Bailout Protected Bernie Madoffs

Posted on December 20, 2008
Had the economic good times remained, Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme would have never been revealed. Fraud is easy to hide when people aren't worried about their money. A person earning regular 10% annual returns falls asleep.When the stock market fell, people began withdrawing their money from Madoff's fund...

Affirmation Bias Could Cost You Money

Posted on December 17, 2008
Who remembers the cries that oil would soon approach $200 a barrel? Today it closed at $40 a barrel:NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices dropped to their lowest in more than four years on Wednesday after OPEC announced a record supply cut that dealers said may fail to fully offset slumping world energy demand...

Influence in Action

Posted on December 17, 2008
My phone rings. It's my spouse.Me: Hey, babe.Her: Our mail man just left us a nice card.Me: That was nice.Her: We should get him something.Me: [laughing] You know what he just did, right? He gave us a card hoping we'd give him a tip. It's the recriprocity principle...

Six Things Science Can't Explain

Posted on December 16, 2008
Science doesn't have the answer to many questions. While not every New Age idea should be accept simply because science cannot solve some mysteries; it's good to remember that a hand full of sand is just that. Separating bogus claims from true mysteries is wisdom.

Michigan Court of Appeals Feels Budget Crunch

Posted on December 16, 2008
The Michigan Court of Appeal's website has announced the following:COURT CLOSURE DATES Due to budgetary constraints, the Court of Appeals will be closed on the following dates pursuant to the order of Chief Judge Henry William Saad. Friday, December 26, 2008Friday, January 2, 2009 These closures are in conjunction with our regularly scheduled holiday closures on Wednesday, December 24, 2008Thursday,...

Bernie Madoff and Social Security

Posted on December 16, 2008
Great point made in the comments: "Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi Scheme," Mr. Markopolos, wrote in a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 1999. I have to dispute that with Mr. Markopolos. I'm pretty sure that "Social Security" is a much larger Ponzi scheme, which would make Madoff Securities at least the second largest.

Don't Feeze Me, Bro

Posted on December 16, 2008
"Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine until resuscitation may be possible in the future." Get frozen today; wake up tomorrow. Sounds great, right? No way.As Arthur Clarke noted, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic...

The Fascinating Story of Charles Ponzi

Posted on December 16, 2008
Mental Floss Blog has Charles Ponzi's story here.

Caroline Kennedy Will Confirm Existence of Media Bias

Posted on December 16, 2008
I eagerly await the mainstream media's treatment of Caroline Kennedy. Given her (non)qualifications, it should be scorched earth treatment, right? If Caroline Kennedy is not burned by the media, then the debate over media bias will be over. People of good faith will no longer be able to disagree about the existence of a pro-liberal bias...

Does Bernie Madoff Have Victims or Accomplices?

Posted on December 15, 2008
Everyone acted surprised when Bernie Madoff's hedge fund was exposed as a Ponzi scheme. The evidence now suggests that many of Madoff's supposed victims were really co-conspirators. They weren't victims, they were crooks. When you invest money in a Ponzi scheme, you reap a return on your investment from subsequent investors...

Crime & Federalism Updates Via Kindle

Posted on December 15, 2008
That's what I've been told. I don't have a Kindle (yet), so I don't know anything about that. If you have a Kindle and check out C&F, then you should be able to receive updates via Kindle.

Why You Should Send Thank-You Notes

Posted on December 15, 2008
A thank you is powerful. My spouse got her first job at a large law firm because of a thank-you note she had written. Not thanking people has cost people jobs and business.I've referred thousands-of-dollars of business to people. When I don't receive a thank-you note or e-mail, I remember...

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