Ken Nelson

A Canadian woman strangles her baby. Murder – right?

Nope.

She got a suspended sentence for killing her child.

And 16 days in jail for littering (putting the corpse in a neighbors yard).

Although this hideous crime and wrong punishment happened in Canada you can envision similar happening here, can’t you?  In Vermont, or California, maybe New York. Places closer to Canada on the “out of their minds” track.

The sport I participate in has us do the Pledge of Allegiance before events. I say the words, but as I do I sometimes wonder “do I really?”.

Something is REALLY wrong. We, Western Culture that is, are WAY off the tracks.

Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t really worth saving. Don’t you?

I suspect most Americans, at least those who aren’t Volvo driving NPR listeners that haven’t been a crime victim, rebel against the idea of a resort prison like the video above shows.

And I do think it a bit far to include a chainsaw ax murderer in “the fun” -  and even to give him a chainsaw.

But I know that prison, in the US,  really is a school for criminals. They forge their criminality for years, and set it, usually for life.

My main concerns about prisons in the US are ( in no particular order):

• too many of them
• prison guard expense and pensions
• criminal havens
• inmates commit crimes when released

I’ve been a victim of crime in recent years, my truck, trailer and ATVs were stolen.  They perpetrators were never caught.  Nor were any attempts to catch them made. It seems likely that they were caught on some other offense and imprisoned a short while and released to break the law again.

So what would I do to reduce crime? 

I assume that an “enlightened” approach as in the video wouldn’t work here generally. We have too many different kinds of people in this country, and too hardened a criminal base. We have freedoms to abuse, and I’d make the abuse of them very expensive.

The first thing is to reduce the number of laws. Particularly drug laws. It should not be a crime to harm yourself, which is what drug users do.  I know there are societal effects from drug use, but it seems clear  we suffer from those now AND from a police state built around trying to enforce drug laws few seem to obey.

Next, I would punish property crimes very severely. Car theft, home burglary, what we might now call “petty” crime, but which imposes a heavy burden on us with locks, alarm systems and other “taxes”.  I’d punish these about like murder now.  Lock you up, see you.  The prisons for non-violent offenders might be like the one in the video, or similar. It might be an island. Or a Joe Arpaio style stockade.  They could earn their way out of it by showing responsibility and learning a skill in a few years.

If they fail, they go to lockup for a LONG time.   Model it like many religions use earth.  Live, be tested, pay for eternity.

Finally, I would kill a lot of people. For instance, aggravated rape and sexual assaults, murderer, molestation, and similar crimes would receive death.  Quickly.

Could or would this be abused?  Of course, so we would need a control super-majority control over what kind of crime could receive death. For instance, I know many NPR listeners would make sting video reporting punishable by death.  As a useful guideline, I’d suggest if it wasn’t illegal 100 years ago, it isn’t a good candidate.

My hope is to reduce the number of prisons, and the number of prison guards, but mostly the number of worthless citizens that prey on us.

What we are doing now doesn’t work and costs a lot. It’s time to re-consider our ENTIRE approach to law and order in this country.

It’s time for some St. George residents to look in the mirror.

About every 2 to 3 years the Feds descend on St. George and bust somebody for fraud.  This week’s was a doozy… a claim of $275 million in fraudulent activity by one Jeremy Johnson and his companies.  Jeremy is well known in St. George, mainly for donation of his various aircraft to search and rescue efforts and flying humanitarian missions where they need to go.  If you believe the Federal claims, the gas for those missions of mercy may have been bought with defrauded money from hundreds of thousands of other people.

I’ve been suspicious of his businesses since I first heard of them, so these charges surprise me not.  On issues of guilt or innocence, I’ll let the courts decide.  But if you read Jeremy’s defense of his business, your concern will rise:

Johnson said the order forms for his products prominently detail terms and disclosures that show customers will be charged $59.95 monthly if they do not call to cancel within a seven- to 14-day trial period. He pointed to prominent companies such as American Express that feature similar offers where consumers who are offered a “free” product must cancel or they will be charged for other goods or services.

I think anybody who bases a business on fine print that takes monthly $60 fees that they can’t cancel easily is doing a bad thing.  The courts can decide if laws were broken. I’ll just say the business model was contemptible.

Now here is the rub…

the complaint says. Johnson and others (emphasis added) then created dozens of “shell” companies to accept credit card payments in order to avoid fines and detection, it says.

There are people running around this town, the “others” mentioned above, that helped Mr. Johnson in his schemes. I’m sure I know some of them. I just have to wonder how they feel about being part of such shoddy business practices and how they kept doing it so long.

St. Louis vs El Paso…. It’s ON.

El Paso is the “safest” large city in the U.S.  And it highlights why we have to control immigration – El Paso had 4 murders, across the river, 2700 in Ciudad Juarez.

Meanwhile, St. Louis beat out Camden, NJ as the unsafest city.

Interestingly, El Paso has only 15% Non-Hispanic Whites, and 80% Latino, and 3% Black. Some might say this invalidates my immigration point, but I’d point out that El Paso lives as an Hispanic dot in a sea called Texas, which has Republican, small government tendencies.  They can’t be corrupt, the rest of Texas won’t let them.  It is key we don’t’ let unchecked immigration, in turn, unleash the corruption here that is so prevalent in Mexico.

But… let’s go to the stats….  St. Louis has 51% black. And Camden 50% black.  Continuing on in this mornings “insult culture” theme, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the the unsafe cities list correlates highly to black population ratios.  Black culture, with incredibly high single mother birth rates, does not have effective controls over its adolescent  male youth populations, and in many ways (rap music, for instance) eggs on bad or criminal behavior.

Informal sampling of the 2009 list shows that having > 10% black population is a great way to move up the list.

Should I mention this?  Is it racist?  No. I think this link to violence is culturally not racially driven. I’ve known many spectacular African Americans – of high achievement and unblemished honesty and kindness.   But, frankly, I do not think it an accident that our first black President was raised in white culture.   If not, he would statistically be in prison.

Culture matters. A lot. We may all be human, and “equal”, but how we band together affects so much, and it is a shame more people do not feel safe discussing it.

Shorthand: I’m senior and I can steer projects your way if you donate.

A question for any D.C. residents dropping by…. do you like your delegate to Congress shaking down lobbyists?

This is, uh, Eleanor Norton, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. Uh, I noticed that you have given to uh, other colleagues on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. I am a, um, Senior Member, a twenty year veteran and am Chair of the Sub-committee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management. I’m handling the largest economic development project in the United States now, the Homeland Security Compound of three buildings being built on the uh, old St. Elizabeth’s hospital site in the District of Columbia along with uh, fifteen other, uh, sites here for, that are part of the stimulus .

and it gets worse from there…

Anyway, I’m wondering what DC residents might feel about their Delegate behaving so sordidly.  Are you frustrated with the behavior, like frustrated enough to not vote for her?  Or just irritated she was dumb enough to leave a message?

I wonder, because I can’t imagine a representative from Utah surviving a phone call like this one. And as a libertarian leaning Republican, any member of my party that behaved this way (as I suspect, for instance, Arlen Specter did frequently) is welcome to be a retired Republican in my book.

Ultimately, of course, this is unavoidable with the 16th amendment so broadly worded. Change that and this will stop. Leave it as is and this will increase and we will only occasionally see it bared as in this situation.

Note that I tagged this under “crime” because I’m sure that several were violated.

 
All rise, honorable HP Laptop presiding.

In Les Miserable, Jean Valjean steals bread, serves time, and is then paroled but required to wear a large yellow ticket to identify him as a criminal. He is essentially marked for life, an injustice we can determine because we know Jean Valjean isn’t such a bad egg.

But what about real life, where Victor Hugo hasn’t laid it all out for us?  Can we predict what criminals will go bad again on parole or when released?

UPenn has developed software that predicts who will murder or be murdered:

Beginning several years ago, the researchers assembled a dataset of more than 60,000 various crimes, including homicides. Using an algorithm they developed, they found a subset of people much more likely to commit homicide when paroled or probated. Instead of finding one murderer in 100, the UPenn researchers could identify eight future murderers out of 100.

Apparently what you did early on correlates highly to doing it again.

"But what really matters is what that person did as a young individual. If they committed armed robbery at age 14 that’s a good predictor. If they committed the same crime at age 30, that doesn’t predict very much."

Proponents of the software believe it will help lengthen sentences and avoid parole for those likely to repeat. And correspondingly, shorten time served and encourage parole for those posing less of a threat.

Opponents say it will persecute 93 people who won’t commit a crime, but that misses the point.  We already make subjective decisions about sentencing and parole, a tool like this helps make these decisions more objective and accurate.

The mayor of Salt Lake City wants to permit more bars. He says the move will attract more businesses.  Naturally, the predominant religion comprised of non-drinkers is blamed for wanting to force their views on everybody.  But I don’t think that is the case.  Not wanting bars seems a good idea, no matter your religion.

I’m not a teetotaler, but it seems to me the costs outweigh the benefits.

Here in St. George, we have one bar, aptly named “The One & Only”. I’ve been there once, to see my guitar teacher’s band play. I left after 2 sets, 3 expensive diet cokes, and my smoke filled clothes sat in the backyard for a week so as to not stink up my closet.   And when I left, I saw plenty of intoxicated people leave in their cars too.

One evening, three years ago, a drunk woman left The One & Only, got on I-15 Southbound, HEADING NORTH. She killed two friends of mine in a head on collision, leaving two children orphans.

So from my perspective, the tax revenue from The One & Only is small and unworthy compensation for the risk its patrons present.

I’d gladly pay off the owner to shut down. That would be tax money well spent.

Until then, every time I come home late, I wonder, is some One & Only drunk going to weave into my path?

I guess I’d prefer a bar named “Closed”.

A profiling tool?

I always been suspicious of people who bought green, organic, were men and wore pony tails, or any combination there of. Turns out, as is so often the case, I was right.

But new research by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto levels an even graver charge: that virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal.

The scientists offer cautions and rationalizing explanations blah blah blah….  Here  it is from a straight shooter…  if somebody is different in one public way, they are likely different in other private ways. So be wary!

An interesting graphic…. the language of the chart implies we incarcerate too many people. I think we have too many criminals.  Part of that is caused by stupid laws on drugs and, in general, too many laws period. I’d be happy getting rid of most drug laws. I don’t use them, and you shouldn’t too, but I feel that what you do is your business.   Now if you are high and crash your car, or kill somebody, or rob somebody, I’d happily stuff you in our newly available prison cells.

Created by OnlineEducation.net

Washington State saved a trial:

The man suspected of gunning down four police officers in a suburban coffee shop was shot and killed by a lone Seattle patrol officer investigating a stolen car early Tuesday, a sheriff’s spokesman said. Four other people were arrested for allegedly helping the suspect elude authorities during a massive two-day manhunt.

If only Eric Holder would learn about the benefits of this method of trial avoidance in the case of the terrorists he plans to try as civilians in New York.

Common theme: Mistakenly applying faith to arrive at bad policy

Mike Huckabee is done.  He granted clemency to the fellow who police think assassinated four policeman in Washington State yesterday:

Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protests of prosecutors.

The guy would still be in jail and the policeman alive  – for decades more – if Huckabee hadn’t granted him clemency.

The Governor’s massive pardons – many many times his predecessors – came up in the campaign, but Christians normally seeing that as soft on crime were so eager to vote against a Mormon that they ignored it.

Well, ignore no longer.

Huckabee on crime, like George Bush on immigration, misapplied his Christian faith to falsely guide him to policies that are neither Christian nor correct.  Just as it wasn’t a good thing for Mexico’s poor to send Mexico’s elite to work in the US,  it isn’t Huckabee’s role to play God and “forgive”. I do not plan to play a similar “forgiving” role when it comes to voting or donating in the upcoming Republican primary for President.

Lots of pundits are making comparisons between mass shootings at Virginia Tech two years ago and the shootings today at Ft. Hood, Texas.

No one that I’ve heard has yet pointed out the biggest point in common… both shootings happened in areas where concealed carry was NOT permitted.

The shootings at Ft. Hood struck home to me today because at the same time they were happening I was strolling the aisles of the PX at Ft. Benning, GA.  Earlier, I’d stowed my concealed carry weapon at my hotel because Army bases do not allow concealed carry.

I was perfectly comfortable ditching my gun in my suitcase for the flight here. After all, I was at an equal disadvantage because everybody was checked.   But as I entered Ft. Benning today, and nobody searched myself or my car, I felt quite fully that I had unilaterally disarmed.

If the madman had been deploying to Iraq from Georgia, I might have found myself in a horrible situation and unable to defend my son, self or others.

When I heard the General commanding Ft. Bliss tell of his soldiers fine reaction under fire and afterwards – they blocked doors, they applied their combat life saving techniques – I couldn’t help but wish the Army command trusted their soldiers to also handle defending themselves at home as much as when they deploy.

A: Crime, high taxes, high costs, nasty traffic, corrupt government, unionized, and bad schools…. 

Q: Why do so many people flee blue states?

I don’t understand why we do lethal injection or electrocution, which apparently have problems:

On Sept. 15, Gov. Ted Strickland stopped the lethal injection of Romell Broom after state executioners struggled for two hours to find a usable vein.

Firing squads work.  Guns can kill people quite effectively. Instant death results if shot in the heart or brain.  You can even do it robotically, so that nobody has to aim and pull the trigger.  Once armed, the computer would  handle the aiming and firing.  Then drop the body into an incinerator and it is done.

For those on death row, I favor hauling them out every morning, putting the blind fold on, and rolling a die.  Six = shoot. Other, try again tomorrow.

Utah last shot a death row prisoner in 1996, a punishment earned by heinous acts:

John Albert Taylor (c. 1960 – January 26, 1996) was executed by firing squad in Utah on January 26, 1996 at 12:03 a.m. Mountain Time for the 1988 rape and strangulation of 11-year-old Charla King.

We should bring it back and get busy.

9” knife

Some low life robbed a store with a 9” knife, gets shot, caught and now sues the store owner and the employee who shot him for “pain and suffering”…

Read the story and you find the lawsuit isn’t the only travesty… he robbed a bank:

A year earlier, he was sentenced to one year, seven months in prison for the robbery of Charter One Bank in Warren on Feb. 17, 2006.

Shouldn’t bank robbers get LONG sentences?  He should have been using shivs in the prison shower, not in a c-store.

This highlights, more than ever, the need for tort reform. Not just for situations like this, but because of the general drag fear of irrational legal action puts on our economy and health care system.