The Debate

I thought Obama was winning in the beginning; McCain looked like a weary old man on the economy.  He had a good attack on the earmarks; that was about it.  The tax positions made McCain vulnerable.  But when foreign policy came up, it seemed like the positions reversed.  Obama looked like an inexperienced kid.  McCain's continuous "he just doesn't get it" worked well.

One thing I liked is that they apparently agree on nuclear power. Somehow I don't believe Obama on this.

"Spending freeze" - the most amazing thing to come out of this?  I think so.  The Obama quote about using a hatchet where you need a scalpel was the best line of the night.  I'll give kudos where they are due.

It was pretty even.

But lets look at the common man's view:

In order of appearance:  A Barack fan, a McCain fan, and a crazy British woman.

Full disclosure:  These are the first people who posted; this is the only bias I had with these videos - timing.

England's Green Insanity

Apparently the risk of global warming justifies damaging private property in England. A jury in England on September 10th acquitted green activists who damaged a Kent power plant to the tune of 35,000 pounds.

Adding insult to injury for all the rational citizens on the sceptered isle, the power station at Kent is being constantly protested and has cost the police over 6 million pounds with future unforeseen costs still pending. Some of these unforeseen costs will include dispensing with over 100 arrest cases (one of which was a charge for breach of bail). Read more here.

Update: Apparently Al Gore believes this is not such a bad idea. Reuters reports:

"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

This clip of absurdness brought to you by Reason:

http://view.break.com/565864 - Watch more free videos

Bail

Class: Criminal Procedure

Professor: Jacobs

Topic: Pretrial Incarceration

Some scholars have done research which shows a positive correlation between pretrial incarceration and an individual’s likelihood of being found guilty. A correlation folks! This proves that pretrial detention hampers your ability to defend the innocence which you no doubt have because you’re poor and can’t pay the evil government’s bail. This is unjust; or so goes the arguments at NYU Law. Based on these facts, bail should be given out like candy on Halloween.

But before we start giving accused rapists and murderers signature bonds let’s take another look at this correlation.

First, how is bail determined and who gets it? Generally, states have enacted statutes that govern the bail process which highlight factors judges use to determine whether an accused will have cheap or expensive bail. If the defendant can’t make bail he stays in custody until he can be tried. Of course he could just pay ten percent of the bail through a bondsman. But, as my classmates pointed out, this is equally unjust because bounty hunters will eventually get involved if the person skips town - and we all hate bounty hunters..

What are the usual factors involved? In most cases judges want to know whether the defendant (1) has any “community ties” such as having a family, attending a church etc; (2) is employed (has something to lose if he leaves town); (3) has a criminal record (4) etc.

The facts of the case are not usually discussed, so theoretically the judge makes his determination based on the charge and the bail factors just outlined.

If anyone can remember sociology from undergraduate school, one would realize that the factors for determining bond could be used just as well for determining the likelihood that an individual will commit crimes.

If two identical people came into the court who were both charged with identical crimes and one comes in with (1) community ties* (2) a job (3) no criminal record, and the other with the opposite, who do you think is more likely to have committed the crime they were arrested for? My bet is on the latter.

Causation is a hard thing to prove. Luckily we can just use correlations to fight for our causes.

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*While working for a public defender I witnessed a whole church congregation come to a defendant’s bail hearing so that he might be able to convince the judge to give him a signature bond. What percentage of people in this situation are likely to be guilty versus those who have no one to call? Use your common sense.

We'll Take Care of Everything

The Fed chairman, Bernanke, just let the taxpayers in on just how much this nationalization of Wall Street is going to cost us. It looks like it will come to a whopping one trillion dollars. Let's put this seemingly benign number in perspective.

Iraq war = $ 580 billion

The entire expenditure of NASA over the last 40 years has been approx. $ 600 billion

With a population of approximately 300 million people, you could give away your $ 1 trillion by giving every man, woman and child in the U.S. $ 3,400 each.

Let's say your working life is 40 years (from age 25 to age 65) and you work 40 hours a day, 52 weeks a year (you're a workaholic and don't take any vacations). If you earned $ 1 trillion during your working life, then you got paid $ 200,000 per minute.

Thanks to The Galloping Beaver for these fun (read depressing) statistics.

Diversity Shall Set You Free

Class: Professional Responsibility

Professor: Steven Gillers

Topic: Do ethical problems arise when it is a law firm’s policy to promote “diversity” among attorneys working for a client?

A few scenarios:

1. A client is not aware that the firm makes selections of who will work on a particular problem based on “diversity”

2. A client demands the diversity from the firm

Most of the class was spent discussing the first situation. A classmate was vigorously claiming that not only is there no ethical problem, law firms and their clients should be “made” to promote this type of diversity regardless of the talent of the lawyers selected. This was necessary, of course, because of the long standing problem of law firms only using “white males” on big issues and important clients while “nominally” hiring homosexuals and minorities as a façade to fool the world into thinking they were progressive. This, he argued, had to be changed (by force apparently) if we were to really get to real diversity in the legal world. I can’t really say definitively, but for the record, it was almost plain to see that this student was homosexual. Mannerisms and the unusual effort in defending such a diversity policy was the tip off.

Luckily, before my head exploded, a fellow traveler chimed in with the common sense argument that it would be foolish for a project manager to assign minorities who specialize in tax to a client with an employment problem simply because they were minorities and diversity would be promoted on a micro level. This is a great example of taking a principle and showing just what kind of absurdities will result if you actually stand by it. Bravo fellow classmate.

During the conversation the problem of ethical obligations to the client had seemed to get lost in the unrelenting demands that diversity be sought at any cost. But what of the ethical obligations? Picture yourself as a client coming to a law firm with a serious problem that is causing you ulcers and loss of sleep which most legal problems do. After paying a retainer and further obligating yourself to pay a small fortune for the services to be rendered you happen to find out that the associates assigned to your case were selected because of the color of their skin or because of their sexual particularities. Now imagine you then discover that there are a number of associates who happen to be white males that are more experienced in the area of law concerned. Worried, you ask the partner why they chose the associates they did and s/he tells you “diversity.” A response from a sensible client would be “you're fired”

The idea that a client should have to put themselves in legal jeopardy for some societal engineering project that they didn’t sign up for is ludicrous. The most important obligation in a lawyer-client relationship is that of the lawyer keeping the interests of the client first. How can one argue that putting some vague societal goal before that of your client’s interest doesn’t violate this principle? If the client loses his case or legal position wouldn’t this be grounds for a malpractice suit? Model Code of Prof’l Responsibility R. 1.7(a)(2)

The second scenario presents no ethical violations running from the firm to the client, but I would argue that it leaves the firm open to a big fat discrimination suit. A client comes to the firm and demands that the associates working on his problem are all minorities. If a firm agrees aren’t they breaking every discrimination law on the books?

“Hey Dan, just heard we got a really interesting products case coming through. Looks a lot like something I dealt with a few years ago. When do you want me to schedule a meeting with the client?”

“Oh, yeah Jim, sorry you can’t work on it because you’re a white male.”

“Do you want to just write me a check for the settlement now Dan or wait till I actually file suit?”

As a libertarian, I think clients should be able to hire whoever the hell they want. If that means they only want to hire white guys over the age of 40 it’s their decision. If they are dumb enough to believe that a lawyer, to be good, must look like Matlock they are the ones that will suffer for their own ignorance. But of course using liberal arguments against liberals is a libertarian pastime that I will never give up.