An Alabama man just got out of prison after serving nearly 30 years for … stealing a toolbox.
Notice how his attorney assures us that the legal system is much better nowadays – he’d probably only receive ten or fifteen years (!).
In related news, see Jeff Tucker on the Madoff case and the perversity of the prison system.
Speaking in Ghana, President Obama recently called for the abolition of the American form of government:
No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or if police can be bought off by drug traffickers.
No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the Port Authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery.
That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there, and now is the time for that style of governance to end.
Oh, wait. Sorry, I’ve just been informed that the president intended his remarks to apply solely to Africa ….
The other night on tv I heard Chuck Hagel expressing his hope that US/Russia arms talks would be the first step toward a “nuclear-free universe.” (Good luck convincing the Vl’hurgs.)
I also heard a Senator or Rep, whose name I didn’t catch, insisting that health care policy should focus on “wellness prevention.”
What the Alliance of the Libertarian Left looks like to right-libertarians:
What the Alliance of the Libertarian Left looks like to social anarchists:
What the Alliance of the Libertarian Left looks like to pan-secessionists:
Great quote from Less Antman:
Politicians hate bomb throwers: they believe bombs should always be dropped on people from the air, as God intended.
Check out Ken MacLeod’s discussion of possible evidence for a Neolithic revolution that may have replaced a sanguinary theocracy with a non-hierarchical society that lasted for the next three millennia.
While one must be wary of succumbing to wishful thinking when evaluating such hypotheses, it’s certainly interesting. Plus it’s nice to see Çatalhöyük spelled correctly for a change. Outside of Turkey, Höyük is frequently, and used to be almost invariably, spelled Hüyük – a most unlikely spelling given how Turkish syllable formation works. (I don’t remember much of the Turkish I once learned, but I remember that much!)