Open Threads

Th NY Times is chock full o’ goodness today. And, they are making me dizzy. In the lead op-ed, William Safire hyperventilates outside his brown paper bag:

In terror of an external threat, our leaders are protecting Washington at the cost of every American’s personal freedom.

Generally, I do not like the surveillance techniques being discussed either. But then we go two columns down, and Yale Law Professor and guest columnist Akhil Reed Amar tells us that we need to pass laws narrowing the scope of the Fifth Amendment:

…sometimes a truth-seeking society needs to be able to compel a person to speak outside his trial – in grand jury rooms, civil cases and legislative hearings, for example. One solution is to require the person to testify in these specific places, but then exclude this compelled testimony from any later prosecution brought against him. This way, he would never become a witness against himself “in a criminal case.”

This rule would offer Congressional witnesses a narrow type of testimonial immunity. While the testimony itself would be excluded from the criminal trial, evidence that might be drawn indirectly from the testimony would be admissible at a later trial. This would allow prosecutors to use any reliable leads that the testimony might generate. Courts today allow government lawyers to force people to give voice samples and take breath tests for alcohol because these are not considered forms of self-incrimination prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. If prosecutors can compel defendants to provide these kinds of evidence, they should also be allowed to introduce reliable evidence that is found as a result of earlier immunized testimony.

This is exactly the rule that Congress enacted, and President Abraham Lincoln signed into law, in 1862.

We also had slavery in 1862.

You gotta just love the Times. We are gonna be hysterical about your rights, unless it gets in the way of empowering Congress over the individual and getting some good ENRON testimony. I might have to sue them for ideological whiplash.

Th NY Times is chockPost + Comments

The NY Times weighs in on the two versions of the farm bill:

The House and the Senate have now passed differing farm bills that preserve many of the worst features of the old subsidies. Yet for a host of reasons the Senate bill is far superior.

Any wild guesses which bill spends more money?

The NY Times weighs inPost + Comments

It seems American companies are fleeing to Bermuda to incroporate to escape confiscatory tax rates.

Stanley Works, for 159 years a Connecticut maker of hammers and wrenches, is among the latest with plans to become a corporation in Bermuda, where there is no income tax. The company estimates that it will cut its tax bill by $30 million a year, to about $80 million.

Tyco International, a diversified manufacturer with headquarters in Exeter, N.H., says that being a Bermuda corporation saved it more than $400 million last year alone.

Bermuda is charging Ingersoll- Rand just $27,653 a year for a move that allows the company to avoid at least $40 million annually in American corporate income taxes.

I am sure this will be deemed as terribly unpatriotic and self-serving, but I say more power to ’em. I bet those companies and their shareholders and all the greedy tycoons that run them have better ways of spending that money that Ted Kennedy and the ‘fiscal conservatives’ in the House and Senate. Let’s all move to Bermuda and choke off all the government’s assets. Sounds like a plan to me.

The amazing thing is that the reporter and Charles Grassley seem surprised by this. I guess they were not paying attention to the comparative BOOM of the Irish economy as everyone RAN there from other European nations to set up shop because of the comparatively low tax rate. Hell, even France’s Marianne, Laetitia Casta moved out of France to escape high taxes…

It seems American companies arePost + Comments

In an article in today’s Opinion Journal, University of Rochester Law Professor Steven Landsburg ridicules (rightly) the notion of progressive punishment for speeding tickets and charging different prices for the same service based on an individual’s income:

If the Finns wants to have dumb traffic laws, it’s their business. But this dumb law is derived from an equally dumb principle, and the dumb principle infects political discourse in the U.S. So it’s worth spelling out the principle and what’s dumb about it. Here’s the principle: “Equal pain for equal acts.” A $50 ticket is less painful for a tycoon than a janitor, so the tycoon should pay more to equalize the suffering.

I can tell that Mr. Landsburg has never been to the worker’s paradise that isthe People’s Republic of West Virginia University. Parking is an abject nightmare, and while the administration has not resorted to forcing us to all drive Trabants, they have tried a new pricing scheme for parking permits that would make those in the former Communist Bloc states gush with pride.

From the February 8th edition of the school’s paper, the Daily Athenaeum:

An increased flat-rate fee of $10 a month was originally proposed but was tabled by administration in favor of a percentage-of-salary fee, which, according to both Fisher and Kelley, will increase the fee for some and reduce it for others. The plan would have charged faculty and staff 0.29 percent of their salary next year and 0.44 percent the following year. The percentage would increase during the next few years. Employees who earn less than $10,000 will not be required to pay a fee…

All together now:

From each according to his abilities……

In an article in today’sPost + Comments

Has anyone seen or heard from Will Wilkinson lately, or has he been kidnapped by nihilists?

Has anyone seen or heardPost + Comments

Two new blogs in the links. First is David Janes, who had a back and forth with me about sports that I am too lazy to look for and link. Check his site out, though.

The second link is perhaps one ofthe most shameless emails I have received in a while (and boy was I mad I had not thought about this idea when I started a couple months ago, so I am not dissing you Pejman). The subject of the email was:
A Wonderful New Blog–Mine, and the email was addressed to:

Friends, Fellow Bloggers, Humans and Demi-Gods/Goddesses:

It went downhill from there. I notice that I was not singled out for any personal adulation, but just receiving it and the cajones it took to send the email is good enough for me. Welcome our newest Lawyer Blogger, Pejman Yousefzadeh.

Two new blogs in thePost + Comments

MommaBare wrote in to let me know about this story (already mentioned by the Instapundit). It would be nice if it is true.

MommaBare wrote in to letPost + Comments