Monthly Archives: February 2005

Guantonamo Prisoner’s Rights II

This entry was posted in Constitution Domestic Terrorism gonzales Law Enforcement War on Terrorism on by

Bryan, in a comment to this post notes:

I was in law enforcement and part of our public liability training dealt with section 242 of Title 18 of the US Code which gives non-citizens the same rights as citizens in the area of criminal law.

On his blog, he links to the relevant sections of the US Code including Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, � 2340A – Torture which says:

a) Offense.� Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
(b) Jurisdiction.� There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if�
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.
(c) Conspiracy.� A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

I suspect the gonzales will not be upholding his obligation as attorney general to uphold the laws of the United States.
Oh, I suppose, though, that like his predecessor he will wastefully allocate plenty of resources to activities occurring between consenting adults.

Some Good Advice!

This entry was posted in Culture Psychology on by

From Leonard Pitts:

I won’t lie: It’s not easy. People–black and white–will always have expectations, and when you refuse to live by those expectations, they’ll call you names, they’ll shut you out. It’s not easy, but I guarantee that if you stay with it, you’ll find that it is worthwhile. I guess what I’m telling you is this: Please have the guts to be who you are. And to dream brobdingnagian dreams.

Read the rest. (Free registration required or try Bug Me Not)

How Much Are You Paying Your Stock Broker?

This entry was posted in Business US Capitalism Economics on by

And should you be paying that much?

A model that assumes stock market traders have zero intelligence has been found to mimic the behaviour of the London Stock Exchange very closely.

Well, maybe, maybe not:

However, the surprising result does not mean traders are actually just buying and selling at random, say researchers. Instead, it suggests that the movement of markets depend less on the strategic behaviour of traders and more on the structure and constraints of the trading system itself.

Whether you are going to throw darts, employ a broker, or make your own buy/sell decisions spend some time learning the basics!