UPDATE I: Commute The Troy Davis Death Sentence

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, The Courts

If it hasn’t yet, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, reconsidering the death sentence of Troy Davis, ought to consult Dr. Elizabeth F. Loftus. According to Dr. Loftus’ seminal work, eye-witness testimony is terribly unreliable.

A man should not be put to death based solely on the testimony of eye-witnesses most of whom have since recanted.

Troy Anthony Davis (born October 9, 1968) was convicted of the August 19, 1989, murder of Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. MacPhail was working as a security guard at a restaurant when he intervened in an argument between several men in a nearby parking lot. He was shot in the heart and face without having drawn his gun. One of the men, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, went to police and implicated Davis in the killing, and Davis was arrested four days later. During Davis’ 1991 trial, many witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail. Two others testified that Davis had confessed the murder to them. The murder weapon was never found, and no physical evidence linked Davis to the crime. Throughout his trial and subsequent appeals, Davis has maintained his innocence. Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in August 1991.

(I discovered the work of this leading world authority on memory in the late 1990s, when I was writing and raging about the the recovered memory ruse. I also heard Dr. Loftus testify in court thereby securing a man’s liberty. As is obvious from the prominence of characters like Drs. Phil and Drew Pinsky, the profession of psychology is festooned with popularizers, poor thinkers and plain charlatans. Elizabeth F. Loftus has always stood apart.)

On the other hand, Joshua Komisarjevsky needs killing.

He and his accomplice, Steven Hayes (already waiting to die), were arrested at the scene of the crime—the Petit family home in Cheshire, Connecticut. He and Hayes had just killed all three—and raped two—of the women of the Petit family. They then proceeded to burn down the house.

UPDATE I (Sept. 20): “Breaking News vial Amnesty International: The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency to Troy Davis on Tuesday. This means that very little is standing in the way of the state executing a potentially innocent man this Wednesday.” Amnesty International is “calling on the Board to reconsider its decision, and on the Chatham County (Savannah) District Attorney Larry Chisolm to do the right thing.”

More from Amnesty International:

Death penalty supporters like Bob Barr, former Texas Governor Mark White, and former FBI Director William Sessions also support clemency in this case, for the same reason. And at least three jurors from Davis’ trial have asked for his execution to be called off. Putting Troy Davis to death would be a grave injustice to those jurors who believe they sentenced Davis to death based on questionable information.

Although I want to see the Troy Davis death sentence commuted, I don’t like the way this cause celebre has the media omitting mention of the name of the victim. “A police officer from Savannah” is how this lot is referring to the late Mark Allen MacPhail. Google throws up not much about this heroic, off-duty officer. You have to dig:

The 27-year-old former Army Ranger was moonlighting on a security detail when he ran to help a homeless man, who had cried out because he was being pistol whipped. MacPhail was shot three times before he could draw his handgun.

Understandably, The victim’s widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris, has expressed the need for closure. She believes, however, that executing Davis will give her a sense of finality. Killing a man who may not have pulled the trigger is not the kind of closure a victim has the right to demand. A commutation of the death sentence would probably still mean life in jail for Davis. That should suffice.

A Qwickster Response from Netflix

Business, Capitalism, Democracy, Free Markets, Technology, The State

Netflix upset its fractious, spoiled-rotten patrons by raising prices (which were at a rock-bottom low), and separating its on-demand internet streaming service from the DVD-by-mail business (now called Qwikster). No sooner did Netflix customers begin whining, than the company sprung into action—within weeks.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has been groveling to the only voters who count in the true democracy that is the free market: “I messed up. I owe you an explanation … we lacked respect and humility,” all ridiculous and untrue, but necessary if this shrewd businessman is to please his only lords and masters: the buyers.

Despite this Qwickster response, the same misguided patrons refuse to appreciate the wonders of free-market capitalism and will keep begging for more of Uncle Sam’s screw-you, coercive services.

UPDATED: ‘ILANA’ With An Aleph

Christian Right, Christianity, Etiquette, Hebrew Testament, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Judaism & Jews

SO JEWS SUCK; I GET THIS ALL THE TIME. BUT WHAT ABOUT MEMBERS OF THE CHRISTIAN TRIBE? Emails flood this blog spot on a regular basis pointing to the machinations of Jews and to their tribal nature. As you know, I often publish these tracts. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” and all that stuff.

On the other hand, I’m totally tactful—and more than gracious—about Christian tics, despite my dismal experience with the decency and grace of this group’s individual members (one or two stellar individuals excepted.)

A kind word or a helping hand from a Christian? What’s that? Not in my world, although Christians do spend a lot of their time shouting “Praise the Lord” from the rooftops. Then again, perhaps Jews are not Kosher; don’t qualify for decent treatment? Who knows? All I know is that, in my experience, Christians are the quintessential tribalists. You’re either in or out.

The other day, a snippy, self-professed Christian, having befriended me on Facebook, wrote to demand imperiously that I justify the letter Aleph near the URL of my website.

I know better than to expect readers in “The Age of the Idiot” to have researched the object of their scorn, and thus to know that she is Jewish and grew up in Israel. That’s too much like fact-finding. So politely, I responded with a link to the Hebrew alphabet, explaining that my name begins with an Aleph.

But information was not what he was after. Judging from the obnoxious, follow-up on my Facebook Wall—a forum which is supposed to be collegial—some rude, distinctly theological routine was the man’s aim.

The chutzpah of this investigation into the legitimacy of an ex-Israeli, Hebrew-speaker’s use of her Hebrew name! What’s up with that?

I’m curious, truly. Where does he get off judging/commenting on my use of my native tongue, Hebrew? Can he speak the language? Can he even read the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew? Did he spend his formative years debating/conversing/conducting life in Hebrew? Did he take all his school exams in Hebrew?

I did. For the first 19 years of my life, I was “ilana” with an aleph.

It’s who I am.

UPDATE: Compassionate Fascist’s posts are an example of the collectivist, contempt-filled comments I’m pretty patient with. Isn’t it time to kick CF off BAB? Here he is below, maligning Jews again. At the same time, he is a recipient of my hospitality in cyberspace, where he is permitted to vent his disdain for the likes of his host. The way I treat Compassionate Fascist provides a measure of proof against his theorizing about how bad Jews are. In effect, by bad-mouthing Jews as a group, and posting here quite happily, for the most, he finds himself in self- contradiction.

Writing on the topic of Western Civilization, historian Alan Charles Kors once observed that avoiding self-contradiction is the touchstone of truth—being mired in self-contradiction, the touchstone of error. To the Greek philosophers, to be mired in self-contradiction was to be “less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.”

Gormless Geithner

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Federalism, Inflation

In June of 2009, US Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner drew loud laughter from amused Chinese students when he made ludicrous claims about American solvency. “Chinese assets are very safe,” he assured students at Peking University, who wanted to know how exposed China was, given that it was the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds.

The Europeans are not as good-natured about Geithner as these Chinese youngsters were. The US treasury secretary told “Europe’s leaders to stop bickering and take control of the debt crisis that has brought ‘catastrophic risk’ to financial markets.” (Via FT)

Pot. Kettle. Black was the retort of Maria Fekter, Austria’s finance minister:

“I found it peculiar that even though the Americans have significantly worse fundamental data than the eurozone, that they tell us what we should do and when we make a suggestion…” (FT)

It is natural for Geitner and the administration, who are undeterred in their “vulgar Keynesianism,” to worry about the healthy “ongoing conflict between governments and the central bank” in Europe. For one thing, Europe is being more fiscally prudent than the US; it is making us look even worse than we are. For another, the EU may be on the verge of decentralizing—or even dissolving. … The “Great Centralizers” in DC would not embrace that development.

Also obvious is the Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan’s fondness for Geitner’s “leverage plan” for the EU. That’s probably code for liquidity. Ireland is one of the EU’s “PIGS” states. Europe’s profligate states are Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. (And now Italy.)