Christopher Hitchens lauds the American people’s patriotism and restraint after 9/11:

“He [Hitchens] was, however, slightly disturbed by Gornick’s suggestion that the increase in patriotic displays over the last 18 months was nothing more than collective insecurity masquerading as civic engagement. “In my day, Vivian,” he said, “we called it ’solidarity.’” Hitchens added–rather calmly, for a change–that none of the looting, pillaging, and persecution predicted after 9/11 occurred because people were acutely aware of the danger of turning into something completely antipodean to American values.”

Coming from the UK where the Victorian’s famously created the idea that children should be ’seen and not heard’, an American value that I particularly admire is the celebration of childhood. A large portion of American culture celebrates childhood. As such, the Washington snipers’ threat last week that no children were safe, produced an instinctive reaction of revulsion.

So two people have been arrested over the sniper attacks, and one of them is a 17 year old minor. Someone not yet deemed to have the responsibility to vote or drink but who could be held ultimately responsible for their own actions and be sentenced to death if tried in Virginia.

BBC - “US authorities plan to seek the death penalty against the two suspects in the Washington sniper killings.”

The execution of minors, children, is only legally sanctioned in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the US and - Iraq.

Robert Bryce wrote in Salon that “During his tenure as governor of Texas, Bush has overseen far more executions than any other governor in modern American history. During his tenure, 112 men and one woman have been executed. That’s nearly 20 percent of the 600 people who have been executed in the United States since 1976. Two of the men executed during Bush’s tenure — Joseph Cannon and Robert Carter, both of whom were executed in 1998 — were 17 at the time of their crimes.”

The US’s policy on capital punishment has often produced anger abroad, prompting Jack Lang, the former French Education minister to call George W Bush a “murderer.”

In 1999 the high court asked Solicitor General Seth Waxman - the Justice Department’s second-ranking law officer - to explain why the United States is not bound by the international civil rights treaty, which states: “Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.”

“In 1992, the U.S. did ratify the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, but only after inserting a codicil disavowing the provision that banned the execution of minors. And the U.S. signed the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which also bans capital punishment for persons younger than 18 at the time of crime, but the Senate never ratified it.”

Every country but the United States and Somalia also has ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which bans the juvenile death penalty.

According to Victor L. Streib, dean of Ohio Northern University’s Law School.
“We may be in violation of international law,” he said. “But I wouldn’t expect to see U.N. troops in Virginia anytime soon.”

This is a classic - extract from a real court case in the UK, a man accused of stealing 40,000 coat hangars runs rings around the lawyer.

…

Counsel: Yes, m’lud. Now, Mr Chrysler, perhaps you will describe what reason you had to steal 40,000 coat hangers?

Defendant: Is that a question?

Counsel: Yes.

Defendant: It doesn’t sound like one. It sounds like a proposition which doesn’t believe in itself. You know - “Perhaps I will describe the reason I had to steal 40,000 coat hangers… Perhaps I won’t… Perhaps I’ll sing a little song instead…”

Judge: In fairness to Mr Lovelace, Mr Chrysler, I should remind you that barristers have an innate reluctance to frame a question as a question. Where you and I would say, “Where were you on Tuesday?”, they are more likely to say, “Perhaps you could now inform the court of your precise whereabouts on the day after that Monday?”. It isn’t, strictly, a question, and it is not graceful English but you must pretend that it is a question and then answer it, otherwise we will be here for ever. Do you understand?

etc. etc.

Transcript:
Independent

or could it be this…

“…sentenced Rex to six years on her guilty plea to forgery, suspending four years of the sentence. The first of her four years on probation must be spent on house arrest.

Rex admitted stealing a total of $500 from three elderly residents of the home in West Lafayette. But she paid a total of $700 in restitution.”

So what’s the bet for Koslowski’s punishment, could it be this…

“Federal judge stands by mild sentence of embezzler

A federal judge sentenced a former bank executive convicted of embezzlement to serve eight hours in custody for a second time after an appeals court asked him to reconsider the sentence.

U.S. District Judge Edwin Nelson on Thursday ordered Mari Sanders of Vestavia Hills to serve a day in jail, six months in a community corrections facility and pay a $10,000 fine for stealing $187,000.”

Which works out at a pretty good salary - 2 x 187 - 10 = $364,000 per year

An $11,000 shower curtain, a $2000 waste basket, wait it gets better…

“Dennis Kozlowski and two of his alleged partners in corporate crime were charged yesterday with looting their own company out of $600 million.
The staggering figure was revealed in criminal indictments and separate lawsuits filed by Tyco and the Securities and Exchange Commission that accuse Kozlowski of using the plundered money to fund a lavish - and cheesy - lifestyle.

Among other things, he allegedly spent $1 million in Tyco money on a birthday bash for his second wife, Karen Mayo, that featured an ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s David - which sprayed vodka from its penis.”