bleah

We didn't, it turns out, stay in SF last night.

SFO, for them as don't know, isn't all that close to what people think of as SF. It's, in fact, closer, sort of, to San Jose. The flight was later than expected, and we picked him up about 9:00, and so decided to head south, find food and if we had to, grab a hotel and continue in the morning (because no matter how we sliced it he has a plane to catch tomorrow, and the dogs need to be fed).

A nice taqueria in San Jose, and I ate too much, which meant I was in no shape to drive. We were looking for an Indian place we'd eaten at before, but got turned around and found this. Locals, good salsa bar, tamarindo, jacaima and horchata as well as the usual soft drinks, and some beers.

Maia went for about an hour and a half, and then we pulled off the freeway over for a nap (I being dozey, from the distension of my belly. The carnitas were good, and the tortillas plentiful, so many tacos were made from the beans, rice, pico de gallo, salsa roja and sour cream on my plate. I felt as though letting my belt out was a good idea).

The ungodly candlepower of the Highway Patrol wondering if we were all right woke us. They apologised for waking us. The sawhorse, or whatever it was with the blinking light had caused them (we think) to pull off (it was an off, and straight on again, exit, with a stretch of empty road between).

I drove for an hour or so. Long driving at night makes me sleepy. I can counter this with conversation... or really good radio/music (neither of which was ready to hand. The CD player wasn't in the tape drive, and the radio between San Jose and Camp Roberts is awful. Alice Cooper at Night (yes, Alice Cooper has a radio show, syndicated I presume) was the best, and it was only ok.

So I handed it back to Maia and off we went again.

In the house about 0200 and slept to 0900, and a shower and now to breakfast.

Next time we head to SF, we'll make plans longer out.

Good Lord

So, that entry about bond to fund the war effort, the Gov't went one better.

They are asking for donations.

New twist on Iraq aid: U.S. seeks donations

Not a bond, which would have to be repaid, but a donation. I don't know if USAID donations are tax-write offs (oh! the incentive for odd accounting that might raise) but the idea croggles me.

But now, amid pleas for aid after Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration has launched an unusual effort to raise charitable contributions for another cause: the government's attempt to rebuild Iraq.

Although more than $30 billion in taxpayer funds have been appropriated for Iraqi reconstruction, the administration earlier this month launched an Internet-based fundraising effort that it says is aimed at giving Americans "a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq."

Contributors have no way of knowing who's getting the money or precisely where it's headed, because the government says it must keep the details secret for security reasons.

But taxpayers already finance the projects the administration is seeking charitable donations for, such as providing water pumps for farmers. And officials say any contributions they receive will increase the scope of those efforts, rather than relieve existing taxpayer burdens.

Thoughts while stealing time

My father is getting a mineral spa hot soak and massage, so I am using the time to noodle on the web.

Which led to my finding Why we think it better to free the guilty than convict the innocent.pdf, by Humphey Vermont.

I have a real problem with the argument (which is probably getting more play than it might because The Volokh Conspiracy, is touting it. Given that Sasha wrote an article [ten years ago, where does the time fly] for the Pennsylvania University Law Review on the subject n guilty men it's a topic they care about, though it seems to the opposite conclusion) that,"The conclusion is that we over-weight the harm of false conviction".


See, the thing which matters to me isn't punishment, it isn't deterrence, it isn't making the victim's, or their families, feel better; it's justice.

Taking an innocent's liberty, because it makes the system more, "efficient," is a non-starter. Do I value locking up the guilty? Sure, but less than I value seeing the innocent aqcuitted.

Vermont asks, offers examples of things alleged to show biases. On of these is,

Directness of harm is a proxy for these distinctions and likewise accounts for most variation in
the omission bias. When one option is an omission that results in indirect harm and the other
option is an act that results in equally indirect harm, the omission bias is very small. Royzman
and Baron conclude that the omissio n bias is largely an “indirectness bias.” They also find that
a subtle difference in directness is enough to render one option more attractive than the other.

In one experiment, they asked subjects to imagine themselves as public health officials on an
island in the South Pacific. The island is facing an outbreak of a disease that causes death in
children under the age of 12. Many children on the island are already infected and beyond help.
If nothing is done, many more children will become infected and die.
The subjects were given the following options.

· Release special “lethal fumes” into the air. This will kill all of the children
who are already infected, checking any further spread of the disease and
saving the still uninfected children.
· Release special “immunizing fumes” into the air. This will confer
immunity to the disease in all those who are not yet infected. However, the
fumes will kill all of the children who are already infected.

Subjects strongly preferred the option to release “immunizing fumes.” The harm from releasing
“lethal fumes” is regarded as more direct because the harm is part of the act itself, i.e., the harm
is part and parcel of the good outcome."

Given those two choices I am among those choosing the "immunizing fumes" option. Not because I am choosing the passive death of the second, but rather the active protection in the future. In the first option if the disease were to return I would again have to kill a lot of kids, but with the second, such a terrible thing need not be repeated.

He makes the following claim about my thinking,

It is hard to imagine getting rid of the harm and keeping the good outcome. The harm is instrumental
to the good outcome. In contrast, in the “immunizing fumes” option the harm is incidental to the
good outcome. The act (releasing fumes) has two effects: the good outcome (checking spread of
disease) and the harmful side effect (killing infected children). We can easily imagine getting rid
of the harm and keeping the good outcome. Even though the scenario does not allow it, the
ability to imagine it appears to render the indirect option more attractive.

Which is not the case, if I had the choices given (no way to avoid the deaths, in this instance, of the infected, I'll take the second, because it is affirmative for the future. As such it is best choice, not merely the one with the better phrasing of options.

He extrapolates (or infers the societal moral calculus, as he doesn't speak for me in this regard), "
We do not regard all strictly relevant actors as morally relevant. An execution, for instance, is an act that
causes direct harm. But each execution prevents as many as (let’s assume) 18 acts of murder and
each of those murders would cause as much direct harm as one execution. If omission bias and
preference for indirect harm were based solely on desire to minimize the overall amount of direct
harm caused by acts – regardless of who the actor is or from whose act the harm is direct –
omission bias and preference for indirect harm would militate in favor of capital punishment.
Instead, in this and other criminal justice scenarios, the omission bias and preference for indirect
harm operate mainly with respect to harmful acts of government as opposed to the harmful acts
of anonymous laypersons. (he uses a reference to a study citing that 18 prevented figure elsewhere [cite Shepherd and others.] and so presumes to make it seem more factual, without more than this reference to "Shepard and others).

By extension, what it all amounts to is saying we don't need to worry about convicting the innocent, because the harms of acquitting the accused are dead equal, and punishment is better than justice.

He goes on to say (and he is correct) the odds are greater for a false acquittal than a false conviction, which changes not at all the idea that a false conviction is unjust, and (see "n guilty men") that it is better to let "x" guilty men go free than to convict a single innocent.

To argue otherwise is unjust, which he does, in a left-handed way in the last footnote, "More generally, the good reasons do not seem to justify the strength of the burden of proof in western countries today. See generally Samson Vermont, The Value of Accuracy Revisited (working paper)

Peter asked Jesus, how many times he should forgive one who sins against one, Jesus answer was seventy times seven", and I think a high burden of proof is probably a decent approximation of that level of mercy.