Criminal justice and parol

From CNN:

Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- A suspect in the shooting deaths of four police officers was not found in an east Seattle home where authorities had tracked him, police said Monday.
 ...
Clemmons is a convicted criminal with a long rap sheet who was given a 95-year prison sentence in 1989 for a host of charges, including robberies, burglaries, thefts and bringing a gun to school.

Clemmons' sentence was commuted in 2000 by then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, said Troyer.

Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate in 2008, is considering a run for president in 2012.


"Should [Clemmons] be found responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state," Huckabee's office said in a statement Sunday night.

Clemmons, 37, of Pierce County has an "extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas, including aggravated robbery and theft," the sheriff's department said in a statement.

He also was recently charged in Pierce County in the assault of a police officer and rape of a child, according to the statement.
...
Huckabee cited Clemmons' young age -- 17 at the time of his sentencing -- when he announced his decision to commute the sentence, according to newspaper articles.

Clemmons was paroled in August 2000, after serving 11 years of his sentence.

Huckabee's office said Clemmons' commutation was based on the recommendation of the parole board that determined that he met the conditions for early release.

"He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him," the statement said.

It's hard to know where to start with this one, common sense seeming to be habitually absent.

First we have a violent felon sentenced to 95 years when he was 17.  As later events seem to prove the sentence was entirely appropriate.  Had it been carried out a rape and four murders might well have been avoided.  Common sense dictates that harsh sentences for young offenders is NOT cruel and unusual, at least not when the offender is habitually violent.

Then we have a former presidential candidate, you remember that part of his claim was tough on crime, who pardoned the criminal noting that the parole board suggested it.  So how does an appointed board unaccountable to the voters get to decide that a violent criminal should be set free?  Why does an elected official get to say the devil made me do it, oh, that's right it was the parole board?  Common sense suggest that parole boards are entirely out of control and need some serious changes.  Likewise governors.

Finally we have a subsequent arrest that would have put a clearly dangerous criminal in prison where he belonged because prosecutors dropped charges!  Now there are four dead and a rape!

Common sense suggest that the criminal justice system is, well, criminal.  Perhaps actually having prison terms served is a reasonable thought.

Just some common sense.

Swiss ban minarets

From the AP:

GENEVA — A top Swiss official said Monday that voter approval of a ban on minarets next to mosques could be struck down in court, as critics at home and abroad swiftly condemned the vote, saying it undermined the country's secular image.

The Swiss, normally a sensible people, have passed by 57% a ban on minarets next to mosques!  One wonders what this normally sober people were on.

Consider that Swill mosques do NOT broadcast call to prayer from loud speakers instead choosing to have a man sing the call in the courtyard of the mosque.  Note as well that it is a violation of noise laws to broadcast the call by speakers as is comon in much of the Islamic world.

Why then this ban on an architectural symbol of Islam?  If there is a concern for the secular nature of Swiss government OK, ban minarets.  Oh, also ban church bell towers and all other religious architectural symbols.

It seems that Muslims now represent 4% of the Swiss population.  It also is reported that the vote split rural and urban with urban voters generally opposing the ban.  It would seem that at least in rural Switzerland we have reached the point where our fear of a faith overrides all common sense.  It rather brings to mind other cases where religious fear overrode common sense and morality.  Can anyone remember the holocaust or the Swiss role in financing the Second World Way?

Common sense suggest that the Swiss should be shamed.

Dubai and the Middle East

From the Wall Street Journal:

LONDON -- Dubai's debt debacle is stoking a new fear for investors across the globe: potential government default by heavily indebted nations.

The Dubai government roiled markets this week with its move to delay debt payments owed by its flagship holding company, Dubai World. The company is stressed by tens of billions in debt that funded spending on glitzy real-estate projects from the Middle East to Las Vegas.

For much of the last 30 years or so there has been remarkable interest in the Middle East and, of course, oil.  I've always been a bit bemused by it.  Certainly the Middle East generally is important to the West, particularly Europe, in the short term. But what of the long term?  What of 20 years from now?  Or 50?  What, if anything, does the Middle East have going for it?

For all their oil wealth the short common sense answer is NOT MUCH!  The middle east is only marginally habitable.  Lack of fresh water is a major problem.  The region can not feed itself today and absent the ability to import food it will return to the impoverished past.  The region has a poor to non-existent history of modern government.  Indeed the Dubai news is only one of any number of examples of mismanagement.  It's easy to find others in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait both of which have also largely squandered their oil wealth on extravagance and privilege.  If you actually need someone to work in the region, you import them from elsewhere!  When the oil that will be gone in some few years what then?  There is little by way of natural resources except for sun that might be used for massive solar farms.

What then of the near term?  Modern economies need oil.  But for how long?  Are there alternatives?  The short answer is not very long and there are in fact many other alternatives, albeit they cost more.  Does the Middle East have alternatives?  Can they demand any price?  The short answer is oil is nearly the only resource the Middle East has, it doesn't really have alternatives!  They might use it themselves but as I've noted before, you can't DRINK OIL!  While you can make water with it when its gone you are back where you started.  Price oil to high and you only accelerate the move to other energy sources.  In short the Middle East has little option but to sell oil to the West at a reasonable price.

Just a POV driven by some common sense.

Health Care - From the St Louis Tribune

Health care bills do nothing to lower costs, some experts say

"There are no provisions to substantively control the growth of costs or raise the quality of care. So the overall effort will fail to qualify as reform," Dr. Jeffrey Flier, the dean of the Harvard Medical School, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Nov. 18. "In discussions with dozens of health care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health care spending rather than restrain it."

Now everyone work with me as we go slowly through the crushingly obvious - the bill is almost entirely about health insurance not health care! Stunningly, notwithstanding the facts, to wit US health care cost are higher than other first world nations and our results poorer, we've focused our health care reform on insurance coverage and regulation of insurance practices.  So is there any reason we should expect any impact on cost when our apparently bought and paid for congress all but completely ignores them.  Reality and common sense need not visit congress.

American Jobs

There was a news item this evening that struck a cord with me.  It seems that the NBA, that's a professionual basketball league in the United States, is considering having their uniforms made outside the United States.  This provoked a congressman to declare that it was outrageous.

So if professional uniforms are outrageous how about souvenirs?  They've been made offshore for a long time.  If it's outrageous for the NBA, how about professional baseball (exempt from antitrust laws), or football, or hockey, or fill in the blank?  What's special about NBA and their uniforms?

While we're in the area, is it outrageous that when the government contracts for building the steel comes from offshore?  Or how about military equipment?  Or bridge steel?  When is "Buy America" required?

These questions are related, I believe, to the notion of where American jobs should come from.  I was struck recently by yet another pundit commenting that we need more education (we probably do but not in the way the pundit intended) so we can have more high tech jobs.  Never mind that the middle class and a strong economy are based on a strong manufacturing base.  Never mind that most of the things real people in the real world actually touch and use day in and day out are decidedly low tech.  Never mind that the countries balance of trade deficit if rooted not in high tech but manufactured goods.

Common sense suggest that beyond the NBA's uniforms a strong manufacturing base should be central to economic policy.

Oh, and by the way, the NBA buys its uniforms from Adidas (not a US company) who had subcontracted to a US firm and now wants to subcontract to someone who will make the uniforms for less money!  The congressman is interested in preserving those US jobs, not all the others such as shoes and promotional items.  It seems that somehow in the congressman's mind there is something somehow sacred about basketball uniforms.  The congressman might want to take a tour of Lawrence or Lowell Ma where there use to be shoe and clothing industries before they were shiped offshore.  Never mind a few million others.

WSJ: Congress Grows Fed Up Despite Central Bank's Push

From the article:

The Senate Banking Committee is considering legislation to strip the Fed of its role supervising big banks -- despite the Fed's insistence that doing so would cripple its ability to prevent and manage financial crises. The House Financial Services Committee voted Thursday to undo a 1978 law that shields Fed interest-rate decisions from congressional auditors -- overruling protests from Mr. Bernanke and predecessors Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker, as well as the Obama administration and committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.).

Now here's what's interesting, the large financial institutions that led to the financial crisis are a DIRECT consequence of acts of CONGRESS.  Herewith extract of the relevant legislation - Descriptions taken from "Major Statutes Affecting Financial Institutions and Markets", Congressional Research Service. July 7, 2004.

• Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (P.L. 63-43, 38 STAT. 251, 12 USC 221).
  Established the Federal Reserve System as the central banking system of the U.S.
  
• Banking Act of 1933 (P.L. 73-66, 48 STAT. 162).
  Also known as the Glass-Steagall Act. Established the FDIC as a temporary agency. Separated commercial banking from investment banking, establishing them as separate lines of commerce.
  
• Banking Act of 1935 (P.L. 74-305, 49 STAT. 684).
  Established the FDIC as a permanent agency of the government.
  
• Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (P.L. 84-511, 70 STAT. 133).
  Required Federal Reserve Board approval for the establishment of a bank holding company. Prohibited bank holding companies headquartered in one state from acquiring a bank in another state.
  
• International Banking Act of 1978 (P.L. 95-369, 92 STAT. 607).
  Available from Library of Congress Thomas Website. Under Legislation, select Public Laws, then select the number of the Congress and find the Law by the P.L. number.
  Brought foreign banks within the federal regulatory framework. Required deposit insurance for branches of foreign banks engaged in retail deposit taking in the U.S.
  
• Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (P.L. 96-221, 94 STAT. 132).
  Available from Library of Congress Thomas Website. Under Legislation, select Public Laws, then select the number of the Congress and find the Law by the P.L. number.
  Also known as DIDMCA. Established "NOW Accounts." Began the phase-out of interest rate ceilings on deposits. Established the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee. Granted new powers to thrift institutions. Raised the deposit insurance ceiling to $100,000.
  
• Competitive Equality Banking Act of 1987 (P.L. 100-86, 101 STAT. 552).
  Available from Library of Congress Thomas Website. Under Legislation, select Public Laws, then select the number of the Congress and find the Law by the P.L. number.
  Also known as CEBA. Established new standards for expedited funds availability. Recapitalized the Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Company (FSLIC). Expanded FDIC authority for open bank assistance transactions, including bridge banks.
  
• Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-328, 108 STAT. 2338).
  Available from Library of Congress Thomas Website. Under Legislation, select Public Laws, then select the number of the Congress and find the Law by the P.L. number.
  Permits adequately capitalized and managed bank holding companies to acquire banks in any state one year after enactment. Concentration limits apply and CRA evaluations by the Federal Reserve are required before acquisitions are approved. Beginning June 1, 1997, allows interstate mergers between adequately capitalized and managed banks, subject to concentration limits, state laws and CRA evaluations. Extends the statute of limitations to permit the FDIC and RTC to revive lawsuits that had expired under state statutes of limitations.
  
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (P.L. 106-102, 113 STAT 1338)
  (pdf version from Government Printing Office.)
  Repeals last vestiges of the Glass Steagall Act of 1933. Modifies portions of the Bank Holding Company Act to allow affiliations between banks and insurance underwriters. While preserving authority of states to regulate insurance, the act prohibits state actions that have the effect of preventing bank-affiliated firms from selling insurance on an equal basis with other insurance agents. Law creates a new financial holding company under section 4 of the BHCA, authorized to engage in: underwriting and selling insurance and securities, conducting both commercial and merchant banking, investing in and developing real estate and other "complimentary activities." There are limits on the kinds of non-financial activities these new entities may engage in. Allows national banks to underwrite municipal bonds.
  Restricts the disclosure of nonpublic customer information by financial institutions. All financial institutions must provide customers the opportunity to "opt-out" of the sharing of the customers' nonpublic information with unaffiliated third parties. The Act imposes criminal penalties on anyone who obtains customer information from a financial institution under false pretenses.
  Amends the Community Reinvestment Act to require that financial holding companies can not be formed before their insured depository institutions receive and maintain a satisfactory CRA rating. Also requires public disclosure of bank-community CRA-related agreements. Grants some regulatory relief to small institutions in the shape of reducing the frequency of their CRA examinations if they have received outstanding or satisfactory ratings. Prohibits affiliations and acquisitions between commercial firms and unitary thrift institutions.
  Makes significant changes in the operation of the Federal Home Loan Bank System, easing membership requirements and loosening restrictions on the use of FHLB funds.
  
  

The most relevant of these are Glass-Steagall, the bank holding act, Riegle-Neal, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley.  Under the first two acts large banks that operated in many states were NOT legal.  That is, it was generally not legal to have a bank that was "to big to fail."  The latter two acts made such banks legal.  Now, these are acts of Congress not the FED!  Perhaps rather than be angry at the FED congress ought to consider altering the laws that allow "to big to fail" banks to exist.

Just a bit of common sense.

Court: Army Corps of Engineers liable for Katrina flooding

This is interesting on several levels.  Here are a couple of quotes from the story:

"It has been proven in a court of law that the drowning of New Orleans was not a natural disaster, but a preventable man-made travesty," the attorneys said in a statement. "The government has always had a moral obligation to rebuild New Orleans. This decision makes that obligation a matter of legal responsibility."


Duval ruled that because the Corps failed to maintain the shipping channel, erosion widened it, and its banks -- which helped protect the levees -- deteriorated, leaving the levees unprotected, undermined and more vulnerable to waves coming off Lake Borgne. The Corps also failed to take other actions, such as armoring the banks with rocks, the attorneys said.

First the attorneys argue that the flooding was not a natural disaster.  Someone should explain to me how the FACT of a hurricane is NOT a natural disaster.  Duhh!

Then the attorneys argue that the government (not sure which one but no matter what it means you and me) has a moral obligation to rebuild New Orleans.  In other words, if someone builds in a flood prone area then you and I are morally obligated to rebuild when they are flooded!  If we are to apply that value to flooding why not forest fires, earthquakes, volcanoes, and so on?  Where does it stop?  What about the plaintiff's moral responsibility to build in an arguably safe place?  My point here is not that the Corps isn't liable, they may well be, but that the argument fails the common sense test that if you build in a flood plane you can reasonably expect to eventually get flooded.

What then of the Corps responsibility?  Assuming that in fact the Corps was negligent in maintaining the relevant structures, is the Corps liable.  Now as regards various New Orleans flood control structures there is a long and rather sordid tale of political interference and lack of funds.  If government, particularly local government, doesn't adequately fund public works projects or interferes in the design of those projects as they have consistently done with the New Orleans levy system, is the building agency liable for what happens?  Common sense suggest that they are not; certainly not liable to the exclusion of all other parties.

Now understand, I like New Orleans.  I've been there a few times and it is a wonderful and enjoyable place.  Much of it is, however, is built in very flood prone areas.  Moreover, the delta area has been mismanaged by local, state, and federal government in a wrong headed effort to cater to businesses and individuals so that the entire region is a disaster just waiting to happen.  Should the country as a whole be responsible for the entirely foreseeable consequences  of the foolish decisions of others particularly local governments and individuals?  I think not.

Just a bit of common sense.

Health Care - The beat goes on

The remarkably surrealistic health care debate continues.  On offer two recent events.

The first is a TV ad that notes that the house passed bill will dramatically increase health care cost and be bad for individuals and small businesses.  Note, the ad is in part true.  Under any health care bill health care cost will in fact increase.  But some common sense notes:

• If more people have health insurance then more people will receive health care and quite inevitably health care cost will increase.
• No matter what happens, including nothing, health care cost are going to increase.  Prescription prices are expected to jump 9% to 16% this year according to a recent news item.  That's got nothing at all to do with any or no health care bill.  It's already happening.  Likewise heal insurance premiums according to several recent news items and surveys.
  
• The badness or goodness of the bill depends entirely on the current health care position of the individual.  If you've got good health care including insurance then it's unlikely that your cost will change much at all.  If you don't have good health care including insurance then the bill will indeed impose new cost.  But, those cost are much lower than the societal cost of uninsured patients!

This one strikes me as factually true but entirely misleading to the point of being false.  It's a pity that the health care conversation continues to be so profoundly detached from any reality and common sense.

The second is a phone call I got yesterday.  It seems the AARP was conducting a town hall phone conference in Massachusetts with health care reform as the topic.  I listened for some time before becoming convinced that this was yet another nonsensical posturing.  Consider the following:

• While I was on the call the speaker noted that AARP had supported the recent House bill in part because it rescinded a previous provision that would have cut medicare payments to health care providers.  Never mind that the US health care cost per person is much higher than other industrialized countries and that the results are poorer we should continue to overpay for under performance! 
• During the call there were several survey questions.  What troubled me about the questions was that they were NOT intended to elicit any thoughtful insight into health care issues.  Rather they were structured around building support for sound bites.  Consider the one that asked of the following what is your greatest health care concern.  OK, am I concerned by any particular health care condition.  Just now I'm in good health so no I'm not.  But, of course, if I get cancer then cancer treatment will be very important to me.  Likewise Medicare coverage and EVERY other one of the items on the list.  Common sense dictates that such questions don't inform the discourse they simply allow someone to say this percent of older Americans in a recent Massachusetts survey were afraid of this condition.  Interesting in its way but not relevant given that a significant portion of Americans have or will have EVERY ONE of the listed conditions!
  
• The call also had phone in questions.  I don't know what the process was for selecting phone in questions but I did note that the questions during my time on the call were driven exclusively by the sort of sound bites various ads and news stories have raised.  Here I note that I believe that Mr Obama is entirely right when he noted in a recent speech that much of what passes for discourse in this area is incorrect on the facts or worse.

While on one hand I'm glad that the AARP has a position, but if this is the best they can do to promote something remotely related to common sense and reality then I'm not at all hopeful that health care reform will be anything more than yet another example of political failure leading to bad public policy.

A parting common sense thought.,  We continue to talk about health care reform when what the law is really about is health care insurance.  While we continue to focus on insurance there is little hope that we might actually get health care reform that brings our cost and results inline with other first world countries.

Just a common sense POV.

AT&T Sues Verizon Over 'Map For That' 3G Ads

So here's the thing Verizon has an add showing its 3G coverage vs AT&T.  AT&T has sued saying the ad is deceptive and has cost it market share.  Now a judge has ruled that, in fact, the ad is not deceptive (indeed it is factually true).  AT&T is unhappy.

Now some may recall that a while back I fired AT&T land line service over, well, lack of service.  It seems AT&T doesn't get it still.   To be competitive in a highly competitive market - of which cell service is stunningly so - you must in fact compete!  It doesn't matter if it's cell coverage or customer service.  If you can't deliver service one of your competitors will.  That is, after all, why they're called competitors.

AT&T might consider that fewer lawyers and more service including better 3G coverage is just common sense.

Familial DNA

Familial DNA is a somewhat new criminal testing technique that has raised some some controversy.  It works by searching not for a DNA match but a close match.  Close matches are likely to be related providing a clue as to who the DNA is from. This recent Colorado case illustrates the point.

In February 2008, two cars were broken into in the city. Police found blood at both scenes and ran the samples through DNA databases but couldn't find a match. Then, as part of a study being conducted by the district attorney's office, investigators used new software to see whether the DNA in the blood was close enough to potentially be from a family member of someone in the criminal DNA database.

The controversy is rooted in the notion that since the family member has done nothing wrong it shouldn't be legal to test.

"People have a reasonable expectation of privacy of their DNA," said Maryland defense attorney Stephen Mercer. "It's a basic violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution"

Now the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seasure.  Mr Mercer's argument strikes me as not just wrong but silly. 

A person's DNA comes from their parents.  Thus the DNA of related people is similar.  Now, the DNA in a criminal database came from criminals.   It is entirely legal to have a criminal DNA database and to search it for a match.  That is the act of searching IS legal.  If someone's DNA is in the database it is NOT a Fourth Amendment violation to examine it!  Mr Mercer's argument fails on this ground.

If it is legal to search for a match, why would it be illegal to search for a near match when we know that near matches may be related to a criminal?  DNA matching is a technical technique.  That is matches are determined by matching algorithms.  Any argument about familial matches then is ultimately an argument in part about the legality of algorithms.  What would make a near match algorithm illegal if it is not illegal to examine the DNA data to begin with?  It is rather like interviewing a known criminal and asking "Did your brother do this?"  Since there is no prohibition against that why should there be a prohibition against a familial search of a legal DNA database? 

Common sense argues that there shouldn't.

Life without parole for juvenile criminals

From CNN:

The Supreme Court wrestled in often emotional terms Monday over whether sentencing juvenile criminals to life in prison without parole is "cruel and unusual" punishment, especially when their crime is not murder.


The justices appeared divided over how to treat two separate appeals, one involving a 13-year-old rapist and the other a 17-year-old violent home-invasion robber.

Now if that's as far as you got one might well wonder if life without parole is cruel and unusual.  But how about some facts.

It seems that the then 13 year old raped a 72 year old women and had a history of violent behavior.  The then 17 year old was sentenced after being caught in a violent home invasion while on parole for previous violent crimes.

These cases are interesting in many ways.

Consider first the rape.  Is rape of an elderly woman especially henious?  We regard child rape as especially wrong.  But rape of an adult is different and there is no special provision for elderly rape.  Why? It is certainly true that an elderly woman has no hope of self defense or flight.  Shouldn't this create some special circumstance?  But what about rape of a woman if some middle age.  Is she any less violated?  Any less a victim?  Now it seems to me that any rape is a terible crime.  The rape of a child or an elderly person is especially offensive.  So I'm inclined to think that special circumstances apply to the rape at issue. 

What then  of the rapist age?  He was after all only 13.  It has long been a matter of law that age is a factor in determining if there was an understanding of right and wrong.  As a general rule crimes commited by those under the age of 18 are treated as juvenal offenses.  They are subject to lesser punishments upon conviction on the argument that juvenal offenders have a lesser understanding.  I can understand that at some level but it beggs the question - does a 13 year old know that rape is wrong, that it is a crime?  The common sense answer is of course yes.  So if the understanding is present does age matter?  The common sense answer is of course no. 

Then what of the sentence?  Given that there were special circumstances in the rape and that age was not a factor then the sentence was just.  It was not "cruel and unusual."

What then of the 17 year old?  The crime here is different in many regards.  It is a violent home invasion commited by a habitual criminal who was then on parole.  The same sort of common sense analysis would suggest that the sentence was in fact just the argument being that the offender was habitual and within months of being an adult.

Bank Reform: breaking up large banks

From a recent CNN item:

Lobbyists for the big banks are fighting the break-up proposal hard, calling it "misguided." The proposal could "lead to long-term damage" to the economy, wrote Rob Nichols, president of the Financial Services Forum, in a letter Monday to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

One wonders where to start with something so utterly detached from reality as this.  Surely others have noted that financial institutions that are "to big to fail" have in fact already lead to "long-term damage" to the economy!  It beggars the imagination how anyone even remotely attached to reality could miss the obvious common sense observation that concentration of financial power in a few large firms lead directly to much, I'm inclined to most, of our current financial trouble.  Allowing such institutions to continue to exist, to continue to have a claim on government (that's you and me) to bail them out of their own folly is ridiculous in the extreme.

That just common sense.

Newsweek: "How do you solve a problem like Sarah (Palin)?"

Ms Palin has published a book, been interviewed on Oprah, and is much in the news.  If anyone has been off world lately you'll remember Palin as the former GOP VP candidate.  Now Newsweek with a cover of Palin in her running outfit looking "oh-so-sexy" writes "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sarah? She's bad news for the GOP - and for everybody else too."  Meanwhile Palin is in a snit and writes "The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist, and oh-so-expected by now."

I must admit that I'm more than a bit bemused and chargrin by Newsweek and Palin both.

The photo is in face of Palin which was taken with not just her consent but her active participation while she was in the hunt for publicity and agreed to a photo shoot for Runner's World.  So common sense suggest that Sarah should get over herself and come to grips with the fact that she is by her own choice and active participation a public figure.

Meanwhile Newsweek wonders "How do you solve a problem like Sarah?"  Really?  But nooooo!  Newsweek wants quite understandably to sell magazines.  A mildly provocative photo of Palin, catchy headline, and bit of controversy will doubtless sell magazines.  If Newsweek really wants to solve the "Sarah" problem it could do the obvious, just ignore her.  Newsweek should decide if it wants to continue to be a tabloid mascarading as a news magazine or actually be a news weekly.

I suppose in many ways that Newsweek and Palin are made for each other. 

Palin wants publicity and Newsweek wants to sell magazines.  It's more than a little sad that what now passes for public discourse is reduced to such.  Indeed, common sense suggest that so long as it is thus there is little if any hope that the real and pressing business of governence can succeed.

Just a bit of common sense.