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.