This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Crime and Punishment
I just returned from the barber (I don't like my hair getting even somewhat longish, and I find getting a haircut surprisingly relaxing). While there, I thumbed through the Palo Alto Daily Post. In it was a tiny article whose headline was "Dine and Dasher Gets Jail Time" It reads as follows:
A man who dined and dashed at a San Carlos restaurant was sentenced yesterday to 120 days in jail, prosectors said. Patrick James Higgins, 43, pleaded guilty yesterday to commercial burglary for skipping out on a $70.24 check at Sneakers Pub and Grill on March 1, Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Guidotti said. After ordering the hefty tab on his own, Guidotti said he ran out of the restaurant to the rear alley, leaving the check behind.
He was sentenced to 120 days in jail, ordered to pay back the tab as restitution, and will have three years of supervised probation, she said.
So let me get this straight. As a society, we have decided to let people like Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, Jon Corzine, and everyone else involved in the financial crisis (including that complete douchebag from AIG) not only get away with murder, but also get breathtakingly rich while doing so, but if some guy has a meal and runs away, and he pleads guilty to the crime, we decide:
(a) he needs to pay the tab (fair enough!);
(b) he needs to be locked up for 4 months;
(c) he needs to spend three years - at significant taxpayer expense - being closely monitored by a probation officer.
Excuse me for asking, but what in the name of Jesus H. Christ is wrong with us? Oh, I forgot. If you're rich, you can do anything you want. If you're poor, you have the be the apotheosis of rectitude. And talk about swift justice! This incident took place not even two weeks ago! And yet Blankfein, a man who torture is too good for, smirks and leers his way to mega-riches.
Speaking of financial criminals, Congress is going to go through the motions of pretending to hold the leadership of JP Morgan accountable for their own misdeeds. The star is going to be Ina Drew, who is closely associated with the "whale trade" of last year. Ms. Drew, of course, is the massively successful former CIO at JP Morgan. Flying in by jumbo jet tomorrow, Ms. Drew will confront some weighty charges, having to carefully balance the voracious appetite of some legislators for explanation with massive amounts of hefty evidence.
Cognizant of the gravity of the situation, Ms. Drew will hopefully not sag with the colossal amount of pressure on her. The room will be thick with anticipation, but let us collectively hope no blubbering will take place on Ms. Drew's part. Tons of people will be watching, and the implications, perhaps, could be enormous.
- advertisements -


Stealing for God to save the TBTF is OK; its part of THE grand scheme of a WS Pope of capitalism that sometimes goes awry; like a missionary boat of Jesuits that hits the rocks on its way to the Indies to spread the true light of Jesus.
These things happen, God's will be done; BUT it was for civilization and making a quick profit through the blinding rays of derivative plays is the way to go; the new testament interpretation of a Jesuit in counter reform mode to preempt ever present and careeningly heretic statist threat.
We are always at war with that true Devil hiding in the detail; that scam artist, that statist shill.
Like true Jesuits we have to spread the good belief of capitalist blind faith that "profit" is a honest man's friend, like diamonds be for women.
Don't EVER lose faith in profit, cherish it like God's first commandment and the Constitution's FIRST Amendement.
All hail Jamie Dimon King of the TBTF profit machine.
May the Congress bow to him, the true God of Pax Americana's global vision, Zeus of our way of life in Jesus's footsteps that stays NON NEGOTIABLE, to the flock of true believers in the faith.
Crime and Punishment be for the common man, not the soldier monk, the Jesuit on God's glorious mission!
Profits are the true gold rightfully taken from the hands of poor Aztecs and Incas, believers in bygone faiths, inhabitants of lost continents in deep Asia and Africa, happy to be part of the great scheme of things, working in the dirt of their ghettos for a pittance; all feeding the great profit machine; such be glorious civilization!
What happened to the belief that "profit" is man's ingeniousity that has to be shared, like manure spread out on a eternally productive and nourishing field, never to be stashed in the festering halls of new Montezuma of first world; like irradiated platinum rods of man made Fukushima death wish?
What happened to the sons of ethics and pragmatism, like out of the iconic painting of Raphaël on school of Athens, one hand pointing up to the heavens in name of IDEALS the other pointing down in name of primacy of FACT, both balancing the true dynamics of civilization; where the only values sacred are reason and fact; never blind dogma!
Leave the Manichean fear mongering of the eternal stand off between a man-made god and a convenient villain to those drowning in Alice in wonderland patriarchal legends; true spirituality has no place in politics.
Nor do manichean, ideological stand offs define time's arrow, ever since Galileo proved the world was round and Newton had an apple bounce off his round but human head.
Let Justice be a truly level playing field and not a three card monty trick to save the seemingly annointed, forever garbed in the blind dogma of the age!
What is it you are trying to say? I have never before read such disconnection in a piece of writing, and would ask that you clarify by simplifying.
Let me help if I may.
What falak is saying here is that our current system is bad.
ideology and action go hand in hand from good to bad, its human systemic repetition ...as seen thru the spyglass of historical analogy.
Our past, which is now "dead matter" provides the indices to understand current "live matter", history in the making.
If you understand the whys and the wherefores of past human constructs and actions, they provide you with a framework to understand the momentum of current ideological debate and current acts of people in power.
What falak is saying here is that our current system is bad...
Then that's what needs to be said. I'm all for the seperation of state and church. The state has no right to interfere with the church's need to define evil. Nor does the state have the right to administer the sacraments. If that means no tax benis, then so be it. Truth is truth and if God is God he certainly will survive without the pitiful attempts of man trying to prevent Him from decay. This may come as a shock to some, but God does not need man. Man needs God.
Only when the church rightfully presents the Creator in the glory of Righteousness and truth may the concept of right and wrong actually bleed into society. What we have now is the church being influenced by the state and market forces demanding it to call evil good and right wrong. Pragmatism has no place in praise. imho.
Long live separation of state and church.
Re Ina Drew
OMG! A Hillary clone - with an extra lard-ass gene thrown in!
Looks like she chews on rivet-bolts for breakfast -and washes 'em down with a quart can of Quaker State lube...
Uuughhhh!
They should take that twin fat fuck brother of Corizine Christie with his bullshit on line gambling economy spin along with Shwartzmen (600 million dollar bonus) Blackstone scum along with "doing Gods work Blankenfien and have them clean toilets until they pay back the money they stold from the american people, Christie with his hedge fund PAC money
Dont forget that sweetheart sponsorship deal that NJ Gov. Fatso has in having MetLife tatooed on his ass while he's floated over Giants Stadium - as the blimp - on match day..
(Yeah - I still call it Giants Stadium... got a problem with that, MetLife?)
Steal to eat, gonna get beat.
Steal for greed, gonna be freed.
After I read the comment about the 5 cans of sardines, I had another look at the picture.
Another question that needs answering: Why do the rich appear before "panels" of politicians, while the rest of us appear before judges in court?
del
auto censored! lol!
Think of it as a 'jury of their peers' if that helps.
Yeah, I saw an old man sitting in the Walmart police room the other day so I asked the manager what happened. He said the guy tried to steal five cans of sardines (the cheap ones too, not King Oscar). Luckily, tha manager has a heart and asked the police to ignore th eincident and no chrages will be pressed.
What a world we live in.
Walmart manager will probably get canned if word gets out...
Canned? Clearly reformed sheep is now channeling saul. Well played.
Right next to picture of fat chick: "The star is going to be Ina Drew, who is closely associated with the "whale trade" of last year. Ms. Drew, of course, is the massively successful former CIO at JP Morgan. Flying in by jumbo jet tomorrow, Ms. Drew will confront some weighty charges, having to carefully balance the voracious appetite of some legislators for explanation with massive amounts of hefty evidence.
Cognizant of the gravity of the situation, Ms. Drew will hopefully not sag with the colossal amount of pressure on her. The room will be thick with anticipation, but let us collectively hope no blubbering will take place on Ms. Drew's part. Tons of people will be watching, and the implications, perhaps, could be enormous." emphasis added ROFLOL mine.
Saul,
well done!!! LOL
That's good writing :)
all this is setting up for a nice bloodbath.
I heard John Corzineleone's lawyer is available if the " public menace " wishes to appeal his sentence!