Sarena Straus has a post about the lack of technological support she had as a sex crimes prosecutor. In my first year at the DA’s office, I shared my desk with five other ADAs and my phone with 7 in a windowless room aptly called, “The Barn.” By my last year at the office, only supervisors and a select few felony prosecutors that could prove a need even had computers. The … [Read more...] about Technology and the Prosecutor
Des Plaines TIF: Jimmy’s Restaurant
The Des Plaines TIF is so huge that I've got to start posting more pictures or I'll never get done. So here's a few pictures from Jimmy's Restaurant, another property threatened by eminent domain in the Des Plaines Five Corners/River-Rand TIF District. As you can see, Jimmy has been pretty active in the TIF opposition effort. There may be some actual blight in the Des … [Read more...] about Des Plaines TIF: Jimmy’s Restaurant
Fibbing to Organ Donors
Given all that they ask of other people, the venality of the organ transplant business amazes me. I've already complained about their willingness to pay everyone involved in a transplant operation except the person who actually has the organ to be transplanted. To the surprise of nobody who understands economics, there's an organ shortage. Here in Illinois they've decided to … [Read more...] about Fibbing to Organ Donors
People May Be Reading This
Lindsay Beyerstein links to an Ad Council ad that's apparently trying to encourage kids to be careful what they post online. You can see it for yourself here, but to save you time, Lindsay's description will do: The ad shows a girl called Sarah silently enduring public harassment from a series of progressively older and creepier strangers who have been reading her webpage. … [Read more...] about People May Be Reading This
Outlawing Terrifying Hate Crimes
We libertarians usually dislike hate-crime laws. These laws increase the sentence for crimes motivated by bigotry, and that just sounds an awful lot like a thought-crime to me. Kip Esquire doesn't see much of a problem with this. He points out that we already have "therapy courts" that treat people more leniently for crimes committed out of drug addiction and now even … [Read more...] about Outlawing Terrifying Hate Crimes