Record setters may be hot, but bounty hunters definitely are not
In this week’s Who’s Hot, Who’s Not, there’s basketball records, baseball’s season beginning, and…bounty hunters?
Who’s Hot?
Melissa Shafer
Do you hold any records? Probably not (well…maybe you do, since Columbia people are significantly more awesome the more and more you get to know them). Anyway, even if you don’t hold a record (like me), Melissa Shafer CC’12 does.
With three three point shots against Harvard this Friday, Shafer finished the game with 12 points and more importantly being the Lions’ all time most three point shots made with 162, passing up Emily Roller CC’99. While the Light Blue dropped the game 88-64 in Cambridge, Shafer’s sharpshooting will be key for the Light Blue to win its final game on the road tonight at Cornell.
Principles of Economics
Supply and demand governs this world (as all econ majors would tell you). Tickets for the Columbia vs. Harvard game on Friday reached over $200, and some students even threatened to scalp tickets (not realizing, of course, that your ticket is your ID). It was one hell of a game, going into overtime, and even with the unfavorable 77-70 result, Levien was packed. Part of the reason was the desire to see Jeremy Lin, and while he didn’t come until the second half to root on his former Crimson teammates, Spike Lee also made a showing.
Imagine if we could scalp tickets like college kids in the SEC could, maybe we could afford some things on this list.
Who’s Not
Columbia Baseball
It is still very early in the season, but after the first game, Columbia was unable to start off with a “W.” Even though pitcher Pat Lowery threw a solid six innings, allowing only three earned runs, the Light Blue’s offensive only mustered three hits against the Citadel in its first game. The Lions ended up winning one out of the three games in the series—a 12-7 extra inning thriller, but dropped the other two to finish the weekend 1-3.
If the Lions wanted to help out their offense a little more, they could always bring back Lou Gehrig back. When the baseball fields were in South Lawn, he once hit a homerun that went over 400 ft and landed on Alma Mater’s feet.
New Orleans Saints
2010 was a bad year for Minnesota sports. Brett Favre was supposed to be our savior and take us to the Super Bowl, but the New Orleans Saints (who eventually won the Super Bowl) managed to eliminate us in the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship game. Turns out they had a “bounty” fund that played out players who inflicted game-ending injuries to players, including Favre and Kurt Warner. Warner and Favre were known as the grandpas of the NFL at the time, and the Saints would pay their players to intentionally injure these players. Let me put this another way: imagine getting paid $1000 for knocking down elderly men on the subway after taking their seat. The Saints are definitely not hot this week.
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[continued]SOME SPECIFICS OF QUANTIFICATION PROCESSES IN LAWQuantification processes in law seem to have crtiaen specifics:a) Strong striving to quantification yet this is eventually countered with equally strong counterforces or constraints. Obviously, quantification is generally useful and even essential for justice. Therefore, systematic effort toward quantification is characteristic of systems of law. But there seem to be (hidden) forces that counteract quantification.b) Quantification with safequard mechanisms. Also, it is very interesting that system of law while striving high formalization and quantification, often have ‘back doors’ built into the system that allow the operator of the system to stop the blind mechanism of formal reasoning. Usually, these ‘back doors’ are in form of general (and rather vague) rules that can be used to overrule more specific rules (in practice this can happen even in contrary to the meta-rule that states the priority of the more specific rule). DRIVERS FOR QUANTIFICATION (DEQUANTIFICATION) Driver of technical rationality (T) quantification can simplify administering of the law. This includes considerations for internal consistency of the whole system of law. For example, EU requires its member states to vastly expand their national laws, with the justification of ‘harmonization’ law in the EU (that allows greater efficiency in administration of law on super-national level). Driver of economic utility (E) quantification can change the balance of power between the participants and produce different economic outcomes for them. Psychological (cognitive) driver (P) this rationale is used when one claims that humans, by the inherent limitation of their psyche, cannot correctly articulate the matter in numbers, or cannot comprehend the numbers properly. Psychological justification can be used to support quantification as well. One can well argue that in many situations numbers are cognitively processed more efficiently than words. Cultural drivers (C) level of quantification can be substantially affected by the internal dynamics of the whole cultural system. Mechanism of any large scale cultural system can be only partly understood and can be only partly designed. (The system develops by its internal logic in part.) Accordingly, a culture may put high symbolic value into numbers; or a culture may regard words as a symbol of competence. These attitudes also differ for different areas of practice. Rationale of justice (J) Claim that quantification (or dequantification) is instrumental or even essential for achieving justice (equity). For example, we may imagine a legal system where the measure of punishment is left at the discretion of the judge – with a justification that only a human is able to weigh and fuse the unique circumstances of the case. Of course, the same rationale can be used to justifiy a highly standardized system where the judge has little freedom of choice. Irrational reasons, or unknown reasons (I) For example, in Middle Age, a peasant who fled to free town and lived there for one year and one day, became a free man. The term of one year and one day seems to have no other motivation than some poetic or mystic impulse (one year, a round number would have been technically easier to handle). SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF QUANTIFICATION LEVELS AND QUANTIFICATION PROCESSES IN THE SYSTEM OF LAWWith these preparations, a scheme can be sketched for a study of actual level of quantification in the system of law: element of the legal system level of quantification (or direction of the (de-)quantification process Rationale (justification) for the chosen level of quantification.I think that such an analysis would be quite interesting (but probably too academic for a practitioner). Being no professional in law, I can just touch a couple of elements:Legal age It appears highly unjust that two persons with difference in age of only one day can fall into two different categories (minor or not minor) that handle their very similar violations very differently. Quantification: high. Rationale: technical rationality (T)? Terms of imprisonment In some countries prison terms are given in full years or half-years. Other countries may have higher granularity (months, days). Some countries seem to have a ‘fake’ quantification here the term announced with verdict and the actual term can differ significantly, because of relatively little quantified systems of pardon. I would say, that we can see a trend towards dequantification with respect to this element. I think that in practice, prison management not court can determine the final length of the term.Form of presentation In some systems, Supreme Court does not hear parties in person but only studies submitted documents. Quantification: medium to high. Rationale: technical rationality (T)?Due dates (for submission of documents to court) Most countries have strict rules that are followed, I suppose. Quantification: high; Rationale: technical rationality (T)?Verdict From process-temporal point of view (the case as it proceeds from beginning to the end), quantification probably reaches the highest point in verdict. Probably all countries use the binary system (guilty/not quilty). But theoretically, ‘partially quilty’ is well possible. A formula ’50% quilty x $100 penalty’ is equivalent with ‘quilty x $50 penalty’. Quantification – high. Rationale: justice (J)?