It starts today. Investments:

Michigan -11 over South Dakota State (3 units), Syracuse -13 over Montana (3 units), Akron +7½ over Va Commonwealth, Missouri -3 over Colorado State (3 units), New Mexico -11 over Harvard, Oregon +3 over Okla. St., Marquette -3½ over Davidson (3 units), Gonzaga -21½ over Southern, Pittsburgh -4½ over Wichita State (3 units), Butler -3½ over Bucknell, Michigan State -10½ over Valparaiso (3 units.), Memphis -1 1/2 over St. Mary's (3 units), Belmont +5 over Arizona, Cal +3 over UNLV, Missouri - 2 1.2 over Colorado St, St. Louis -9 over NM State.

Open Thread.

I think the biggest problem in our criminal justice system for the past 25 years has been rigid mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

Today, Sen. Patrick Leahy and Rand Paul introduced the bi-partisan Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013. According to Sen. Leahy:

The bipartisan Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013 expands the so-called “safety valve” that allows judges to impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum in qualifying drug cases to all federal crimes. By giving judges this greater flexibility, they will not be forced to administer needlessly long sentences for certain offenders, which is a significant factor in the ever-increasing Federal prison population and the spiraling costs that steer more and more of the justice budget toward keeping people in prison, rather than investing in programs that keep our communities safe.

[More...]

It's been ten years since we invaded Iraq. Al Qaeda is marking the anniversary with bombings. At least 60 people have been killed.

Der Speigel has "10 Lessons From America's 'Dumb War.'

The Atlantic looks back at the cost, in lives and dollars. The BBC has the Iraq War in Numbers.

Tom Clements, the Executive Director of Colorado's Department of Corrections, was at home last night when someone rang the doorbell around 8:30 p.m. He opened the door and was shot dead.

There are no suspects and it does not appear robbery was a motive. Clements' home is in Monument, Colorado, which is near Colorado Springs.

Officials with the El Paso County sheriff’s office said they were looking for a “boxy” two-door car that had been spotted Tuesday night in the neighborhood, its engine running but with nobody inside. There were few other insights about who had shot Mr. Clements, or why.

...They said Mr. Clements’s post, overseeing more than 20,000 inmates in Colorado’s prisons and parole system, might have made him a target.

[More...]

The record companies are happy today. Text book publishers and authors are not.

The Supreme Court has denied cert in the case of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a native American who uploaded, downloaded or otherwise shared 24 songs on Kazaa, a now-defunct music file-sharing service, for personal use. The record companies sued, and the ultimate judgment against her, after several retrials and appeals with jury verdicts as high as $1.9 million, was $222,000, or $9,250 per song. The issue, according to the Petition for Cert (which includes the 8th Circuit and trial court's opinions in the Appendix portion):

Is there any constitutional limit to the statutory damages that can be imposed for downloading music online?

My picks for March Madness mens bracket below the fold. (Will try the womens bracket this year as well.)

Brackets are not "investments," so I'll be offering my picks (ATS) on the day of the game. For example, today I like Middle Tenn. St. +3 over St Mary's CA (3 units) and North Carolina A&T -2½ over Liberty.

Open Thread.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper's spokesman said today he will sign the new gun control laws passed by the legislature into law. Colorado will now have among the most restrictive laws in the country.

The Colorado laws include a ban on ammunition magazines that can carry more than 15 rounds, and eight shotgun shells. The bill on background checks expands the requirement to sales and transfers between private parties and online purchases.

Two laws that didn't make it: "a new liability standard for gun owners and sellers, and a ban on concealed weapons on public college campuses."

A few more are still under consideration: [More...]

March Madness!

Women's Madness! coming soon!

My bracket later this week.

Open Thread.

No, we're not leaving. We're expanding, in a way.

One of the reasons I've been short on blogging the past month is that I've been busy designing and creating a new version of TalkLeft on Wordpress. (Talkleft has been on Scoop for years, which is not only a dinosaur, but very few people are still familiar with it or know how to move it over to another platform. The cost to do so would many thousands of dollars.)

Second, blog advertising has died a natural death. Since TalkLeft costs me thousands of dollars a year to maintain, I've decided to try something new: Two TalkLefts. [More...[

There has been a mass hunger strike going on since February at Guantanamo, mostly by detainees in Camp Six, the least restrictive unit. According to a letter from more than 50 defense lawyers to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, available here, almost all of the 134 detainees in Camp Six are engaged in the hunger strike, and they are dropping like flies.

The Defense Department disputes the numbers, and insists only 14 are being force-fed: 9 involved in the current strike and 5 who always go on hunger strikes. The photo above is of a restraint chair used to force-feed detainees at Gitmo.[More...}

Maryland has become the 18th state to ban the death penalty since 1976.

What happens to the five inmates on Maryland's death row?? The Guardian explains it's an unknown as yet.

Other states repealing the death penalty in the recent years: Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York.

Colorado legislators will be debating a bill to repeal the death penalty very soon. [More...]

The indictment against Matthew Keys, the former Sacramento KTXL FOX 40 web producer and Reuters journalist charged in the Eastern District of California yesterday for providing members of Anonymous with network login credentials to hack into the server of the station and the LA times (both are owned by the Tribune company), is a bit of a head-scratcher. It seems he started out as double agent of sorts, infiltrating the group for journalistic purposes. Did he change from role-playing in internet chat room sessions to joining in the group's illegal activity? Clearly, the Government believes he did.

The Indictment is here. One person who turned on him seems to be Anonymous Sabu, aka Hector Monsegur. But others may have as well. [More....]