The WSJ has an article today on backdating:

Brocade Communication Systems Inc. agreed to pay a $7 million penalty to settle … the backdating scandal, according to people familiar with the matter…. Brocade first struck a deal to pay $7 million in March 2006, but the settlement was held up as the number of companies under investigation for backdating options expanded to more than 100….

Republicans, in general, oppose [fines for backdating] as a double hit to shareholders, who already have been penalized once for being defrauded. Democrats argue that penalties serve as deterrents.

There was not necessarily fraud on the shareholder because it’s in a shareholder’s interest to use backdated options to pay executives. They don’t have to use as many of them because they are intrinsically worth more (H. Jenkins), but are also not taxed as highly as more regular dated ones where the date wasn’t coincidentally the lowest price of the quarter.

Putting that aside, fines in general should not be paid by the damaged party, but should be paid as a deterrent–and as compensation! How about the following proposal: the company pays the fine to the shareholders of record on the day before the news that false accounts were filed. That way the ongoing shareholders aren’t hurt and the shareholders that sold after the bad news came out and the stock tanked will be compensated by the new ones who bought after the news. Just like how shareholders are treated when a company goes ex dividend.

Here’s another controversial idea to increase deterrence: don’t prosecute companies for common practices until you’ve given them sufficient warning to change their ways. Otherwise the prosecutors are doing what Dr. Strangelove accused the Russians of doing:

[T]he… whole point of the doomsday machine… is lost… if you keep it a secret! Why didn’t you tell the world, eh?

The Constitution guarantees no ex poste facto laws in Article I, Section 9, but we are still working on no ex poste facto judicially implemented regulation.

Who watches the watchmen? Do we need four independent judiciaries with each one’s scope determined by the others like the four redundant computers on the space shuttle? No need to curb the SEC and prosecutors of public companies–the companies are helping themselves. By going private.

It will drive the Bush deranged crazy, but liberal Richard Cohen recognizes that George W. Bush is a liberal.

In the middle of a war in which some people say “support the troops by bringing them home,” crassly treating them as victims for cynical political purposes, it’s important on this Memorial Day to remember that it is not our job to protect them, but theirs to protect us, and how astonishingly bravely and selflessly they do it.

[Update a few minutes later]

Jules Crittendon has a roundup of Memorial Day links.

[Update at 1 PM CDT]

Michael Yon has some Memorial Day thoughts from Anbar province:

Q has already made it to Germany and is about to be flown home. CSM Pippin is on his way to Germany. Along the way, excellent groups like Soldiers

Well, what would one expect from an ambulance chaser?

While I’m not a conservative, I think I’m pretty capable of recognizing one. And I’ve never thought that George Bush was (either father or son). Bruce Bartlett, who is one, vehemently agrees.

Apparently the public has a bipartisan consensus on the immigration bill, just as its backers do. Unfortunately, the public’s consensus is in opposition:

Advocates of

I’m certainly no fan of Gonzales, but this is pretty funny. But we can all play this game. What other amendments could we add to this resolution?

• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of Speaker Pelosi to conduct negotiations with the enemy.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of Congressman Murtha to plan troop redeployment strategy.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to micromanage a war, particularly without doing it in such a way as to give hope to the enemy.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to write legislation that will effectively secure the borders.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of Congress to competently stipulate the optimal efficiency of clothes washers, or toilet tank size, or the correct national speed limit, or average fuel efficiency for automobiles.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to know what the single correct “minimum wage” should be to apply to all fifty states, both rural and city.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to even know what the content is of the legislation that it passes.

So easy, a caveman can do it! Errrr…unless the caveman is a Congressman…

I’m certainly no fan of Gonzales, but this is pretty funny. But we can all play this game. What other amendments could we add to this resolution?

• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of Speaker Pelosi to conduct negotiations with the enemy.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of Congressman Murtha to plan troop redeployment strategy.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to micromanage a war, particularly without doing it in such a way as to give hope to the enemy.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to write legislation that will effectively secure the borders.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of Congress to competently stipulate the optimal efficiency of clothes washers, or toilet tank size, or the correct national speed limit, or average fuel efficiency for automobiles.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to know what the single correct “minimum wage” should be to apply to all fifty states, both rural and city.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to even know what the content is of the legislation that it passes.

So easy, a caveman can do it! Errrr…unless the caveman is a Congressman…

I’m certainly no fan of Gonzales, but this is pretty funny. But we can all play this game. What other amendments could we add to this resolution?

• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of Speaker Pelosi to conduct negotiations with the enemy.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of Congressman Murtha to plan troop redeployment strategy.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to micromanage a war, particularly without doing it in such a way as to give hope to the enemy.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to write legislation that will effectively secure the borders.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of Congress to competently stipulate the optimal efficiency of clothes washers, or toilet tank size, or the correct national speed limit, or average fuel efficiency for automobiles.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to know what the single correct “minimum wage” should be to apply to all fifty states, both rural and city.
• The Congress expresses no confidence in the ability of the Congress to even know what the content is of the legislation that it passes.

So easy, a caveman can do it! Errrr…unless the caveman is a Congressman…

Like abortion, I’m one of those folks who don’t have strong opinions/feelings about immigration, but I think that Mark Steyn makes a great point here:

Is that This-background-check-will-self-destruct-in-24-hours clause for real? If the entire “undocumented” population of, say, Falls Church, Virginia wanders into the local immigration office at 4pm on Monday, the clerks have got till 5pm on Tuesday to find anything on the guys or they’ve got no choice but to issue the Z visa? For the agency that takes the best part of a decade to process nanny applications and which sent Mohammed Atta his visa six months after he’d died, this is, to say the least, a massive cultural change.

If the 24-hour dry-cleaner standard were to be mandated for every government agency, I might reconsider my position. But it seems curious, to put it at its mildest, that only the lucky members of the Undocumented-American community will get to enjoy the benefits of express service from the US government.

Regardless of one’s opinions on immigration, legal or otherwise, we should all be appalled at how such an important issue is being railroaded through the Congress with so little review, or time for it.