She seems to have done really well for herself. Very short stint behind bars in one of our less awful prisons and sailed right into a sweet political gig when she got sent back. One of my favorite tidbits from her story:

>On at least two separate occasions she got drunk and spoke openly about her contacts within the Russian government, even acknowledging that Russian intelligence services were involved with the gun rights group she ran in Moscow. Twice, classmates reported her actions to law enforcement because they found her comments so alarming, sources said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/02/politics/maria-butina-republican-circles/index.html

One of the things that makes the US posting attractive is that, if they get caught, they're likely looking at pretty human treatment. And, if they stay loyal, a decent situation when they return home.

We definitely do. Enough have been caught over the years that there must be more. Probably a very desirable posting for intelligence personnel from those countries.

I'd feel immense relief. Mostly for any potential future victims and, to a lesser but very real degree, for the rapist himself. I'm not religious at all but I grew up in a deeply Christian household and that concept of redemption still influences me a great deal.

>I am saying that scientifically reformative forms of justice result in reduced recidivism.

Do you have any sources on the success of reformative justice in the reduction of sex crimes, specifically? I'd been under the impression that crimes of that sort were more resistant to reformation efforts but my knowledge of the research is limited and dated.

There's some truth to that. But most movies don't depict people as being worthy of hate purely for being rich. They depict the hateworthy rich as people who got their money through disreputable means or who use their wealth to abuse others.

And I think that's in line with the attitudes of the general public. Plenty of people despise rich investment bankers or insurance company executives but most of those same people don't hate wealthy surgeons or engineers. When people complain about the high cost of medication no one gets mad that the research scientists are paid well. But they hate big pharma CEOs.

The argument I've heard (not my argument, I'm just passing it on) is that it's mostly about reducing the number of unwanted Haitian migrants. For countries like the US and Canada, turning them away or sticking them in detention centers would be bad optics domestically but so would allowing a huge influx. So stabilizing Haiti could be a more palatable alternative if anyone has a good game plan for pulling that off.

For no particular reason I had thought the owl would be more expensive than that.