The outcome, which followed an outpouring of criticism of the measure from core Republican voters and from liberal Democrats as well, was a significant setback for the president. It came mainly at the hands of members of his own party after he championed the proposal in the hope of claiming it as a major domestic policy achievement in the last months of his administration.We're down to the "last months" already?
"When you analyse the face or body, which is beautiful for two days, after 10 years it's more difficult.
"It can eventually create a lot of unhappiness - that's nature."
The Dalai Lama said as a celibate monk he sublimated physical desire through "training of the mind" and intense analytical meditation.
True happiness, he said, came through peace of mind, altruism and compassion.
[T]here are many ... women who feel that unless one is Bill Clinton or the object of their own lecherous desires (of course, for these women, their own desire is called empowerment--not lechery!), a regular joe has no right to look at a woman--not even in pictures--with desire in his heart. In their eagar quest to control men's sexual rights, some "feminist" women (and other prudish ones too!) go to extremes to shame, expose or intimidate men who let their lust for women dare come to the surface. ...Well, now this goes beyond the problem of men leering at their own wives, and it also leans heavily on the idea of rights. If we're talking rights, surely, we've also got a right to express contempt for men who boorishly exhibit their sexual feelings in public. People need to learn manners -- even if bad manners aren't a crime. The word "leer" is useful: It lets you know there's a line you will be judged by. Learn where it is or suffer the consequences -- which don't include prison, just contempt and rejection... unless you've got a special way about you, which you probably don't if you're reading this and not off somewhere enjoying the benefits of flouting society's norms.
[M]en have a right to sexual expression just as women do and leering or even an interest in porn is not a crime--but if some women have their way, it soon may be. So, I say to you men out there who believe in your right to sexual freedom, stand up for your right to leer--or it may soon be a thing of the past.
He argued that real life, the life out of newspaper headlines, was outdoing the imagination of novelists, and that fiction writers were in fact abandoning the effort to grapple with ''the grander social and political phenomena of our times'' and were turning instead ''to the construction of wholly imaginary worlds, and to a celebration of the self.''
These remarks -- made even before John F. Kennedy's assassination and the social upheavals of the 60's magnified the surreal quotient of American life -- help illuminate what Tom Wolfe identified (with considerable self-serving hyperbole) in the late 80's as a retreat from realism. They also help explain the direction that Mr. Roth's own fiction has taken over the last three and a half decades, his long obsession with alter egos and mirror games and the transactions between life and art.
I remember coming with a friend for lunch, and David took her coat but didn’t do anything with her handbag, which she set down on the kitchen counter. And Philip said, “You can’t put that there!” She was taken aback. Someone came and put it in the closet.
A man tried to jump into Pope Benedict XVI's uncovered popemobile as the pontiff began his general audience Wednesday in St. Peter's Square and was wrestled to the ground by security officers.The assailant "was wearing a pink T-shirt and dark shorts, a beige baseball cap and sunglasses." That says a lot.
The pope was not hurt and didn't even appear to notice that the man had jumped over the protective barricade in the square and toward the white popemobile as it drove by with the pope waving to the audience.
At least eight security officers who were trailing the popemobile grabbed the man and wrestled him to the ground. The pope didn't even look back.
whoever wins is EVENTUALLY going to be pitted against someone from the opposite party....
shouldn't we want to see what they seem like in contrast with their eventual opponent?...
we're having all these 1.5- and 2-hour debates with 8 or 10 people. Why not have a couple 2-hour debates with 18 people each?...
I hope the argument is not: "we'd lose track of the candidates." I don't think most people who are watching the segregated debates can keep track of who Hunter, Gilmore, or Dodd are!...
It would lead to more disputes between individual candidates (say, Edwards and McCain get into a squabble, or whatever), which is always the thing that gets the most media attention, because it's the most memorable and makes the candidates stand out.
And the objection can't be: "They're never done it like that before." We've never been in this situation (open field for both parties in presidential primary) in the TV era.
Back in 2004, Larry David, a career crank, told The Atlantic scribe Eric Alterman in an article about Hollywood fund-raising: “I heard nothing about the environment for all our lives and now this. I wish she would at least take back her own name.”Oh, she's Susie? I love Susie... as a character... on a show....
A joke? Maybe not!
Of course, the “Seinfeld” creator and his tree-hugging spouse haven’t exactly been hailed as consummate conservationists on the Vineyard.
The Chilmark town fathers were miffed in 2005 when the Tinseltown twosome made many posh improvements to their property without getting required permits. (They built a BBQ pit and elevated stage too close to the oh-so-dear wetlands).
And Laurie David, whom some say is the inspiration for Susie, the potty-mouthed wife of Larry’s agent on “Curb,” was once labeled a “Gulfstream liberal” for her own brand of do-as-I-say-not-as-I do activism.
[Laurie] David's combination of moxie and money has made her the It Girl of Hollywood progressive politics. She invited John McCain to dinner so that she could try to talk him into switching to the Democratic Party. (She failed.) John Edwards, a guest early in his presidential candidacy, was interrogated on his so-so environmental record. And then there are the fundraisers. In March the Davids hosted 200 people at a $1,000-a-plate party for Barbara Boxer, California's junior senator, who is up for re-election this fall. Larry David says that he forgot about the Boxer event, only to come home and see "all these cars parked." "Next thing I knew," he says, "Bill Clinton was showing up. I'm proud of my wife and I do support her, but there are other houses out here. Sometimes I think she thinks this is the only house in L.A. But what do you want me do? Stay up in my room? I do roll my eyes a lot.["]...It always sounds like a joke, right? Who knows how much he means it? I think maybe he means it a lot. Living in that milieu has to be stifling, if you're a great humorist like Larry. Not that there isn't comic material, but that you can't use it. If you're in the milieu, catering to a wife who's totally into the politics of it, maybe you'll be allowed to use your comic gifts to attack the other side. But all your raw material, the people who are crowding into your house, is off limits. Or nearly off limits. I could see Larry having his own misanthropic character say terrible things about them in a way that lets us know he the one who's terrible. But now! Now, the possibilities are endless. I want to hear him bitch about how Bill Clinton won't get out of his house.
Talking to me in his office over salad and CNN, Larry David admitted that if he were married to someone else, "chances are [the NRDC] would never have seen a nickel from me." Playing to type, he went on, "Personally, I would give money away to people, because then I could get the personal satisfaction of playing the benefactor and have the obligation for the rest of my life. I would enjoy that."
We could barely believe our eyes. Vang Pao and the others arrested, according to the AP, were picked up during a sweep by more than 200 federal, state, and local agents. The news wire quoted a criminal complaint as saying the authorities acted because weapons shipments were set to begin this month to areas in Thailand along the Laotian border. The AP quoted Hmong leaders in Thailand as saying they found the charges unbelievable. "I don't believe Gen. Vang Pao planned to cause trouble in Laos. I think the charges are meant by rival Hmong in the United States to smear him," the AP quoted Ming Wui, a Hmong Christian minister in Thailand's Phetchabun province, as saying.I'm following this story because of the controversy in Madison over naming an elementary school after the man. Here's my post on the subject from yesterday (noting that "oddly, Madison is the leading edge in appreciating anti-Communist military action"). Here's today's local news coverage of that story:
Federal prosecutors are quoted by the AP as saying, "We're looking at conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time." Our instinct is that Mr. Bush will want to take a break between the Prague Conference and the G-8 summit and order up some adult supervision of whatever his justice department is doing in California. Or just exercise his unfettered pardon authority to nip this case in the bud. The only faction who have conspired to mass murder in Laos in our time are the communists, against whom Vang Pao has been our most reliable and inspiring ally. He is a freedom fighter who will tower over any courtroom into which he is brought.
[School board president Arlene] Silveira and board member Carol Carstensen said Tuesday that the board should reverse its April 9 decision to name the school in honor of former Gen. Vang Pao, who was among 10 people charged Monday in California with plotting a violent takeover of Laos' communist government.I'm glad to see that Silveira has backed away from her original statement "Obviously if there is something that is negative and we would like to have a discussion, what we will do is have a reconsideration," which I mocked yesterday.
Board members Lawrie Kobza and Lucy Mathiak agreed the board needs to discuss the name of the school but said it's too early to say whether Vang Pao's name should be removed....Seriously, how can you name an elementary school after a man who is under indictment? Even those who idolize the man should reject it, because it invites attacks on their hero.
All four board members on Tuesday stressed a desire to show sensitivity to members of the Hmong community, who nominated Vang Pao's name for the school, while also taking the right stand for the community as a whole.
Complicating that task is the history of America's withdrawal from the Vietnam War, after Vang Pao led his forces in a covert CIA-backed war on communists in Laos.Contrast that to the Sun's quotation of "Hmong leaders in Thailand" saying "I don't believe Gen. Vang Pao planned to cause trouble in Laos." Does the Sun really think individuals who do what is charged in the indictment should be labeled "freedom fighters" and given presidential pardons?
Many Hmong fled to Thailand and eventually the United States, but thousands are said to remain stranded in Laos where they remain subject to rape, killing and torture at the hands of the communist government — the regime Vang Pao is accused of attempting to overthrow.Prosecutors called Vang Pao the mastermind of the plot, which involved raising money to recruit a mercenary force and equipping a small army to pull off a coordinated set of attacks with anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers and C-4 explosives. One prosecutor called it "conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time."
An undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives secretly recorded a Feb. 7 luncheon meeting with Vang Pao, former California National Guard Lt. Col. Harrison Ulrich Jack and others at a Thai restaurant a few blocks from California's Capitol in Sacramento, according to the agent's affidavit. They then walked to a recreational vehicle parked nearby to examine machine guns, grenade launchers, anti-tank rockets, anti-personnel mines and other weapons, the agent wrote.
Hmong leaders had agreed to buy $9.8 million worth of military weapons, Jack said in a recorded conversation, with much of the money coming from immigrants throughout the United States, the affidavit states.
[S]ome in [Madison's] Hmong community -- especially elders -- feel betrayed by Vang Pao's arrest, according to Koua Vang, the executive director of United Refugee Services in Madison.AND: Here's more on the role of former state senator Gary George:
"It was the U.S. government that came to Laos and said 'Help fight the Communists,'" Koua Vang said in an interview Tuesday. "Now they say continuing to fight the Communists is wrong. People are sad, they feel they are being betrayed."
Another source in the Hmong community -- a middle-aged man who in recent years has cautioned other Hmong about donating money to Vang Pao -- estimates that 90 to 95 percent of Hmong families support Vang Pao.
The source, who requested anonymity because the situation in the community is tense, said that many Madison Hmong, particularly the veterans and the elderly, consider it an honor to support Vang Pao and to give money to his organizations.....
In his years in America, Vang Pao took on mythic proportions as a godfather of sorts whose connections to the government paved the way for the eventual arrival of thousands of Hmong to the United States and whose continuing influence inspired the Hmong to prosper....
Koua Vang speculated that Vang Pao's arrest may buttress his support among younger Hmong who may not carry personal memories of all he has done for the community.
"The older people knew, but the young will understand he is truly committed to fighting the Communists, he did not give up fighting for freedom. Now it is open record," Vang said.
[The San Francisco Chronicle] reported that George was "suspected of conspiring to violate the (federal) Neutrality Act and conspiring to kill or injure people in a foreign country," according to a report by an undercover agent included as part of the affidavit....
George wooed the Hmong community in Wisconsin while he was a state senator.
In 2003, he cast the deciding vote for the state budget only after demanding -- and getting -- a $3 million state grant for a planned Hmong cultural center in Milwaukee in George's district. In a rare move, the budget deal specified exactly where the center would be built and barred the state from considering other sites or supervising the construction or bidding process.
That plan was later vetoed by Gov. Jim Doyle, who argued that the proposal had not gone through the proper approval process for major state projects.
George's former aide, Locha Thao, was one of 10 people charged with trying to overthrow the Laotian government.
How cool -- so the human brain defragments itself. Cognition is so interesting! I think that this is why a prof once told me that actually making lists and actually marking off obsolete items is important, as a visual boost to jog the brain to drop old items from memory. I believe that it works, too, since list-makers seem to be more together than the rest of us.
This reminds me of one of my favorite vids of animated poetry by poet Billy Collins:
The book’s greatest flaw is its flogging of all the Clinton scandals, not simply because they are so familiar and ultimately came to so little, but also because they give us insufficient clues to what sort of president Mrs. Clinton might be....Oh, fine then. Character... big deal!
Should Hillary Clinton’s personal limitations — her inclination to shade the truth in the service of her ambition, what former Senator Bill Bradley called her “arrogance,” “disdain,” and “hypocrisy” — disqualify her for the presidency?
It is surely preferable to have our most upright citizens sitting in the White House, but history repeatedly shows that presidents with character flaws have not necessarily been less competent leaders, especially in times of crisis, than those with a stronger moral compass....
Mr. Bernstein is... hyperbolic about Mrs. Clinton’s influence and importance. President Bill Clinton survived “in office due principally to the actions of his wife, just as their tangled relationship,” he writes, “was central to his being impeached in the first place.”Kakutani writes:
Mr. Bernstein adds: “The impeachment of the president was a direct reflection of the choices she had made, the compromises she had accepted, however reluctantly, and the enmity engendered by their grand designs, successes and failures.”
Mr. Bernstein’s overall take on Mrs. Clinton [is] that her “experiential openness” gave her a “capacity for personal growth and change”....Kakutani notes that the book is really long and that Bernstein spent 8 years writing it and seems rather defensive about spending so much time on it. Are readers going to put up with this? Aside from the health care fiasco, the Clinton Era events that involve Hillary really don't need to be remembered in detail. The Gersh/Van Natta book looks like a better read, perhaps.
[T]his volume does not really appraise Mrs. Clinton’s record as a senator from New York and sheds no new light on her stance on the Iraq war or her current campaign for the White House....
“With the notable exception of her husband’s libidinous carelessness,” Mr. Bernstein asserts, “the most egregious errors, strategic and tactical” of [Bill Clinton's] presidency, particularly in its stumbling first year, are “traceable to Hillary,” including, in large measure, the inept staffing of the White House, the disastrous serial search for an attorney general, the Travel Office brouhaha, Whitewater and the alienation of key senators and members of Congress.
The decision, by a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, was a sharp rebuke for the F.C.C. and for the Bush administration. For the four television networks that filed the lawsuit — Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC — it was a major victory in a legal and cultural battle that they are waging with the commission and its supporters.It all started with Bono:
Under President Bush, the F.C.C. has expanded its indecency rules, taking a much harder line on obscenities uttered on broadcast television and radio. While the judges sent the case back to the commission to rewrite its indecency policy, it said that it was “doubtful” that the agency would be able to “adequately respond to the constitutional and statutory challenges raised by the networks.”
Beginning with the F.C.C.’s indecency finding in a case against NBC for a vulgarity uttered by the U2 singer Bono during the Golden Globes awards ceremony in 2003, President Bush’s Republican and Democratic appointees to the commission have imposed a tougher policy by punishing any station that broadcast a fleeting expletive....Yeah, stick it to Bush and Cheney.
Reversing decades of a more lenient policy, the commission had found that the mere utterance of certain words implied that sexual or excretory acts were carried out and therefore violated the indecency rules.
But the judges said vulgar words are just as often used out of frustration or excitement, and not to convey any broader obscene meaning. “In recent times even the top leaders of our government have used variants of these expletives in a manner that no reasonable person would believe referenced sexual or excretory organs or activities.”
Adopting an argument made by lawyers for NBC, the judges then cited examples in which Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had used the same language that would be penalized under the policy. Mr. Bush was caught on videotape last July using a common vulgarity that the commission finds objectionable in a conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. Three years ago, Mr. Cheney was widely reported to have muttered an angry obscene version of “get lost” to Senator Patrick Leahy on the floor of the United States Senate.
“We find that the F.C.C.’s new policy regarding ‘fleeting expletives’ fails to provide a reasoned analysis justifying its departure from the agency’s established practice,” said the panel.So this is not a First Amendment decision, though the majority does say “We question whether the F.C.C.’s indecency test can survive First Amendment scrutiny.” The court is finding fault with the process of developing the new policy. In dissent, Judge Pierre Leval stressed the "the deference courts must give to the reasoning of a duly authorized administrative agency": "The commission’s position is not irrational; it is not arbitrary and capricious.”
The case involved findings that the networks had violated the indecency rules for comments by Cher and Nicole Richie on the Billboard Music Awards, the use of expletives by the character Andy Sipowicz on “NYPD Blue” and a comment on “The Early Show” by a contestant from CBS’s reality show “Survivor.”So Bono opened the door and now every nitwit celebrity and reality show half-celebrity will be saying "f*ck" on the slightest provocation. The networks say it's up to you to decide what shows to watch, so... good luck figuring out what to let your kids watch.
No one was believed to have survived the crash of a small plane that was carrying a six-member organ transplant team and their cargo of donor organs, authorities said Tuesday.
Searchers found human remains during a search in Lake Michigan, about six miles northeast of Milwaukee, a Coast Guard official said Tuesday.
The team's lifesaving mission — carrying unspecified organs from Milwaukee for transplant to a patient in Michigan — was cut short Monday when the Cessna Citation went down in 57-degree water shortly after the pilot signaled an emergency....
The university identified those aboard the plane as: Dr. Martinus "Martin" Spoor, a cardiac surgeon who had been on the faculty since 2003; Dr. David Ashburn, a physician-in-training in pediatric cardiothoracic surgery; Richard Chenault II, a transplant donation specialist with the university transplant program; Richard Lapensee, a transplant donation specialist with the university transplant program; and pilots Dennis Hoyes and Bill Serra.
After learning of the charges late Monday, School Board President Arlene Silveira issued a statement saying the board will reconsider the name if the federal investigation uncovers damaging information about Vang Pao.So, he's charged with federal crimes -- but it may not involve anything new. In other words, the School Board has already sorted through material that may be all the substance there is to the federal criminal charges. It seems to me that that Silveira's statement itself shows something is terribly wrong here. What an embarrassing admission coming from our school board president!
"Obviously if there is something that is negative and we would like to have a discussion, what we will do is have a reconsideration," she said.If there is something that is negative!
Silveira said the School Board will begin to investigate the "nature of the charges" today and then determine the next steps it will take.Here's the AP article about the federal criminal case:
Several dozen people were at the meeting to protest the school's name -- most showing up without knowing of the charges against Vang Pao. Many held signs declaring Vang Pao was a "war criminal" and a "killer."...
UW-Madison history professor Alfred McCoy and others have long alleged that Vang Pao presided over drug running and summary executions while working with the CIA on the so-called secret war against communists in Laos during the Vietnam War. Many Hmong and other researchers deny the allegations.
Authorities acted because weapons shipments were set to begin this month to areas in Thailand along the Laotian border, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. The buildup was in preparation for a coordinated set of mercenary attacks that investigators said were designed to kill communist officials and reduce government buildings to rubble, the complaint said....Back to the Cap Times piece:
"We're looking at conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Twiss said in federal court Monday.
He said thousands of coconspirators remain at large, many in other countries. Prosecutors said they believe all the leaders of the plot are in custody.
Vang Pao, now 77, led CIA-backed Hmong forces in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s as a general in the Royal Army of Laos. He emigrated to the U.S. about 1975 and has been credited by thousands of Hmong refugees with helping them build new lives in the U.S....
"No matter how strongly held their beliefs, citizens of the United States cannot become involved in a plot to overthrow a sovereign government with which the United States is at peace," Drew Parenti, FBI special agent in charge of the Sacramento region...
The defendants acted through the Lao liberation movement known as Neo Hom, led in the U.S. by Vang Pao. It conducted extensive fundraising, directed surveillance operations and organized a force of insurgent troops within Laos, according to the complaint.
Cher Peng Her, who spoke in defense of naming the school after Vang Pao, said later that even if the charges against Vang Pao turn out to be true, Vang Pao is simply defending his own people from a Laotian government that has sanctioned the killings, rapes and persecution of Hmong.So, now, oddly, Madison is the leading edge in appreciating anti-Communist military action. How could that happen? Well, you know damned well how it happened. What a strange place this is!
Her said President Bush used similar rationale for overthrowing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "Should we bring charges against our president for doing exactly what Vang Pao is alleged?" Her asked.
Joua Vang said Vang has fought communists for decades "for U.S., and the U.S. is charging him? For what reason? I don't see that it's right."
... I must confess that reading about Eric Alterman's brush with the law in New Hampshire gave me a happy jolt this morning, for the image of Alterman in handcuffs is not only funny, it is, on a conceptual level, just. This guy is one of the biggest pricks in American political journalism, a classic liberal elitist devoted to the US corporate state, and a firm believer in the "gatekeeper" role of what passes for intellectual culture in this country. And, naturally, Alterman considers himself one of the gatekeepers....Yikes. I had something to say about the Alterman arrest in my 7:15 post, and I considered going into my extraneous antagonism to Alterman, but decided to leave it at just a reaction to his presentation of the incident. But now that Dennis has raised the larger question, let me remind you of this post of mine, attacking Alterman for saying we need "some sort of, you know, blogging -- you know -- council, where we could condemn people." And this one. And this NYT column I wrote (free IHT reprint), where I said I "rankled" at his "impulse to control." So I've got to agree with Dennis that there's some poetic justice when the wannabe gatekeeper gets ousted.
"Ever since the beginning of blogging-time, I have worried -- in public and on blogging panels -- about the loss of the media's gatekeeper function . . . Particularly when the media profess to strive toward objectivity, punditry/gatekeepers play a crucial role. My problem with the punditocracy has never been that they are pundits, but that they are so incompetent at the job they do."Right. What we need are "competent" gatekeepers to make sure that the rabble know their place. And Alterman is more than willing to help keep this arrangement in place.
Sadly, Alterman got off easy, with not so much as a single baton strike to the gut, or a brief shot of pepper spray in the face.
Today, the Court has fundamentally redefined — or maybe just misunderstood — the meaning of “substantially impaired,” and, in doing so, has gotten it horribly backwards. It appears to be under the impression that trial courts should be encouraging the inclusion of jurors who will impose the death penalty rather than only ensuring the exclusion of those who say that, in all circumstances, they cannot....I don't remember ever seeing the fact that a judge was a Supreme Court clerk used to bolster his opinion. Apparently, you're "entitled to assume" some things. I think that whole paragraph, the last paragraph of the Stevens dissent, is just screaming look at all the conservatives who agree with me. I've got Burger and Rehnquist and Powell... and Kozinski, who practically counts as a Supreme Court justice.
Judge Kozinski’s opinion for the Court of Appeals in this case is solidly grounded on the entire line of our cases recognizing the basic distinction dramatically illustrated by Justice Powell’s opinion in Darden and by Justice Rehnquist’s statement in Lockhart. He surely was entitled to assume that the law had not changed so dramatically in the years following his service as a law clerk to Chief Justice Burger that a majority of the present Court would not even mention that basic distinction, and would uphold the disqualification of a juror whose only failing was to harbor some slight reservation in imposing the most severe of sanctions.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy and Breyer, JJ., joined, in which Scalia, J., joined as to all but footnotes 11 and 15, in which Thomas and Alito, JJ., joined as to all but Part III–A, and in which Stevens and Ginsburg, JJ., joined as to Parts I, II, III–A, and IV–B. Stevens, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which Ginsburg, J., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, in which Alito, J., joined.On the bright side: No one dissented.
Affirmative action in the University of Wisconsin System and state contracting would be abolished or significantly scaled back under legislative proposals to be taken up today by a committee of state lawmakers and citizens.(Do some people figuratively grow up in another country? Apparently, yes.)
One measure would draft a constitutional amendment that would prohibit state agencies and public universities from granting preferential treatment to any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin....
Other proposals, crafted by Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), chairman of the Special Committee on Affirmative Action, would:
• Require racial or ethnic minorities applying to the UW System or state contracting agencies to prove they are at least 25% that race or ethnicity to receive preferential consideration.
• Require racial or ethnic minorities applying to the UW System to demonstrate "knowledge or experience" of their racial or ethnic group to receive preferential consideration. If applicable, the applicant would have to demonstrate proficiency in a language other than English.
• Prohibit the UW System from considering the race or ethnicity of an applicant unless the applicant proves that his or her family makes less than 400% of the federal poverty level ($80,000 for a family of four)....
David Giroux, a spokesman for the UW System, said there was a "compelling need for diversity" in public universities and that it would be a shame for the Legislature to move against affirmative action, which he described as a "divisive issue."
"Diversity benefits all students, improving the quality of their education and their prospects for career success," he said.
Grothman disagreed.
"I think it's racist to imply that I'm going to learn something from you because your great-great-grandparents came from someplace else," he said. "Unless you literally grow up in another country, you're an American just like everyone else. You follow the Packers, eat McDonald's, and share the same tastes as everyone else."
The White House is not expecting a retirement, but it wants to be ready if a surprise announcement occurs, sources said.So there don't seem to be retirements in the offing this year, and I hope there are none. If there are, however, it will be an exciting political spectacle that I assume will be primarily about the 2008 election. As Greenburg indicates, the obvious strategic move for Bush is to defy what will be the Democrats' demand that he pick a centrist, and the key is to do it with a nominee that will make the Democrats look terrible opposing her (or him). Of course, we've already gone through this routine with Roberts and Alito, but that was: 1. before the Democrats got the majority in the Senate, 2. when the previous election was a positive one for Bush, 3. not on the eve of an election, 4. (assuming one of the liberal justices retires) not as likely to upset the balance on the Court, 5. not after 2 consecutive conservative appointments.
It's widely considered that the most likely candidates for retirement are liberal Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, although both have said emphatically that they do not plan to step down....
[A]dvisers are focusing on possible nominees who are believed to be solid judicial conservatives and would galvanize the base at a time when Bush desperately needs its support....
Leading Senate Democrats are already warning against solidly conservative nominees, and that could make confirmation difficult in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Still, some of Bush's political advisers believe he would be better off tapping a strong conservative who would rally the base -- especially a nominee with a compelling life story who would be difficult for moderate Senate Democrats to oppose.
A guy came over and asked me who I was and I told him I was a colmunist for The Nation and he told me I had to leave. I thought he was kind of rude, so I asked him his name, thinking it might go into Altercation the next day. He refused to answer me I asked again. He refused again. But I was following him out when he went to get a cop. The cop told me to leave the room and I did. We left the room, past where the people were handing out badges to go into the reception and I figured the entire drama was over. But the cop kept yelling at me to leave. I didn't understand. I thought I had left. I asked him to stop yelling, I had left. He kept telling me to leave. In retrospect, I guess he was kicking me out of the building and I didn't understand, but it was really mystifying and annoying and I told him I wanted to speak to his commanding officer. We went over to the commanding officer and I, calmly and politely, sought to explain that I didn't know why this cop was continuing to hassle me. The first cop kept interrupting me as I tried to explain myself and finally I turned around and said, "Can I please finish a sentence here?" That's when the first cop decided to arrest me. He handcuffed me behind my back and took me outside.... Anyway, I never refused to leave and the only time I raised my voice was when the first cop would not let me explain what I had thought was a massive misunderstanding to his commanding officer."I never refused to leave" seems to mean "I never said I was never going to leave." Can it possibly be the generally applicable rule that a person can stay put and discuss -- however politely -- whether the demand to leave makes sense? Missing from the account is whether Alterman was asked to show his press ID. Anyone could claim to be a columnist (or "colmunist") from The Nation, and the police had the responsibility to secure a building where the presidential candidates were going to appear. This is a serious matter. I can't understand why Alterman would want to make this difficult work any harder for them, and a display of belligerence would, I think, from their perspective, make him look more suspicious. Here's the New Hampshire statute:
I. A person is guilty of criminal trespass if, knowing that he is not licensed or privileged to do so, he enters or remains in any place.... III. Criminal trespass is a misdemeanor if:... (b) The person knowingly enters or remains:.. (2) In any place in defiance of an order to leave or not to enter which was personally communicated to him by the owner or other authorized person....ADDED: More here.
I’m ashamed to say it, but sometimes John Lennon’s melodies feel a bit underwritten, while Paul McCartney’s relentless cheerfulness is depressing. The very jauntiness I used to love as a girl feels as if it’s covering up a sadder subtext. And what’s bleaker than a brave face?Actually, that sounds rather emotional.
The whole experience is uncomfortable, like realizing you can beat your own father at chess or arm-wrestling. I don’t want to go back and find that the carcass has been picked clean.
Late in the afternoon of June 14, 2006... the usual attendees were surprised to discover a newcomer in attendance: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was one of the first to arrive and took a place on a love seat, one of the two couches in the room.... Clinton draped one arm around the back of the couch and chewed gum, a participant recalled....Snagging the love seat... chewing gum... doing the arm drape....
Two days later, [Levin] introduced [the alternative amendment calling for a phased redeployment] on the floor of the Senate. He was followed by Jack Reed, who said, “I join with my colleague, Senator Levin, and Senators Feinstein and Salazar, to offer this amendment.” Suddenly, Clinton showed up on the Senate floor, wanting to speak as soon as possible. Normally, the speakers go in the order of seniority, with the bill’s original sponsors getting the privilege to speak first. Waiting her turn to speak was one of the sponsors, Senator Feinstein. Senator Levin, who controlled the allocation of floor time for the Democrats, appeared flummoxed, a Senate aide recalled. But he agreed to Clinton’s surprise request to take the floor as the next Democratic speaker.This was odd because, according to the article, Harry Reid had told Feinstein that they wanted her as a sponsor because it was bad to have presidential aspirants as original sponsors.
Clinton’s first words took some insiders by surprise: “I rise in support of the Levin amendment of which I am proud to be an original co-sponsor.”
“We were puzzled,” the aide said, because no one had told them about Clinton’s sudden ascendancy to a leadership role on the measure. Indeed, just a few minutes earlier, Jack Reed, in his remarks, had not included Clinton in his list of sponsors.
The original text of the amendment filed in the Senate read “to be proposed by Mr. Levin (for himself, Mr. Reed, Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Salazar).” But off to the side, in handwriting, a single word would be added: “Clinton.” Her name was inserted, records show, on June 19, the same day that Levin unveiled his amendment with the other sponsors but not Clinton.
The dazzle of the diamonds might outshine any meaning Hirst attaches to it, and that could be a problem. Its value as jewelry alone is preposterous. Hirst, who financed the piece himself, watched for months as the price of international diamonds rose while the Bond Street gem dealer Bentley & Skinner tried to corner the market for the artist’s benefit. Given the ongoing controversy over blood diamonds from Africa, “For the Love of God” now has the potential to be about death in a more literal way.I found a way to laugh at death through art and commerce, and then, in the middle of the project, I saw I had connected myself to the production of death in the real world.
“That’s when you stop laughing,” Hirst says. “You might have created something that people might die because of. I guess I felt like Oppenheimer or something. What have I done? Because it’s going to need high security all its life.”Is something wrong with the contents of this man's skull? How do you explain that last sentence?! He has the decency to ask "What have I done?" but what should be the answer to the question -- it begins with "because" -- completely changes the subject to the collector's problem of securing the ultra-expensive object from theft.
On Sept. 12, 2004, the then-15-year-old was bitten by a bat after picking it up by its wings inside St. Patrick Catholic Church in Fond du Lac....Beautiful. Great perspective. She hasn't turned against the animals (or, I assume, from the church).
More than a month later, Giese was admitted to Children's Hospital with a fever of 102 degrees, double vision, slurred speech and jerking in her left arm.....
In the fall, she will be a freshman at Marian College, where she plans to major in biology with an emphasis on zoology. Her goal is to work with large cats at a zoo.
Giese says the bat bite has only strengthened her desire to work with animals, which she does daily with her own pets - Pepper the rabbit, pheasants Chicken and Duckie, dogs Maggie and Peanut. If she has her way, she'll soon have a goat and baby duck.
"... I haven't ruled out for all time thinking about politics again. It's just that the way it works now, I don't think that the skills I have are the ones that are most likely to be rewarded within this system. It's like a washing machine that is permanently set on the spin cycle. It doesn't stop spinning. That creates real problems for a politics based on reason."What?! You think this is spinning? You're spinning. You're always spinning. You're like a washing machine. Al Gore is grateful to those who have a good opinion of him, but you... you don't seem ready for reason, you know, reason, that process that yields a good opinion of Al Gore. Why don't you help him transform the conversation of democracy. De-emphasize imagery! You washing machine.
Friends have urged him to run for president again, but he wants to see a "transformation of this conversation of democracy" that de-emphasizes imagery and spin-doctoring.
"I expect it will take a lot more time," Gore said. "I'm grateful for those who have a good opinion of me, to the point where they think I ought to run again, but I am not convinced myself that's the best way for me to serve."
And unlike consumers looking for music and other media, viewers of pornography do not seem to mind giving up brand-name producers and performers for anonymous ones, or a well-lighted movie set for a ratty couch at an amateur videographer’s house....So do you want a nice couch or not? I wonder what it would take to before the idea of a good story would present itself as a strategy for success.
“People are making movies in their houses and dragging and dropping them” onto free Web sites, said Harvey Kaplan, a former maker of pornographic movies and now chief executive of GoGoBill.com, which processes payments for pornographic Web sites. “It’s killing the marketplace.”...
“The barrier to get into the industry is so low: you need a video camera and a couple of people who will have sex,” [said Paul Fishbein, president of AVN Media Network] ...
The more traditional pornographic film companies are not giving up, of course. They say they have an answer to the new competition: quality...
“We use good-quality lighting and very good sound,” said David Joseph, president of Red Light District, a production company in Los Angeles that has made films like “Obscene Behavior.”
Mr. Joseph said his company did not waste its time, or that of the viewers, on unnecessary plot lines.
“There’s not a whole lot of story — it’s basically right to the sex, but we’re consistent with the quality,” he said, noting that the company is also careful to pick interesting backdrops. “We use different locations, rooms and couches.”
“The old thinking says ‘the longer it takes, the harder you’re working,” says Lynne Lancaster, a founder of BridgeWorks, a business consulting firm. “The new thinking is ‘if I know the job inside and out and I’m done faster than everyone else then why can’t I go home early?’ ”Sounds right to me. Don't you want to get the benefit of your ability to get things done fast? Don't you hate the employer who mainly wants to see that you're slogging away all the time? Don't you hate when you feel like that overseer is buried in your brain, criticizing you for every digression and inefficiency?
A few companies are taking the concept of “watch what I produce, not how I produce it” even further. At the headquarters of Best Buy in Minneapolis, for instance, the hot policy of the moment is called ROWE, short for Results Only Work Environment.
There workers can come in at four or leave at noon, or head for the movies in the middle of the day, or not even show up at all. It’s the work that matters, not the method. And, not incidentally, both output and job satisfaction have jumped wherever ROWE is tried.
In other words, what looks like wasting time from where you sit, could be a whirl of creative thought from where I sit. .. [A]ll the energy that’s been poured into trying to force everyone to work at the same pace and in the same way — it seems that’s the real waste of time.
With an arsenal of bad posture and loud sighs, soft paunch and hushed, almost groveling tones, Mr. Zalevsky, 57, has turned his trial into something of a humility contest....
In court, his main adversary is Jonathan S. Kaye, an assistant district attorney with a jarhead haircut and the blocky features of a man who plainly knows how it feels to be punched in the face. Mr. Kaye has matched the defendant’s demeanor with a choice of soothing, schoolmasterly tones over harsh rhetoric.
“Does everybody think they’re able to focus on the issues of this case and not get distracted by extraneous things, such as the defendant representing himself?” he asked potential jurors. Later, he put his concern more bluntly: “I may come across as — not a bully, but — if he doesn’t follow the rules of evidence, it’s my obligation to object.”
For jury selection, Mr. Zalevsky arrived from jail in striped slacks, tan socks, stitched shoes, tortoiseshell glasses and an aging sweater, all variants of blue or brown but none quite matching. He rubbed his lip idly, scanned the panel, scribbled notes and seemed to try to ignore Mr. Sweeney out of existence.
This will get less attention than Amanda Marcotte, though, since most people, upon hearing about Chris Dodd's campaign blogger, will respond by saying "Chris Dodd is running for President?"So Chris Dodd is interesting enough to bother to say that he's uninteresting. Glenn doesn't link for the purpose of noting that something isn't worth paying any attention to. And the incantation "Amanda Marcotte" conveys a lot of meaning. It says this is a story about how a blog that got someone a political job contains some nasty writing that could be used to drive him out of that job.
... I'm a little conflicted about this. Not because Marcotte attacked me [link] -- that's life in the blogosphere -- but because I like to see bloggers use blogging to snag political jobs, and, on the other hand, I'm wary about this new activity of wrangling bloggers for the benefit of political candidates. [ADDED: Marcotte was hired by the Edwards campaign to act as a liaison to bloggers. I call that "blogger wrangling." "Edwards" is a correction.] For you bloggers seeking jobs: I hope you get them. But for you bloggers staying in this noble enterprise: Preserve your independence and don't let yourself get manipulated, even by some blogger wrangler you loved when she was one of you.So, Browner-Hamlin is a young guy who did the blogger thing and got a job. Please don't try to get him fired on my account. But a little advice to the new bloggers who are starting out and hoping to leverage themselves into political jobs: Don't fall into the lazy blogger approach of calling your opponents f*ckwits and assh*les. It was never good writing. It's a cheap way to seem spicy, and it may seem cool to some readers, but it doesn't show off your skills even now, when you're just getting started writing. The fact that later it may screw up the career you're trying to promote is a huge other reason not to do it, but it was never good. Think of better, more original ways to express yourself. You should want to distinguish yourself through writing. Calling people assh*les... it's been done.
In that post of mine that Marcotte savaged, I really was trying to hurt this emerging profession of blogger wrangler. I want bloggers to keep their distance from candidates and not succumb to flattery and seduction. Oh, the candidate actually cares about me, wants to talk to me. It's fine to take advantage of some access, but don't come back like a sucker and blog about how nice the candidate was to you.
Posts
I don't know enough about Laurie David to form a real negative opinion (just saw her on tv during the Sheryl Crow tour). However, Larry is very much the true life version of George, and so he probably is not suited for marriage.
Maybe this will help his show.