“You want to make sure he’s not a chronic confessor,” the [unnamed] detective said. Many books are about those who confessed to crimes they did not commit...
"The only time I'm unhappy is if I've done something that hurt the prospects for the success of our effort," he said of his frame of mind, adding that his errors "make me want to kick myself in the seat of my pants."I await the memoir.
"I've had a couple of [gaffes] during the campaign, which have haunted me a little bit, but I'm sure before this is over will haunt me a lot," he said.
"You did the work, you've been a whore," [says Louise]. "You'll never get rid of that name. They'll always call you names, so be one."...Is that their real name: Fokkens?
"This is the story we wanted to tell," directors Gabrielle Provaas and Rob Schroder said in a statement. "Louise and Martine are real old-fashioned Amsterdam hookers: liberated, cheerful and not scared of anybody."
Delta Upsilon fraternity members said they'd had a problem with trespassers prior to an encounter...A bottle was heard to break, but the committee that imposed the suspension did not determine that the bottle was thrown (or aimed at the women). Note that there were no racial epithets: It was social-class taunting.
According to an evidence packet released Friday morning, two members said they'd found heroin syringes on the property, 644 N. Frances St., and a Bose speaker had been stolen that night....
According to a letter from one of the women, she and a friend decided to take a walk to the lake in the early morning of March 16 and unintentionally walked on the fraternity's property. The members told the women to get off their property.
At least one of the members asked them, "how did it feel to be peasants?" and "How did it feel to be poor," the letter said. The members also told the women that they were among the one percent of the rich and the women should leave....
Originally the university said the fraternity members used racial slurs in addressing the women, but the committee said it could not corroborate that allegation.Why did the university make it racial? (And why did the women even report this incident? If I were walking on someone's private property and they told me to get off, I'd quickly say "I'm sorry" and leave, and feel embarrassed.)
Police technicians did not scour the room or take photos until later. There was no immediate preservation of possible clues. Visitors tracked in and out. His family took Brooks' cell phone. And, unless this was a suicide, a killer had precious hours to elude capture.The dead man, Leslie Brooks, was 59.
Even the clothes Brooks wore had been stripped off and discarded, as is customary when a funeral home picks up a body. The clothing was retrieved, but also is now most likely tainted as evidence.
"I am pissed off," Shakira Bonds, 20, one of Brooks' daughters, told the Free Press on Tuesday. "I don't know who to go to."
According to the Secretary of State's website, McCotter had turned in 2,000 signatures, the maximum allowable. Congressional candidates must turn in at least 1,000 and no more than 2,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.He's trying to get on the ballot in the Republican primary for reelection in his congressional district. This is a screwy problem to have. We loved McCotter as a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, but he never had a high enough percentage of support to get into the debates, where — I imagine — he would have been fabulous.
The Secretary of State didn't say how many signatures McCotter could be short by, but spokeswoman Gisgie Gendreau said Friday night that duplicate signatures were among the problems with McCotter's petitions. When duplicates are found, both signatures are bounced from the petitions.
From Canada to Colombia to Brazil, oil and gas production in the Western Hemisphere is booming, with the United States emerging less dependent on supplies from an unstable Middle East....What will the world be like when we don't depend on the Middle East anymore? They depend on our dependence. What will they be like if/when we don't particularly care?
Oil produced in Persian Gulf countries — notably Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq — will remain vital to the world’s energy picture. But what was once a seemingly unalterable truth — that American oil production would steadily fall while the United States remained heavily reliant on Middle Eastern supplies — is being turned on its head....
Production has risen strikingly fast in places such as the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, and the “tight” rock formations of North Dakota and Texas....
Perhaps the biggest development in the worldwide realignment is how the United States went from importing 60 percent of its liquid fuels in 2005 to 45 percent last year. The economic downturn in the United States, improvements in automobile efficiency and an increasing reliance on biofuels all played a role.
There's a joke about a man who loses his bike outside his synagogue and goes to his rabbi for advice. "Next week come to services, sit in the front row," the rabbi tells the man, "and when we recite the Ten Commandments, turn around and look at the people behind you. When we get to 'Thou shalt not steal,' see who can't look you in the eyes. That's your guy." After the next service, the rabbi is curious to learn whether his advice panned out. "So, did it work?" he asks the man. "Like a charm," the man answers. "The moment we got to 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' I remembered where I left my bike."
Excerpts from David Maraniss' Barack Obama: The Story dealing with the elaborate drug culture surrounding the president when he attended Punahou School in Honolulu and Occidental College in Los Angeles. He inhaled. A lot.(The Maraniss book doesn't come out until June 19th. You can buy it here.)
Most of Obama's classmates could not see how hard he was working to reconcile the contradictions that life threw at him. They thought he was cool, smart without being pedantic, and seemed to have his act together. To Mark Parsons, who came to know him mostly because they both smoked and spent a lot of time together huddling outside the student union, Obama seemed "almost Zen in walking through all the chaos in our dorm". He displayed one trait that showed he wanted to be a player though: he wore a lot of "stupid hats". He usually wore them cocked, to look cool. Obama also had a peculiar smoking style, a little affectation. He turned his wrist up and cupped the cigarette between thumb and index finger. He smoked a cigarette the same way he smoked a joint. "I have a sense that he smoked because he was addicted, as I was," Parsons said. But, Obama told Parsons, there was another reason. "I remember him telling me he would quit after he got married. He didn't want to quit smoking because he said he would gain weight, but after he got married it would be OK to gain weight. I think it was mostly a joke."
Perhaps what's at work is some sort of gender-related "empathy" triggered by the prosecutor's decision to "overcharge," as the three justices might have thought, and then to continue to try to obtain a conviction on an unjustified charge. (I can also imagine -- I stress the word, because I have absolutely no inside information -- Justice Kagan thinking the case close on the merits and deciding that it would be neat to have the Court line up along gender lines. For what it's worth, I note my personal judgment that Justice Sotomayor's dissent is tighter than the Chief Justice's opinion for the Court.)Tighter?! I hope that's not a gender-related notion, professor. I've read both opinions, and I think the Chief Justice's majority opinion is plenty tight.
The Journal Sentinel found enough misreported assault cases in 2011 alone that violent crime would have increased 1.1% instead of falling 2.3% from the reported 2010 figures, which had their own errors.
The US Department of Labor requires large employers to collect diversity statistics annually and suggests they be based on employees’ classification of themselves. In cases in which employees do not self-identify, federal regulations allow some administrators to make judgment calls on the correct categories using “employment records or observer identification.’’The linked article also recounts the history of Harvard Law's perceived diversity problem circa 1990, just before Warren arrived. Lawprof Derrick Bell had gone on "strike" (unpaid leave) to protest, some students brought a lawsuit (unsuccessful), and the U.S. Department of Labor audited what the article calls "Harvard's diversity practices" and found 10 violations. Warren arrived in 1992 (as a visiting professor), at which point she "had been listing herself for seven years as a minority in a legal directory often used by law recruiters to make diversity-friendly hires." She was still on that list when Harvard Law gave her a permanent position in 1995.
The administrator responsible for Harvard Law School’s faculty diversity statistics from 1996 to 2004, the period in question, was Alan Ray, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who, like Warren, has fair skin, blue eyes, and Oklahoma roots.
But Ray, now president of Elmhurst College in Illinois, said in a statement that he “did not encourage the Law School to list any faculty member as one particular race or ethnicity, including Professor Warren.’’ He further said through a spokeswoman that he “never encouraged any faculty member to list himself or herself in a particular way.’’ Ray added that Harvard “always accepted whatever identification a faculty member wanted to provide,’’ a characterization another highly placed former Harvard administrator backed up.
In 1996, law school news director Mike Chmura, speaking to the Harvard Crimson, identified Warren as a Native American professor.I find it hard to believe that — after all the uproar over diversity in 1990 — that the law school could quietly pass off Warren as its "first woman of color." There were so many people who were genuinely angry over the lack of diversity. Why would they have tolerated the school making such a lame assertion? Wouldn't they have wanted to keep up the pressure? If you were at Harvard in the 1990s, what do you remember about this?
In 1997, the Fordham Law Review, citing Chmura, referred to Warren as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color.’’
As [Thomas] Sowell points out [in "A Conflict of Visions"], we have a word for things in the "unintentional" + "harmful" quadrant: "negligence." We generally blame people for acting negligently. So, why shouldn't we praise people for doing the opposite — causing unintended benefits?
“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”
"Because my mother told me so. This is how I live. My mother, my grandmother, my family. This is my family. Scott Brown has launched attacks on my family. I am not backing off from my family.”So it seems the argument is: She believes something she heard from her family, and if you question the factual soundness of what she believes — or ask additional questions about the consequences of the fact believed — that you are attacking her family.
[Advised by his lawyer to] take a plea deal rather than having the "he said-she said" case go to trial... [Brian] Banks pleaded no contest to one count of forcible rape, was incarcerated for about six years and had to register as a sex offender.ADDED: "I will go through with helping you but it’s like at the same time all that money they gave us, I mean gave me, I don’t want to have to pay it back."
In a movie-worthy twist, his former accuser got in touch with him via Facebook after he left prison. The two eventually met in person.
According to court papers, she admitted to him she lied but later refused to tell prosecutors the same thing lest she have to give back the $1.5 million she and her family won in a civil suit against Long Beach schools.`
The foreperson’s report was not a final resolution of anything. When the foreperson told the court how the jury had voted on each offense, the jury’s deliberations had not yet concluded. The jurors in fact went back to the jury room to deliberate further, even after the foreperson had delivered her report. When they emerged a half hour later, the foreperson stated only that they were unable to reach a verdict. She gave no indication whether it was still the case that all 12 jurors believed Blueford was not guilty of capital or first-degree murder, that 9 of them believed he was guilty of manslaughter, or that a vote had not been taken on negligent homicide. The fact that deliberations continued after the report deprives that report of the finality necessary to constitute an acquittal on the murder offenses....
But even if we assume that the instructions required a unanimous vote before the jury could consider a lesser offense—as the State assumes for purposes of this case, see Brief for Respondent 25, n. 3—nothing in the instructions prohibited the jury from reconsidering such a vote. The instructions said simply, “If you have a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt on the charge of [the greater offense], you will [then] consider the charge of [the lesser offense].” App. 51–52. The jurors were never told that once they had a reasonable doubt, they could not rethink the issue....
A crash reconstruction team from the Wisconsin State Patrol worked at the scene to try to determine what the driver of the city Parks truck may or may not have been able to see as she came over a small hill and struck the sunbather....UPDATE: The sunbather died from complications from the injuries.
Those who sunbathe at the park said they are shocked by the incident.
"A lot of times I come laying out here. I'm pretty relaxed, kind of in nap mode, so a public place where you can lay down -- it's kind of scary to think about," said [one woman].
All the big GOP players now know Walker’s story by heart. Republican billionaires and megadonors are suddenly well-acquainted with him as well.The recall has put Walker in the position where he must advertise and promote himself, which might have been awkward before — and it was never his thing. TV viewers are getting barraged with Walker ads — and almost nothing for his cash-strapped opponent, and we're tolerating it because he was forced into having to defend himself. What a nice opportunity for him!
And if he wins in the June 5 recall against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) — which polls suggest he’s likely to do — his trajectory will very likely be even higher.
Not only will Walker be lionized by his GOP colleagues for embarrassing Big Labor and forcing the left to pour cash down the drain in a presidential election year, he’ll be credited with making the state more competitive for Mitt Romney.
Not bad for a rookie governor who has never been known for his charisma or burning political ambition....
We do not, on our side of the aisle, attempt to rid the world of our enemies by personally impugning them or destroying them or shutting them down.... [I]f we don't like a radio or TV show, we turn it off. If they don't like it, they try to shut it down. If we don't want to eat vegetables, we don't eat 'em. If they want to eat vegetables, they want everybody else to do what they do and not do what they don't do....
All I know is... that success is the sweetest revenge. When they try to wipe you out, when they try to shut you down, just like this last time they tried to. They thought they had me. It was nirvana. They thought the day had finally come, and they are now so discombobulated that they failed, that they don't understand it. Their days were ruined. And of course I take satisfaction in that. Another way I deal with it. "Well, I chose to do this. I chose to be public about what I believe and who I am."
The same thing happens in the brain when a human conducts a non-visual task—like memorizing a list of words—while being shown some sort of visual "distractor" stimuli. Interestingly, when watching normal, non-smut films, extra blood is sent to the visual cortex.Now, why would this be? Sex is nonvisual for women — that seems like the working theory. If so, porn movies don't make sense: watching causes not watching.
Some of it is that the Court had to overturn precedent, but... this was not a particularly venerable precedent and it was only one in a broader body of case law. Some of it is the process — relisting, ordering new briefing, etc.... Some--and I suspect a lot — of it is recency bias — the most recent case is the most important case and the one to praise or criticize....Another theory: Criticism of that case merged nicely with the pervasive liberal rhetoric scaring us about the power and influence of corporations.
The development came weeks after what had appeared to be a break in the decades-old death when detectives honed in on a Soho basement in search of human remains...
At the time the boy vanished, the basement housed the workshop of Othniel Miller, who has recently come under scrutiny in the case....
The police have long had a prime suspect in the case, Jose A. Ramos, a convicted child molester who lived on the Lower East Side and was an acquaintance of a woman who worked for the Patzes as a baby sitter. Mr. Ramos remains imprisoned for molesting a boy in Pennsylvania, but has denied kidnapping or killing Etan.
Attendees complained the underground venue “stank”, with perspiration “dripping off the walls” and the rooms too crowded to even see the former president.
One, who called it the “worst party ever” described how “angry people” were waiting in the queue outside while high-profile guests were admitted, and another condemned the event as “unpleasant."
Hines also had struck up friendships with two of Mary’s best friends, Kerry Kennedy and Glenn Close, according to her tweets.
The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” blonde even tweeted about talking football with Mary and Bobby Jr.’s 11-year-old son, Aiden....
Throughout Hines’ Twitter tear, Mary was isolated in her Bedford mansion, drowning in sorrow, alcohol and debt....
“She faced losing her kids, and his relationship with Cheryl Hines was humiliating. At an event last month, he walked the red carpet with Cheryl as a couple and took the kids,” a source told The Post last week, referring to the Riverkeeper Annual Fisherman’s Ball in late April.She didn't curb her enthusiasm.
President Obama’s two statements urging the Supreme Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act came the week after the vote was presumably taken by the justices in conference. Since then we have been subjected to a seemingly endless stream of pundits, professors, and politicians urging the Court for “nonlegal” reasons... to uphold the Act. All of these statements presuppose that the conference vote was to invalidate the mandate, or there would have been no reason to speak now. Hence, the specific pressure on Chief Justice Roberts by Senataor Leahy and Jeff Rosen is implicitly urging him to change his vote from that which he cast in the conference.I think Randy is implying that the news of the vote leaked from the conference.
The flier angered teachers, who were already targeted by a flier earlier this year accusing them of having a "Marxist, globalist agenda," said Ted Lewis, regional union representative for Rock County teachers.ADDED: I've lost count of how many times pseudonymous lefties at the Isthmus forum have put up my name and my salary along with some argument that I ought to suffer some negative consequence. (Isthmus is the Madison, Wisconsin "alternative" newspaper.)
"It's trying to intimidate them and make them feel guilty for earning salaries," Lewis said. "They're creating this witch hunt for people who engaged in their civic duty."...
Chris Kliesmet, executive administrator of Citizens for Responsible Government, said his organization isn't responsible for the content of the flier, but said... "The question in the back of a lot of people's minds is, 'Are my children being indoctrinated?'"
If there had been a difference in the trajectory of the arrow by 2 centimeters, "there could have been a very bad outcome....They haven't found out who shot the arrow.
"She could best be described as a 7-year-old bundle of strength... She was composed, she was calm and she was quiet."
Aryanna suffered wounds to her left lung, diaphragm, spleen, stomach and liver. All of her organs were preserved, and she is expected to experience no permanent dysfunction, Densmore said.
Whether [they] win in court will presumably depend on how the judicial branch weighs the public health concern involved. It’s true that religious institutions can’t be exempt from every regulation they don’t like, and maybe the courts will accept the argument that it’s worth sacrificing a measure of religious liberty in order to marginally expand the number of insurance plans covering contraception.At least he says "presumably," and perhaps he's trying to express the view that the courts don't follow legal rules but approve of laws that seem like a pretty good idea in relation to how troublesome they are to people who like to think they have rights.
The playable doodle features his signature Moog synthesizer, with all the accompanying bells and whistles. A quick-start guide on moogmusic.com provides details on how to play the doodle, which also allows users to record their creations and share them with friends. A demonstration is also available in the video below.So record something and tell us about it in the comments.
The tale of how Google escaped a full accounting for Street View illustrates not only how technology companies have outstripped the regulators, but also their complicated relationship with their adoring customers....Google rivals government. Government would like us to willingly, eagerly surrender information, to have no choice but to trust it, to be relied on for everything, to never be held accountable... and — with all that — to be adored.
People willingly, at times eagerly, surrender this information....
Although Google thrives on information, it is closemouthed about itself....
“We don’t have much choice but to trust Google,” said Christian Sandvig, a researcher in communications technology and public policy at the University of Illinois. “We rely on them for everything.”
That reliance has built an impressive company — and a self-assurance that can be indistinguishable from arrogance. “Google doesn’t seem to think it ever will be held accountable,” Mr. Sandvig said. “And to date it hasn’t been.”
The conversion of blacks in this country has been a challenge, given the church’s turbulent history of excluding people of black African descent. Until 1978, black males were not allowed to become priests or bishops; dark skin was considered a biblical curse. During the 1960s, when Mitt Romney’s father, George, made civil rights a personal priority during his time as Republican governor of Michigan, his progressive views put him at odds with church doctrine. Over the last decades, however, there has been an aggressive campaign to diversify, and racism in the church — which was itself once powerless and persecuted as a cult — has been repeatedly denounced...And here's a joke that, according to the NYT, is "making the rounds" with black Mormons:
Mr. Obama calls Mr. Romney to say he thinks it is time the country had a Mormon president. But just as Mr. Romney is thanking the president for the apparent concession, Mr. Obama interrupts him to say, “My baptism is on Saturday.”
In a statement Monday, Chisholm said [David] Budde told him his wife, who is a county employee, put the sign in the couple's yard about a week ago.I put "defends" in quotes because it's the Wisconsin State Journal's word and because I don't think it really is a defense. It's more just Chisholm saying he can't do anything about it. He's more disconnecting himself from Budde than defending him.
"I do not regulate or control the constitutional freedoms of my employees' families in their private lives," the district attorney said. "They have the right, under state law, and in this case, county civil service rules, to express their political views as does any other citizen."
[I]t's pretty accurate: private equity firms exist to squeeze liquidity out of companies, then syphon off that profit to investors. The metaphor works on a deeper level as well. Just as with vampires, Americans are morbidly fascinated by hyperbolic success. We have an uneasy relationship with late, post-bailout capitalism: it's sexy, it's parasitical, it's dangerous, it's the product of unseen forces, it carries the promise of immortality at the cost of one's soul.Let's remember Booker's word: nauseating. That appeal to emotion and unreason — seen vividly in Cox — is nauseating.
Contributions to his 2002 campaign from venture capitalists, investors, and big Wall Street bankers brought him more than $115,000 for his 2002 campaign. Among those contributing to his campaign were John Connaughton ($2,000), Steve Pagliuca ($2,200), Jonathan Lavine ($1,000) — all of Bain Capital....So 3 guys who work at Bain gave Booker a total of $5,200.
[Booker] and his slate also jointly raised funds for the “Booker Team for Newark” joint committee. They received more than $450,000 for the 2002 campaign from the sector — including a pair of $15,400 contributions from Bain Capital Managing Directors Joshua Bekenstein and Mark Nunnelly.So there's another $30,800, for a total of $36,000. Just doing the math. Does Think Progress think that contributions from the financial industry taint the opinions of the politicians? Because... what's the number for Obama?
Forty percent (40%) now think George Zimmerman, who has been charged with second degree murder in the Martin shooting, acted in self-defense. That’s up 25 points from 15% in March and up 16 points from 24% last month. Thirty-six percent (36%) remain undecided, compared to 55% two months ago.It's heartening to see the capacity of people to receive new information and to reassess their beliefs. I was impressed even back in March that people resisted — as much as they did — the efforts in the media to stamp public opinion with a crude, racialized template.
Alvarez asked if he could search the motor home, and Armstrong said no.
Armstrong agreed to wait for a police dog to be sent to the scene, but while waiting for the dog Armstrong approached Alvarez and said he had changed his mind and agreed to the search.
Inspecting a bed in the motor home, Alvarez noticed a plywood plank with scratched and tool-marked screws and removed the screws and plank. He found two duffel bags, a brown paper bag and a black cooler pouch. Each contained heat-sealed bags of cash, which was later found to total about $815,000. Investigators who processed the money said it smelled strongly of cannabis.
Armstrong was arrested but denied knowing anything about the money, only that he had $4,000 in traveling money and was returning home to Madison.
The robotic software did have disadvantages, the researchers found. For one, students found it duller than listening to a live instructor.Duller than a live instructor! Good lord, we teachers provide some mild amusement. But the students are fooling with the internet or at least daydreaming, so it may only be the illusion of relatively less dullness.
Some felt as though they had learned less, even if they scored just as well on tests.We make you feel you've learned, even when we haven't. It's the empathy, I bet. Robots don't care. But I'm sure they could pretty easily tweak the robotics to give comparable cues to the student and stimulate the same feeling of having learned.
Engaging students, such as professors might by sprinkling their lectures with personal anecdotes and entertaining asides, remains one area where humans have the upper hand.Oh, come on, you could program the robots with much better jokes-n-anecdotes than the professors. I mean, the one thing we professors have is that we might say anything — the spontaneity. If that's a human being up there, then she might be saying what she's saying now not because she's programmed, but because she just thought that. She responded to something that a student said. But I think you could program a computer to have lots of material and to put things together spontaneously. What's different is that the student knows it's just built into the program, but the human-being teacher actually had a human experience with the student.
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