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The following is an interview conducted by Joel B. Pollak of Breitbart News. It is an extensive and compleat overview of the new book by Mark Levin, "The Liberty Amendments: Restoring The American Republic," published by Threshold/Simon & Schuster.
I just finished reading the book, and it is a vital edition to the canon of the liberty movement, as well as to an understanding of our Constitution. I wholeheartedly advise reading the book first, reading the below interview second and then reading the book once more with an eye toward the answers that Levin provides below to questions that will undoubtedly arise in your mind during your reading of the text. Or, for a quicker read, you can read the interview first and then the book second, again with an eye toward the answers to questions that will arise as you read the text.
A fruitful read, indeed! –SB
Breitbart News Interview: Mark Levin and The Liberty Amendments
by Joel B. Pollak 12 Aug 2013
Breitbart News: With The Liberty Amendments, you're attempting to launch a movement to amend the Constitution. Do you expect to be successful, and how long would it take?
Levin: What I hope to do, at least in some small way, is begin a discussion among those of us who believe the Republic is unraveling, and find a way to re-establish the Constitution and reclaim our heritage. When you look at the massive debt and reckless monetary policies of the federal government; the ability of five Supreme Court justices to pervert the Constitution and impose via fiat their personal policy preferences on the whole of society without any recourse; Congress's legislating, through massive bills, outside its enumerated powers and its delegation of unchecked power to a massive and growing bureaucracy, which legislates thousands of times each year by regulatory fiat; and the increasing authoritarianism of presidents who issue executive orders to create their own law and also blatantly rewrite statutes by interpretation and execution (or not) based on whether they agree with them or not; I think this and much more evinces the growing and steady decline of constitutional republicanism.
And I've concluded that Washington is incapable of reforming itself, which should seem fairly obvious. After all, it has designed the federal Leviathan, which is getting bigger and more aggressive. And I was thinking: What has this federal government become? It is not a constitutional, federal, or representative republic, as our Framers understood those institutions. I believe the federal government is increasingly operating outside the Constitution and that we are in a post-constitutional period. This is how justices, presidents, and members of Congress are able to concoct and then impose such monstrous laws as Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, among thousands of other laws and rules every year, on an unwitting population.
This book is written for those of us who fear what is happening to our nation–the increasing authoritarianism and abuse of the individual–and refuse to accept these events either by pretending they are not serious or as the inevitable decline of a great republic. This has been building for decades, since at least the advent of the Progressive era, and, in my view, requires a resolute, decades'-long effort to reverse course. So, the question arises, what do we do? For those of us who care, my book explores some of the possibilities. And they are provided in the Constitution itself.
The Framers knew better than others what it was like to confront actual tyranny. So why wouldn't we look to these greatest men for answers? So, that's what I did. If you look at Article V of the Constitution, it includes, among other things, two processes for amending the Constitution. The first process has resulted in twenty-seven amendments: two-thirds of both Houses of Congress propose an amendment, and three-fourths of the states are required to ratify it. In the second process, which is every bit as legitimate, two-thirds of the states decide to convene a meeting for the purpose of proposing amendments, which are then sent to the states for three-fourths ratification. It is a process that essentially bypasses Congress. Let me be as clear as I can: this second amendment process provides for a convention of the states to propose amendments, which in turn must be ratified by three-fourths of the states; it does not provide for a Constitutional Convention. Furthermore, because three-fourths of the states must ratify proposed amendments, there would be no "runaway convention" overturning the entire Constitution, as some might fear monger. I fully expect the most vociferous critics of this constitutional process to be among those who support or have contributed to all manner of constitutional evasions and distortions in favor of the increasing centralization and concentration of power, which is precisely what the Constitution was established to prevent.
Now, this is something I want to discuss at length on my program, and which I discuss at length in the book. I believe our strongest weapon is the Constitution, and therefore we should do all we can to reacquaint the American people with their Constitution. This is how we push back against a mindset that insists they surrender so much of their liberty to federal institutions; it is a mindset pounded home each and everyday by self-serving politicians, in academia, by the media, et cetera. Alexis de Tocqueville, and many others, eloquently warned about democracies acquiescing to the gradualism of soft tyranny and its destructiveness on man's nature.
The amendment process of which I speak was proposed and enacted by the Framers, who considered it crucial to accomplishing the ratification of the Constitution, for it was specifically established to address the possibility of an oppressive federal government. In particular, George Mason insisted two days before the Constitutional Convention's end that there needed to be a lawful and civil way to address an oppressive federal government, which he believed inevitable, short of violence and revolution. The Convention delegates in Philadelphia agreed. Thus, the Constitution provides that at least two-thirds of the states could ultimately get together, essentially bypassing Congress, and propose amendments to the Constitution which, in turn, all the states would then consider, three-fourths of which would be required to ratify them. This is no easy task. But it is the path the Framers provided in the Constitution to lawfully and civilly address an increasingly oppressive federal government, which ultimately would not control itself. So, we turn to the Constitution to save the Constitution, and restore the Republic.
As I write in the book, I admit that this is something that, originally, I was skeptical about. But having now thoroughly studied the intent of the Framers in this regard, it is crystal clear they put this process in place to provide us recourse under the kind of circumstances we find ourselves confronted with today. I need to underscore that this is not some radical or novel idea, although it has been largely ignored. It will be ferociously opposed by the proponents or beneficiaries of an all powerful federal government, or dismissed by those who delude themselves that nothing of this sort can happen in America and, as they will undoubtedly claim, Americans are resilient and we have overcome worse. But it is those who seek to further impose this alien design on our society who are the target of this amendment process. Their objections, albeit self-serving, are understandable. As for the others, let me say it is because Americans are resilient that I believe we are not destined for all eternity to suffer a miserable existence, which is precisely why we must take matters into our own hands by embracing the Constitution. It was President Reagan who famously stated: "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us that we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."
The book is called The Liberty Amendments for a reason. I have proposed eleven amendments for people to think about, not because I am all-knowing and all-powerful, but because they are my suggestions to encourage people to think about or, even better, to become active in reclaiming their heritage through this state convention process. The amendments I propose are not abstractions, but concrete suggestions, based precisely on what I believe, through research and scholarship, the Framers intended for this republic. I discuss each amendment at length in the book, and it is impossible to do them justice in a short interview. But it is worth remembering, whereas the statists promise a utopian paradise that conflicts with our constitutional order as justification for an ever-growing federal government, and many Republicans embrace the status quo, as designed by the statists– I call them neo-statists–I say let's enthusiastically embrace the Constitution rather than fear it. Let's be positive about it. It offers us liberty, opportunity, security. These amendments are all aimed at reclaiming our founding principles by unraveling the federal Leviathan and reducing the excessive and growing power of the ruling class.
Do I think this is doable, and how quickly? Absolutely, or I wouldn't have written the book. The Framers thought so, because otherwise they wouldn't have bothered including this process in the Constitution. Will it happen tomorrow? Absolutely not. But I dare say that at some point it will. Because the situation in this country will reach a point, with lost liberties and economic dislocation, that I believe the people will look for a legitimate and non-violent means by which to save themselves. The nation's demise is not inevitable, unless we do nothing. We can prevent this, if we, the people, have the desire and motivation to do so. People want to know how we can do it. And the only way I can think of–I'm open to others–is by turning to the Constitution and the recourse the Framers left us.
One other point. Look at the statists. They play for keeps, and they are resolute. They never surrender, and they are never done with their social engineering and societal experiments. For example, for a century they have pushed national health care. They finally achieved it with Obamacare. Yet, Obamacare is just a start. It is a platform from which they intend to pursue endless lifestyle calibrations. The individual will be tormented and coerced endlessly. We conservatives, on the other hand, get impatient. We are too quick to abandon the battlefield. We must be as resolute, as defiant, as ambitious for liberty and constitutionalism as the statist is for the opposite. As I said earlier, there is an American spirit, and we must rekindle it and spread it. We need not accept this, we must not. We have children and grandchildren to think about; we must think about future generations, and not just the next two or three. We must encourage people to engage in the Constitution in the way that our Founders intended.
Breitbart News: Let's get right into the book. I am going to ask you questions about each of your proposals, playing devil's advocate to some extent, to bring out some of your ideas.
On your first proposal, which provides term limits–isn't the judgment of the people enough? What if there is a great conservative legislator–wouldn't you want him or her to remain in Washington?
Levin: For every great one there are twenty-five who are not. Here's the point. No one Senator, Congressman, or President is going to save the Republic or advance society in some spectacular way. It is the civil society, where people acting in their private lives, involving themselves in voluntary economic and community activities, that is the strength of the nation. The civil society has to be strong if a country is to be strong.
In Egypt, Gaza and these other places, constitutional republicanism doesn't work and can't, because they have no civil society. In America today, the problem is that the federal government is devouring the civil society. The result–the redistribution of power from the citizen to the sovereign, and an endless array of rules and regulations involving darn near all that we do.
But the notion that we have to rely on one president or five legislators–that is the problem. We're not going to find national salvation or reformation in one politician, nor should we. We ought not to [depend on] them to lead us to the Promised Land. Furthermore, in a world of imperfect people, and imperfect institutions, you have to have a system, as the Framers understood, to deal with this. Their system was to diversify power through a matrix of checks and balances, the enumeration of duties and roles, and limitations on central authority vis-a-vis the individual, including in the Bill of Rights. During the early period of the House of Representatives, fifty percent of Representatives served one term. Senators were chosen by state legislators. So, yes, we might lose some great Congressman or Senator, but the rotation of citizens in and out of public office was considered essential to the Framers, and for good reason. As you can see today, we now have a professional ruling class, led by governing masterminds, and an army of bureaucrats, much of which is immune from the voters' reach. And not just the Framers, but great philosophers on whom they relied, such as Locke and Montesquieu, would reject the notion that a representative republic could co-exist with or survive under an entrenched ruling class exercising enormous power over society.
Breitbart News: What about Madison's point in the Federalist Papers that a national government encourages the concentration and promotion of talent? Wouldn't we struggle to open up the process and attract the best talent to government if we make it difficult for politicians to have political careers?
Levin: Right now we have effective lifetime terms, people who serve three, four, five, and six Senate terms, or twenty or more years in the House. There's many reasons for this including gerrymandering, incumbents' doling out tax dollars, et cetera. Regardless, how does any of this open up the process and encourage consensual government and citizen participation? It doesn't. The goal here is to make sure representatives are more representative by spending more time with the people in their districts and less time cloistered in Washington, surrounded and influenced by a different group of people peddling their interests. There is a growing disconnect.
Let's take Virginia, for example. You have the state Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, bringing the first lawsuit challenging Obamacare; yet the state's two Senators voted for it. And this happens not only because of the different influences, but because–and this is related–the Senate is not constituted as the Framers' had established. Before the 17th Amendment, most Senators were elected by state legislatures. That way the states have direct input in the federal legislative process. Today, senators treat their own states as they do any lobbying group–no better, no worse–and the states have no effective voice in the federal system. The Constitution would not have been ratified by the states had the Senate been constructed as it is today. And we should keep in mind, the 17th Amendment was a project of the Progressives, along with the federal income tax, both being enacted in 1913. I think it's time to take a sober look at that.
Breitbart News: That's a good segue into your second proposal–to repeal the 17th Amendment and have Senators elected directly by state legislatures. Doesn't that limit the importance of the primary process–which has been critical for conservative candidates?
Levin: My proposal would make the process more interesting and relevant, and I believe we would see more people getting involved in the governing process because they would care very much about their state senator or delegate if they knew that these officials were going to participate in selecting the next U.S. Senator. The way the Senate is constructed today is nonsensical. The Framers did not want both houses to be elected directly. They wanted the Senate to represent the interests of each state.
As for the primary system, I would encourage people to get involved in it, and that would not change with respect to election for the House. The broader problem is that the federal government is so powerful, and getting more so, and its authority increasingly concentrated, that we need to look at how and why the system has broken down. So, this is about more than primary election, or one election cycle, within a system that is distinct from what the Framers intended. In my view, there needs to be a rebalancing of the system to undo the centralization of power–a reform that reestablishes the constitutional construct that has been undermined by the statists.
Breitbart News: In your third proposal, you provide for a supermajority to override Supreme Court decisions, and for term limits for Supreme Court justices. Wouldn't that prevent a conservative court from blocking unconstitutional legislation passed by an out-of-control majority, as in the early New Deal period?
Levin: I'm proposing these amendments because of the very problem you're talking about–because we haven't had a majority of originalists–and the only legitimate interpretative method for any justice is to apply the language, intent, and meaning the Framers applied to the Constitution. Otherwise, what is the standard? Personal preference? Result-oriented political outcomes? All dressed up as justice? This isn't about Republican or Democrat, this is about a stable and honest standard for interpreting and applying the law. If you look at the Court's record from the start, it is mixed. There have been some great decisions and some diabolical decisions, and everything in between. The men, and now women, who serve on the Court are no different than the rest of us. They have biases and imperfections and frailties. They are human beings. The purpose of lifetime tenure was intended to ensure that justices would be unencumbered by politics or daily events. But what are we to do if a majority of the justices, only five lawyers, conduct themselves otherwise?
The goal here is several-fold.
One: As Thomas Jefferson got older, he commented on the problems of the Supreme Court and how it had quickly evolved into an institution foreign to the Framers. And he wasn't alone. James Madison did, too. Politics aside, how do we decide who should serve on the Court? I strongly oppose the notion of electing judges. That would most certainly politicize them beyond what we have today. I support the notion of an independent judiciary. But what we are talking about here is not judicial independence, but judicial supremacy, where five justices can set national policy without any recourse whatsoever. Why should that be the case, especially since the Constitution provides no basis for this?
Two: Is it is possible that a conservative or liberal president would be able to put several justices on the Court? Yes–and it is possible today. The difference is that under my proposal, they will rotate out. I'm looking at this from a systemic view, trying to apply the Framers' mindset to it, not a political or party view. During our history, we have had some great, adequate, and awful justices, as would be expected. But the awful justices, including those who've served their final years even with dementia, cannot be removed unless they're impeached, which is a dead letter. This is no way for the third branch of the federal government, with enormous power, to operate.
Third: As I point out in the book, there are several examples of justices who, over the years, have demonstrated outrageous behavior, either due to bigotry, lack of ethics, mental ailments, etc. And there have been those who've blatantly conducted themselves with an ideological agenda. Whatever the reason, the justices can maintain their independence, as the Court would as an institution, even with term limits.
My amendment also empowers Congress, with a three-fifths vote of both Houses within a 24-month period, to override a majority opinion of the Supreme Court. The reason is straightforward: Why shouldn't the larger body politic participate in the great decisions that impact the broader society, as opposed to only five lawyers, if there is enough sentiment in the country for a different outcome? And it's five today going in one direction–tomorrow, with the change of one justice, the Court swings into a completely opposite direction. I'm not proposing that we democratize Court decisions, which would be disastrous, or that Court decisions be easily overridden; rather, I am suggesting that we provide a way for society to steady itself, in certain exceptional cases, without having to rely on the infallibility of five lawyers. In such matters, there must be a form of recourse. The Dred Scott decision, the most notorious of all, comes to mind.
If you think about it, this is not a radical approach at all, but a matter of common sense based on experience–a rebalancing that promotes republicanism.
Breitbart News: Your next two proposals limit spending, and limit taxation to 15% of income. Is there a distinction between that and a flat tax–you're still giving Congress discretion to create a progressive income tax within that 15% limit, aren't you?
Levin: What I suggest is a 15% top limit–and that there can be no other form of taxation, including the death tax, corporate income tax, nor can there be a national sales or value-added tax (VAT), etc. I suppose that within the 15% limit, if Congress wanted to create four hundred different brackets, they could. Also, in principle I'm not opposed to a "fair tax" [i.e. national sales tax that eliminates income and payroll taxes], either–my problem is the amount of money that the federal government takes from an individual. With a 15% top tax rate, the vast majority of what the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does will end. The vast majority of the IRS will end, too. Again, I'm not opposed to a fair tax, though it's more difficult–I like it very much. But that's something that can be fought out at a state convention.
My amendment on spending builds on an idea of Milton Friedman–that is, to limit spending to a particular percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The figure I chose is 17.5%. I picked 17.5% because if you look over relatively modern history 17.5% of GDP is significant enough.
One other thing I propose, which may seem modest but is actually important, is moving up Tax Day from April 15th to the Monday before the Tuesday of federal elections. And that's because there needs to be a real connection between the payment of taxes and voting for federal officials. You really can't look at the calendar and find two dates much further apart than our current tax and voting days. The ruling class in Washington doesn't want people to connect the reality of confiscatory taxes to the allure of grand promises. But my experience is that after I pay my taxes, I'm ticked off, and I want to know where my money is going. I think it would have great appeal to a great number of people.
These two amendments address a dire condition: the reckless federal spending, borrowing, and money printing, which threatens to destroy this society and is already an unsustainable burden on future generations, and the insatiable demand for more and more of the individual's property. It will only get worse, much worse. Congress will not and cannot reform itself; it has set the nation on this path. Why should we accept this outcome?
Breitbart News: In your sixth proposed amendment, you suggest limiting the federal government by requiring, among other measures, that each government department be re-authorized every three years. What about the Department of Defense? Why risk the loss of that critical department?
Levin: Why should it be a new risk? If Congress wanted to abolish the Department of Defense today, it could. What my proposal does is require an affirmative vote. I don't think Congress would vote to eliminate the Department of Defense. But I do think they should go on record every three years to defend all of the departments and agencies that now exist; otherwise they should sunset. I wonder if members of Congress can even name all the departments and agencies that exist. The point is that we pay for these entities, and they issue endless regulations and rules, and they should not operate without having to defend their very existence every few years.
That's not the only part of my reform. What's also required, in my opinion, is an institutional way to ensure that Congress has a final say on regulations that have a significant economic impact on the nation, so departments and agencies can't impose their will by fiat and without oversight. Even though Congress already has this power, it does not exercise it given its own internal and procedural chaos. I believe they've reigned in a federal regulation perhaps once or so. My amendment compels the establishment of a joint committee of members of the House and Senate, appointed by various leaders in the House and Senate; moreover, before any department or agency can issue a regulation or rule that has a significant economic impact–$100 million or more. If the joint committee votes yes, the regulation proceeds; if it votes no, it's killed; if it doesn't vote within six months, the proposed regulation is considered defeated. This is a small yet important step in revitalizing separation of powers and representative government, forcing Constitutional congressional review of decisions it had delegated to executive entities.
In addition, states will also have a say in federal regulations, since so many of them affect their sovereignty and citizens who reside within their boundaries. States can also override regulations that have a significant economic impact ($100 million or more) by a three-fifths vote. Moreover, [according to the tenth proposed amendment, below] states can, by a three-fifths vote, overrule a federal statute. The purpose is not the dissolution of the federal government, but the true sharing of responsibilities–and the kind of balancing and checking of authority necessary given the ubiquitous nature of the federal government. The states will actually have input into their own fate.
Breitbart News: Would your seventh proposal, which aims to promote free enterprise by limiting the Commerce Clause, nullify laws such as Obamacare?
Levin: What these two amendments [i.e. the seventh and eighth] provide is the re-establishment of private property rights and arrangements, and the affirmative promotion of rationing of commerce and trade. The reason the Framers met in Philadelphia to begin with was out of concern that the states were obstructing commerce, one between the other. I not only restate the original purpose of the Commerce Clause, I make clear what it is not intended to do by stating that is it not a plenary power granted the federal government to micromanage economic activity and private property rights. Furthermore, the amendment provides that what goes on purely within a state–not including navigable waters and so on–is no business of the federal government, period.
What would this do to Obamacare? What would this do to any law? Over time, when an amendment becomes law, the government has to adjust to it. The Supreme Court would have to abandon its own precedent for what the Constitution now compels, and develop a new interpretation–one which actually comports with the original purpose of the commerce clause. So, a new case, if brought properly, could be a big problem for Obamacare.
The proper application of the Commerce Clause, as intended by the Framers, would create an enormous burst of economic productivity, opportunity, wealth creation, etc. That is why I want to repeat, as I said early on: we need to think like Americans again, and not be cowed like defeated subjects. The idea is "ordered liberty," not "ordered tyranny," which is where we're headed.
Breitbart News: And that brings us to the eighth proposed amendment, which expands the Takings Clause to protect private property. In your book, you discuss many cases, but I noticed that you did not mention the famous Kelo v. New London case, in which the Supreme Court said that a local government can use its powers of eminent domain to take private property for private use.
Levin: First of all, there is a big debate among lawyers about takings and outright seizures. But there is also the problem of regulatory takings. There are so many rules, and the Supreme Court has given enormous leeway to the federal bureaucracy, that very rarely do people succeed in court when challenging regulations as unconstitutional takings of property. In essence, the taking must be nearly a 100% seizure for them to win in most cases. My amendment says that the federal government must reimburse property owners for regulatory takings that cost over $10,000 in market value. That will have the salutary effect of also limiting how abusive the government bureaucracy has been in harassing private property owners and usurping their interests.
Unlike Kelo, my amendment would restrict the taking power–and would apply to takings at all levels of government, not just the federal govenrment. You'll notice that I don't specify the federal government in the amendment. I say "government." I also make the point in the chapter, near the end, that states may not be happy with this amendment. However, citizens don't care if it's the federal or state government seizing their property, or denying them legitimate use of their property. They want their property protected. This amendment would apply to all levels of government. Obviously, the states would have to agree to reform themselves under the state convention and ratification processes via this amendment or one like it.
Breitbart News: The ninth amendment that you propose would make it easier for states to propose and ratify constitutional amendments, requiring only two-thirds of the states to agree to ratification. Would that not make it easier to pass bad amendments–such as has happened in the past, with the 18th Amendment?
Levin: We've had some bad amendments, we've had mostly good amendments, but here's the problem: the Constitution has already been and is already being amended, and often, through the back door if you will. So much of what the federal government does has no constitutional basis. The most recent and notorious example is Obamacare, where every branch of the federal government acted unconstitutionally. Therefore, this is not an academic debate. As I say, we live in a post-constitutional period. The fact is that the Constitution has been mangled and disassembled. This was the design of the Progressives. Woodrow Wilson, among the most progressive, said it in so many words that we had to abandon the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for a centralized government, much like several European nations he preferred, for only then could there be human advancement. This is so wrong on so many levels. Since then, we have moved further and further from our founding principles because we've become increasingly unmoored from the Constitution.
It's very difficult to get three-fourths of the states to amend the Constitution. It's not difficult to get five Supreme Court justices to do so, or one president through an executive order, for which we, the people, have little recourse. Under these circumstances, it's necessary to confer authority on the states to serve as the buffer between the federal government and the individual, as originally intended. So, the reform would not only lower the bar to two-thirds, but also allow the states to propose amendments themselves. It is by no means a simple accomplishment, but it is less difficult. We should remember that even with Obamacare, fewer than thirty states joined the brief against challenging its constitutionality, and there were Republican governors who wouldn't join the brief, such as Chris Christie. We couldn't get three-fifths of the states to even sign the brief. Clearly, two-thirds is still a challenging majority. No, I don't think my amendment lowers the bar too much, but I do think it has already been lowered way too much when we have every federal branch and department contravening, evading, and amending the Constitution without the benefit of using the formal amendment processes.
I say on my program from time to time that the Supreme Court, for example, is an ongoing Constitutional Convention without the benefit of input from the states or the people. Abraham Lincoln, after the Court's pro-slavery Dred Scott decision, lamented that two private parties could bring a case and thereby set policy, by means of a Court ruling, for the entire nation.
Breitbart News: Your tenth proposal allows states to override a federal statute by a three-fifths vote. But is that really necessary if you restore the power to elect Senators to the state legislatures?
Levin: Theoretically, you are correct. But I don't know which amendments will or won't pass or even which amendments will be proposed at a state convention. I can't be 100% certain. While some overlap, there is not complete overlap. And the issue of the Senators may be the most controversial of all, even though it shouldn't be. As early in our history, the people vote for state representatives and state senators who, in turn, select the federal Senator. They would not longer vote directly for senators. It returns Congress to the bicameral body the Framers intended and established–where the House is directly elected and the Senate is made up of members chosen by the state legislatures. We need both for the proper functioning of the constitutional order. I reiterate: it needs to be understood that the states were intended to be a buffer between the people and the federal government, and the selection of Senators by the state legislatures actually helps preserve liberty.
Today states have no power against the federal government. It's a complete turn of events. And this enables the statists to more easily nullify provisions of the Constitution. Another example: promises by the Federalists to introduce in the First Congress what became the 9th and 10th Amendments of the Bill of Rights were imperative in persuading skeptics in the state ratification conventions to support the Constitution. Little attention is paid to them today. The statists have all but nullified the Commerce Clause and the Takings Clause, as briefly mentioned earlier. The list is very long. What I'm arguing for is a constitutional revitalization as the means to restoring the American Republic.
Breitbart News: Finally, your eleventh proposed amendment seeks to protect the vote, including through such measures as federal voter photo identification. But isn't that what the left wants–to federalize voting?
Levin: And look how far they've succeeded. But apart from what they want, the problem here is that Congress and the Supreme Court, among others, have made a mess of voting. Let me remind you that if this proposal were to go to a state convention, and passed by a two-thirds of the states in attendance, then a three-fourths vote for ratification by the states, at that point obviously the states would want it since they did it. It's not me imposing it on them, and not the federal government. The states need the Constitution to bring order to elections–particularly for federal elections involving members of Congress, the President and Vice President. It will have no effect on the states' own elections unless states choose to adopt them for their own elections. But some of these states are setting earlier and earlier voting periods for federal elections, and using all kinds and varieties of voting technologies. There is real and legitimate concern about whether only those who have a right to vote are voting. In order to register and vote, the amendment provides for basic and minimal proof and procedures. Furthermore, such a process is preferable to having the courts sort these things out through lawsuits.
Breitbart News: Among the many amendments you propose, there are no amendments on social issues–none on abortion, marriage, or prayer, for example. Is there any particular reason you did not include those?
Levin: These amendments don't proscribe social issues or any other issues. They provide, for the most part, a systemic approach to redress the dissolution of our constitutional process–that is, their primary focus is unraveling the concentration of power in the federal government, revitalizing federalism, and providing recourse for notorious federal acts. But obviously there are provisions for overriding federal decisions with supermajority votes by the states as well as a direct amendment reform empowering two-thirds of the states to directly amend the Constitution. Thus, the book does not provide a laundry list of specific issues but a more representative process for addressing them.
Breitbart News: In closing, some talk radio hosts focus on media criticism, others on current events. You're offering a specific agenda. In the absence of Republican leadership, are you playing the role of a leader of the opposition?
Levin: I don't view myself as leader of the opposition, or frankly as the leader of anything. Where I see gaps, or lack of motivation and enthusiasm, I try to fill them. My words are my words, whether through the microphone or in my books. I'm not really trying to be the leader of the opposition. I have spent my entire life studying, researching, thinking about, writing about, and talking about our founding, our heritage, our principles, and their application to current events and times. If I can help advance a resurgence and a revitalization in support of the Constitution and individual liberty, leader or not, that is what I am going to do. And of course, when you're a radio host, it's crucially important that you be entertaining, that you know you are in a business and need to be profitable, and that you be the absolute best you can. There is no conflict in doing all these things. And based on my vast and wonderful radio audience and readership, it seems to be working.
The Liberty Amendments is different from my other books. I use our history to propose actual reforms aimed at restoring the Republic. These are not easy steps, given where we are today, but I believe they are worth a great debate and effort for the shape of our nation is changing in ways that are unacceptable, and fast.
Breitbart News: You have a vision of liberty that may no longer be shared by many Americans. Are we so far gone, as the American people, that we have lost the virtue necessary to be self-governing?
Levin: We're going to find out. But there's no reason to accept the most negative portrayal of Americans. A good number of our fellow citizens have surrendered to, or been conquered by, the federal government–either through subsidies and entitlements, or by coercion through taxation and penalties. It is always easier to go along to get along. And there are also the utopian ideologues, who insist on destroying our society and redesigning it–and we, the people. This has been going on for some time, and has intensified in recent years. We must resist it or it will devour us.
The statists' goal has always been to reshape man and his nature in pursuit of the ever elusive paradise. No matter how they try, as they have throughout history, they fail. But the misery is horrific. They demand that the individual surrender his free will–and some of us, I think millions of us, aren't prepared to do it. One thing that I use on my radio show to give people hope is some historical perspective. During the Revolutionary War, about one-third of the colonists supported the Revolution, and about one-third supported the Crown. The other third was relatively indifferent. If you look all over the world, at the various revolutions and uprisings and so forth, typically it's not 51% of the people rising up–it's the activists that are crucial. And so much of the what is done by the federal government is without input from, or in defiance of, the people. Most of us have no idea what laws and regulations are being promulgated in our name. By the time their real effects are felt, it is too late.
I am not willing to say: it's all over, we're doomed, there is nothing we can do. I would rather say: let's fight. Let us do everything we can do to preserve this society right now, before it really is too late. Whether by Abraham Lincoln, or Joseph Story, or Ronald Reagan, we've been warned time and again that if America is to be destroyed, it will be destroyed from within.
The purpose of The Liberty Amendments is not only to give people hope but guidance. Here's hoping it helps breath life into a vigorous effort to reclaim our Constitution and restore the Republic.
PLEASE NOTE: See the following for more:


text:
Finance and Responsible Investment
Module description
This module introduces a range of finance issues that corporations face. It equips you with the fundamentals of corporate finance theory to challenge finance experts. You learn how best to tackle finance issues you are likely to encounter, particularly how to source finance and how to appraise investments.
Internationalisation: Corporate finance theory and frameworks are internationally applicable, but different countries are developing sustainable and responsible investment approaches at vastly different paces. The teaching materials and case studies explore the major differences in financial structuring, sustainable performance measurement, and corporate governance systems in major economic blocks.
Sustainability: By presenting weekly topical finance stories, you are encouraged to question and develop your own views on how corporations achieve a balance (or not) between social and environmental objectives alongside financial objectives.
Employability: Finance is a key element in many management decisions. This module develops your skills and confidence to understand and challenge finance experts, particularly when questioning the balance of financial returns and returns to other stakeholders.
Ethics and Corporate Responsibility: The module examines how behavioural finance and corporate governance issues impact business financing decisions in current corporate finance transactions.
Research in Teaching: Corporate Finance Theory and Frameworks are sourced from recent scholarship and research in the field of Finance and Investment.
Full module specification
|Module title:
|Finance and Responsible Investment
|Module code:
|Module level:
|Academic year:
|Module lecturers:
|Module credit:
|ECTS value:
|Duration of module:
Duration (weeks) - term 2:
4 days
Module aims
This module provides you with a foundation in the key principles of corporate financial management and their practical application, covering the issues of risk and return, portfolio analysis, the cost of capital, capital budgeting and capital structure. The module focuses mainly on evaluating alternative investment and funding options. The module will also consider responsible investment – the integration of ESG issues into investment evaluation. Including or excluding companies, partnering with stakeholders and evaluating ESG factors, whilst still aiming for a good return, can raise multiple and complex questions. The module will include reference to the performance of SRI funds, companies and projects with an environmental, social or CSR agenda.
ILO: Module-specific skills
- 1. explain and evaluate the concepts of risk and return in financial markets.
- 2. demonstrate how to construct a portfolio and calculate returns using asset pricing models.
- 3. appreciate the principles of valuing securities and how their sensitivity to interest rates can be assessed.
- 4. explain the concept of cost of capital and how to estimate this for a firm.
- 5. evaluate the attractiveness of real investment projects based on expected cash flows and cost of capital.
- 6. assess the challenges of introducing ESG factors in investment decisions.
- 7. evaluate the evidence on SRI funds and risk and returns in the context of green companies and projects.
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
- 8. develop theoretical arguments based on analytical reasoning.
- 9. rigorously analyse problems in finance.
- 10. interpret financial data and problems in the light of established theories.
ILO: Personal and key skills
- 11. plan and manage independent study and research, and communicate effectively in writing.
- 12. make effective use of learning resources, databases, spreadsheets and associated tools.
- 13. critically analyse problems in academic and practical contexts.
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
|Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities
|Guided independent study
|Placement / study abroad
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
|Hours of study time
|Scheduled Learning and Teaching
|Lectures & facilitated group discussions
|Guided Independent Study
|Reading, Research, Writing
Formative assessment
|Form of assessment
|Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)
|ILOs assessed
|Feedback method
|Practical Exercises - case Studies and Quizzes
|3 x 3 hours
|1 - 13
|Correct answers
|Case Study 1 and presentation (group)
|3 hours
|1 - 13
|Cae solution and presentation proforma
|Case Study 2 and presentation (group)
|3 hours
|1 - 13
|Case solution and presentation proforma
Summative assessment (% of credit)
|Written exams
|Practical exams
Details of summative assessment
|Form of assessment
|% of credit
|Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)
|ILOs assessed
|Feedback method
|2 hour closed book exam
|1 - 13
|Written feedback
|written assignment
|2500 words
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
|Original form of assessment
|Form of re-assessment
|ILOs re-assessed
|Timescale for re-assessment
|2 hour resit exam
|1 - 13
|term 3
|Assignment (Individual)
|2500 words
|1 - 13
|6 weeks from briefing
Syllabus plan
Different types of finance and features of modern financial management. Risk and return. Portfolio
theory and asset pricing. Bonds. Interest rate risk. The cost of capital. Capital budgeting (including
NPV and IRR) and cash flow estimation. Capital structure. Derivatives and risk management.
Applications in the context of sustainability project investments and green/ethical funds.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Brigham E and J Houston (2010) Fundamentals of Financial Management (Custom Version), Sth Western Cenguage Learning.
Krosinky, C and Robins, N (2008) Sustainable Investing: The Art of Long-Term Performance. London: Earthscan.
Module has an active ELE page?
Origin date
Last revision date

subset: commoncrawl


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I just uploaded all the pictures I have of the Christiansen family relatives. Here is my tie to the Christiansen family.
There is me.
Sandy is my mother.
Norwood is her father.
Lillian is his mother.
Martha Christiansen was her mother. The same one I referred to in the past that Lillian gives no emotional record in her journal concerning her death. She was born in 1879 in Fredrickstad, Norway. She and her parents immigrated to the United States arriving in New York on the 2 Oct 1889. It was a long route getting here as in the early 1880's they moved to Melbourne, Australia. After about 5 years there, they moved back to Norway. It was then that they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then moved to the United States. They found their way across the United States by rail and were sent from Salt Lake to Cache Valley. They settled and homesteaded near Richmond, Utah. Martha's parents had 10 children. Surprisingly, all of them lived through the move (the one's who were born) to Australia, back to Norway, to the United States, and across the country. They would only have one child die and that was the last child born near Richmond. If anyone has more information on this family, I would certainly be interested. I am especially interested since some of the children married husbands with common names which makes it hard to chase down, or they fall off the map and apparently out of the records of the church so they probably were not active.
Here is the family in full.
Olle Christiansen 1853 – 1900. He was born in Trygstad, Norway, died in Richmond, Utah.
His wife from 1874 is Constance Josephine Eliza Jorgensen 1857 – 1932. She was born in Drammen, Norway and died on a sightseeing tour in Portland, Oregon. She is buried there. Her parents Olavus Jorgensen and Hanna Mathea Christensen also came to Utah. They died and are buried in Richmond, Utah.
Walborg Christiansen 1875 – 1951 Born in Fredrickstag, Norway; died in Salt Lake City, Utah. She married to Charles Christian Anderson and lived in Salt Lake all her days.
Martha Christiansen 1879 – 1961 Born in Fredrickstag, Norway; died in Logan, Utah. She married Herbert Coley.
Eivelda Christiansen 1881 – 1892 Born in Melbourne, Australia; died in Richmond, Utah.
Constance Christiansen 1883 -1953 Born in Melbourne, Australia; died in Pocatello, Idaho. She was married to John Rocky Clawson and Charles Roy Huff.
Henry Owen Christiansen 1887 – 1932 Born in Fredrickstag, Norway; we don't know where he died. Church records have his exact death date but no location. I believe he moved to Washington State and was married to Anna Wilder Hooser, but am not sure.
Rhoda Christiansen 1890 – 1965 Born in Richmond, Utah; death location is also unknown. I believe she was living in either Vancouver, Washington or Nyssa, Oregon at the time of her death. My Great Grandmother was writing to her in 1962 in Nyssa and in 1963 to Vancouver. We have three marriages, none of which I am sure; George R Davenport, Edward Holman, and Peter Pappas.
Roy C Christiansen 1892 – 1892 Born and died in Richmond, Utah.
Jennie Christiansen 1894 – 1949 Born in Richmond, Utah; we don't know where she died. We assume her husbands were as follows; Peter Dee June, a Mr. Ewing, Orval Charles Sherwood, and Junior Albert Shirley.
Myra Christiansen 1896 – 1897 Born and died in Richmond, Utah. There is another Myra Christiansen in church records born 2 years later, but I have no confirmation it is this girl. Plus this girl is missing in the 1900 Census so she is either dead as the records and family tradition says, or who knows what.
Ole Loren Christiansen 1898 – 1977 Born in Richmond, Utah; died we assume in Oakland, California. The dates and everything match, but I would like to have some contact with a family member or something to confirm it. His spouses we believe are Sara May Strong and a Florence.
Anyhow, this line is a hard one to chase. It is often misspelled as Christensen, Christinsen, Christianson, and so forth. Plus there are so many of these other names it makes it tedious work to sort them out. So I hope for some communication with a family member to open the door on these. (If you are reading this and are related, please contact me! Leave a comment with your e-mail or contact me directly, please) This family has too many holes in it for how I like to do things. But it seems to be so difficult to do.


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Product development today is all about fast deliveries, quick responses, cost optimization and quality end products—parameters that Scrum promises to deliver. Scrum is hence the new age product development gospel that every competitive organization is keen to embrace. Which is why they need certified and experienced professionals who understand the framework and have the expertise to leverage it for the enterprise.
A Professional Scrum Master™ is one such individual who knows how to manage the workflow effectively, create motivated and intelligent teams, and handle complex tasks while ensuring a collaborative project environment that promotes productivity and maximizes business value. In other words a Professional Scrum Master™ is a value enabler in Scrum teams and a critical contributor who ensures project success in high-performing Scrum teams.
A PSM certification validates the holder's knowledge of Agile and Scrum practices and makes them industry-ready. The PSM Certification is a well-recognized credential applicable across sectors and industries and highly valued in the Scrum community. A successful PSM has a holistic understanding of the Agile software development methodologies and unmatched expertise on Scrum and its applications. The globally-acclaimed PSM certification not only betters your perception of servant leadership but also helps you serve your team in an efficient manner.
A PSM certification takes your career to new heights and makes you an expert in applying Scrum principles effectively in your real-time projects. The chart below is an indication of the growth and popularity of the PSM certification and career prospects.
Disclaimer: All figures and statistics in this document were updated in September 2019. Current figures may have changed.
Reap the rewards of a PSM certification at an individual and an organizational level today!
Forbes recently compiled a list of the 25 highest-paying jobs in the US and the Scrum Master jobs ranked the highest. Clearly, professionals with the PSM certification could lift their earning potential manifold compared to their non-certified counterparts.
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Training from a Scrum.org endorsed training institute.
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On successful completion of the PSM training, you will receive a password from Scrum.org via email. This password is your access to the exam. It has no-expiration date and is valid only for one attempt.
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Start preparing with our free mock tests.
Attempt the online exam
Attempt the 1-hour online open-book exam consisting of 80 questions that include MCQs, MAQs, True/False questions.
Get the PSM certification from Scrum.org
Scrum.org provides the PSM certification with lifetime validity once you pass the PSM assessment with a minimum score of 85%.
How to motivate and lead a team of Scrum specialists who bring the benefits of Scrum to projects.
Gain a deeper knowledge of the fundamental aspects, roles, and attributes of the Scrum framework.
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Providing a wide range of resources like tutorials, articles, interview Q&A and Practice tests for all the courses.
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I really enjoyed the course given by Russell Miller. The course was very thorough. I really liked all the course knowledge activities. I feel like I was really prepared to take the PSM 1 Assessment. Taking the course via Zoom was great experience as well. Online learning is here to stay.
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All-in-all this has been an impactful training. The trainer - Shirley Santiago was very experienced, and was able to leverage past experience and get others involved in the conversation. The structure of the training was extensive enough to support us for the certification exam.
Great Trainers! The training content, pace and approach taken met the participants needs from learning to passing the exam.
Here is why you should choose KnowledgeHut to help you get PSM certified:
Knowledgehut is one of the best platforms in the industry today and what makes us stand apart is our expert trainers and Scrum certified masters, along with interactive workshops and a focus on enhanced learning techniques, Scrum activities, team-based exercises etc., all included into the course curriculum.
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Yes, you get access to a wide library of video classes and one-on-one interactive sessions with the trainers for helping you understand the subject matter better.
No, there is no online/virtual course for this. This training follows a very experiential format with plenty of exercises and hands on sessions that can be conducted well in a classroom format.
It is easy to enroll for classroom training through online. There are several options to pay either through your debit/credit card that includes Visa Card, MasterCard; American Express or - via PayPal. Payment receipt will be issued to the candidate automatically by email.
The venue will be listed on the KnowledgeHut website under the selected workshop. If it is not, then you can please contact our supporting team.
Yes, but this needs to be done at least 10 days prior to the training start date.
Note: In some instances, it also depends on the location, trainer, discounts/offers availed.
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We offer a variety of discounts with the dates and time that fits your requirements. The larger the group, the larger the overall discount. Our discounts vary depending on various factors such as the size of the group, training location, etc.
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To ask further questions, please send in an email to email@example.com, and we will answer any queries you may have!
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Expect a big stink over in midtown today. Advocacy group Teens Turning Green are planning a protest at Abercrombie & Fitch's Fifth Avenue location in New York to speak out against the chain's use of chemical-heavy scents in stores.
We're not talking about over-indulgent spraying. Unlike Abercrombie's typical flak -- which commonly pertains to loud in-store stereo volume, risque bill boards, and the like -- the group claims that the levels of the fragrance toxicity in the stores actually carries a serious health risk.
"We as teens feel it is unacceptable that Abercrombie and Fitch customers are unknowingly being exposed to harmful chemicals by simply walking into the stores," Jessica Assaf, co-organizer and president of the Turning Green Chapter at New York University, recently told Stylelist.
Reportedly, Abercrombie & Fitch pumps cologne through store ventilation systems and diffuses it through track lighting. Teens Turning Green argues that chemicals contained within those scents (some of which remain absent from bottle indredients lists) are toxic for consumers.
Backing up Teens Turning Green in the fray is a flotilla of do-gooder organizations from the American Fertility Association to Physicians for Social Responsibility, in addition to Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
In response, Abercrombie & Fitch took to its Facebook page to defend its fragrance practice, stating: "Abercrombie & Fitch's iconic fragrance, Fierce, is an important part of our in-store experience and something our fans around the world love us for." In addition, the brand insisted that the oil chemicals within the fragrance comply with the standards set by the International Fragrance Research Association.
Considering the press the Fifth Avenue protest has generated, we'd bet there are more than a few folks who'd take issue with Abercrombie & Fitch's scenting -- especially those passing by the store who may have no intention of going inside (and aren't counted as A&F "fans," per se). As such, we wouldn't be surprised if this small protest in New York serves as a signal of things to come.


text:
If You Want To Compete With Free, This Is What You Need To Know
from the not-just-cash-money deptWhen it comes to competing with piracy, one of the talking points of copyright maximalists is that content creators "can't compete with free." These people complain that because pirates don't have to cover production costs, competing with them is a losing venture. What these people have not learned, despite our many attempts to teach them, is that price is not the only cost considered when consumers choose between buying legally and pirating. Over at Gamasutra, one expert blogger, Lars Doucet, has shared a very profound look at four "currencies" people consider when making such a choice.
The problem with most piracy debates is that the only "cost" they discuss is money-dollars.Lars explains what these are as follows:
This is wrong because there are at least four currencies involved here, not just one (money-dollars).
I propose the following:
- ($M) Money-dollars
- ($T) Time-dollars
- ($P) Pain-in-the-butt-dollars
- ($I) Integrity-dollars
For the purpose of this article Money-dollars will be denominated in USD, Time-dollars will be denominated in hours, and Pain-in-the-butt-dollars will be denominated in SI standard units of "amount-of-aspirin-I-have-to-take-after-beating-my-head-against-the-wall-for-an-hour." Feel free to measure Integrity-dollars in Hail-Marys, or hours spent lying awake at night.Using these new variables in the consumer decision-making process, we can see quite clearly that even though the pirates have content creators beaten on the money-dollars aspect, there are still three other currencies through which content creators can compete. So let's take a look at these other currencies and see exactly how content creators can leverage them.
First, we have Time-dollars. This is how long it takes the consumer to get from deciding he wants the product to enjoying it. Any road block in this process increases this cost. So the goal as a content creator is to reduce that time. The easiest way to reduce the time cost is to take your content to the consumer. The internet is an amazing tool to do just that. People spend a lot of time online and use a variety of tools on it. For movie and television, people are spending their time on Netflix, Hulu and Youtube. For music, they are spending their time on Pandora, Spotify and Grooveshark. For games they spend their time on Steam, Kongregate and Impulse. These and many other places online are where the customers are. If the content is not there, they have to spend time looking for it elsewhere, thus driving up the cost in Time-dollars. If they can't find the content they want quickly and legally, they will be more inclined to find it quickly and illegally.
Next, we have Pain-in-the-butt-dollars. This is how hard it is to get from wanting the content to enjoying the content. When most content creators attempt to compete with pirates, they often choose to battle through this currency. This is where laws like the DMCA and SOPA come in. These laws are conceived as a way to increase the $P cost of piracy. Unfortunately, by creating these laws, the $P cost of legal content has also risen. With the DMCA came the anti-circumvention clause, which prevents owners of legal content from bypassing DRM which increases the $P cost of content. We have learned repeatedly over the years that the $P cost of DRM is often far too high for legal customers and pirates have been able to bypass it, thus dropping the $P cost of the illegal offerings. If content creators truly want to compete through the $P cost, then they need to offer convenience for their paying customers. The more barriers put between the paying customer and the content, the less likely they will value the legal offering.
Finally, we have Integrity-dollars. This cost is probably the most ethereal of the four. This is based on how the consumer feels when either buying the content or pirating it. If content creators want to compete through this currency, then they need to learn how to be more human and open with fans. If the consumers would rather support pirates than the content creators themselves, then those content creators certainly have a $I cost problem. Along with being the most ethereal of the four currencies, this is also one of the easiest to be swayed by the costs in the other three currencies. For example, if the fans like a content creator, but they feel he charges too much and it takes too long to get the content legally, the $I cost of the content has just gone up. Even worse, if the content creator lashes out at fans and treats fans as criminals, the $I cost of the authorized content goes way, way up, because people don't want to support the artist.
While this is definitely not an exhaustive look at the currencies used by consumers when making their purchase decisions, it is one of the most spot on analyses of the topic. So when we ask content creators to compete with piracy, this is what we mean. To leverage the non-money currencies at their disposal. After all, the content creators are the ones who actually control these costs.
Filed Under: business models, compete with free, currency


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Ashton Kutcher has been chosen to play Steve Jobs in an independent biopic scheduled to start production in May.
The film, "Jobs" will portray Jobs from "wayward hippie to co-founder of Apple," Variety wrote. The script will be written by Matt Whiteley and the director is Joshua Michael Stern. Stern previously directed Kutcher in "The Guardian" with Kevin Costner. Kutcher will begin work on the film in May while on hiatus from his television show, "Two and Half Men."
Sony Pictures is also working on a Steve Jobs biopic based on Walter Isaacson's authorized biography, Steve Jobs. So far actors as diverse as Noah Wyle and George Clooney have been discussed as possible leads.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
Some pundits are already panning this as the cheaper, "thrown together" Jobs biopic compared to the Isaacson version (that still is working on its director, screenwriter and actors) but we think it's too early to tell if Kutcher is a bad choice. He physically looks the part, if better-looking than Jobs, and can act well enough to execute a decent portrayal.
Kutcher is not just a pretty face. He also has some Silicon Valley technology and business chops, having been an investor in several startups such as Airbnb and Votizen, as well as being an adviser to both Chomp and NOWBOX.


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Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday stood by his decision to close two prisons and several halfway homes, even as overcrowding at remaining facilities has forced the Illinois Department of Corrections to convert gym space into housing for inmates.
The state agency said it plans to use gymnasiums at six more prisons to bunk inmates, a practice already in use in at least one prison. Only minimum-security inmates will be housed in the "temporary dorm settings," according to spokeswoman Stacey Solano.
About 100 inmates live in temporary housing, Solano said, and it is unclear how many more will be added. She said the department expects to phase out the temporary housing in the "coming months," though the agency's own projections estimate the overall prison population will increase by the end of the year.
The state's largest public employee union contends that the move puts workers at direct risk because the gymnasiums are not equipped with the necessary safety features to properly house inmates.
"What this means is that prisons that were already overcrowded and dangerous are going to become even more overcrowded and dangerous," said Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31. "It's unbelievable."
Bayer said the situation is a direct result of Quinn's decision to close several corrections facilities, including the only "supermax" prison in Tamms in far southern Illinois. That prison shut down in January along with a juvenile justice center in Murphysboro in southern Illinois.
The Dwight Correctional Center for women in central Illinois and a juvenile justice center in Joliet are also in the process of being closed. And three transitional centers for inmates, including one on Chicago's West Side, closed at the beginning of the year.
Quinn defended the closings Monday, particularly the shutdown of Tamms, saying the prison had "many, many problems."
"I made the decision to close it," Quinn said. "And I think Illinois is better off because we did."
The Democratic governor said he hoped overcrowding would be eased by a revamped good-behavior credit program the administration plans to implement in the coming months. But that's likely to be tricky, as the governor learned when he suspended good-behavior credit after a botched program saw some prisoners released after just a few weeks behind bars. Quinn was hammered on the issue during the 2010 campaign and could tread lightly as the 2014 governor's race begins to heat up.
Quinn will have a little more political cover this time, however, as lawmakers approved the broad outline of the early-release program, including requiring inmates to spend at least 60 days in prison before they could be released for good-behavior credit for completing things like drug treatment and job training.
But even if more inmates start to get out early, overcrowding likely will persist. The agency estimates that even with the additional credit, the inmate population will rise from 48,821 this month to an estimated 49,253 in December.
A watchdog group contends the state's prison system was built to handle about 34,000 inmates and argues that Quinn should keep the Dwight women's prison open to ease some of the burden.
"The (state) just does not have adequate bed space right now," said John Maki, executive director of the John Howard Association of Illinois. "The math will catch up to you."
The prisons slated for temporary housing include those in Centralia, Vandalia and Danville, as well as Graham in Hillsboro, Shawnee in Vienna and the Illinois River prison in Canton. Stateville in Joliet has operated with temporary housing for about a year.


text:
Video Professor out now!
Video Professor created a 3-CD tutorial based on my Net Crimes book. View several interviews with me below (click the play button to watch the first one, then go from there)!
Although this blog is primarily about my work in cybercrime, I thought it would be nice to let you get a peek at the life of a writer, my likes and dislikes, my trips, my family and friends, and more.
Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.


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It's easy to moan about London: About the rudeness of commuters, the impatience of pedestrians, the misery of retail staff, the unfriendliness of cafe owners, and the over zealousness of the paper terrorists, i.e. those that hand out the plethora of free papers and magazines in the most awkward of places, like the entrance of tube stations during rush hour.
These are not uncommon moans, they are regularly on the lips of everyone I know who lives and works in London. They are listed loudly and frequently by friends, family and fellow 'get me out of london-ites'.
However, it occurred to me yesterday that as much as I moan about the aforementioned things I am as big a contributor as the next person. During my commute into work I imagined shouting "Can you get dressed before you leave home" at the woman dawdling up the stairs in front of me awhile she put on her jumper, coat, hat and scarf right in the middle of the station stairwell. On the way home I stormed the wrong way through Tottenham Court Road station, as that gets me to the platform 45 seconds quicker than the usual route, irrespective of all the people going the right way. I then 'tsked' my way through Bank station at the other end, and gave someone a dirty look when they walked the wrong way down the stairs at the exit.
I'm not proud of these things; in fact listing them all out like that makes me feel a little bit ashamed. My instinct is to blame London for turning me into this kind of person, but that's a load of old codswallop. It's my choice to behave like that, it's my choice to not smile at people, to 'tut' and 'tsk', and throw the odd person a dirty look. It's my choice to roll my eyeballs at the people who don't let you off the tube before they try to get on, and it's my choice to not ask how someone is when I order my morning coffee.
What if everyone is like me? What if everyone is secretly a really lovely person who, just by virtue of being thrust into a city of 19 million people, turns into a miserable, grey, moany commuter? That means that I am frowning at genuinely good people. It also means that I am probably shouting obscenities in my head at people who rush home to have dinner with their family.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's not always everyone else's fault, that somewhere between the moaning and the eyeball rolling I am doing my fair share of adding to the stresses of travelling through, and working in, London.If I point the finger at the City, I have to point the finger back at myself as a City dweller.
This observation also hammers home the point that when I finally make it to St Ives it will be ME that has to make an effort to shed these habits, the emphasis should not be on people in Cornwall being more pleasant, it will be on me to let go of my London ways. It will be my responsibility to change my instinct to tap my foot when people talk to the cashier in the supermarket when I am in a hurry; and it will be my patience that I have to work on if some people walk slower than me down steep hills.
I naiively believe that when I depart London I will leave the nasty commuters and inconsiderate people behind me, yet I would be lying if I said that living in London for 34 years is something I've escaped unscathed from. I can be as impatient, as inconsiderate, and as thoughtless as the person next to me at Bethnal Green tube and I'm looking forward to being better than that when I get to Cornwall.
If I was a student of the Dalai Lama I would probably have to say that the real trick is to be kind, lovely, and tolerant all the time, even in the most of trying of situations (i.e. the tube at rush hour), but being the spiritual amateur that I am I'm just going to take the easier, softer way and move out.


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Families often experience an adjustment period when a child enters a new university, whether they are entering as a new student, transferring from another college or university, living on campus, or commuting. As a parent, you have also begun a new phase in life as you take a supportive role in your student's newest endeavor. We want to assure you that you will not be alone in experiencing this transition. Our campus is dedicated to support and assure the well-being of your student as well as address any questions or concerns you have. Specifically, the Office of First-Year Experience is geared toward providing you student resources that ensure a smooth transition.
We value our partnerships with parents and family members as we strive to develop your student into a wise, honorable, and cultivated student. To successfully develop a supportive network for your student, we ask for your assistance in fostering your student's growth as they will be seeking your guidance and advice throughout their time at Concordia. We encourage you to be a member of our parent mailing where you will receive newsletters, our University's annual magazine, The Concordia Today, and event invitations by enrolling in the free CUI Parent Connection Association.
We invite you to attend orientation with your student as we believe you play an integral role in your student's transition to Concordia University, Irvine. We have both Student and Parent Workshops scheduled at Orientation. In addition to ensuring that your student receives the necessary support to settle in comfortably, we also want to prepare you as a member of the Concordia Family.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Office of First-Year Experience Programs & Initiatives at (949) 214-3059 or email email@example.com. We hope you join us in our celebration of community and what we call, "The Concordia Experience."
Again, welcome to the CUI Family. We look forward to meeting you.


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Friday, June 4, 2010
Friday Rock Out - Whitesnkake!!!!1
'Cause we know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.
Have a great weekend, and we'll be back, filling in for the Ack, who will be skulking around the Rogers Centre for the Yankees series. If you see him, buy him a tasty beverage. He's good people.
12 comments:
- Ian Hunter said...
Excellent Friday Rock Out choice, Tao. Very pertinent.
Do you know if The Ack will be in TO for the entire series? I just might have to hook up with him for a $10 tall can on Saturday.
- June 4, 2010 at 2:30 PM
- Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...
Ack's in T.O.? Bollocks. I'm just going to miss him. I have his Halladay newspaper!!!!!!1
- June 4, 2010 at 2:32 PM
Excellent Friday Rock Out choice. Whitesnake is awesome. I saw them a few years ago in Montreal when they toured with Dokken and Scorpions.
- June 4, 2010 at 2:51 PM
- Ty said...
Did anybody else see that the Jays' have replaced Flashback Fridays with "Fan Fridays", where they have current players signing autographs instead of old guys?
I liked the idea of the old Flashback Fridays but this makes a lot more sense for the team. It's awesome to see them finally promoting the product that's actually on the field instead of feeding off memories of great teams gone by (even if it's just guys like Jeremy Reed and Rommie Lewis participating this week).
- June 4, 2010 at 3:18 PM
Oh, the editor-in-chief steps in for the most glamorous series yet this year? Typical.
'Tis yours to shake the soul
With Thunder rumbling from the mustard bowl.
- June 4, 2010 at 3:49 PM
What's the tasty beverage of choice to enjoy with a little Whitesnake?
Bring on the Yanks!
- June 4, 2010 at 4:39 PM
Most glam rockers only drink spirits, but I think Coverdale is a white win and viagra kind of guy these days.
- June 4, 2010 at 4:51 PM
- Tao of Stieb said...
The drink for listening to Whitesnake: I'm thinking a Molson Ex.
The drink if you are Whitesnake: Definitely prosecco and virgin's blood.
- June 4, 2010 at 5:02 PM
Ack where are you sitting Sunday? I'll send a beer your way. You've given me too much entertainment over the last two years not to! Time to pay my dues...
- June 4, 2010 at 6:20 PM
- MK Piatkowski said...
The Ack was there tonight? I'm guessing he wasn't the guy sitting behind me in 533 checking out Wilner's live blog.
If you're reading this, I'm working at Canadian Stage Berkeley street theatre Saturday. Swing by after the game and say hi.
- June 5, 2010 at 2:03 AM
- Darren Priest said...
Great job filling in for the Ack this weekend, ya sack o' shit.
- June 6, 2010 at 4:27 PM
- Joanna said...
It;s also pertinent because Coverdale's ex ie, babe on the car Tawny Kitaen was married to pitcher Chuck Finely. She later beat the shit out of him with a shoe and they divorced.
- June 7, 2010 at 1:17 PM


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Google is ready to pay $22.5 million in a privacy settlement, according to report released late Monday.
The fine is the largest placed on a single company by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the Wall Street Journal reported. The $22.5 million fine is related to "surreptitiously bypassing" privacy settings of Apple users.
Apparently Google had computer code that would allow Apple's Web browser, Safari, to give it access to users that blocked tracking. Google disabled the code in February and said that the tracking was "inadvertent."
U.S. & World
The FTC began investigating Google's practices and if it violated its agreement with the government agency -- with a penalty of $16,000 per violation per day. According to the report, the tech titan and the FTC have been negotiating an agreement on the fine.
The whole incident, as well as others including Apple's own tracking of customers, led to the Do Not Track movement. Google even placed a Do Not Track button into Chrome its Web browser in February, arguably under pressure.
Whether you believe Google tracked users accidentally or on purpose, it's nonetheless paying a fine -- even if that fine is what the company makes in about five hours.


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"Argo" stars director Ben Affleck as a CIA agent who infiltrates Tehran at the height of the Iran Hostage Crisis to smuggle out six Americans hiding in the Canadian embassy. Affleck plays real-life spy Tony Mendez, who spent more than 20 years at the Agency, including a decade as their "Master of Disguise."
It was Mendez who cooked up what sounds at first blush like an impossibly lame Hollywood-scripted idea: he and his team entered Iran posing as a Canadian film crew making a sci-fi movie called "Argo," about a group of interplanetary colonists trying to survive in a strange new world. It was a plan so crazy it worked.
In honor of the release of "Argo", we look back at eight other films about real-life spycraft and espionage.
U.S. & World
Scandal (1989)
Joanna Whalley stars as Christine Keeler, a model and showgirl, who in the early '60s found herself simultaneously dating Secretary of State for War John Profumo, a drug dealer and a Russian spy. While she and the Secretary were never themselves accused of any espionage, well, The Profumo Affair, as it became known, just looked bad.
The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)
Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton star as a pair of ex-altar boys who start selling secrets to the Russians when one of them becomes disillusioned with US foreign policy and the other, a drug dealer, sees a chance to retire early.
Daniel (1983)
Hutton previously starred in the film based on EL Doctorow's fictional account of the crimes of American communists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who remain the only two civilians ever executed for espionage by the U.S. government. The story is told through the eyes of their son, Daniel, who tries to figure out if they really did sell American secrets about the atom bomb to the Soviets .
The Day of the Jackal (1973)
Based on Frederick Forsyth's fictionalization of Col. Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry's attempt to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle, with the help of Organisation de l'armée secrete (OAS). Bastien-Thiry and the OAS were angered by de Gaulle's support for Algerian independence.
The film would become the source of the nickname for Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the notorious terrorist currently serving a life sentence in Paris for the murder of two French spies, whose career was recounted in the five and a half hour epic "Carlos."
Munich (2005)
Eric Bana stars in Steven Spielberg's epic as the head of a team of Mossad assassins out to avenge the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. There had been some debate as to the veracity of the story as told by Juval Aviv, but Spielberg vetted him and felt comfortable with what his research found.
The Good Shepherd (2006)
Robert De Niro wrote and directed this film about the birth of the CIA. It stars Matt Damon as Edward Wilson, a character based on both James Jesus Angleton and Richard M. Bissell, two men who helped found the Agency. The film co-stars Angelina Jolie, William Hurt, Alec Baldwin, Joe Pesci and John Turturro, and while it plays fast and loose with the facts, no one is ever going to really know how that terrifying sausage got made, so why quibble?
Fair Game (2010)
Naomi Watts and Sean Penn star in director Doug Liman's film about Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson, spouses whose careers as CIA operatives were effectively ended when their identities were revealed by the Bush Administration, purportedly an act of revenge for the duo publicly disavowing the case for going to war in Iraq.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
Chuck Barris was a man ahead of his time, a lowbrow TV impresario who invented such groundbreaking entertainments as "The Gong Show" and "The Dating Game." In 1984, Barris wrote an "unauthorized autobiography" in which he claimed that in addition to his career in television, he spent much of the '60s and '70s traveling the world as a CIA assassin. Nobody believes this, probably not even Barris, but George Clooney directed a great film version with a script from Charlie Kaufman and a brilliant star turn by Sam Rockwell.


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Fertility drugs will help you get pregnant faster, but they also might make your children shorter. A new study presented at The Endocrine Society's Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas, found that of babies born full term, those that were conceived through fertility drugs were a little bit shorter than naturally conceived children, but were overall healthy.
Experts in this study wanted to see the difference between mothers who used fertility drugs and those who had undergone fertility treatments like IVF. Previous studies have shown that IVF children were actually taller than naturally-conceived children. This time around, the researchers looked at 84 children conceived with the help of fertility drugs and 258 children who were conceived naturally — all of them were born full term. It was found that the kids conceived through fertility drugs were an average of two centimeters shorter — even when the researchers took parents' height into consideration. They also found that the height difference was greater in boys than it was in girls.
Researchers are still unsure what could be the cause of these findings and need to investigate further.
Do you think fertility drugs could affect height? Is having a tall kid important to you?


text: Issue #6048 has been updated by Nobuyoshi Nakada. Status changed from Closed to Open ---------------------------------------- Bug #6048: {Unbound}Method#hash doesn't always return the right value https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/6048 Author: Marc-Andre Lafortune Status: Open Priority: Normal Assignee: Marc-Andre Lafortune Category: core Target version: 2.0.0 ruby -v: r34632 {Unbound}Method#hash doesn't always return the right value. map, collect = Array.instance_method(:map), Array.instance_method(:collect) map.eql?(collect) # => true map.hash == collect.hash # => false I'm tempted to think that this is an obvious bug with an obvious solution but let me state: As per the documentation and the design of hash tables, if two objects are `eql?` then they must have the same hash. Either `map` should not be `eql?` to `collect` or else their `hash` should be the same. As they are identical methods, it is correct that they are `eql?`, so `hash` must return the same value. My proposed behavior passes my strict superiority test and is also "straightforward" as I could find no intent for the current behavior. One solution is to ensure that all aliased methods are defined using `rb_define_alias`, which appears to yield the same hash. Another is to compute the `hash` correctly. Maybe there is a third approach. I'm not super confident I took the right approach, but here is a patch for the second one. I think it is more robust and more consistent with how `{Unbound}Method.eql?` is implemented. It may also fix other cases of mismatch between `eql?` and `hash`, I didn't investigate further. I'd be grateful if someone could review the patch (Koichi?) and let me know if I took the right approach and if I put things in the right place. Thanks -- Marc-André -- http://bugs.ruby-lang.org/


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The other day, I got a ping from a former student who sent a link to a recent piece she'd read over on Forbes.com. "Have you seen this?" she wrote. "It reminds me of Undecided!"
The topic? Burn-out. Apparently, it's rampant among high achieving millennial women. At least that's the skinny according to a piece by Forbes contributor Larissa Faw who writes that "a growing number of young professional women who seem to 'have it all' are burning out at work before they reach 30."
She had me at have it all. Faw doesn't necessarily back up the burn-out rate with numbers, but she does offer some compelling stats that link these "early career flameouts" with women's declining presence on the upper reaches of the corporate ladder:
Today, 53% of corporate entry-level jobs are held by women, a percentage that drops to 37% for mid-management roles and 26% for vice presidents and senior managers, according to McKinsey research. Men are twice as likely as women to advance at each career transition stage
Interesting, but not surprising. What struck me, though – and what perhaps made that former student think of Undecided — was Faw's rationale that one of the reasons for the lopsided stats is that, whereas women burnout early and jump ship, men stick around. Why? Because our brothers know how to relax. From the story:
It seems relaxation is something Millennial women have never experienced. One reason that women are burning out early in their careers is that they have simply reached their breaking point after spending their childhoods developing well-rounded resumes. "These women worked like crazy in school, and in college, and then they get into the workforce and they are exhausted," says Melanie Shreffler of the youth marketing blog Ypulse.
Now, we can't say whether this inability to take five logically leads to burn-out. But what we can say, based on the reporting we did for the book, is that this treadmill mentality is very real, especially among young women raised with the message that "you can have it all." These are the girls who started building their resumes in grade school, who lived by their day planners and five-year plans, and who crumbled at the sight of a B-plus.
I remember seeing this one little girl, in grade school plaid, sitting in Starbucks, drinking this giant latte, and working w/her tutor on some kind of Princeton Review workbook for acing the high school entrance exam. No one even questioned the caffeine. And check this: one study from the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that college educated parents were spending more time with their kids than ever before. Cool, right? But what the researchers discovered was the root of all this extra time was the perceived scarcity of college spots. The title of the study? The rug rat race. No joke. Another piece on CNN a while back featured hard-driving moms who had either quit their jobs or taken a leave to navigate their kids thru the college admission process.
Whew. I'm verging on burn-out just writing this stuff. Call it the curse of great expectations: The problem with the treadmill mentality is that it leads to a lot of future thinking — a bad habit that's hard to break — or what psychologists call the arrival fallacy: If I make this team, get into that college, score that fat job – then I'll be happy.
Or not. Because where the treadmill ends is in the real world. And though we've come a long way, baby, that world has not quite caught up. All of which has lead to a lot of growing pains as we – and especially our Millennial sisters – learn to navigate the trade-offs without much in the way of a roadmap.
Thing is, for this newest generation of twenty (or thirty) somethings and the rest of us who've been bred on perfection and raised with the mantra that the sky's our limit, well, with everything on the menu, could it be that, no matter what the routine, once something becomes routine, we're doomed to be just not that into it anymore? No matter the pluses, are we unable to see anything but the minuses? This isn't quite perfect, so why should I stick around? Once we're confronted with reality's non-perfection, do we begin to imagine what we're not doing? Hello, carrot. Meet stick.
Bottom line, we're in it together, trying to figure this stuff out. As Teri Thompson, chief marketing officer and vice president of marketing and media at Purdue, tells Forbes:
"We're all a work in progress; new inputs—from new friends to new places visited—mean we're constantly changing in our thoughts of what's desired, what's possible, what's fun, what we want to do."
Forbes might call it burnout. We call it finding our way. By the way, that former student? She's a millennial woman herself. A high achiever who is currently in the throes of her law school applications.


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"You have the freedom to be yourself,
your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way"
Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull
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