text:
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - A lost, overgrown sheep found in Australian scrubland was shorn for perhaps the first time on Thursday, yielding 40 kilograms (89 pounds) of wool - the equivalent of 30 sweaters - and shedding almost half his body weight.
ASHLAND, Ky. (AP) - A defiant county clerk went to jail Thursday for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, but five of her deputies agreed to issue the licenses themselves, potentially ending the church-state standoff in Rowan County, Kentucky.
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - The white man accused of killing nine black churchgoers in what authorities said was a racially motivated crime during Bible study will face a death penalty trial, even though not all the victims' families agree with capital punishment, a prosecutor said Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal law enforcement officials will be routinely required to get a search warrant before using secretive and intrusive cellphone-tracking technology under a new Justice Department policy announced Thursday.
MILLIS, Mass. (AP) - An officer fabricated a claim that a gunman fired at his cruiser before it crashed into a tree and caught on fire, police officials said Thursday.
VILLA RICA, Ga. (AP) - The pastor of a Georgia church involved in a mass baptism before a high school football practice said Thursday the school had nothing to do with the ritual, except that it took place on a school football field.
NEW YORK (AP) - Caving to intense Republican lobbying, presidential candidate Donald Trump ruled out the prospect of a third-party White House bid on Thursday and vowed to support whoever wins the party's nomination - a U-turn made easier by his position at the front of the field.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Just 6 percent of Californians are African American, yet they are involved in 17 percent of all arrests in the state and a quarter of in-custody deaths, according to what officials called a nationally unprecedented release of data Wednesday.
BRENHAM, Texas (AP) - Blue Bell ice cream is back.
NEW YORK (AP) - Wal-Mart says it is asking some stores to schedule workers for fewer hours, although it says the directive is only being given to stores that are assigning more hours than they were expected to.
NEW YORK (AP) - Samsung is juicing up its smartwatch with a circular face and more battery life than the Apple Watch, but it's unknown how many apps will be available for it.
CUPERTINO (AP) - Apple is leaning on Cisco Systems' Internet networking expertise in its latest attempt to sell more iPhones and iPads to corporate customers.
HELENA, Mont. (AP) - A 6-foot tall statue of Jesus that has spent the last 60 years overlooking a northwestern Montana ski hill may stay there, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department released roughly 7,000 pages of Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails Monday, including about 150 emails that have been censored because they contain information that is now deemed classified.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - An organizer behind the Black Lives Matter weekend march outside the Minnesota State Fair stood by the group's chant to fry police "like bacon," saying Monday that law enforcement officials are cherry-picking a 30-second chant to take issue with an otherwise peaceful protest.
Page 182 of 771
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Conservative activists burned a large photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as the head of the North's extremely ...
Page 7 of 7
Contents of this site are © Copyright 2018 Manteca Bulletin - All Rights Reserved
Privacy policy and Terms of service | Contact Us


text:
|CARL NIELSEN - Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3 - Alan Gilbert (Conductor) -
New York Philharmonic - Hybrid SACD - 747313162369 - Released: September 2012 - Dacapo 6.220623
With the structural discipline of Bruckner, the thematic inventiveness of Dvorak, the dark undertones of Rachmaninov, the rugged Nordic character of Sibelius, and a final movement's main theme
reminiscent of British pageantry, the Symphony No. 3, Op. 27, "Sinfonia Espansiva" by Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) stands as one of the most
impressive symphonies of the early part of the 20th century. Written in 1910, at a time when Stravinsky, Mahler, Scriabin and Schoenberg were all forging diverging new paths, Carl Nielsen's music
sounds more like a Nordic extension of Johannes Brahms. Standard, well structured, four-movement sonata form symphonies, but with a sound and character distinctively Danish.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I've heard the statement before. Many, many times. Parents, particularly mothers it seems, are often the ones who impart the younger generation with such beliefs about having and raising children. And I'm sure they mean well.
Yes, kids say the funniest, smartest, and the cutest things. Sometimes, it's not what they actually say or do, but how they say or do it. They act and speak in a certain innocent-but-not-that-innocent way that some grown-ups, myself included, find all amusing and adorable. Kids – from babies to 7ish ones – are a bundle of joy. But we all know that that's not always the case.
What professional parents conveniently forget to tell is how kids can drive you crazy, how they can turn your place – or any place! – into a complete mess effortlessly, how annoyingly noisy they can get when they're hungry, happy, or plain cranky. And these are just the little toddlers ha.
When they start going to school and have absorbed enough radiation from the tv, life gets more interesting. All of a sudden, you're not the only source of knowledge, habits, and some questionable values. They now have cartoon characters that display all sorts of behaviors, a plethora of classmates and friends from all sorts of backgrounds.
It sucks when you realize that even though you're a parent, you're not the only one doing the parenting. And you wake up one day accepting you're not the most influential person in their lives anymore. That you're just one among the many.
It's just one of those days. This too shall pass.


text: Hi, I've a debian/linux box as a server for a LAN with all kinds of windows, running samba and ksmbfs. Is there any posibility to execute remotely a non-interactive program from the linux on any of the windows? Please respond to firstname.lastname@example.com, as I'm not currently on this list. Thanks, ciccio -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to firstname.lastname@example.com . Trouble? e-mail to email@example.com .


text: The coverage and speedtest map for Cosmote 2G-3G network displayed above has been built up thanks to the data collected anonymously by Cosmote customers who are part of the Sensorly Crowd. These coverage and data transmission speed maps for Cosmote 2G-3G network show the signal strength and network speed as experienced in the mentioned area. As for all coverage maps drawn by Sensorly, Cosmote coverage and data performance maps are frequently updated to present the most accurate vision of Cosmote's quality of service.


text:
Petition update
1500+ signed! New Yorkers Unite for Liberty!
New York:New Energy Party
Dec 3, 2013 — We are growing fast and this is only just getting started. You are making a difference. Up state NY is not NYC's back yard.
We are autonomous citizens and We demand our rights to self govern.


text:
Massachusetts CLE will present a CLE seminar titled Hot Topics in Employment Discrimination Law.
The program will take place on Wednesday, February 27 from 1 to 5 p.m. at the MCLE Conference Center, 10 Winter Place, Boston.
Attendees will learn about compliance directives from the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission on unlawful disparate treatment of workers with caregiving responsibilities, and the MCAD's advice to employers regarding the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act.
The program chair is Allison K. Romantz, Morgan, Brown & Joy LLP.
For information on registration fees, see the Bulletin Board on The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel website at www.metrocorpcounsel.com.
For reservations, call (800) 966-6253 or visit www.mcle.org.


text:
Pros: Hot and taste great!
Cons: Could cause indigestion.
Have you ever wanted a tasty bag of chips in lieu of dinner or lunch? I certainly do! Before a recent Continental Airlines trip, I picked up a bag of Doritos Spicy Nacho Tortilla Chips. My goal was to have something to chew on but they became life of the party rather quickly. Several of the passengers on the flight were residents of Lake Charles who knew me so I lent them the nachos. The bag of Spicy Nachos moved up and down the aisle as the plane took off. Before the flight was level, we had eaten the entire bag of Doritos! Who would have known that so many people all agree Spicy Nachos taste great?
Read on to find out what you are missing out on!
How much kick does Doritos Spicy Nacho Tortilla Chips Really Have?
Just one chip is relatively mild but if you want to challenge yourself, then eat more. Try to crunch on four chips at once and you will find an explosion of red hot pepper flavor in your mouth. No, Spicy Nacho chips will not make you run for a glass of water but they are really the hottest chip that I have ever tried off the shelf.
Nutritional Facts
Every serving of 12 chips (assuming they are whole and not chipped or crushed) has 140 Calories, 7 grams of Total Fat, 210 milligrams of Sodium, 19 grams of Total Carbohydrates and 2 grams of Protein. You must be honest with yourself though, a typical serving is going to be at least 24 of these tasty little chips so double these figures!
Ingredients List
The following ingredients list is really long. For you to realize how big this is, Gummy Worms and Wrigley's Elixir 5 gum have fewer materials in them than Doritos Spicy Nachos! For me not to disclose the ingredients in this review will be a great disrespect to the health conscious consumer that is worried about ingesting, Gluten or Milk products. Most commercial online sites have no practical reason for a high risk product listing to be shown so they hide it or make it appear in a hard to find webpage. No, I am telling it all and encourage you to think twice about eating too many of these sinful little indigestion wafers.
Here is a list of ingredients in Doritos Spicy Hot: whole corn, vegetable oil, maltodextrin, salt, cheddar cheese, whey, monosodium glutamate, buttermilk solids, romano cheese from cow's milk, corn starch, whey protein concentrate, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil, lactose, disodium phosphate, garlic powder, dextrose, natural and artificial flavor, onion powder, artificial color, spices, sugar, citric acid, sodium caseinate, lactic acid, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, and nonfat milk solids.
Doritos Spicy Nacho are one of my favorite chips to snack on. I have to hold myself back to just one small serving size due to all the crazy ingredients in the product. Regardless of my health reservations, I still recommend these chips as the hottest tortilla or potato chip that you can find on most store shelves today! Of course, keep a napkin handy as these little guys will turn your fingers red quickly.
In all I would give Doritos Tortilla Chips two red thumbs up!


text:
Could the EPA's battle with Hyundai turn to Ford's hybrids next?
Ford is touting impressive fuel economy figures for its latest generation of hybrids, but owners are reporting a different story altogether.
Consumer Reports found that Ford C-Max Hybrid and Ford Fusion Hybrid owners are claiming significantly lower than posted fuel economy on the EPA's fueleconomy.gov website. Fourteen C-Max Hybrid owners reported an average of 40.5 mpg, while five 2013 Fusion Hybrid owners claimed just 37 mpg. Those figures are afar cry from the 47 mpg combined Ford estimates on the cars' window stickers.
In addition, the independent magazine says that its own C-Max, which it acquired directly from a dealer, averages between 33 and 39 mpg. CR says that it hasn't had its Fusion Hybrid long enough to draw any real conclusions, but it did note that one driver's "long commute" returned 40 mpg. Similarly, Fox News said that "light-footed" driving returned no more than 40 mpg in a Fusion Hybrid.
Leftlane's extended test of a Fusion Hybrid netted a similarly disappointing 35.8 mpg in "normal" driving over the course of about 450 miles. We have not had the opportunity to measure fuel economy in a C-Max Hybrid.
Ford isn't alone in not meeting fuel economy claims during reviewer testing, but the automaker's lofty and heavily-advertised 47 mpg figure makes it an easy target for disgruntled consumers.
With its case against Hyundai serving as precedent, the EPA is expected to begin examining owners' fuel economy claims against other automakers. The EPA told Hyundai to restate its advertised fuel economy figures and the automaker is spending about $100 million to reimburse buyers based on the number of miles they've traveled in their vehicles.
Will Ford be forced to follow suit? It's hard to say for sure, but it's likely that Hyundai will be the first of several dominoes to fall as the EPA begins to more closely scrutinize advertised fuel economy.


text:
Showing 1–12 of 79 results
Best Resumes sells gorgeous and neatly designed resume/ CV templates that you can use as a platform to show that you got what it takes to conquer the corporate world or any work arena.
Our designs are diverse, sleek, neat and comes in crisp colours and patterns. You have the option to buy multiple designs to edit at your convenience.
Buy our packages from the resume store


text:
Bewertungen für Daniel and Liliana's Unterkünfte
Impeccable, très propre et fidèle à la description. Proche des transports, idéal pour un séjour au centre de Londres.
Superb and perfect stay. Clean and convenient.
The bedroom was very nice, very cozy. Everything was very clean and organized. We had our own bathroom, and we could use the kitchen without problem. The house is very near from downtown with subway 20 minutes and with bus 30 or 35 minutes. You have a very quiet neighborhood but also if you walk about 300 meters you have very nice restaurants and pubs club. Everything is very nice.
A nice, cosy flat, decorated with taste, located in a quiet neighbourhood. Everything close at hand, be it a bus stop, tube station, park, post box, places to eat out or buy your grocery.
Bewertungen für den Gastgeber Daniel and Liliana
Des hôtes charmants et un accueil chaleureux.
Kind and most welcoming. Detailed discription of how to get there and local places. Always again.
Our hosts were very helpful, very cozy Daniel help me to find the easy way to go to the Gatewick airport. They gave us a lot of recommendations about London. I highly recommend Daniel and Liliana. Thank you very much for your hospitality.
Our hosts have been nice, friendly, polite, tactful and always ready to help or advise.


text:
With Sal's Famous Italian Kitchen, a branch of the Mio Sushi tree, the upscale Cajun-themed Roux, and now, restaurant/full bar Sagittarius, the area around North Killingsworth and Greely has slowly and quietly defied expectations to become a veritable dining destination. Sagittarius in and of itself wouldn't be enough to drag my flat ass all the way out there from my Southeast abode, but it's a crucial part of what is quickly becoming a thriving regional whole. Friendly and cozy, with deep red walls and an array of affordable menu items that put little twists on classic dishes, it's the definition of what a quirky neighborhood joint should be, and the only reason I wouldn't travel to it is because I already have my quirky neighborhood joint. It's in my neighborhood.
'Course, it's also important to venture out sometimes, and if you find yourself a-travelin' it's hard to go wrong with Sagittarius, which has something for everyone, especially if everyone likes crispy pepper bacon. The cooks at Sagittarius are apparently quite fond of crispy pepper bacon and lavish it on several dishes. My Baby Luau chicken sandwich with gingered mango chutney came with not one, not two, but FOUR thick slabs of bacon, enough to stop a lesser man's heart. I'm not sure if I'm complaining or not—the bacon was quite tasty and perfectly cooked, but almost completely masked the chicken itself. The sandwiches are paired with corn chips that can be substituted with fries for only 50 cents. It's two quarters worth losing, as Sagittarius' homemade real-potato fries are possibly the best I've tasted in Portland.
Sandwiches and burgers rule the menu at Sagittarius. The burgers are pretty standard, with a blue-cheese edition, and one with, yup, crispy pepper bacon, but some of the more creative sandwiches include the BLATZ with lettuce, avocado, tomato, grilled zucchini, basil pesto, and... wait for it... wait for it... that's right, crispy pepper bacon. The poorly named Nutty Mozzer (sounds like sex talk to me) works too, with baby spinach, more basil pesto, mozzarella, toasted pine nuts (fuckin' YUM), and no crispy pepper bacon.
Carb-haters have some rather interesting salads to choose from at Sagittarius, including the Wild Thing with organic field greens, pear, spiced pecans, blue-cheese crumbles, and a ginger-curry vinaigrette. I sampled the extremely weird Citrus Couscous Salad with chickpeas, raw red onions, cilantro, raisins, and tzatziki. The crumbly, cold couscous base didn't work for me, but I admired the artistic expression involved with the dish.
What it comes down to is that Sagittarius is making reasonably priced comfort food but trying to spike it with offbeat ingredients to give it a little zest. They have a gourmet attention to detail, but they're not making gourmet food. Sagittarius is at its best when it sticks to the basics, like the aforementioned French fries, and the rosemary mac entrée, a decadent dish of creamy parmesan-cheddar mac and cheese that will fill your stomach in approximately two bites. Or the halibut fish and chips with mango chutney. These disparate dishes fail to add up to a greater sum, but like Sagittarius itself, each is part of something that is getting better all the time.


text:
Because I hadn't seen some form of the real Pink Floyd in concert since the early '90s, I was looking forward to seeing a tribute to the legendary British troupe kick off the 2010 Pacific Amphitheatre Concert Series on Friday night. As with any other quality re-creation, how cool is it that a group of younger musicians can deliver some of the best-known songs by one of the most beloved bands of the classic-rock era for fans who likely grew up loving the original outfit? Everyone goes away happy, right?
Well, after watching the six members of San Diego's the Pink Floyd Experience deliver a fitting salute that exceeded all my expectations, I'd give the band a B+, the fans a D-.
Even people seated around me, relatively close to stage, seemed to have little interest in the band or the music. A woman to my left talked nonstop for the length of the 110-minute concert, stopping only when she wanted to take another sip of beer. And don't even get me started about the hundreds of glow sticks (passed out free) that were chucked at the stage, especially near the end of the night.
If the Pink Floyd Experience hadn't been good, I might have understood that some among the near-capacity crowd were bored; the music would have become nothing more than a backdrop to some outdoor party. But this sextet is no mere bar band; they performed more than a dozen staples from seminal albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall, and all very well.
Despite such challenging conditions for both the group and those of us trying to rise above the mindless chatter to enjoy the performance, this Floyd encounter should still be considered a success. The group was first-rate, employing a mix of largely faithful re-creations of Pink Floyd songs and creative video images (projected on screens on each side of the stage) to conjure the past while still infusing the material with modern-day propulsion.
The entire ensemble — principal singer and rhythm guitarist Graham Heath (above), lead guitarist and singer Tom Quinn, bassist Gus Beaudoin, drummer John Staten, guitarist-sax player Jesse Molloy and keyboardist John Cox — gelled well together, and each was allowed room to shine throughout the night. Quinn was particularly effective, unleashing one shimmering David Gilmour guitar solo after another.
One of the most powerful moments actually came early, when this Floyd Experience performed "Goodbye Blue Sky" set against an array of World War II footage. Unsettling images of Hitler, Holocaust victims and old war planes were projected as the band performed the acoustic-tinged piece from The Wall, with distinctive vocal harmonies providing sonic firepower.
Whether tackling the dreamy contemplations "Us and Them" and "Comfortably Numb," the driving rock of "Run Like Hell" or the English folk craft of "Wish You Were Here," this tribute struck the right tone every time.
If only more concert-goers had listened.
Photos by Christine Cotter, for The Orange County Register.
Next at Pacific: Train, July 18, $19.50-$49.50 … Jeff Dunham, July 21, $39.50-$69.50 … Martina McBride, July 22, $45-$75 … Ziggy Marley with Common Sense, July 23, $19.50-$49.50 … Faith Hill, Saturday, $50-$100 … Blue Oyster Cult with Foghat, Sunday, $12.50-$22.50. Click here to buy tickets.
More Pacific Amphitheatre Concert Series 2010:
More reviews:
[rssfeedme cat="soundcheck" feedpath="category/concert-reviews/" max="6″]


text:
I couldn't get to this year's World Vespa Days, staged last weekend but I knew a fair few vespa friends who were going. Jörg Hemker aka Hemi, who I met in 2015 at Maskes' classic vespa rally in Holland did go and wrote the excellent, following report of his experience for vespamore. Considering WVD was hosted in Celle, Germany, it seemed only fitting to ask a German Vespista friend to write this...
"Thursday, 22.06.17, today's weather forecast is predicting thunder and heavy rain in Northern Germany in the afternoon, therefore I decide to leave early morning for my trip to Vespa World Days. VWD was last held in Germany in 2000 and this year is being hosted by Vespa Club Celle. Celle is only 245km (152 miles) away from my home town, so it could not be much better. In addition, Vespa Club Celle are experts at planning Scooter events, having organised the Heide Treffen since 20 years now.
I leave Münster at 07.45 and by 08.15 it is already 25°C , the last few days have been really hot and today is the same. I drive across the countryside avoiding motorways and shortly after passing Osnabrück, I meet 3 scooterists from Osnabrück with a breakdown and stop to ask if they need any help. They already discovered the problem; one of them will return home and change scooter while the other two decide we will continue our trip together.
So we are now my GS200 (T5 frame with a 200cc engine, this was not sold in the UK), a tuned PX cutdown and a tuned Vespa Sprint. Due to my GS not being tuned, I really have to fight to stay with the others. It is getting darker and darker and the first raindrops start to fall but we manage to make it into Celle without any additional breakdowns. We arrive at CD Kaserne, which is a youth center in the heart of Celle that used to be a military barracks in the past and is the base for the WVD weekend. I check in to the hotel, which is only 2 km away from the event and then register myself for the World Days. Meanwhile the sky has become black and it is very windy, the registration closes as do all the tents! I visit my friends from the VCVD board who have pitched their tent next to the Vespa Club of Britain's tent and ask for shelter. Heavy rain starts and there is not much to do other than wait for it to pass. After a while the rain stops and I look around the site. There are some merchandise stalls, with an impressive display from Maskes Vespa Klassiekers over from the Netherlands, SCK (Scooter Center Koln) and a lot of catering, so everything you need is there.
"How German officials dress from the VCVD..!!"
Having registered I receive my welcome bag which besides the programme, includes a T-shirt and a WVD Celle metal badge. There is also a scooter parking area inside the barracks and everyone gets a numbered sticker that needs to be placed on their scooter. In addition you receive a bracelet with the same number on. Every time you want to leave the barracks, security people check if both numbers match, so that scooters do not get stolen - great idea! Around 2pm the VWD event is officially opened and the customary speeches start; we have Ingo, head of VC Celle, the mayor of Celle, Martin Stift, Head of Vespa world club and Uwe Bödicker, head of Vespa Club of Germany. Although there are a few speeches they are surpringsingly short and fresh.
I decide to park my scooter at the hotel and walk back to the VWD site. I get chatting and catch up with a lot of people and before I know it, it is already evening. During the evening the Vespa Club Germany has invited the heads of the various German Vespa clubs for a reception. The entertainment is across 2 rooms, one offering a live band, the other a Northern Soul allnighter and decide to opt for the allnighter and cannot remember getting back to my hotel - I do remember waking up with a hangover Friday morning though!
Once recovered, I headed back to CD Kaserne to get a closer look at the stalls and Vespa Museum, which I hadn't looked at on the first day. On all 3 days, there is the opportunity to book guided excursions and ride around the beautiful surroundings of Celle through the heath. There is also one big tour planned for Saturday where everyone can join in. I decide to only go for the tour on Saturday, having visited Celle many times before.
The Vespa museum is about 400m from CD Kaserne in an old horse breeding farm, a great venue for displaying old vespas. The scooters are presented in old horse stables, which is a nice touch. The focus of the exhibition is German Vespa models from the 1950s-60´s . After the war a lot of Vespas were built under license, so there is the chance to see a lot special Vespas produced by German manufacturers like Hoffmann and Messerschmitt and even one recovered from the sea bed! Back at CD Kaserne, a tombola sponsored by Scooter Center Koln starts up with the chance to win a restored, green Vespa 50 S. Within the vespa parking area, there are so many great Vespas to see, too many to describe them all in detail but the official numbers are 4200 people signed for tickets, swelled by the people who only came for the day. In the afternoon there is a Concours d´Elegance for the best combination of rider and vintage Scooter; first place going to Frank Thöle from Osnabrück with his Hoffmann Vespa.
In the evening I meet with some friends from the Los Piratos in Voerde, for dinner in Celle's beautiful old town. Celle only has around 80,000 inhabitants and with the temporary addition of 4200 scooterists, the city center is very crowded! The weather is warm and dry on Friday evening and we decide to stay in Celle's centre, leaving the live band and allnighter to others. Also, I had an early start as I was invited to join a vespa ride as a thank you to Celle's mayor on Saturday morning at 08:30. The mayor had made a lot of things possible for WVD, that normally would not be not possible!
At 08:30 on Saturday we meet up with other selected scooterists to go for a guided vespa giro through the old town of Celle. I'm sure not everyone in Celle was happy about such an event taking place at that time in the morning - Celle was 725 years old, so 725 scooterists went through the town!! The tour ended outside Celle at a large parking place, where all the other scooterists join us for the weekend's main vespa ride starting at 10:00. The reported numbers of participants from local Police vary between 5000 and 7000; the line of scooters was an incredible 7 km long!!! The ride was organised perfectly with the support of local police, including a police helicopter.
In the afternoon, the famous Vespa stunt show by Robin Davy and his acrobatic cohorts was held in the city centre on their Vespas from the 1950s...
The evening began with the Gala Dinner and normally this is something that does not work at big events like these, but even here there was nothing to complain about. 20 cooks and 70 waiters made the evening perfect; the food was delicious, warm and on time. Respect is well deserved for them, if you consider that about 2000 full entry tickets were sold! The evening offered a swing band and a really good AC/DC cover band, as well again a Northern Soul allnighter on the second floor. So there was music for everyone and suited most tastes.
Photo: Mike Power - HEMI to left of shot
A marriage proposal...
... she said "yes" !!
On Sunday morning I wake up very early, the weather forecast was not very good and I decide to head back home. After one hour really heavy rain starts and riding is no longer much fun. However, I return home safe to Münster without incident but wet to the bone!
It was a really great event and I can only say "vielen dank" (thanks a lot) to Vespa Club Celle and all their supporters, you did an excellent job! Looking forward to returning to the Heide Treffen in 2018!"
Words and photos - Hemi / Jörg Hemker
Thanks so much Hemi for this!! A vespamore t-shirt will soon be winging its way to Münster by way of thanks ; )
Next year World Vespa Days will be coming to Belfast, Northern Ireland, I may see you there.. check out the official site - here


text:
I caught some of John Kerry on Meet The Press this AM and was surprised by the strength of the aversive response induced. All those annoying affectations that I managed to ignore during the campaign - the compulsive double talk, the rhetorical bloat, the evasion - now seemed intensely repellent. Almost as bad as trying to watch Condeleeza Rice on ABC. It sort of helps me understand how the American people could have made such a catastrophic mistake in re-electing - excuse me - electing George Bush.
Please Democratic Party, don't do this again. Not Kerry, not Hillary, and not anyone like them. And not Shrum.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Kerry Redux
I caught some of John Kerry on Meet The Press this AM and was surprised by the strength of the aversive response induced. All those annoying affectations that I managed to ignore during the campaign - the compulsive double talk, the rhetorical bloat, the evasion - now seemed intensely repellent. Almost as bad as trying to watch Condeleeza Rice on ABC. It sort of helps me understand how the American people could have made such a catastrophic mistake in re-electing - excuse me - electing George Bush.
By CapitalistImperialistPig at January 30, 2005 |
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Gregg Easterbrook has up a new review of Jared Diamonds "Collapse." He is fulsome in his praise but wants to reject the conclusions. Unfortunately for Greggie, his example merely documents his own confusion.
Diamond's analysis discounts culture and human thought as forces in history; culture, especially, is seen as a side effect of environment. The big problem with this view is explaining why China -- which around the year 1000 was significantly ahead of Europe in development, and possessed similar advantages in animals and plants -- fell behind. This happened, Diamond says, because China adopted a single-ruler society that banned change. True, but how did environment or animal husbandry dictate this? China's embrace of a change-resistant society was a cultural phenomenon. During the same period China was adopting centrally regimented life, Europe was roiled by the idea of individualism. Individualism proved a potent force, a source of power, invention and motivation
Diamond's theme, though, is that geography is destiny, and he is very clear about how Europe's fragmented geography dictated its fragmented polity, which gave rise to an environment where competing ideas could be tried. Easterbrook's example actually illustrates Diamond's point, though of course chance (and perhaps culture) plays a role as well. China had enormous advantages in opportunity to discover the new world, and it only failed because the accident of its geography made centralized rule all but inevitable.
That is the argument he needs to (but fails to) counter.
By CapitalistImperialistPig at January 29, 2005 |
Sunday, January 23, 2005
What Bush has Wrought
Tom Friedman is still in recovery mode from his peace through mass murder vision, but his new Op-Ed Column in the NYT has some good bits. One of my favorites:
Both girls I interviewed wore veils and one also wore a full Afghan-like head-to-toe covering; one was of Egyptian parents, the other of Tunisian parents, but both were born and raised in France. What did I learn from them? That they got all their news from Al Jazeera TV, because they did not believe French TV, that the person they admired most in the world was Osama bin Laden, because he was defending Islam, that suicide "martyrdom" was justified because there was no greater glory than dying in defense of Islam, that they saw themselves as Muslims first and French citizens last, and that all their friends felt pretty much the same.
If this attitude should become prevalent in the huge French Muslim community, it's hard to see much alternative to a bitter civil war resulting in tragedy for France and catastrophe or annihilation for the French Muslims. I wonder how things stand in the US? Thanks to George Bush, it certainly looks like Osama has gotten a start on his war of civilizations. We have already had a small taste of the loss of liberty this will entail for ourselves.
By CapitalistImperialistPig at January 23, 2005 |
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Where do we get these losers?
I just saw Congressman Rham Emanuel get humiliated on Meet the Press. Tim Russert asked him *The Question*: "Knowing what we now know about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, would you vote for the war..." and the sorry blankety-blank weaseled, not once, but repeatedly. What the hell is his problem, aside from looking like Anderson Cooper's slightly more effeminate sibling? Why would anyone in their right mind still think thts war was a good idea? Especially a Democrat?
Next Timmy beat him over the head with some Clinton quotes on a "looming Social Security crisis." Once again, our sorry excuse for a spokeman - excuse me, spokesperson - weaseled repeatedly. Can't we find somebody with more balls, like, say, Nancy Pelosi, to represent us in this fight?
Social Security is a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party, and, so far at least, we haven't shown much.
By CapitalistImperialistPig at January 16, 2005 |
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Religious Science
I recently wasted a good part of two days in fruitless argument with another blogger. The subject of the argument was a speech by the science fiction writer Michael Crichton, in which he cited SETI and global warming, together with some other once popular but now discredited ideas as examples of "consensus science," which he called not science but religion. More broadly, he claimed that believing something untested was religion not science.
Anyway, with that as prolog, I was very interested to see this article in the NYT, in which several scientists answer the question "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?" A lot of the usual suspects showed up - god exists, god doesn't exist, true love exists and rats have feelings. A few that caught my eye were:
Roger Shank
...I do not believe that people are capable of rational thought when it comes to making decisions in their own lives. People believe they are behaving rationally and have thought things out, of course, but when major decisions are made - who to marry, where to live, what career to pursue, what college to attend, people's minds simply cannot cope with the complexity. When they try to rationally analyze potential options, their unconscious, emotional thoughts take over and make the choice for them.
This might explain why my debate opponent and I couldn't find common ground!
Phillip W. Anderson
Is string theory a futile exercise as physics, as I believe it to be? It is an interesting mathematical specialty and has produced and will produce mathematics useful in other contexts, but it seems no more vital as mathematics than other areas of very abstract or specialized math, and doesn't on that basis justify the incredible amount of effort expended on it.
My belief is based on the fact that string theory is the first science in hundreds of years to be pursued in pre-Baconian fashion, without any adequate experimental guidance...
Anderson is a Nobel prize winner, and one of the most creative physicists of his generation. He also has a long standing beef with particle physics, and many think his opposition might have been fatal to the Super Conducting Super Collider, the giant accelerator that was killed when partially built. Weinberg even joked that they should have named the "Higgs" particle the "Anderson" particle and then he might not have been so intransigent.
I personally will be disappointed if Anderson turn out to be right and string theory turns out to be completely wrong, or, even worse, completely untestable.
Alison Gopnik
I believe, but cannot prove, that babies and young children are actually more conscious, more vividly aware of their external world and internal life, than adults are...
Amen to that! I recall my then 17 year old son and I watching some young children play in a park once. After several minutes he said: "You know, only little kids are truly alive."
Besides being one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century, Neil Bohr was famous for his subtly barbed aphorisms. One of my favorites goes something like this: There are two kinds of truths, ordinary truths and great truths. Ordinary truths are just those statements whose opposites are falsehoods. The opposites of great truths are also great truths.
All the statements above (and the others in the article) fit in the great truth model - at least for now.
Many years ago, I bought a book by George Santayana called Skepticism and Animal Faith. I can't recall ever reading it, but somehow I formed the impression (quite likely wrong!) that part of his point was that skepticism can only take you so far - ultimately you have to fall back on some prerational, instinctive ideas to operate in the world. I really like this notion, whether or not it was really Santayana's. I think that is part of what Roger Shank was talking about.
Which brings me back to my starting point: Intractable disagreements, I guess, have their origins more in the irrational than the rational. People may think they know why they are Democrats or Republicans, Liberals or Conservatives, string theorists or LQGers, but the real roots are in the subtle texture of instinct and experience, not reason.
It might have been Bertrand Russell (I can't tell English Lords apart) who said that he thought that honest men couldn't disagree if the terms were defined carefully enough. Of course none of us is completely honest and it's pretty hard to define terms that precisely - didn't it take Russell and Whitehead something like 348 pages to prove 1 + 1 = 2?
I've got a lot of these prejudices myself, of course. My favorite one is that intelligent people can change their minds.
By CapitalistImperialistPig at January 04, 2005 |
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Social Security
Tomorrow's Washington Post has This great story on the coming Social Security fight. I don't think I've seen the issues set out more clearly anywhere. Jonathan Weisman starts out by laying out the facts:
In just 14 years, the nation's Social Security system is projected to reach a day of reckoning: Retiree benefits will exceed payroll tax receipts, and to pay its bills the system will have to begin redeeming billions of dollars in special Treasury bonds that have piled up in its trust fund.
Well, er, trillions - but what's a factor of a thousand among friends.The fight will come over the implications:
To President Bush, this is a crisis, worth nothing short of dramatic structural changes to a social insurance system that since 1940 has lifted the elderly and disabled from poverty. To those who wish to preserve the system, it is merely the day when Congress must own up to its past profligacy and begin repaying Social Security for the trillions of dollars it has borrowed to fund immediate tax cuts and spending.
The entire article should be required reading for all of us who wish to derail Bush's scam to deprive those currently 50 (or 55) and younger of the Social Security benefits they having been paying for all their working lives.
By CapitalistImperialistPig at January 01, 2005 |
American Dynasties and the Fall of the Republic
This Story in The Economist is the latest symptom that the American Republic is once again in trouble. The problem is a dramatic increase in inequality and a corresponding decrease in social mobility. Some quotes:
This is not the first time that America has looked as if it was about to succumb to what might be termed the British temptation. America witnessed a similar widening of the income gap in the Gilded Age. It also witnessed the formation of a British-style ruling class. The robber barons of the late 19th century sent their children to private boarding schools and made sure that they married the daughters of the old elite, preferably from across the Atlantic. Politics fell into the hands of the members of a limited circle—so much so that the Senate was known as the millionaires' club.
Yet the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a concerted attempt to prevent America from degenerating into a class-based society.
Unfortunately, the last 25-50 years has seen much of the result undone, partly by the increasing dynastic tendencies in our politics, but mainly by the regressive tax changes of Reagan and Bush.
The Republicans, by getting rid of inheritance tax, seem hell-bent on ignoring Teddy Roosevelt's warnings about the dangers of a hereditary aristocracy. The Democrats are more interested in preferment for minorities than building ladders of opportunity for all.
Left to their own devices, the Republicans will do their best to turn our republic into an oligarchy. The social security fight will be the next place to resist this trend and fight for the republic. We need to insist that the huge deficits run up by tax cuts for the rich should be paid off by them, not by social security recipients.
By CapitalistImperialistPig at January 01, 2005 |


text: mere million phone announcements today, Sony Ericsson is also adding the Z530, K510, and K310 to their lineup. These three are holding up the low-end, so there aren't a lot of surprises, but there are cameras and Bluetooth radios across the line. The K510 (pictured) is a 1.3 megapixel shooter, but is limited to its 28MB of included memory, while the Z530i -- little brother to the W300i Walkman clamshell -- only does VGA, but allows memory expansion via a M2 slot. All of the phones support music, but you're not going to make it through many tunes on the 15MB K310 which features a VGA res camera. All three of the tri-band GSM devices sport 128x160 LCDs, no word on price or availability. Click on for pics of the Z530i and K310.


text:
Wall-Mounted Pull-Up Bar
This product cannot be ordered online. Please call (800) 506-7926 to order this product.
Legend Fitness
model: 3181Click to enlarge
Call (800) 506-7926 for the absolute lowest price on this product.
|Your Price
|Regular Price
|*Non-Contiguous U.S. States & Territories - please call for shipping charges.
Warranty InfoClick Here
This no-nonsense pull-up bar from Legend Fitness is a fully welded, powder coated bar that will probably be the only pull-up bar you'll ever need to buy. The handle diameter measures 1.315 inches and gives you access to one of the simplest, yet most effective upper body and back exercise there is... or, as Legend Fitness puts it, you can also use it as "the world's toughest coat rack."
Call For Freight Quote
|Shipping Info
|Shipping Weight
|Shipping Length
|Shipping Width
|Shipping Height
Product Reviews
This product currently has no reviews. Would you like to leave one?


text:
Fox 883-02-029 2.5 Series OE Coil-Over Shocks Ford F-150 2009+
Part #: 883-02-029
Part Type: IFP Kits
Note: 2.5 Series OE Coil-Over Shocks
Description: Ford F-150 (2009+)
Material/Finish: N/A
Condition: NEW
Fox 883-02-029 Ford F-150 2009+
FOX shox are available in a wide range of sizes and that are all specifically valved for your application. FOX has the perfect shock for your project with multiple mounting options to choose from. Fox Shocks are available in both coilover and smooth body, with and without reservoir and a wide range of travel distances. Browse our huge selection of Fox Shox to find the right shock for you!
Fox Shocks 883-02-029 available now at BumperSuperstore.com for discount prices.
- 883-02-029
- 883-02-029
- Fox Shocks
- New
Shipping Information
- Item Requires Shipping
- Free Shipping!
- Free Shipping!
Customer Reviews
Total Reviews (0)
Write the First Review!
You must login to post a review.


text:
Clicking on the link below will bring up an image in a new window (you may need to disable pop-up blockers to do this). The picture contains five rows of asterisks. Your job is to count them as quickly as possible. Try using your finger to point and help keep track.
Now try the same task again, only this time, keep your hands flat on the table while you count.
If you're like most people, this second task was a little more difficult for you. It's not that you need to use your finger to help you count, it just seems to help things along a bit. When you weren't using your finger to point, you may have found yourself nodding your head to help keep pace with all those asterisks.
A team led by Richard Carlson gave 24 tests like this to 17 students, and verified that pointing to help count asterisks resulted in faster and more accurate counts. But why? Maybe the fact that the items being counted are all asterisks tripped up the students, and they had to use their fingers just to keep their place. Carlson's team repeated the study, only using a variety of different symbols, not just asterisks. They found the same result. Even for a simple counting task, pointing at the things we count makes it easier. But once again the question arises: how is it that simply pointing at things helps us count?
The team repeated the first experiment, but this time they videotaped the students as they completed the task. Once again, half the time the students were allowed to point at the asterisks, and the other half the time they were not.
Two research assistants watched the videos (which were just side-views of the student volunteers' heads) and noted when they saw the heads nodding. The two assistants agreed on what constituted a nod 87 percent of the time. So how does nodding correspond to pointing and accuracy? Here are some results:
When viewers weren't allowed to point, they nearly always nodded as they counted. What's more, non-pointers who nodded were significantly more accurate than non-nodders. It's beginning to look like the body movements themselves are somehow assisting in the counting process.
Carlson's team speculates that when we count, we actually use body movements as placeholders — memory aids that improve our ability to count.
In a fourth experiment, they extend this reasoning beyond counting to adding numbers. Volunteers were presented with sets of cubes — real cubes, not images on the computer — printed with numbers from 2 to 6. Each cube had the same number on all sides (e.g. the "2" cube was always a 2; turning it did not affect its value). A computer told the experimenter how many of each cube to present to the volunteers, and also generated a starting value ranging from 7 to 18.
The task was to add up the values of each cube, plus the starting value. So, for example, a participant might see five cubes, valued at 2, 4, 4, 5, and 6, and be given a starting value of 8. The correct response would be 29. The cubes were presented in a small, open cardboard box, and respondents were encouraged to talk their way through the problem. Half the time, they were allowed to touch and move the cubes, the other half the time, they had to keep their hands flat on the table. Here are the results:
For a small number of cubes, being allowed to touch and move the cubes made no difference in the results, but as the number of cubes increased, the effect became dramatic — accuracy plummeted and reaction time increased when students were not allowed to touch the cubes. The students who weren't allowed to move the cubes also talked to themselves significantly more often as they tried to work through the problems.
Carlson's team believes that speech may take a similar role to hand movements when doing simple problems like these. Both actions help people keep track of the numbers while they work through the problem. But some of the words used in talking through a problem don't serve this function. When you say "3 and 3 is 6," only the numbers serve to help you keep track. The researchers argue that "and" and "is" in this phrase function more like nodding, to keep rhythm as you work.
So using your body, like using your voice, can help you work through arithmetic problems — but some parts of your body help more than others.
Related: Children learn best when teaching is out of sync.
Carlson, R.A., Avraamides, M.N., Cary, M., Strasberg, S. (2007). What do the hands externalize in simple arithmetic?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33(4), 747-756. DOI: 10.1037/0278-7322.214.171.1247


text:
Skip to comments.The Hot Theory on How the Supreme Court Gets to a 6-3 Vote to Uphold Obamacare
Posted on 03/30/2012 11:47:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
RUSH: Let's talk about the Supreme Court. I am fascinated to watch the media, folks. What is happening today at the United States Supreme Court is what has happened for 222 years. There's nothing special about today. There's nothing unique. The court is doing nothing today that it hasn't done since its inception. But if you read the media you would think that the vote the court's taking today is unprecedented. Also, various stories, media obviously begging for a leak on the vote. There hasn't ever been one that anybody could recall. Even Roe v. Wade didn't leak, and that decision wasn't announced for months after it was reached.
But the media, here's a story, this is Associated Press: "Justices Meet Friday to Vote on Health Care Case -- While the rest of us have to wait until June, the justices of the Supreme Court will know the likely outcome of the historic health care case by the time they go home this weekend." Well, of course. They're voting on it. Is it unfair that the justices know and we don't know? "While rest of us have to wait until June, the justices will know the likely outcome." Well, of course, duh. They are the likely outcome.
"After months of anticipation, thousands of pages of briefs and more than six hours of arguments, the justices will vote on the fate of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in under an hour Friday morning. They will meet in a wood-paneled conference room on the court's main floor. No one else will be present." You know, folks, it is hilarious and it's pathetic how the media are all aflutter about how the court is gonna vote on Obamacare today and then not announce their ruling 'til the end of June. It's not fair. It just isn't right. They know and we don't. We have to wait until June.
So they're hunting around here, they're hoping and praying for leaks. If you know how to read between the lines of these liberal media news stories, as I do, you can see that they're mining for leaks here. They're asking clerks to let them know how it turns out. Here's what's going on today. This is the procedure, as it has been for 222 years. The nine justices will gather in this room and they will vote, and it's only them. There is nobody else in the room. There are no clerks. There are no secretaries. The most junior justice, who is Elena Kagan, takes the notes of the meeting. She is the note taker. She records what happens here. There's no secretaries; no executive assistants. There's no iPhone in there with Siri. There are no clerks. If somebody wants a cup of coffee, Elena Kagan goes and gets it. That's common, too. The most junior justice does the grunt work like that. It's traditional, and it's always happened.
They will vote. Opinions will be assigned. There might be a little discussion going around the room as the justices explain things that are important to them, noteworthy, but there's very little persuasion, if any, that goes on here. It remains entirely civil and collegial. Do not erupt in arguments. The arguments and the dissents and the disagreements occur in writing. The vote that is held today is not final because, after the opinions have been assigned and written, it's not likely, but it has happened -- in fact, it happened with Justice Kennedy in a fairly recent case, changed his original vote after reading opinions from the other justices. That could happen here.
So the vote today is subject to change, and the really fascinating thing about what's going on today is the vote itself and what happens as a result of it. And there is a theory that is floating around out there that I want to share with you. I'm gonna take the break here and I'm gonna share with you this theory, and as a little bit of a tease, I'll tell you this about it. The theory is how the vote gets to 6-3 for total constitutionality. That's the theory. How they get there is what's fascinating.
RUSH: I'm not saying this is going to happen, by the way. The fact that it's so widely being predicted now, if it becomes conventional wisdom it could very well be like most conventional wisdom, and that is wrong. There's a very, very left-wing blog called the SCOTUS blog, and the guy there is predicting 6-3 for the whole thing being found constitutional, 6-3. A lot of others have looked at his reasoning, "Yeah, you know what, I like that reasoning, it makes perfect sense to me. I think I'll sign on to that." If it happens, and if it happens the way the theory explains it, we don't have a court looking at the law anymore. We have a fully politicized third branch of government.
Now, I know that the liberal judges don't look at the law; they look at ways to rewrite it. I know that the left has politicized the courts for years. Books have been written about it. I'm not trying to sound naive here. I'm talking about the entire institution, if it goes this way. The only way you can get to 6-3 -- well, not the only way, but this theory's way, requires that the judges look at things that they consider more important than the law. Such as the reputation of the court. Such as desire for there not to be so many 5-4 decisions, particularly on matters of such great importance.
So here goes. The chief justice, John Roberts, gets to decide who should write the opinion when he is in the majority. He assigns it. This theory holds that he'll write it himself. But before we get there, let's review where we are. Anthony Kennedy made it clear for all this talk about a plane wreck and a train wreck, if you read the transcripts all the way through, and we played the sound bites of Kennedy on both sides of this, Anthony Kennedy was open, made it very clear, he was open to the idea that the mandate is constitutional. Remember his phrase, "You have a heavy burden to prove here."
If the government, in his mind, has made the case that this law is necessary and proper, he's indicated he could find the whole thing constitutional. He also appears open to the idea that this whole business that the commerce clause says you can't force people to buy something, the way that got dissected and explained in a way to make people think, well, wait a minute here, maybe we could say that it's constitutional to require everybody to buy health insurance because the fact is that the market already exists. People are already buying health insurance. It's not a new market the government's creating. If it were a new market they were creating, that would be a slam-dunk, no way is that constitutional. But the out is, the market's already there. The government's not creating anything.
So the point of these two bits of analysis is to suggest that Roberts and Kennedy could be with the four liberals in finding the whole thing constitutional. The idea that this legislation is so important, so transformative that a 5-4 decision is not desirable by the chief and by a lot of people, that it would roil the country. A 5-4 decision is too narrow if they're gonna find the bill unconstitutional. Because, you see, theoretically the Supreme Court hates -- theoretically -- hates telling Congress that what it's doing is illegal. They hate intruding on this. They are always balanced on the side that whatever happens in Congress is fine and dandy, and it has to be a real breach before they move in and take it away from 'em. And if they're gonna move in and take it away from them and declare what Congress did illegal and against the law and constitutional, they don't want to do that with a 5-4 decision.
That's what this theory holds. I'm not telling you I subscribe to this. But if that part of the theory is accurate, what's that tell us? It tells us that the court's worried about its reputation more than getting the law right. It's worried more about what people are gonna think of 'em. They're worried more about how it might roil the population, 5-4. We need 6-3 and we need 7-2 on this. So how do you get there? The theory is that Kennedy will go ahead and join the libs and make it 5-4 for total constitutionality, because he signaled that. Then Roberts, after having seen that, knows he can't stop it, so he joins the majority to make it 6-3 so that he gets to write the opinion. And in writing the opinion, Roberts will then limit the scope of the Obamacare bill to something like, yes, Congress can force us to buy health insurance, but nothing else.
Now, you might be asking yourself, can the court do that? There's nothing in this legislation about limiting it to just health insurance. The court does it all the time, folks. Try to find a limiting principle in here when there's not one in the bill. This is what frustrates me about this whole theory. There is no limiting principle in the bill. And yet this theory holds that they want a 6-3 or 7-2 decision. That Kennedy's gonna go with the libs. That Roberts will see that, and to protect the court's reputation and to write the opinion and have a limiting principle in there to limit the damage to this, the theory is that Roberts can go either way. Once he sees how it's gonna go, then he'll join the majority and then write the opinion himself to limit the damage, if you will.
Now, this theory also requires that you believe Roberts signaled during oral arguments that he could find a way to find this whole thing constitutional. That he didn't seem anywhere near as opposed to this as Scalia was, for example. So if he crosses over with Kennedy and joins the libs and it's 6-3, he writes the majority opinion, and he makes it as narrow as possible so that, yeah, they can force us to buy health insurance, but they can't make us buy anything else. That won't hold up by the way. Nobody's gonna remember a limiting principle in this. They're gonna remember, if this happens, it was 6-3, or 7-2 for total constitutionality, and that's it. But that's how this theory goes. As I tell you, this requires you believe the court cares not about the law, but rather about other things.
RUSH: Now, the theory that I just gave you comes from SCOTUS blog. It's run by a very left-leaning guy. A lot of people who are not liberals have run across this theory and it appeals to them. It's slowly but surely behind the scenes becoming conventional wisdom, and of course the left is glomming onto this, 'cause they love this possibility. They're fantasizing here, almost. I mean they are dreaming of a 6-3 decision where the chief is in the majority and writes the opinion. They can't have a better day than that, other than if it went 7-2. And it could go 7-2.
What this theory relies on is justices, particularly the chief, doing two things: caring more about what is thought of the court at the end of this, in terms of its reputation. The theory relies on the justices being very upset with all these recent 5-4 decisions, that that's too narrow. We have something this momentous, and it is, this will forever -- I forget which justice said it. This forever changes the relationship between citizen and government. This is it. I mean this changes the whole notion of the Constitution, that limits government. This wipes that out.
What troubles me about the theory is that has to be totally discarded. The law, the Constitution has to be totally discarded all because the court is going to be worried about a margin of defeat. Like if Kennedy goes the other way, 5-4, the same theory holds that Roberts will then join that side to make it 6-3 unconstitutional. So it still is about Kennedy here, in this theory. And that's all this is. Just a theory. But what made me want to explain it to you is that it's out there and that a lot of people on the right find it appealing. Those people, too, who find it appealing are frustrating to me because they are looking at this, like I said earlier this week, this is just another fun intellectual exercise to 'em. We're here in the classroom and we're debating political science. We are trying to be the smartest people in the room, to figure out exactly what the court's gonna do within our own political constraints.
That's what frustrates me about this, the fact that most people talking about this don't get the severity of what we face is. Because in the real world, there's no way this law is constitutional. I don't say that as a partisan. In a just and sane, objective world, this would be slam-dunk struck down nine to nothing. It should at least be 7-2 unconstitutional and throw the whole thing out. But the theory that seems to be the popular one relies on nothing having to do with the law. Nothing. It has to do with positioning, court reputation, not causing riots in the streets at the end of the day when the decision is announced.
RUSH: Now, don't worry too much about this theory, folks. The theory is becoming conventional wisdom and that means it's irrelevant and is wrong. It's advanced by the left. And, by the way, here's a quote from Senator Richard Blumenthal, former attorney general Connecticut, now Senator from Connecticut. The left is playing this "you will ruin your reputation" card. That's what this theory is about, the theory that justices will see it. They're trying to intimidate the court into ruling in favor of Obamacare. Blumenthal said, "The court commands no armies, it has no money; it depends for its power on its credibility. The only reason people obey it is because it has that credibility. And the court risks grave damage if it strikes down a statute of this magnitude and importance, and stretches so dramatically and drastically to do it."
So you guys on the court, you people on the court, you are going to destroy the court and your credibility and people won't obey if you do the right thing here and find this constitutional. So the effort to intimidate is under full swing.
As noted previously -
Kagan is ALREADY sitting on the case. the court is in desperate need for credibility.
If they find it Constitutional - with Kagan involved - the game is over. There is no Constitution, and we live in a slowly evolving anarchy of "might makes right".
Their only hope for credibility - of any sort - is to find it un-constitutional. Which of course, it is.
Finding it Constitutional - means we don't have a Constitution. No need for credibility. We either have a Constituion - or we don't. There is no choice of "maintaining credibility - and finding it Constitutional." - there - just isn't.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: So do you want us to write an opinion saying we have concluded that there is an insignificant risk of a substantial adverse effect on the insurance companies, that's our economic conclusion, and therefore not severable? That's what you want me to say?
Notice how he starts out talking about "us" writing an opinion, but ends with "me" writing the opinion.
My prediction — and please write this down:
Anti-Injunction Act; 5 to 4 — Obamacare not subject to Anti-Injunction act.
Individual Mandate: 5 to 4 — Unconstitutional
Severability: 6 to 3 — Individual mandate is not severable (Kagan jumps ship and joins the majority)
Medicaid: 7 to 2 — Constitutional, but moot because the entire law will be stricken due to the inability to sever the individual mandate. (Roberts, Scalia, and Kennedy will join the libs, but there will be a number of concur in part, dissent in part opinions.)
The worldview that made them will view that as a bigger crime than going against the US Constitution, or all the issues it will cause.
This is an interesting answer, but it assumes that Roberts only wants to overthrow the law. If Kennedy votes to uphold, it doesn't matter whether Kagan abstains or not--I believe a 4-4 tie would uphold the law. And wouldn't that make this even more of a mess, an unpopular law being upheld by a 4-4 tie?
And, if the Court is so interested in their power and reputation, you would think they owe the current President a smackdown for his berating them in the 2011 SOTU address.
I'm reading the Toobin book on the Supremes now. In it, he claims the Justices have very little interaction with one another...at least, they aren't chummy within their offices. There aren't many casual strolls from office to office, not a lot of mundane small talk--"who do you like on American Idol? Oh, really? Which way you gonna vote on the ACA? Want to do Chili's for lunch?"
I said "retiring". Kennedy said he's retiring after the 2012 election.
Like Rush says, it's one or two people in the U.S. that currently have the power to make us a slave state or a free state. Sad, it's come to this, anyway!
A very fair point to make!
Hey, young lady! Do you ever read your emails? Luv ya!
You're kidding, right!!
He had an hour and a half press conference detailing fraud on behalf of Obozo back on March 1. (Same date we learned that Breitbart "died"* and there was a "bombscare" at Rush Limbaugh's compound in Palm Beach.) I'm not going to give you a link to an hour and a half video but I suggest you get started with this three and a half MINUTE video. If you care you will follow its links.
* How's that autopsy going BTW?
Question for Blumenthal:
1. You say, 'The only reason people obey it is because it has that credibility. And the Court risks grave damage if it strikes down . . . .' Were you as concerned by the President's blatant and unprecedented words against the Court in a State of the Union address? Or, are your remarks just a continuation of this Administration's intended challenge to the authority of Court whenever it rules in favor of individual freedom and against intrusive and coercive power concentrated in government?
Note to Blumenthal:
Might it occur to you and your fellow so-called "progressives" that Supreme Court Justices might be more concerned about how generations of Americans yet unborn may consider their decision and individual written opinions than they are about how a few truly insignificant human beings of 2010-2012, ignorant of America's 200-year heritage of liberty and hungry for power for themselves and their cronies, felt about their decision?
Civilization's long struggle for individual liberty and against concentrated power in other arrogant and imperfect individuals, or collections of individuals, is well documented.
Only in America, in one little spot on the globe, and in one little sliver of time, did a group of individuals come together, organizing themselves around a concept of Creator-endowed life, liberty, rights and laws to protect each individual, agree to a form of self-government whose written Constitution's provisions placed "People" over "government."
Future generations will read about this little sliver of time in America's history too, and they will know whether this Court upheld the Founders' vision or reversed the course and unleashed oppressive powers from which previous generations had fled.
Does Toobin mention that Ginsburg and Scalia play contract bridge together? I'd call that chummy even though they're polar opposites on the bench.
I don't think the Court will be interested in political reputation or a black president. I think this decision will be purely Constitutional.
Maybe I'm dreaming, but I sure hope not.
This is a huge attempt at a power grab by the Marxists.
Thanks very much. Nope, not kidding!
Public opinion doesn't follow the same traditions of Christian theology or The Empire Strikes Back — he voted against Kelo, and voting against Obamacare doesn't cancel that out when it's time to consider his service.
By making the argument that they are human you could also argue that they are paying attention to the polls that a majority of Amercians do not want this, the Congress that put this bill together was voted out, and several moderate senators had to be bribed to get this bill passed
By making the argument that they are human you could also argue that they are paying attention to the polls that a majority of Amercians do not want this, the Congress that put this bill together was voted out, and several moderate senators had to be bribed to get this bill passed
"Kennedy said hes retiring after the 2012 election."
That's right, even if he would "ask" her about it, he can't dismiss her.
If the individual mandate is struck down, the entire law is mute.
There is no way that the Chief Justice would make any demands at all that Kagan recuse herself. She would be counted on for the integrity that it takes to make that decision herself. In the long run, if a single justice had begged out, it would not make any difference at all as to the fate of the bill since a 4-4 decision would leave it totally in place.
The worldview is more important. Look at the fiasco and sheer madness of the war on terror.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.


text:
Take that, Nike. Dwayne Wade of the Heat has signed a deal with the Chinese company Li-Ning to create an apparel and footwear line called… drum roll please… Wade.
Li-Ning, which was found by the Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Li Ning, said Wade "will serve as the centerpiece of the corporation's growing international basketball strategy, and be shaped by an unprecedented level of creative and strategic direction from the two-time N.B.A. champion," according to a statement released by the company on Wednesday.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it's a fair bet that Wade is being paid well to be the celebrity spokesman for a company that has little footing in the United States. Li-Ning claims to be China's leading sportswear company and luring a superstar like Wade away from the likes of Nike, Reebok and Adidas is unlikely to come cheaply.
The deal echoes a sponsorship deal between Novak Djokovic and Uniqlo, the Japanese clothing maker that is trying to break into the sports industry and appeal to customers outside of Asia.
Li-Ning, of course, is already a large sporting goods company. But adding Wade, who will serve as "chief brand officer" and guide "the creative direction of all Wade products," will provide cache in a country in love with basketball.
Wade will wear two specially created basketball sneakers when the Heat play two pre-season games this week in Beijing and Shanghai. The shoes will be auctioned in China.


text:
MaFI (The Market Facilitation Initiative)
Market Facilitation Clinic 1: Case Study
Scaling Up Financial Products in Market Systems: Beyond the Usual Suspects
Market Facilitation Clinic 1: Case Study
Developing a Learning Agenda | Initial Participant Challenges
Participant Case Studies | Expert Voice
This group used systems thinking to identify and support a range of market actors to design and scale financial products that meet the unique constraints of rural farmers/poor. Some group members are working directly with financial institutions to refine their product offerings. In other cases, members may be supporting a different market actor to build a custom financing model to help the poor access key products or services, from organic fertilizer to solar-powered irrigation pumps. The group tackled the challenge of getting market actors to move from perceived risk to real risk for different investments, and to structure financial products that match the cash flow realities of the poor.
Developing a Learning Agenda
In the first group call, the group got to know one another, and upon hearing about their individual contexts (and with some framing provided by the facilitator), they converged around the question they wanted to address together through this group.
Learning Agenda:
How do we leverage a wider set of partners within the market system to move from pilot to scale in financial products/services? How do we identify the right incentives, both from supply and demand sides, to increase access to products that are appropriate for the rural poor?
Given this shared learning agenda, each of the group members then prepared and share with the rest of the group a "live case study." Fellow group members were given the opportunity to ask clarifying questions and make suggestions on possible strategies their colleague might test out. The cases are described in the sections that follow.
Participant 1: Gustavo Cavero
Economic Development Manager
World Vision (Myanmar)
Participant 2: Omar Faruq
Managing Director
Faruq Fertilizers Ltd. (Bangladesh)
Participant 3: Heather Lemunyon
Senior Technical Coordinator
ACDI/VOCA (United States)
Participant 4: Sarah Nuernberger
Project Manager
International Development Enterprises (iDE) (United States)


text:
This week: Mayakoba Golf Classic, Thursday through Sunday, El Camaleon Golf Club in Riviera Maya, Mexico.
Fourth-round score: 2-under-par 69.
Position: Kelly (2-under 282) tied for 37th, 11 strokes behind winner John Huh (271), who defeated Robert Allenby is a sudden-death playoff.
Recap: The Central Kitsap graduate recorded his best career finish in a PGA Tour tournament Sunday, eclipsing the tied-for-51st showing at the 2009 Reno-Tahoe Open. It was also the first time this season he posted back-to-back rounds in the 60s. Yet, there might be a tinge of disappointment taken from Sunday since he was 5-under through 13 holes, and was inside the top 20 before taking a double bogey at the 14th hole. He earned $15,170 for the tournament.
Next: The Honda Classic starting Thursday at PGA National Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.