U.S. Supreme Court

From an article dated 10/20/2008:  Stevens has served the longest of the nine, and by next July he will have completed 34 years, only five justices ever recorded serving longer. (He is threatening the record in this obscure competition, which was set by the justice whose seat he took in 1975, William O. Douglas, who [...]

Thursday, 04/30/09 Public Square

Here’s a pleasant place for a visit.  Pull up a chair and let us know what you’re thinking of, what you’d like to discuss.
fnord

The Matthew Shepard Act

The bill also called, Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed the house today 249-175, over conservatives’ objections.
Hate crimes — as defined by the bill — are those motivated by prejudice and based on someone’s race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
A weaker bill died two years ago under [...]

Pro-Guns, Anti-Obama and Democrats…

Max Blumenthal took his cameras and attended gun shows in Antioch, California, and Reno, Nevada, on April 18 – 19.  He found gun enthusiasts who are convinced President Obama and the Democratic majority will take away American’s guns.  In fact, their conspiracy theories only begin there and get worse.  They profess we will all be [...]

Why the Death of the GOP May Not be a Good Thing

Blogger, Teddy Williams, in his effort Left of College Station explains the simple reasons for the GOP’s problems.  He further asserts a very weak GOP may not be in this country’s political best interests.
Iggy Donnelly

GOP’s Swing Rightward Responsible For Specter Decision

In the Mother Jones article, How the Far Right Handed Dems a 60 Vote Majority, Jonathan Stein and Nick Baumann explain Spector’s political calculus that led to his party switch.  Nationally, and especially locally in Pennsylvania, the GOP is getting smaller and more virulently conservative.  Spector would have had to face far right opponent Pat [...]

Wednesday, 04/29/09 Public Square

Serendipity is the gift of making happy, accidental discoveries of valuable things you weren’t looking for.  It comes to the person who is curious and adventurous.
Let’s talk and maybe we’ll happen upon something valuable accidentally.  Maybe we’ll just decide our conversations are valuable.
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Tuesday, 04/28/09 Public Square

Talk about it!
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Obama’s First 100 Days

Wednesday marks the end of the first 100 days of the Obama presidency.
Maybe I was hearing conservative leaning sources, but I distinctly recall over the last few days getting the message that the favorability ratings of a president’s first 100 days don’t really mean too much.  The comments I recall were like:  “why, George W. [...]

Things We Did Know, And Did Nothing About . . .

Mark Danner wrote an Op Ed piece for the Washington Post entitled, If Everyone Knew, Who’s to Blame? which appeared in yesterday’s WaPo.  In this opinion piece he recollects the political calculations that entered into our government’s decisions to pursue torture and fears that led the party out of power to avert its eyes from [...]

The Advantages of Sharing Meat: No Pun Intended

Now I’m understanding why I take the sweety to the Red Rock Canyon Grill for those anniversary dinners.  Read about the evolutionary roots of this strategy.
Iggy Donnelly

Increased Mortality Associated with Frequent Night Time Urination

I got interested in this subject based on a recent discussion on one of the Public Square Threads.  This study shows in people older than 70 that urination two or more times per night is associated with death.  This relationship held even after the following covariates were controlled:  “age, sex, BMI, diabetes, hypertension, history of [...]

100 Most Influential

I was reading the nominations for what TIME magazine calls, “Your TIME 100.”  It’s a list of 203 nominations for the world’s most influential in government, science, technology and the arts –  according to those who took time to nominate, vote, rank…
The entire list is available here.
We’re completing the fourth month of 2009, so it [...]

Monday, 4/27/09 Public Square

Share your thoughts here, bounce them around and see what takes flight — you choose the subject.
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Writing!

Flash fiction, or really short stories of less than 1000 words . . . some love it; some hate it. Either way, it’s an interesting way of getting the most info in the least amount of words. For instance, Ernest Hemingway wrote, “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” Another is one I wrote just for [...]