Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
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PDF Say you're a Harvard professor and you decide to dabble a bit in politics. You decide to move back to Canada in hopes of becoming prime minister. Shouldn't be that hard. Before you go, you tell the school paper that if things don't work out, you'll probably return to Boston and pick up where you left off.
That would appear to have been Michael Ignatieff's plan, but things might not work out the way he was hoping. Harvard is going through some tough times. According to Boston magazine, its endowment, onces a porcine $37 billion, is down about $11 billion due to some unfortunate investment setbacks. And since it's not making any money, Harvard has to withdraw about $1.4 billion from capital to cover its operating costs, which would normally have been paid for out of profits. Which leaves a relatively paltry $24 billion left in the fund.
Not bad by most standards, but Harvard is used to big-time spending, without worrying much about where the money comes from. (Hey, that reminds me of a federal political party here in Canada. No wonder Ignatieff felt at home with the Liberals!) It has big expenses, and $24 bil isn't going to cover them. In fact, says the magazine:
While Harvard officials are doing their public-face best to downplay the problem, the numbers don't lie, and this economic crunch will leave the school a profoundly changed place. Harvard will have to become smaller and academically more modest, and as it does it will chafe at having grand plans without the resources to fund them. For the first time in decades, it will worry about merely paying its bills. The university will have to decide: If it is no longer so rich that it doesn't have to make choices, what does it really value? What are its priorities? It won't be a comfortable debate.
"We are in trouble," says one Crimson professor. In the aftermath of deep and damaging cuts, "there is a real chance that Harvard will no longer be considered the best there is."
Uh-oh. If things take a wrong turn in Ottawa, the Liberal leader might have to reconsider Plan B. It's just possible the old school won't be waiting with open arms, or without an open chequebook anyway. Maybe he'll have to stick around Ottawa longer. Maybe he'll have to teach at a Canadian university. Oh, the shame. Hey, maybe that's why he's so eager to make it easier to collect EI.
Kelly McParland
National Post
Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
[Source: Boston News]
Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
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Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
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Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
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posted by 88956 @ 5:51 PM,
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Conservatives launch Sotomayor attack
PrintEmailPDF Prominent Republicans and conservative interest groups seek to portray Sonia Sotomayor as racist and un-American
Prominent Republicans and conservative interest groups have unleashed a campaign to portray President Barack Obama's supreme court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, as racist for suggesting that white men don't always make the best judges and un-American for using a Spanish pronunciation of her name.
What Obama has portrayed as Sotomayor's strength as an American of Puerto Rican descent raised in the Bronx who made it to Princeton and Yale, bringing areas of experience and understanding not immediately evident among the white male majority on the supreme court, is being played by her opponents as evidence that she was nominated because she has a racial agenda.
Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the house of representatives, and Karl Rove, George Bush's chief strategist, have both called Sotomayor "racist" and said she should withdraw as a nominee over comments she made in 2001. In a talk at the University of California, she offered the view that a female Hispanic judge would better understand certain issues around race and gender than a white male.
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," she said. "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."
To some Americans, Sotomayor's comments appear self-evident. They point to the personal experience that Thurgood Marshall brought as a black man elevated to the supreme court during the civil rights era. But conservatives said her comments are evidence that she will be biased against whites and men.
Gingrich, in a Twitter feed to more than 340,000 followers, said she should resign. "Imagine a judicial nominee said, 'My experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' New racism is no better than old racism," wrote Gingrich.
He sent a second tweet a few minutes later saying: "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."
Rove and two Republican members of congress also called Sotomayor racist.
The White House warned the Republicans to be "exceedingly careful" about such language. Some Republican strategists said the tactic could backfire if it alienates large numbers of Hispanics who support the party.
But other conservatives took up the cudgel.
Rush Limbaugh, the country's most popular talk radio host with millions of listeners, said the party should press the issue.
"If the GOP [Republican party] allows itself to be trapped in the false premise that it's racist and sexist and must show the world that it isn't, then the GOP is extinct," he said.
Critics are also using Sotomayor's pronunciation of her own name as a stick to beat her. The judge, whose parents hail from the Spanish-speaking US territory of Puerto Rico, uses a Hispanic pronunciation. Some critics have taken up a call by a prominent conservative magazine, the National Review, arguing that she should Anglicise it. The writer, Mark Krikorian, said that "there ought to be limits" to the demands made on English-speakers to try and pronounce foreign names.
While the accusations of racism are considered extreme among many Americans, they are likely to shape the challenges to Sotomayor when she faces her congressional confirmation hearing.
Obama sees Sotomayor's background as reflecting the "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient" he said he wants to see in the next supreme court justice.
But that experience and understanding is being interpreted by some Republicans as bias. Senator Orrin Hatch, a member of the judiciary committee, portrayed Obama's desire for empathy in a supreme court justice as "a code word for an activist judge".
Hatch, said that while he is keeping an open mind, the judge will have to answer for her 2001 comments. He said he will not support her if she intends to use the law to implement social policy.
"I will focus on determining whether Judge Sotomayor is committed to deciding cases based only on the law as made by the people and their elected representatives, not on personal feelings or politics," Hatch said in a statement.
Critics have also latched on to Sotomayor's history of legal activism in the 1980s when she served on the board of a legal group tackling discrimination against minorities in New York and cases involving alleged racism involved in police brutality and the imposition of the death penalty.
The group won cases that redrew constituency boundaries to increase the number of Hispanic elected officials. It also launched a defamation case, and lost, against a former Reagan administration official for claiming that most Puerto Ricans in the city were on food stamps.
guardian.co.uk ? Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Conservatives launch Sotomayor attack
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posted by 88956 @ 5:24 PM,
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Obama On LGBT Pride Month
PrintEmailPDF A presidential proclamation marking Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.
Available in full after the jump.
Obama On LGBT Pride Month
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Obama On LGBT Pride Month
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Obama On LGBT Pride Month
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posted by 88956 @ 4:46 PM,
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Investigation Links Reality Shows, Suicide
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Is there a link between reality shows and suicide?
An investigation by TheWrap, an entertainment website, found that 11 people have killed themselves "in tragedies that appear to be linked to their?experience on television shows."
Other Links From TVGuide.com
Investigation Links Reality Shows, Suicide
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posted by 88956 @ 4:36 PM,
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Nexon opens Dungeon Fighter Online beta application
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Do you like arcade fighters? Do you like Diablo? How about MMOs? Wait, you love all those things? Then you really should sign up for Dungeon Fighter Online's beta program -- which just opened up -- and get in on that action early. If you're looking for some hands-on information with the game, we've got you covered there, too.
Something tells us that we lost most of you with, "beta" and the rest of you with, "-just opened up" But that's okay, we'll just spend the rest of our time talking about poppyseed muffins. You see, the best muffins are poppyseed and that's a fact. Sure, you've got your chocolate and blueberry muffins -- which are delicious when warmed up in a microwave -- but nothing beats a freshly baked poppyseed. Its arguably the king of muffins, unless someone figures out how to bake edible gold flakes into muffins.
If you get into the Dungeon Fighter Online beta and were signing up while eating a poppyseed muffin, we wouldn't be too surprised.
Filed under: Betas, New titles, News items, Free-to-play
Nexon opens Dungeon Fighter Online beta application originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Nexon opens Dungeon Fighter Online beta application
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
posted by 88956 @ 4:32 PM,
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Set Your DVR
PrintEmailPDF Howard Kurtz previews a two-part prime-time series -- Inside the Obama White House -- airing on NBC tomorrow and Wednesday "that so far has produced 150 hours of tape.
Said host Brian Williams: "There's stuff we've never seen of how the White House operates. We were pretty stunned at how much we were able to record and how natural events seemed to be."
Set Your DVR
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Set Your DVR
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posted by 88956 @ 3:20 PM,
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Rendell Backs Specter All the Way
PrintEmailPDF Appearing on MSNBC, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) says he's backing Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) in a possible U.S. Senate primary next year.
Said Rendell: "I'm a great admirer of Joe Sestak and worked hard to get him elected and re-elected. And I'm going to work hard to get him re-elected when he runs for Congress next year. Not for the Senate. Joe should not run for the Senate in the Democratic primary. He would get killed."
When asked what would happen if Sestak went forward with a challenge, Rendell said, "We will lose a terrific Congressman. Joe Sestak runs against Arlen Specter, he is out of the Congress after just two short terms. We will lose a terrific Congressman and when he loses to Arlen, he fades into political obscurity."
Rendell Backs Specter All the Way
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Rendell Backs Specter All the Way
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Rendell Backs Specter All the Way
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Rendell Backs Specter All the Way
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Rendell Backs Specter All the Way
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posted by 88956 @ 2:35 PM,
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