Brief and rare pride in my Supreme Court

While there are other hurdles... Today we get to chalk one up for the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America. By MARK SHERMAN The Associated Press Thursday, June 26, 2008; 10:30 AM WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history. The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact. The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home." In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons." He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found." Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. The other dissenters were Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter. The capital's gun law was among the nation's strictest. Dick Anthony Heller, 66, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection in the same Capitol Hill neighborhood as the court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Heller's favor and struck down Washington's handgun ban, saying the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to own guns and that a total prohibition on handguns is not compatible with that right. The issue caused a split within the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney supported the appeals court ruling, but others in the administration feared it could lead to the undoing of other gun regulations, including a federal law restricting sales of machine guns. Other laws keep felons from buying guns and provide for an instant background check. Scalia said nothing in Thursday's ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings." The law adopted by Washington's city council in 1976 bars residents from owning handguns unless they had one before the law took effect. Shotguns and rifles may be kept in homes, if they are registered, kept unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks. Opponents of the law have said it prevents residents from defending themselves. The Washington government says no one would be prosecuted for a gun law violation in cases of self-defense.

George Carlin, dead at 71.

I don't know where to start with this one... Back in the 80's I was exposed to one of the coolest, funniest, most brutally honest individuals ever to walk upright. It was just common sense humor that no one had ever quite put a finger on. Within days of seeing his first HBO special, "Carlin at Carnegie", George Carlin was such a fixture in my life that he had become almost like family. I'm not really sure how many times I have seen him live, but it seemed that everywhere I went, there was George, crass as ever. Rest in peace, George, I'll miss you. LOS ANGELES (AP) — George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71. Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. "He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press. Carlin's jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance. When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening. "So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year. Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" — and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show." He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke). "Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?" He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS. Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s. "We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction." That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years. "The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have." Carlin was born May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site. While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston. "Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says. From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle. In 1960, he left with Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times. Only problem was, it didn't work for him, and they broke up by 1962. "I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya." Eventually Carlin lost the buttoned-up look, favoring the beard, ponytail and all-black attire for which he came to be known. But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars." Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.

Special-Effects Maestro - Stan Winston dead at 62.

Damn man, my blog is reading more like an obituary page more than anything else here recently. I met Stan in the mid-90's at a workshop. His work was/is a major influence in my decision to pursue Industrial Design Technology. Stan was awesome. The man and his genius will be terribly missed. By DERRIK J. LANG – 20 hours ago LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stan Winston, the Oscar-winning special-effects maestro responsible for bringing the dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park" and other iconic movie creatures to life, has died. He was 62. Winston died at his home in Malibu surrounded by family on Sunday evening after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma, according to a representative from Stan Winston Studio. Working with such directors as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Tim Burton in a career spanning four decades, Winston created some of the most memorable visual effects in cinematic history. He helped bring the dinosaurs from "Jurassic Park," the extraterrestrials from "Aliens, the robots from "Terminator" and even "Edward Scissorhands" to the big screen, and was a pioneer in merging real-world effects with computer imaging. "The entertainment industry has lost a genius, and I lost one of my best friends with the death Sunday night of Stan Winston," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "Stan's work and four Oscars speak for themselves and will live on forever. What will live forever in my heart is the way that Stan loved everyone and treated each of his friends like they were family." Winston won visual effects Oscars for 1986's "Aliens," 1992's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and 1993's "Jurassic Park." He also won a makeup Oscar for 1992's "Batman Returns." Winston was nominated for his work on "Heartbeeps," "Predator," "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman Returns," "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and "A.I." He last worked with director Jon Favreau on "Iron Man." "He was experienced and helped guide me while never losing his childlike enthusiasm," Favreau said in a statement. "He was the king of integrating practical effects with CGI, never losing his relevance in an ever changing industry. I am proud to have worked with him and we were looking forward to future collaborations. I knew that he was struggling, but I had no idea that he would be gone so soon. Hollywood has lost a shining star." At the time of his death, Winston was in the process of transforming his physical makeup and effects studio into the new Winston Effects Group with a team of senior effects supervisors. Winton's most recent projects included "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins," "G.I. Joe," "Shutter Island" and Cameron's "Avatar." "He ran at full throttle, in both work and play, and was a man of kindness, wisdom and great humor," Cameron said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "He was a kid that never grew up, whose dreams were writ large on the screens of the world. I am proud to have been his friend, and I will miss him very deeply." As a child growing up in Virginia, Winston enjoyed drawing, puppetry and classic horror films. After graduating from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville in 1968, Winston moved to Southern California to become an actor but instead worked behind the scenes and completed a three-year makeup apprenticeship program at Walt Disney Studios in 1972. Winston is survived by his wife, Karen; a son, daughter, brother and four grandchildren.

Farewell, Tim Russert.

Tim Russert dead at 58 of heart attack

Spain has the balls to do what Americans do not. Sad... really.

Link to the article We get 4 pages of shit on Hillary's bullshit pseudo-concession speech and merely a blurb on an event on something that could, notice that I said could, inspire American truckers (like my brother), to take action. Spanish Truckers Begin Fuel Protest It's a thing of beauty. Trucks block the traffic on the Spanish border with France in Behobia, northern Spain, Monday, June 9, 2008. Tens of thousands of Spanish truckers began an indefinite strike over soaring fuel costs that could bring the country to a standstill. Monday, June 9, 2008; 4:05 PM MADRID, Spain -- Gas stations in Madrid and the northeastern Catalonia region began running out of fuel Monday as an indefinite strike by truckers began to bite. The protest over soaring fuel costs began at midnight Sunday. Antonio Onieva, president of Madrid's station owners organization, told reporters that by 5:30 p.m., 15 percent of the capital's outlets had run out of fuel. Manuel Amado, president of Catalonia's owners' federation, said 40 percent of Catalonia's 1,714 stations had sold out. The stoppage led to lengthy lines at many gasoline stations across the country as drivers rushed to fill up. Truckers also blocked a number of roads around the country, including some leading into the center of Barcelona and the international border with France. "We are the ones who move the goods that this country needs to keep working. If we stop because we haven't got the money to buy fuel then the country will stop," Julio Villascusa, president of the transport association Fenadismer, told Cadena SER radio. Fenadismer representatives and Development Ministry officials met Monday but failed to reach agreement, stretching the strike to a second day. ad_icon Fenadismer said more than 90,000 drivers have been called to take part in the strike. The strike was not expected to have a major effect on city food markets until later in the week. There was almost no movement of trucks early Monday at Mercamadrid, the main wholesale food market for the Spanish capital. Development Ministry transport chief Juan Miguel Sanchez said the government will guarantee market supplies. Fenadismer representatives and Development Ministry officials met Monday but failed to reach agreement, stretching the strike to a second day. A strike by fishermen across Spain also protesting fuel costs has entered a second week. News reports said smaller boats that fish closer to the coast had now joined the protest, which began May 30. The stoppages are part of Europe-wide protests against rising prices.

Spanning the globe... and the agony of defeat.

In my opinion, Jim McKay was THE voice of sports broadcasting. His voice is as clear in my head now as it was when I first began watching "Wide World of Sports" way back when. He will be missed. By DAVID BAUDER The Associated Press Saturday, June 7, 2008; 2:12 PM NEW YORK -- Jim McKay, the venerable and eloquent sportscaster thrust into the role of telling Americans about the tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics, has died. He was 86. McKay died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md., said son Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports. The broadcaster who considered horse racing his favorite sport died only hours before Big Brown attempted to win a Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes. He was host of ABC's influential "Wide World of Sports" for more than 40 years, starting in 1961. The weekend series introduced viewers to all manner of strange, compelling and far-flung sports events. The show provided an international reach long before exotic backdrops became a staple of sports television. McKay provided the famous voice-over that accompanied the opening in which viewers were reminded of the show's mission ("spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports") and what lay ahead ("the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat"). McKay _ understated, dignified and with a clear eye for detail _ covered 12 Olympics, but none more memorably than the Summer Games in Munich, Germany. He was the anchor when events turned grim with the news that Palestinian terrorists kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes. It was left to McKay to tell Americans when a commando raid to rescue the athletes ended in tragedy. "They're all gone," McKay said. The terse, haunting comment was replayed many times through the years when the events of Munich were chronicled. "I had to control myself. I was full of emotion," McKay recalled. "But when you are a professional, it is important to communicate what it is like, to capture the moment." Sports, McKay said, lost its innocence that day. He won both a news and sports Emmy Award for his coverage of the Munich Olympics in addition to the prestigious George Polk award. "In the long run, that's the most memorable single moment of my career," said McKay, an Emmy Award winning broadcaster who was also in the studio for the United States' "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Soviet Union. "I don't know what else would match that." A veteran of the U.S. Navy in World War II, McKay was the first on-air television broadcaster seen in Baltimore. He worked at CBS Sports briefly, but did his most memorable work at ABC Sports when it dominated the business under leader Roone Arledge. "He had a remarkable career and a remarkable life," McManus said. "Hardly a day goes by when someone doesn't come up to me and say how much they admired my father." McKay was the first sportscaster to win an Emmy Award. He won 12, the last in 1988. ABC calculated that McKay traveled some 4 1/2 million miles to work events. He covered more than 100 different sports in 40 countries. In 2002, McKay received the International Olympic Committee's highest honor _ the Olympic Order. "He was a founding father of sports television, one of the most respected commentators in the history of broadcasting and journalism," said George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports. " Added Bob Iger, president and chief executive of The Walt Disney Company: "He was a regular guy who wrote and spoke like a poet." McKay's first television broadcast assignment was a horse race at Pimlico in 1947. It was the start of a love affair _ horse racing captivated him like nothing else. "There are few things in sport as exciting or beautiful as two strong thoroughbreds, neck and neck, charging toward the finish," he once said. Racecaller Dave Johnson worked with McKay during horse racing telecasts. "How many Saturday afternoons did we spend with Jim McKay?" he said from Belmont Park. "Maybe more than with family members. Never a cross word out of him, such a decent human being." Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics, worked with McKay for six years at ABC Sports. "He was truly the most respected and admired sportscaster of his generation and defined how the stories of sports can and should be covered," he said. "While we all know what an absolute titan he was in his chosen field, I will always remember him as an extraordinary human being guided by a strong moral compass." U.S. Olympic Committee chairman Peter Ueberroth said McKay set a standard for sports journalism. "Jim is synonymous with the Olympic Games." he said. "As host of ABC's Olympic coverage, he brought into our homes the triumphs and struggles of athletes from around the world." The New York Yankees paused to remember McKay before the national anthem Saturday, and fans at a packed Yankee Stadium responded with applause. McKay left his mark on countless colleagues. Bob Costas called McKay a "singular broadcaster." "He brought a reporter's eye, a literate touch, and above all a personal humanity to every assignment," Costas said. "He had a combination of qualities seldom seen in the history of the medium, not just sports." Al Michaels described McKay as the "personification of class and style." "His enthusiasm permeated every event he covered and thus always made it far more interesting," he said. "I always thought of him as a favorite teacher." Mike Tirico, covering the NBA finals in Boston for ABC and ESPN, worked four British Opens with McKay. He said McKay held a special place in his household while growing up in Queens in New York. "Dinner wasn't served on Saturday night until 'Wide World of Sports' was over," Tirico said. In addition to McManus, McKay's survivors include his wife, Margaret, and his daughter, Mary.

Harvey Korman, dead at 81... Damn.

The Associated Press Thursday, May 29, 2008; 8:14 PM LOS ANGELES -- Harvey Korman, the tall, versatile comedian who won four Emmys for his outrageously funny contributions to "The Carol Burnett Show" and played a conniving politician to hilarious effect in "Blazing Saddles," died Thursday. He was 81. Korman died at UCLA Medical Center after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said. He had undergone several major operations. "He was a brilliant comedian and a brilliant father," daughter Kate Korman said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "He had a very good sense of humor in real life. " A natural second banana, Korman gained attention on "The Danny Kaye Show," appearing in skits with the star. He joined the show in its second season in 1964 and continued until it was canceled in 1967. That same year he became a cast member in the first season of "The Carol Burnett Show." Burnett and Korman developed into the perfect pair with their burlesques of classic movies such as "Gone With the Wind" and soap operas like "As the World Turns" (their version was called "As the Stomach Turns"). Another recurring skit featured them as "Ed and Eunice," a staid married couple who were constantly at odds with the wife's mother (a young Vickie Lawrence in a gray wig). In "Old Folks at Home," they were a combative married couple bedeviled by Lawrence as Burnett's troublesome young sister. Korman revealed the secret to the long-running show's success in a 2005 interview: "We were an ensemble, and Carol had the most incredible attitude. I've never worked with a star of that magnitude who was willing to give so much away." Burnett was devastated by Korman's death, said her assistant, Angie Horejsi. "She loved Harvey very much," Horejsi said. After 10 successful seasons, Korman left Burnett's show in 1977 for his own series. Dick Van Dyke took his place, but the chemistry was lacking and the Burnett show was canceled two years later. "The Harvey Korman Show" also failed, as did other series starring the actor. "It takes a certain type of person to be a television star," he said in that 2005 interview. "I didn't have whatever that is. I come across as kind of snobbish and maybe a little too bright. ... Give me something bizarre to play or put me in a dress and I'm fine." His most memorable film role was as the outlandish Hedley Lamarr (who was endlessly exasperated when people called him Hedy) in Mel Brooks' 1974 Western satire, "Blazing Saddles." "A world without Harvey Korman _ it's a more serious world," Brooks told the AP on Thursday. "It was very dangerous for me to work with him because if our eyes met we'd crash to floor in comic ecstasy. It was comedy heaven to make Harvey Korman laugh." He also appeared in the Brooks comedies "High Anxiety," "The History of the World Part I" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It," as well as two "Pink Panther" moves, "Trail of the Pink Panther" in 1982 and "Curse of the Pink Panther" in 1983. Korman's other films included "Gypsy," "Huckleberry Finn" (as the King), "Herbie Goes Bananas" and "Bud and Lou" (as legendary straightman Bud Abbott to Buddy Hackett's Lou Costello). He also provided the voice of Dictabird in the 1994 live-action feature "The Flintstones." In television, Korman guest-starred in dozens of series including "The Donna Reed Show," "Dr. Kildare," "Perry Mason," "The Wild Wild West," "The Muppet Show," "The Love Boat," "The Roseanne Show" and "Burke's Law." In their '70s, he and Tim Conway, one of his Burnett show co-stars, toured the country with their show "Tim Conway and Harvey Korman: Together Again." They did 120 shows a year, sometimes as many as six or eight in a weekend. Korman had an operation in late January on a non-cancerous brain tumor and pulled through "with flying colors," Kate Korman said. Less than a day after coming home, he was re-admitted because of the ruptured aneurysm and was given a few hours to live. But he survived for another four months. "He fought until the very end. He didn't want to die. He fought for months and months," said Kate Korman. Harvey Herschel Korman was born Feb. 15, 1927, in Chicago. He left college for service in the U.S. Navy, resuming his studies afterward at the Goodman School of Drama at the Chicago Art Institute. After four years, he decided to try New York. "For the next 13 years I tried to get on Broadway, on off-Broadway, under or beside Broadway," he told a reporter in 1971. He had no luck and had to support himself as a restaurant cashier. Finally, in desperation, he and a friend formed a nightclub comedy act. "We were fired our first night in a club, between the first and second shows," he recalled. After returning to Chicago, Korman decided to try Hollywood, reasoning that "at least I'd feel warm and comfortable while I failed." For three years he sold cars and worked as a doorman at a movie theater. Then he landed the job with Kaye. In 1960 Korman married Donna Elhart and they had two children, Maria and Christopher. They divorced in 1977. Two more children, Katherine and Laura, were born of his 1982 marriage to Deborah Fritz. In addition to his daughter Kate, he is survived by his wife and the three other children.

Remember the Declaration of Independence? Apparently not.

The Bush administration has arrogated powers to itself that the British people even refused to grant King George III at the time of the Revolutionary War, an eminent political scientist says. “No executive in the history of the Anglo-American world since the Civil War in England in the 17th century has laid claim to such broad power,” said David Adler, a prolific author of articles on the U.S. Constitution. “George Bush has exceeded the claims of Oliver Cromwell who anointed himself Lord Protector of England.” Adler, a professor of political science at Idaho State University at Pocatello, is the author of “The Constitution and the Termination of Treaties”(Taylor & Francis), among other books, and some 100 scholarly articles in his field. Adler made his comments comparing the powers of President Bush and King George III at a conference on “Presidential Power in America” at the Massachusetts School of Law, Andover, April 26th. Adler said, Bush has “claimed the authority to suspend the Geneva Convention, to terminate treaties, to seize American citizens from the streets to detain them indefinitely without benefit of legal counseling, without benefit of judicial review. He has ordered a domestic surveillance program which violates the statutory law of the United States as well as the Fourth Amendment.” Adler said the authors of the U.S. Constitution wrote that the president “shall take care to faithfully execute the laws of the land” because “the king of England possessed a suspending power” to set aside laws with which he disagreed, “the very same kind of power that the Bush Administration has claimed.” Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Adler said, repeatedly referred to the President’s “override” authority, “which effectively meant that the Bush Administration was claiming on behalf of President Bush a power that the English people themselves had rejected by the time of the framing of the Constitution.” Adler said the Framers sought an “Administrator in Chief” that would execute the will of Congress and the Framers understood that the President, as Commander-in-Chief “was subordinate to Congress.” The very C-in-C concept, the historian said, derived from the British, who conferred it on one of their battlefield commanders in a war on Scotland in 1639 and it “did not carry with it the power over war and peace” or “authority to conduct foreign policy or to formulate foreign policy.” That the C-in-C was subordinate to the will of Congress was demonstrated in the Revolutionary War when George Washington, granted that title by Congress, “was ordered punctually to respond to instructions and directions by Congress and the dutiful Washington did that,” Adler said. Adler said that John Yoo, formerly of the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in 2003 that the President as C-in-C could authorize the CIA or other intelligence agencies to resort to torture to extract information from suspects based on his authority. However, Adler said, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1804 in Little vs. Barreme affirmed the President is duty-bound to obey statutory instructions and reaffirmed opinion two years later in United States vs. Smith. “In these last eight years,” Adler said, “we have seen presidential powers soar beyond the confines of the Constitution. We have understood that his presidency bears no resemblance to the Office created by the Framers… This is the time for us to demand a return to the constitutional presidency. If we don’t, we will have only ourselves to blame as we go marching into the next war as we witness even greater claims of presidential power.”

You know what? You didn't have to accept it. But you did.

We chose not to contribute to the recession at my house. We didn't accept the bullshit stimulus check that was created out of thin air by the Fed. Didn't you people even stop for a second and wonder where that money was going to come from? I can only hope that you stocked up on food.

Rest easy, Sydney Pollack

Sydney Pollack, 73, a director and producer of popular Hollywood movies for nearly four decades, including the comedy "Tootsie," and who won Academy Awards for "Out of Africa," died May 26 at his home in Los Angeles. He had cancer. Mr. Pollack, who called himself "Mr. Mainstream," was wildly successful at moviemaking with mass appeal but drew mixed reviews during a prolific career. His best-remembered work could be provocative, timely and sensitively crafted: "Tootsie" (1982) was hilarious and underscored aspects of the feminist struggle; the taut spy story "Three Days of the Condor" (1975) captured Nixon-era paranoia; "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969), though set at a Depression-era dance marathon, resonated with young ticket buyers who saw the rigged contest as a reflection of modern society. Mr. Pollack's movies often emphasized the loner at conflict with society, whether a fur trapper in the wilderness in "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) or a cowboy who tries to recover his soul after selling out in "The Electric Horseman" (1979) with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. He saw Redford as his ideal collaborator and cast him in seven movies, from "This Property Is Condemned" (1966) to "Havana" (1990), because of what he considered his "very internal, rather understated" acting style as well as a dark undercurrent he found appealing beneath Redford's "golden boy" exterior. Redford returned the compliment, telling Film Comment magazine, "Sydney's the one director that seems to read me best. . . . Basically he's a romantic." Audiences embraced two of Mr. Pollack's best-known romance stories: "The Way We Were" (1973) with Redford as a WASP writer and Barbra Streisand as a Jewish political activist during the Hollywood blacklist; and "Out of Africa" (1985), a $30 million production based on Danish author Isak Dinesen's years in Kenya and her complicated affair with a free-spirited and handsome pilot. The latter film, which earned Oscars for Mr. Pollack for directing and producing, starred Meryl Streep and Redford against a backdrop likened by critics to a National Geographic spread. Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader complimented Mr. Pollack's craftsmanship and taste, saying that "although the denouement is a bit overextended, he never yields to facile, insistent sentimentality -- his effects are honestly won." Many others found both films saccharine and ponderous, and Mr. Pollack spoke of his own "tendency by nature to be heavy-handed," which he attributed to his early training as a television director "where you have to grab the audience in the first 10 minutes." Few disputed that Mr. Pollack was a master of pulling terrific performances from actors. Those who won Oscars under his direction included Gig Young as a cynical dance-marathon announcer in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and Jessica Lange as an emotionally vulnerable actress in "Tootsie." But even in his less-regarded works, many actors earned Oscar nominations, including Paul Newman and Melinda Dillon in the newspaper libel drama "Absence of Malice" (1981) and Holly Hunter in "The Firm" (1993), based on the John Grisham legal thriller. Mr. Pollack's skill with performers has been credited to his start in show business as a theater and television actor in the 1950s. With his glasses and curly hair, he became a recognizable presence over the years, thanks to memorable cameo appearances in films and on television. As a young man, he had been a student of Sanford Meisner, who taught the acting technique known as "the Method," which uses the performer's emotional memory to add realistic touches to a role. "He was the most influential person in my life in terms of my thinking about drama, about life itself," Mr. Pollack said of Meisner in 1993. "Everything I do is from the point of view of acting," he added. "I think of cinematography from an actor's point of view. My scripts are from an actor's point of view. Once you find the spine of a part, it becomes a wonderful mold for the whole movie. You measure every single thing against it." In later years, Mr. Pollack had a significant impact as a producer by using his reputation for commercial success to support other directors, some of them untested. Last year, he backed screenwriter and first-time director Tony Gilroy on the critically praised "Michael Clayton," a thriller with George Clooney. He also teamed with writer-producer-director Anthony Minghella to produce such films as "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), "Iris" (2001), "The Quiet American" (2002) and "Cold Mountain" (2003). Movie critic and historian David Sterritt said Mr. Pollack's "main importance was as a kind of hyphenate -- someone who produced, directed and sometimes acted." "He was one of the consummate professionals of the last 40 years or so in Hollywood," Sterritt said. "On his own films, or those he supported as a producer or actor, he reached a high level of achievement, if not always a high level of art." Sydney Pollack was born July 1, 1934, in Lafayette, Ind., and raised in South Bend. He once described himself as an "unpopular and rather sad kid" while growing up in Indiana and made awkward attempts to fit in socially by playing sports. He once took up boxing but, with his poor vision, "didn't see the punches until they were too close." Movies enchanted him, but he vividly recalled that his father, a boxer-turned-pharmacist, discouraged his ambitions as an actor as an unmanly trade. Sydney Pollack's two siblings went into entertainment: Bernie became a costume designer, and Sharon became a dance instructor. After high school, Sydney Pollack went to New York in 1954 and studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Meisner, who was so impressed with Mr. Pollack that he made him his assistant. Mr. Pollack's students included Robert Duvall, Rip Torn, Brenda Vaccaro and Claire Griswold, whom he married in 1958. In addition to his wife, of Los Angeles, survivors include two daughters, Rebecca Pollack and Rachel Pollack, both of Los Angeles; a brother; and six grandchildren. A son, Steven Pollack, died in a small-plane crash in 1993. In the 1950s, Sydney Pollack began making regular appearances on TV anthology programs such as "Playhouse 90." Director John Frankenheimer brought Mr. Pollack to Hollywood in 1961 to work as a dialogue coach on the juvenile delinquency drama "The Young Savages." Mr. Pollack said he bonded with the film's star, Burt Lancaster, over the fact that neither had been to college. Lancaster smoothed the way for Mr. Pollack's entry into Hollywood by urging powerful agent and mogul Lew Wasserman to hire him as a director. He said Lancaster told Wasserman: "He can't be worse than some of those bums you got workin' for you now." Mr. Pollack directed many TV series and won the 1966 best directing Emmy Award for an episode of "Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre." He also took occasional acting jobs and made his movie debut in the supporting role of a sergeant in "War Hunt" (1962), a drama set during the Korean War that featured the largely unknown Redford. In 1965, Mr. Pollack won his first movie directing credit for "The Slender Thread," a suicide help-line drama with Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft. Mr. Pollock later dismissed the melodramatic film as "a dreadful picture," and he was not contradicted by reviewers. He also bombed critically with his next three films, including "This Property is Condemned" (1966), based on a Tennessee Williams one-act play; the satiric western "The Scalphunters" (1968), starring Lancaster; and the anti-war drama "Castle Keep" (1969), based on a William Eastlake novel. He began his first long run of hits with "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?," a grim film with Jane Fonda. The movie proved an unexpected commercial success and brought Pollack an Oscar nomination for directing and launched him to the front rank of directors. Most reviewers found "Tootsie," with Dustin Hoffman as an out-of-work actor masquerading as a woman to get a job on a TV soap opera, probably his finest achievement. Critic Pauline Kael wrote that Mr. Pollack seemed to direct with less self-consciousness, especially in opening scenes showing what she called "a crackling, rapid-fire presentation of the hopes versus the realities of out-of-work actors' lives." Mr. Pollack's most notable acting role may have been as Hoffman's long-suffering agent in "Tootsie," a part he was said to have taken only reluctantly after Hoffman, in female character, hounded him with notes that read, "Please be my agent! Love, Dorothy." He had key supporting roles in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives" (1992) as an adulterer, Robert Altman's "The Player" (1992) as a Hollywood lawyer and Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999) as a creepy doctor, parts he took because he was curious about how other famous directors worked. He also had a stint as a wife-killing oncologist on the HBO mob drama "The Sopranos." Directing and production credits included "The Yakuza" (1974) with Robert Mitchum as an American private eye in Japan; "Bobby Deerfield (1977) with Al Pacino as a race car driver who falls for a woman with cancer, Marthe Keller; "Random Hearts" (1999), a romantic drama with Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas falling in love after their spouses die in a plane crash; and "The Interpreter" (2005), a thriller with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn set at the United Nations. In 2005, he made his first documentary, "Sketches of Frank Gehry," after meeting the celebrated architect at a Los Angeles party. Mr. Pollack told the Christian Science Monitor that he hoped his own films, made for broad audiences, would follow the tradition of many movies of the 1930s and 1940s dismissed as "standard studio fare" but are now seen as great art. He added that he was motivated by two factors: "First, I have to satisfy the needs of popular art. Second, I don't want to be intellectually insulting. I want to raise issues and questions that are sufficiently intriguing -- so people I care about will like them, too."

Memorial Day 2008

Thank You.

An unending appreciation of dungarees.

135 years ago today, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a patent for work pants reinforced with metal rivets. Thanks guys.

Hey Kentucky!

You're going to vote for Clinton because you're not smart enough to vote for Ron Paul and too fucking racist and bigoted to vote for Obama... Shades of WV. You deserve your fate when these fucking neo-socialist fucks gather a Democratic Congress and White House and completely repeal the 2nd Amendment among other issues. I better never hear any of you fucks say anything derogatory or negative about WV again.

Tomorrow, or whenever you're failing yourself and you say you can't do "it"...

Keep in mind there's a fifteen year-old, blind kid, named - Tommy Carroll who is smoking your weak, "I can't do it", ass.

Of all the things that I've done in my life...

being a Philadelphia Flyers fan is one of the hardest. Maybe next year.

Can anyone tell me...

Why the POW/MIA organization and all the former POWs of the United States of America are not kicking John McCain in the balls on a daily basis? Anyone who has even the slightest education on the issue knows where he stands. EXCEPT BY JOHN McCAIN

I made a difference this week. What did you do?

just moments ago, by a near-unanimous vote, the Senate stood up to Big Media. They voted to throw out the FCC decision to let the largest media companies swallow up even more local media. This is simply an astounding victory, and it would not have happened without the massive grassroots effort by you and thousands of others who called their senators, sent more than a quarter million letters, posted thousands of pictures and stories on StopBigMedia.com, and testified at public hearings held by the FCC. It was your dedication that made today's Senate win possible. Today was a huge step forward, but there is still much to do. The fight against the FCC now moves to the House, where our elected representatives need to hear from us. President Bush has promised that he will try to veto this bill. But tonight the Senate and the American people have spoken with one voice. This historic vote sends a clear message that the only people who support more media consolidation are Big Media lobbyists and the White House. We are in this struggle to bring more minority ownership, diverse perspectives and independent voices to the media. We need to make media consolidation an election-year issue. And we need to start talking about how to break up the giant conglomerates. Corporate news today -- with its propaganda pundits, horse-race election coverage, and celebrity gossip -- undermines our democracy. We must continue to speak out and demand that the public airwaves be used to actually serve the public. In just three weeks, thousands of people will be gathering together in Minnesota to build the movement for better media. You can join them at the National Conference for Media Reform, just visit www.freepress.net/conference. For today, know that you played a key role in the fight for better media for all. Thank you, Josh Silver Executive Director Free Press Action Fund