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If this conference could get strong attendance and sponsorship and make some money, I'm sure they would decide to go ahead and have another one after all to give the time travelers of the future more than one conference to travel back to. Unless the time travelers of the future want to have a life, in which case they will avoid this conference altogether!

Local bar associations are notoriously political and filled with cronyism. So there are lawyers in that location who are willing to kiss up to a judge who has been in the news. Wow, what a shocker.

"want her to pledge to serve a full, six-year term if she runs"

Oh, she'll make the pledge, just like her hubby did in Arkansas. And then she'll tell us that the people have begged her to say she's released from it and that by voting for her after she made the pledge, they were actually signaling that they give her a mandate to rescind the pledge.

I don't watch MTV, but I do think it's funny to have a movie awards show that isn't so pretentious and gives awards for the best fight scene and best chemistry in a romantic comedy. At least MTV admits its entertainment and sells sex and doesn't pretend to be all about art and ideals (while still selling sex.)

My point exactly. As I said, why is this our problem? It's not.

Yes, but unless the petitioner demonstrated that the harm is grave enough to be "irreparable" then it doesn't meet the standard for a stay. A stay is supposed to be fairly unusual and not granted easily. The ACLU is trying to spin the denial of a stay as a huge win for them, but it shouldn't be. They could win the case, of course, but the denial of a stay isn't quite the landfall they want us to think it is (and that most FReepers seem to agree with them that it is.)

Thank you; I do try!

I was in London recently, and I felt a bit torn when I heard the politic discussions--like you, I prefer someone who is more conservative and less prone to supporting the socialism that has overtaken Europe, and Blair is not, yet the conservative party was attacking him for supporting the US. The election of more conservative MPs could affect the socialism and EU issues to some degree but it could also open the door for someone who will be less of a US ally when the going gets tough.

But you're assuming that private citizens have a duty to respect defense attorneys because defense attorneys are a necessary and important part of the system. The two do not go hand in hand. Criminal defense attorneys are important, and this particular one makes plenty of money for his efforts (although some do not), but if others don't respect him that's their choice. In a perfect world they would, but there's no duty to accept, respect, and want to listen to a speech by a criminal defense attorney just because our system requires criminal defense attorneys. If your argument is that the school officials shouldn't have given in to the complaints, then you have a better point, except that with a ceremony like this, the school probably has a policy of listening to those who are supposed to be the focus of the day. Even once an invitation has been extended, the attorney didn't have an absolute right to speak, as he was speaking on invitation only.

"Tony's pro-American and anti-terror stances overrule his liberal tilt for me (I do hope he is not pro-abortion though...that would be my one major regret).

Supporting a non-Conservative truly is a tough decision to make and hold. But Tony earned it in my eyes."

Abortion isn't the hot button issue in the UK that it is here. Not even the Conservative Party is nearly as conservative as Americans assume that word to mean. I've known American democrats who got into conversations with UK "conservatives" and found themselves to be more conservative on many issues than the Brits who call themselves conservatives. The reason American conservatives tend to like Blair despite his liberal social positions is that his social positions don't affect America, while his support for America obviously does. If you care about social issues in the UK, though, Blair is a liberal.

The two have nothing to do with one another. Sure the accused is entitled to a defense and no one should mess with that right, but that does not mean a defense attorney must be entitled to speak at a school. The parents and students have every reason to get a speaker they want to hear for their special day, and there's no rule saying that they must invite a certain person or that they cannot rule someone out based on his/her career and publicity choices.

A likelihood of success on the merits is not the only factor. The court also looks at if there is going to be irreparable harm if the lower court's ruling is put into effect pending appeal. Here, there isn't an irreparable harm, because if the circuit court reverses the district court after the stickers have been removed, the stickers can be put back. The ACLU was trying to spin this as a sure sign that they will and should win, but that's not necessarily why the court denied the stay.

If they don't want him as a speaker, big deal. It's not a ceremony for or about him. But of course, he has to act like they've done something wrong and have victimized him.

I'm not sure that you're right. That poll included several different ideas about social security that are not necessarily mutually exclusive, yet the poll only allowed us to vote for one option. One option was to support Bush's current plan, while another was to end the system altogether. There were probably many respondents who would have no problem ending the system but who voted for the support Bush's plan option because it is the option on the table right now. Ending the system isn't on the table right now, so people who like that idea in the abstract may have voted for a more concrete, currently viable option in that poll. That poll did not accurately measure how many FReepers think social security should be totally done away with.

Well, according to this woman, they just rent a house and move in together and we should all pay to remedy that!

It's not just the Clinton strategy. It's been a primary leftist strategy from at least the mid-20th century on.

"Therefore, as a black lesbian, I can expect to earn less and may never own my own home."

And this is our problem how, exactly? She says that fewer lesbians report owning homes, but is that because they are lesbians? Are mortgage companies turning down every lesbian that applies? I don't think so. There are other factors besides being lesbian that explain the home ownership statistics (perhaps such as living in a large city where renting is more common) but she states it as though the lower home ownership stat is directly linked to the lesbian stat and it's a cause and effect relationship. Silly.

This is just an expression of the long-held belief by many that the physical differences between males and females don't mean anything. A child can decide which he/she is, a woman can "be" a man and a man a woman, and anyone who says that there is something concrete and uncontrovertable about the two genders is backwards and closeminded. It's sick and sad, but I'm not surprised they are trying to tell kids this now.

Hey, Putin, are you finally ready to admit that the sky is blue?

I assume by private university you mean a religious school, because a private university (like a Harvard, Vandy, etc.) has all the same issues as a public university. I'm from a Christian family, as are my sisters, and like I said we were all just fine in college. We were not subjected to debauchery in the dorm--we and those living on our halls had clean rooms, didn't parade in guys at night, weren't out binge drinking, weren't smoking pot, and got good grades in challenges majors (engineering, etc.) Sure there were some in our dorm who did, but it was not open, accepted behavior that we saw. I think you're assuming that the problems are unavoidable when they clearly are not. Obviously you get to say how your money will be spent and on what school, but you shouldn't assume that parents whose kids go to public universities are sending their children into a den of evil unarmed. That's just not the case at many schools and for many students.

We have a society that needs to blame someone (anyone) else and never admit personal responsibility. That is compounded in this case by the fact that her father suffered a terrible loss and doesn't want to see his daughter's fault so he's going to blame anyone he can.