Free Republic

Minnesota's delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver will support Barack Obama for president and say the right words of unity even if it kills them. For several of the ones I've chatted with over the last few weeks, it will. On Tuesday, the Democrats sent a former national chair of the Clinton campaign to the Minnesota delegation's breakfast meeting to urge the Clinton delegates to get behind Obama. "When someone puts a mic in our face and asks, 'What about the Hillary supporter, or the person who supported Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich?' We will say 'We are...

If you’re a woman, rising the corporate ranks is never easy. Unless you live in Norway. Within the next year, the 510 Norwegian companies listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange must have 40% of their respective board seats occupied by women. Any company failing to comply will be booted off the OSE. For now, the law passed in 2002 only applies to publicly traded companies. But the government is considering extending the law’s reach to cover family-owned companies as well. Since the Norwegian government first issued its mandate, things have improved. The number of companies in compliance has risen from...

Kafka’s Victory Add the EU to the welfare state, and simple problems become insoluble. | 18 October 2004 In the bureaucratic welfare state, administrative problems grow geometrically with the number of administrators, who devise rules ostensibly to guarantee probity and increase efficiency, but whose effect in practice is to increase the number of administrators necessary to achieve any given end. In the prison where I work, a problem has arisen in the provision of medical care. For complicated reasons, having to do with where records must be stored, doctors must now examine patients without their prescription charts in hand. The...

Anti-Clinton Protesters Lose in Suit Against Rendell BY SHANNON P. DUFFYU.S. Courthouse Correspondent A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights suit against former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell brought by two anti-Clinton protesters who claim he was responsible for their being assaulted by five Teamsters union members in October, 1998 when President Clinton was in Philadelphia to attend a political fund-raiser. U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn, Jr. ruled that Rendell, who is now Pennsylvania's governor, cannot be held liable for the attacks because the evidence showed that he did nothing more than invite the Teamsters to attend a rally...