The Star reports that Hopkins is a current leader with the National League of Cities, an anti-capitalist organization that opposes private property.
But Hopkins’ public service has not been confined to Prairie Village. Since 1994, she has served continuously in various committee positions for the National League of Cities. That work was crowned in 2004, when Hopkins won a two-year term on the League of Cities’ board of directors. She now serves on the body’s advisory council.
At the county level, Hopkins has become an expert on the issue of solid waste disposal. She currently serves on the Mid America Regional Council’s Solid Waste Committee, and chairs the Johnson County Solid Waste Committee.
Hopkins said she was “phenomenally honored” to be recognized by the Johnson County League of Women Voters.
“A goal of mine is to get more women involved in politics,” she said. “I think women are still such a minority. I love going to talk to groups like the Girl Scouts. It’s great to get them started early, to let them know there are opportunities available, and it’s so important to get involved.”
One of her great pleasures as a public servant, Hopkins said, is to see how effective the democratic process can be in real peoples’ lives..
“People call me, they’re so frustrated, and with a call to the public works director, I can take care of it,” she said. “The biggest thing I’ve learned is that democracy works best at the local level. It gets so much more politicized and complicated as you move up.”
Connie Kesselring looked out her back window recently and saw 13 deer grazing in her backyard.
They’ve destroyed plants and shrubbery and are even eating her evergreens.
“There’s deer poop all over the yard and, of course, the dog wants to eat that,” she said.
Kesselring moved six years ago to a Lenexa home that is next to Shawnee Mission Park.
She was among 40 people who spoke Wednesday at a public hearing on the deer overpopulation at the park. The hearing, held at the Shawnee Civic Centre and attended by more than 100, was conducted by the Johnson County Park and Recreation Board.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) - A Merriam hospital has agreed to settle a federal investigation into how it handles and stores hazardous waste.
The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that Shawnee Mission Medical Center will pay $83,488 to settle the matter. The hospital also will provide the EPA with inventories of its solid waste and make quarterly reports for one year on how is it identifying and disposing of hazardous waste.
The hospital is not admitting or denying wrongdoing.
A pack of charity motorcycle riders is camped out at the Topeka Service Area on the Kansas Turnpike, poised to merge back onto the turnpike and head east with help from the Kansas Highway Patrol.
Late this morning, the Kyle Petty Charity Ride entered the turnpike at the I-70 connection at the eastern edge of town, and was to continue east toward the turnpike’s Eastern Terminal.
Cathleen Curless, who fills a new 10th board seat, will serve through the Kansas City pasta-maker’s 2012 annual meeting, AIPC (Nasdaq: AIPC) said in a Tuesday release. Curless has expertise in strategic planning and information technology systems integration and use, the release said. From 2001 to 2007, she was chief information officer for Topeka-based Payless Shoesource Worldwide (NYSE: PSS) and handled the company’s global IT systems portfolio.
TOPEKA | The legal fight over prosecuting Planned Parenthood continued today with arguments before the Kansas Supreme Court.
At issue is whether subpoenas from former Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline were improperly quashed by a district judge. Kline filed charges against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri alleging that its Overland Park clinic performed illegal abortions and then falsified records handed over to prosecutors.
Kline subpoenaed four people for records, including those from the state health agency to make his case, but those records - which do not contain identifying information - are carefully protected by state law.
After a district court judge quashed the subpoenas, Kline appealed. He has since left office. His successor, District Attorney Steve Howe, said the case against Planned Parenthood is on hold until the Supreme Court rules on the subpoenas.
“We’re just waiting for the ruling by the court,” Howe said. “We don’t know how to proceed until then.”
The Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America, which went through Topeka Wednesday, is now in its 15th year.
Petty’s motivation these days - apart from raising millions of dollars for children’s charities - is to try to equal what, for him, was the perfect motorcycle trip.
“I thought it would make it to the third year and that would be about it, to be honest with you,” Petty said. “The first year we had so much fun. The second year it seemed so much like work that we almost didn’t want to do it the third year.
TOPEKA, Kan. | The Kansas State Board of Education has refused to grant a teaching license to a former Topeka mayor who served time in prison.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reported on its Web site that Doug Wright said he was “very disappointed” after the board’s 6-4 vote Tuesday. Wright said he had been “rehabilitated.”
Kansas had 27 layoffs of at least 50 workers in the first quarter of 2009, up from 25 mass layoffs in the fourth quarter and up from seven in the first quarter of 2008, according to statistics released Tuesday.
Layoffs in the aviation industry have impacted Wichita’s economy in the last six months, but data released by the U.S. Department of Labor indicate that the work-force reductions statewide extend well beyond the aerospace industry.
Kansas reported 3,009 initial claims for unemployment insurance in the first quarter, down from 4,238 in the fourth quarter and up from 1,619 claims in the first quarter of 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A KU student was critically hurt early Sunday after he fell from a retaining wall in Lawrence, and officials say alcohol was involved.
Officials say Sam Hedrick was treated for a concussion at Lawrence Memorial Hospital before being transferred to the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Officials in Hedrick’s fraternity say they are unsure what caused the fall, but they say the incident was not connected to any official event hosted by the frat.
David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful-in terms of armed might and population-as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time. (more…)
In hockey it’s called the third-man-in rule — the third man in to any fight gets thrown out of the game. I was never a fan of that rule. If your teammate needs help in a fight — even if he started it — you’re pretty much expected to join in. So it’s not surprising that Rasmussen found:
Forty-nine percent (49%) of Americans say that if Israel launches an attack against Iran, the United States should help Israel. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% believe the United States should do nothing while just 2% believe the U.S. should help Iran.
I suspect that the other 37 percent is split between those who don’t think Israel is a friend and ally of the United States (isolationists and anti-Semites) and those who believe that war is never the answer (pacifists and Communists).
Also noteworthy:
Sixty-six percent (66%) of all voters now say that preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons is more important than preventing war between Iran and Israel. That’s up fourteen percentage points from 52% last July.
The Times reviewed every case on record in the last 15 years in which a tenured employee was fired by a California school district and formally contested the decision before a review commission: 159 in all (not including about two dozen in which the records were destroyed). The newspaper also examined court and school district records and interviewed scores of people, including principals, teachers, union officials, district administrators, parents and students.
Among the findings:
* Building a case for dismissal is so time-consuming, costly and draining for principals and administrators that many say they don’t make the effort except in the most egregious cases. The vast majority of firings stem from blatant misconduct, including sexual abuse, other immoral or illegal behavior, insubordination or repeated violation of rules such as showing up on time.
* Although in general, districts press ahead with only the strongest cases, even these get knocked down more than a third of the time by the specially convened review panels, which have the discretion to restore teachers’ jobs even when grounds for dismissal are proved.
* Jettisoning a teacher solely because he or she can’t teach is rare. In 80% of the dismissals that were upheld, classroom performance was not even a factor.
When teaching is at issue, years of effort — and thousands of dollars — sometimes go into rehabilitating the teacher as students suffer. Over the three years before he was fired, one struggling math teacher in Stockton was observed 13 times by school officials, failed three year-end evaluations, was offered a more desirable assignment and joined mentoring programs as most of his ninth-grade students flunked his courses.
In somewhat of a continuation of Matthew Miller’s/MWS’s discussions of “conservative populism” (title pending) and a new party coalition centered in the Industrial North in 2012, perhaps we overlooked a highly accomplished candidate from a Midwestern state: Mitch Daniels. Last December, Michael Barone highlighted a press release from Daniels’ 2012 campaign manager. Some highlights from the press release:
Daniels won southern Indiana by 57%. Southern Indiana is known as Blue Dog/Reagan Democratic territory and is currently represented in Congress by D-Rep. Baron Hill and D-Rep. Brad Ellsworth. Hill won re-election 57-38% and Ellsworth won re-election 64-35%.
Daniels won every county in the blue collar UAW region (Howard, Grant, Madison, Delaware ), an improvement from 2004.
Daniels received 20% of the African American vote, up 13% from 2004. In 2004, Daniels lost Marion County (the state’s largest county/Indianapolis) by 18,000 and won it this year by 48,000 votes. To further illustrate this over-performance, Daniels received 7,000 more votes in Center Township than he did in 2004, up 10%. Center Township is the heart of Marion County and is represented by D-Rep. Andre Carson in Congress. Daniels got 31.6% of the votes from African American majority precincts throughout Indianapolis. Daniels received 71,000 more votes in Marion County than Senator McCain.
Independent voters favored Daniels 57%-39%, a massive 38 point swing from 2004 when this group of ticket-splitters favored his opponent 58%-38%.
…Daniels won every age demographic, including the 18-29 year-olds by nine points (51%-42%). 18-29 year-olds were 19% of the Indiana electorate in 2008, compared to McCain receiving 35% of Hoosier 18-29 year olds. Seniors 65 and older were his strongest demographic, supporting him by 36 points (67%-31%). This is a 19 point improvement over 2004, when Daniels lost voters 60 and over by two points (48%-50 %.).
A refresher for those unfamiliar: CDC monitors the cell-phone-only population because it conducts huge ongoing health “surveillance” surveys via telephone, and as such, asks questions about telephone usage on their ongoing, in-person National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Traditionally, telephone surveys have relied exclusively on random digit dial (RDD) samples that reach only those with landline phone service. These regular CDC estimates are a big reason why most national media polls are now including samples of cell phone users.
The NCHS estimate of the percentage of American households with only wireless phones increased 2.7 percentage points (from 17.5% to 20.2%), amounting to “the largest 6-month increase observed since NHIS began collecting data on wireless-only households in 2003,” according to the report. They also note a big jump in what some call “cell-phone mostlys. “One of every seven American homes (14.5%) received all or almost all calls on wireless telephones, despite having a landline telephone in the home.”
With the U.S. Census Bureau reporting that fewer people are moving because of the bad economy, 90% of U.S. voters say they have lived in the state where they are today for more than five years.
Just two percent (2%) say they’ve only been in the state where they now reside for less than a year, while another seven percent (7%) say they’ve been in their present state for one to five years, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Seventy-four percent (74%) of voters say they’ve lived in the same place for more than 20 years. For 11 percent (11%), their present state hasn’t changed in 10 to 20 years, and five percent (5%) say their home state has been the same for five to 10 years.
There is a magnet that can detect malaria at the flick of a switch, a flu-resistant chicken, an “antiviral” tomato and a vaccine enhanced with the use of a laser. The ideas are so bold that, as the scientists behind them admit, they can often struggle for funding.
Today, though, more than 80 projects at the far edge of innovation in global health research will share millions of pounds of grants to support unorthodox thinking - and the outside chance of a world-changing discovery.
Among the recipients, announced today by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as part of their Grand Challenges initiative, are three British scientific teams pursuing novel approaches to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and pneumonia, as well as viruses such as HIV.
A team of engineers from the University of Exeter is attempting to create a handheld, battery-powered device that uses a magnet to detect the presence of malaria parasites in blood - and dramatically speed the diagnosis of the disease.
Rather than pander, he says, the goal of the NCNA is to launch “a wide-open policy discussion,” but one based on conservative principles. He lists free markets, individual freedom, and faith in God as being at the core of the project.
While Cantor makes clear that the Council is an official caucus and not a vehicle for electioneering, he believes it will help Republicans expand their party. Cantor assures conservative critics and skeptics that “conservative credentials are there and are really guiding the effort.” Right now is an “opportunity,” he says, for “our agenda to begin to attract independents.”
And about the name: Cantor says it’s merely a “recognition of the fact we’re in the 21st century,” acknowledging our need to embrace technology, competition, and meet new challenges.
The Council’s initial event in northern Virginia featured Cantor along with Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney.
But what if Tom Ridge and Arnold Schwarzenegger want in on the next one? Cantor dismisses concerns, citing Reagan’s 11th Commandment and emphasizing the importance of coalition building. “We’ve got to rally around the things that unite us,” he says.
According to Colvin, Ben Franklin would take essays from The Spectator magazine and translate them into verse. Then he’d translate his verse back into prose and examine, sentence by sentence, where his essay was inferior to The Spectator’s original.Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a ball. The aim is to focus meticulously on technique. (Try to slow down your golf swing so it takes 90 seconds to finish. See how many errors you detect.)…
Coyle and Colvin describe dozens of experiments fleshing out this process. This research takes some of the magic out of great achievement. But it underlines a fact that is often neglected. Public discussion is smitten by genetics and what we’re “hard-wired” to do. And it’s true that genes place a leash on our capacities. But the brain is also phenomenally plastic. We construct ourselves through behavior. As Coyle observes, it’s not who you are, it’s what you do.
Obama has said he hopes to get out of the car business soon, and he has urged private investors to replace the government as the source of ongoing funds. But no executive in her right mind would take that gamble when it is clear that, in dealing with the government, private capital will always take a back seat to politically powerful entities. Bankruptcy — which everyone has dreaded until now — may prove an unlikely balm. Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 last week, and GM may be facing a similar fate. At least in this arena, long-established rules, and not political favoritism, will play a pivotal role in deciding who gets what. It will also bring some business discipline to decisions that will shape the companies — and, I hope, enable them to pay back every red cent I’m owed.
Republicans and conservatives have a lot of work to do over the coming months and years. In one way, an additional Democratic senator and a younger liberal Supreme Court justice make the hurdles a little higher. But Arlen Specter and David Souter weren’t going to help the cause of a revitalized conservatism–and their departures provide a chance to begin to clarify the alternative to Obama-ism that conservatives must offer in time for 2010, and especially 2012.
Of the 537 men and women elected to federal office, he is the only one who ever had to stiffen his spine and peer into that abyss. No one speaks to the American people on this issue from a position of greater authority.
McCain was adamantly opposed to the methods used by the Bush Administration. But in this hour of grave national unseriousness, he has chosen to be the adult in the room.
After years of protesting the extreme techniques, McCain’s message of late has been simple: dutiful public servants attempting to shield the American people from another terrorist attack shouldn’t be prosecuted because they failed to anticipate that a future administration wouldn’t like their advice. If we expect these men and women to devote the full force of their talents to keeping the nation safe, then we have to promise them something better than victors’ justice. Only a suicidal society flogs those who are trying to save it.
At the heart of liberal democracy, there is a notion - humble and just - that policy differences are not to be criminalized. Destroy that standard and you substitute the raw force of power for the cool reason of law. If John McCain’s courageous stand can preserve that principle, he will have saved a hallmark of the American system. And he will have earned his place in history.
A survey found that 65% of Daily Kos’ discussion of a recent Olbermann segment is negative.
Last week, Fox News’ Sean Hannity made an off-the-cuff offer to partake in waterboarding for charity, an announcement that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann met with his own charity offer.
“For every second you last, a thousand dollars — live or on tape, provided other networks’ cameras are there,” the MSNBC anchor said. “A thousand dollars a second, Sean, because this is no game. This is serious stuff. Put your money where your mouth is, and your nose. Oh, and I’ll double it when you admit you feared for your life, when you admit the horrible truth — waterboarding, the symbol of the last administration, is torture.”
The 1913 S Buffalo Nickel (”Type 2″ Near Gem BU++/Gem BU) pictured above just sold on Ebay for $965. Face Value: 5¢ (Five cents, see top photo) Market Value: $965 Question #1: Isn’t that “coin scalping?, i.e. selling a coin above its face value?” Question #2: What’s the difference between selling a concert ticket above face value and selling a coin above face value? Why should one be illegal and one be legal?
To protect taxpayers, warrants are typically part of TARP loan packages, and for Centra to get $15 million, the government forced Centra to sell preferred Centra stock worth $750,000 to the Treasury for $750. When the bank paid back the $15 million loan after six weeks, Centra Bank President Douglas Leech figured the bank would just return the $750 to Treasury.
But Treasury told Centra that to exit the TARP program, the bank would have to wire the full $750,000, plus interest.
Even though the bank had held the money for only six weeks, Centra had to pay the equivalent of a 60% annual interest rate on it. If Centra had stayed in TARP longer, the money would have been a cheap loan. But exiting early came with a stiff penalty. For Centra Bank, TARP backfired. It was supposed to give banks extra capital. Instead, it lost $750,000.
MP: Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) has introduced a bill called “Protecting Consumers from Unreasonable Credit Rates Act,” which proposes a federally regulated maximum interest rate of 36%. Perhaps he would consider amending it to also protect small banks like Centra receiving TARP funding from paying more than 36%?
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has never faced a serious primary or general election challenge since he first won his seat in 1990.
Local Republicans say that won’t change in 2010, despite popular Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones’ announcement last month that he was considering challenging Boehner in next year’s Republican primary.
…
“Remember David and Goliath? It sounds like [Republicans] are saying: ‘How dare he challenge someone who’s so powerful?’ Well, I’m not a person who’s intimidated,” said Jones, who was first elected sheriff in 2005. “I always do what I believe is the right thing to do. I don’t have any lobbyists who control me. I try to do the right thing, and I’ve never forgotten that.”
Jones, once described by the Dayton Daily News as a “cross between John Wayne and Rush Limbaugh,” said he would focus on immigration as a major theme if he runs. As sheriff, Jones has posted billboards in the county warning employers not to hire illegal immigrants and has lobbied for local law enforcement officials to crack down on immigration violations. During the presidential campaign, he bought an ad in the Cincinnati Enquirer accusing Republican presidential nominee John McCain of being weak on immigration.
During the 2008 campaign cycle, a political action committee set up by Rep. Paul Gillmor spent nearly $6,000 on seemingly personal outlays: fast-food, doughnuts, bar tabs and golfing.
The spending was highly unusual. The Ohio Republican was dead.
Such free spending on behalf of federal lawmakers who are retired, defeated — or, in this case, deceased — is legal, according to the Federal Election Commission, and becoming increasingly common.
According to US prosecutor Lynn Jordheim, Yao was detained for carrying unidentified biological materials in vials wrapped in aluminium foil inside a glove and packaged in a plastic bag, along with electrical wires, in the trunk of his car.
Yao said in an affidavit he stole the vials, described as research vectors, from the Winnipeg lab on his last day of work there on January 21.
US authorities feared their contents could pose a terrorist threat. But tests later showed “they are not hazardous,” said Jordheim.
“This turned out not to be a terrorism-related case,” he said by telephone from North Dakota. “It appears to be exactly as he (Yao) said. However, he still faces possible charges for smuggling the vials into the United States.”
Yao, meanwhile, remains in US custody after waiving his right to bail and preliminary hearings, as he awaits a possible grand jury indictment for smuggling, he said.
A Public Health Agency of Canada spokeswoman told AFP Yao “was working on vaccines for the Ebola virus and HIV, among other things.”
The film ‘Up’ is the first animation ever chosen to open the festival, which is now in its 62nd year. The comic tale from Disney’s Pixar Studios cost $150 million to make and is a far cry from the fuzzy 3D offerings of old.
Gone are the red and blue cardboard glasses that left audiences feeling seasick in the 1950s. Instead, moviegoers on the French Riviera will be asked to exchange their Ray-Bans for special polarised spectacles.
The outrage of millions of taxpayers following the $700 billion bank bailout and the $787 billion stimulus bill did not stop Congress from passing and President Obama from signing a bloated $410 billion Omnibus Appropriations Act in March. With the subsequent approval of the President’s budget, the national debt will triple over the next 10 years. That leaves plenty of opportunities for pork to remain pervasive in the nation’s capital.
Since the beginning, the Republican party has had two distinct wings. There are what we now call “Reagan Conservatives” and then there are the Country Club Republicans.
Reagan conservatives believe in limited government, peace through strength, trickle down prosperity through the free market, and traditional social values.
Country Club Republicans are people who came from great wealth into positions of governmental power. Not all Republicans who came from wealth fit into this category, but many do.
The Bush family is a recent example of Country Club Republicanism. Although they espoused traditional conservative beliefs, in actuality they expanded government (both in size and in power), and did little or nothing to further traditional social values. George W. Bush always espoused belief, for example, in the sanctity of life. However, the ball simply didn’t get moved during his eight years.
The reason the Republicans have lost their way is that they have allowed these two factions to become confused. Liberals see us saying one thing and doing another and use that against us. Most Republicans are Reagan conservatives, but we vote for any Republican because we believe they’re all the same.
The Republican party will continue to be lost until we return to traditional Republican values, with limited government being the cornerstone. It’s time to stop being ashamed of what we believe. Republicans are not “against the little guy” or “pro business over pro individual” - we understand that in order to help people at every level, the government needs to butt out so that businesses can create jobs.
It’s time we stop cowering every time a liberal accuses us of being heartless, bigoted rednecks, or silly gun-clinging religious nuts (or what I like to call “believers in the 1st and 2nd amendments).
They are wrong, and ultimately, doing the right thing shouldn’t be swayed by baseless insults.
Someone important appears not to be telling the truth about her knowledge of the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs). That someone is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The political persecution of Bush administration officials she has been pushing may now ensnare her.
Here’s what we know. On Sept. 4, 2002, less than a year after 9/11, the CIA briefed Rep. Porter Goss, then House Intelligence Committee chairman, and Mrs. Pelosi, then the committee’s ranking Democrat, on EITs including waterboarding. They were the first members of Congress to be informed.
In December 2007, Mrs. Pelosi admitted that she attended the briefing, but she wouldn’t comment for the record about precisely what she was told. At the time the Washington Post spoke with a “congressional source familiar with Pelosi’s position on the matter” and summarized that person’s comments this way: “The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage — they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice — and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a reversal, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would fight the release of dozens of photographs showing the abuse of terrorism suspects, over concern the images could ignite a backlash against U.S. troops.
The decision was a blow to some liberals in Obama’s Democratic Party who see the photos as part of a broader effort to investigate Bush-era officials and cleanse America’s image abroad.
Just last month the Obama administration had said it would comply with a court order to release the pictures by May 28, saying legal options for appealing the case had been limited.
When the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s student newspaper reported that incoming students of the journalism program would be required to purchase either an iPhone or an iPod Touch, it touched off a debate about whether universities can require specific tech purchases or whether certain companies can have a tech “monopoly” on campuses.
As it turns out, students won’t actually be punished or disciplined if they don’t buy one, though the school does recommend it-the intention was to help out students who were on financial aid so that the cost of iPhone or an iPod could be included in a financial aid estimate. This summer the entire MU campus will be installing Tegrity, a class lecture recording program used by Stanford University and others, where they can download them for free on iTunes, and the journalism school thought students could use iPhones or iPods “as a learning device.”
But some students felt that they were being cajoled by the school into “an unnecessary and expensive relationship with Apple” that “compromises journalistic integrity,” according to a Facebook group called “Rotten Apple” that was launched by student Elizabeth Eberlin.
Gladwell called the full-court press, a tactic employed by coach Vivek Ranadivé, “what Davids do when they want to beat Goliaths.” Gladwell added, “The full-court press is legs, not arms. It supplants ability with effort.”
These observations may apply to junior basketball, but at higher levels, players may have the ability to dribble and pass through a full-court press for easy baskets. “The problem is that college basketball players are not 12 years old, and their challenge is simply not the same for college teams facing quick, nimble point guards,” Yahoo’s Eamonn Brennan writes.
Brennan and Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus (amongmanyothers) note that Gladwell’s choice of Louisville as an example of the merits of the full-court press is a curious one, because the Cardinals and coach Rick Pitino are hardly Davids (though David Padgett might disagree). “How about Pitino’s last game in 2009?” Brennan writes. “Surely he remembers. Kalin Lucas and the rest of the Michigan State backcourt shredded his team’s ferocious full court press, leaving Louisville - certainly not the David against Michigan State, but the Goliath - in their wake.”
The full-court press is what Pelton calls a high-variance strategy, and such strategies don’t behoove Goliaths, a group that includes Louisville and Pitino’s previous collegiate coaching stop in Kentucky, despite Gladwell’s observation that Pitino has coached few future NBA stars. (Gladwell defends this characterization on his blog.)
Republicans are hoping a lot of familiar faces will convince YouTube viewers to kick money into the kitty for Norm Coleman’s Minnesota Senate recount fight.
Coleman, who is in the midst of a court battle to overturn Democrat Al Franken’s 225 vote lead in the race, has posted a video on his YouTube page featuring some of the GOP’s most prominent lawmakers.
“America needs Norm Coleman in the Senate,” Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , R-Ky., declared in front of flag-draped backdrop, while House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, attested that Coleman is “someone who knows who he is.”
Then Sens. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma and Lindsey R. Graham got down to business.
“A little bit of money right now could make the difference,” Inhofe implored.
Added Graham: “This fight that he’s taking on to make sure that every ballot is counted represents the best of democracy, so anything you can do to help Norm financially to make sure that he can tell his story before the court is much appreciated.”
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Oral sex and open-mouthed “French” kissing increase the risk of acquiring oral infections of human papillomavirus, or HPV, a study shows.
“Performing oral sex is not without risks,” Dr. Maura L. Gillison told Reuters Health.
It is associated with gonorrheal pharyngitis - a sexually transmitted infection of the tonsils and back of the throat that immediately causes symptoms, she noted, and now is associated with mouth HPV infections that are silent “yet may lead to oral cancer 10 to 20 years later.”
Gillison from The Ohio State University, Columbus, and colleagues explored whether sexual behaviors were associated with the odds of oral HPV infection in 332 adults and in 210 college-aged men. They found that 4.8 percent of the adults and 2.9 percent of college-aged men had oral HPV infection.
The Journal provides minute-by-minute analysis of tonight’s 6-2 win by the Pittsburgh Penguins over the Washington Capitals in the decisive Game 7 of their National Hockey League Stanley Cup playoffs second-round series. Guest blogger Gare Joyce offers commentary on the game and the television broadcast.
What are Pittsburgh’s prospects going forward? I like the Pens’ chances against the Bruins, a little less so versus Carolina (just on the strength of Hurricane goaltender Cam Ward). Maybe the Bruins will try to punish Crosby and Malkin and other skilled guys in the Penguins lineup. That would just open games up to Pittsburgh’s power-play. Did Fleury prove himself a Cup-worthy goalie? Great when needed…that one time. The case isn’t convincing yet. It was a classic series…for six games. A great performance by Crosby in a perfectly drama-free evening.
