I just got an e-mail from someone I hadn't heard from in 4 years.  And he kind of left town abruptly, so no one knew if/when we'd ever hear from him again.

Gates Calls Europe Anti-War Mood Danger to Peace

The argument for a cost-of-living increase is not that, in some objective sense, New York Judges do not earn a living wage. Judges made no such argument when this litigation commenced in much better economic times and certainly do not press such a contention now. The claim is that, due to the lack of a cost-of-living increase for more than 11 years, judges no longer earn salaries that are appropriate given the significance of their position in our tri-partite form of government and the role they play in ensuring the rights of all members of society. That role has increased substantially since the last compensation adjustment. For instance, the Judiciary's workload has increased by 10% over the past four years alone. Since 2005, Family Court's workload has increased 16%, civil filings in Supreme Court have increased more than 14%, and the caseloads in the New York City Civil Courts and those city courts outside of New York City have risen by 13 and 17%, respectively. Moreover, state courts handle over 90% of the filings as compared to the less than 10% handled by our federal courts.

(1) The collective action problem: Even though passing a bill leaves all Democrats better off, voting for a bill leaves some Democrats worse off. There are members of the Democratic Party who desperately need a bill to pass, but also feel that they need to be able to vote against that bill. These people are probably going to lose their elections one way or the other, and virtually none of them seem willing to simply admit that and do an enormous amount of good for the American people before Democrats inevitably and predictably lose their unsustainably large majority.  [emphasis supplied]

The rumors are flying and schools like Colorado are being pretty tight-lipped about it, but it is no great secret that the Buffs are being courted by both the Pac 10 and the Big Eleven.  

He [Supt. Weiss] said the department is checking with the Cook County state's attorney's office to see if felony murder charges could be lodged against the burglars who broke into a cell phone store in the 3100 block of North Clark Street. Haymaker was headed there when he crashed into a pole and a tree.