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Actually, that’s exactly who they are. Several private nuns who have been voting all their lives were prohibited from casting ballots in South Bend on this account that they didn’t have proper ID. The nuns, who wide-awake at a convent, went to their polling place on the ground floor. There was absolutely no doubt round their identity, since the poll workers included other nuns from St. Mary’s convent, near the University of Notre Dame.

A couple of sisters showed expired passports, end the statute doesn’t allow those, either. (If you were born in the USA, that doesn’t make some change in., no thing by what means outdated your passport.) Indiana’s law is so restrictive that even out-of-state driver’s licenses are not accepted, a important problem for college students who register to devoted while attending Notre Dame, Indiana University or other colleges.

If the absurdity of punitive voter ID laws — adopted in distinct states with GOP-dominated legislatures, including Georgia — was not apparent before now, this case ought to help all but the for the greatest part partisan see the fallacy. Two weeks gone, in a ruling that spurns the universal exemption, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s ID requirements. Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice John Paul Stevens asserted that there was none "concrete evidence of the burden imposed in continuance voters who now lack photo identification."

How hither and thither the immoral proposition of throwing out the ballots of somewhat old nuns, law-abiding citizens who have given their lives to the purest form of service? How about the burden of forcing them to off with you get a state-sponsored photo ID?

Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita was even more contemptuous, telling reporters that "the sisters were aware of the photo ID requirements and chose not to follow them."

Nonsense, says John Borkowski, a South Bend limb of the law and volunteer discernment watchdog with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He says some of the nuns — described as mostly in their 80s and 90s and no longer driving — were not aware of the law. A couple of others had tried to get to a motor excipient office to get an official photo ID but were unable to do so. "I don’t think it’s fair to say these are people who chose not to comply with the law," Borkowski said.

Supporters of gruff voter ID laws claim that state-sponsored photo identification is necessity to prevent in-person fraud at the ballot box. But that sort of illicit voting simply doesn’t have being. It’s urban legend, cognate stories of homeless people who are kidnapped with respect to their kidneys.

Yes, yes, I know that voter fraud exists. But the vast majority occurs through absentee ballots, that don’t have to be cast in person. If ferreting out fraud were the point of restrictive voter ID laws, state legislatures would make tight down on the requirements for absentee ballots. There has been precious little of that.

Instead, those who tout the fraud-preventing brilliance of voter ID laws note that those without official IDs could use absentee ballots if they feel in such a manner strongly respecting the franchise. Rokita offered absentee ballots as Indiana’s "safety net" for those without state-sanctioned ID.

So what’s the real motive since these punitive voter ID laws? Republicans are trying to block the ballots of a few poor and elderly voters, those least likely to have driver’s licenses. It’s probably no exact overlapping that those blocs tend to support Democrats. (Indiana’s prohibition against out-of-state licenses would likewise work against all of those Obama-loving college students.)

President Bush has touted democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, proudly pointing to the purple-ink-stained fingers of voters who were able to cast ballots without fear of politic retribution. But in this unpolished, the president’s political party denies the cast votes to elderly nuns.

Previous: THUG CULTURE CELEBRATES THE WORST POSSIBLE EXAMPLES
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I can’t think of a single residential neighborhood in the city or the region that is welcoming the enormous changes coming quicker than springtime.

The essential drama is this: Planners and visionaries are looking to house another the multitude or so the multitude, but without the creation of new urban centers, and without expanding the urban growth boundaries. So, the neighborhoods take the newly arrived, the newly born, the newly transferred, the newly graduated.

The result, I believe, is a basic disconnect between those who plan as far as concerns our region and those who mow the yards, front elevation and back.

In highly dense corridors such as Belltown, the Denny Triangle, downtown Tacoma, Everett and Bellevue, the ascendancy of density is a normal course to full cityhood.

But the region itself is not used to the levels of density that will have being expected of the neighborhoods now in shifting: Magnolia, Mercer Island, Redmond and West Seattle.

It was West Seattle, remember, that revolted against the urban-village general of Mayor Norm Rice’s administration, giving the gift of a Charlie Chong membership on the City Council. The late Mr. Chong delivered the unforgettable line about sending greater degree of apartments and condos to Renton and Kent instead of West Seattle.

Well, they did go there, especially to Renton, where a downtown was reborn without the parking lots of the car dealerships.

But the pressure for in addition downtown density is simply going to increase in Newcastle, Burien and wherever the single-family home now reigns. The question since most neighborhoods is: When will the pressure to accept town houses, hut housing and condos crack our community’s core?

Highly packed neighborhoods can be a good event in the urban delineation, but try to put something uniform in Wedgwood, Maple Leaf or parts of Maple Valley and you force have a different response.

Here’s what Keith Sketchley of Richmond, B.C., wrote about what he calls the “folly of promiscuous use”:

“The problem of mixed use is forcing it. The mentality that thinks it knows everything and [has] the fit to control others forced people into single use and now wants to force mixed use … (N)ote there is a fundamental dishonesty underlying most NIMBYs

Yes, and exactly the parley that is going on right a little while ago about a proposed site for a new prison at Seattle’s Interbay

Government often asks us to choose between contradictory choices. Do you want to content congestion with another bridge above the top the Montlake Cut? Well, actually not, reported some strong voices in Montlake.

That’s imminent the dilemma faced by Judy Thornton and Kate Lloyd of Friends of Waterway 1, a delightful, historic material substance of water at 35th Street and 43rd Avenue in Laurelhurst.

“There are few locations whose history is additional closely entwined with the history of Seattle than Waterway 1, which celebrates its 100th anniversary nearest year,” they write. “However, today this gateway to the kind world and other unique public trust lands take pleasure in it are at venture.”

Friends of Waterway 1 are concerned the state’s Department of Natural Resources will essentially disturb the propinquity with greater access and less cozy connections to the water.

It’s not about NIMBYism, it’s well-nigh change. People welcome change to someone besides’s backyard but rarely their be in possession of when the price of real order and the make demands upon bills are plenty to nail a family’s finances to the weal of their wealth.

I don’t find that selfish or wrong, but exclusively of some thoughtful relief to the oncoming rise of populations, every one nearness will become to a greater degree self-defensive and defiant.

; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at www.seattletimes.com/edcetera

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John McCain's graceful and serious speech this week at Wake Forest University puts one of the greatest part important issues of 2008 squarely in point of concentration. Will social policy in the USA continue to be made by panels of unelected judges by lifetime tenure, or will we have a judiciary governed by self-restraint and fidelity to the rule of statute?

With clarity as hale as a personal history of fairness in judicial matters, McCain laid out the circumstance for a forensic branch that rises aloft political strife but does not undermine figurative government. To more critics of his contemplate that judges should define and not make the law, the debate is merely on the eve various forms of judicial activism — liberal vs. conservative.

American history powerfully refutes that eye. The Federalist Papers set forth the argument that the judicial tributary stream of the national government would be the "least dangerous" to liberty. This would happen not because that branch would be filled with the wisest and most learned citizens, but because of its limited powers. In Alexander Hamilton's famous words, the federal courts would have "neither force nor will, but merely judgment."

Those words are carefully and consummately chosen. Force — the police power — is a feature of the executive branch; will is the distinctive character of the population from one side their elected officials.

Through the centuries, overreaching judges have attempted to seize susceptibility on questions that span the social and political representation. Activist U.S. Supreme Courts gave a green light to thraldom in 1857 and to child labor in 1905, overturning duly enacted laws.

In our time, the Supreme Court has given the nation abortion on demand, thereby creating a national conclusion and actually delaying — because it doubted — the ability of the American people to reason together to solutions. Today, various courts assert a claim the power to levy taxes, buffet down the general motto, remake the institution of marriage, seize private goods for non-public purposes, and run state agencies.

John McCain has pledged to nominate qualified judges who will retirement the legislating to the people. This isn't a campaign plank; it is one of our nation's core ideas.

Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council, a Christian conservative organization.

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Enough. You've reaffirmed your standing since a fighter, reconnected with blue-collar America, forged an identity as a woman of inner part and steel. Now you can be a uniter, too, hailed for your toughness and love in recognizing when a losing cause is just that.

It's time to express by bows out of the Democratic contest.

Yes, you be able to fight clear end to the convention, ask in spite of that the Florida and Michigan delegations have being seated; convoy in your impugn dogs to topic Barack Obama's – um – masculine fortitude; blink at another round of Internet whispers that question your opponent's funny name, his patriotism, and his religion.

You can bash the press, treat insolently the superdelegates, and exalt one’s self of your prowess in the working-class kitchens of big states the party must win come November. You can post other thing ads of that irritating red phone and revel in your talent to fortunate conjuncture your adverse party just enough to keep him slightly along stride.

But you'll pacify lose. And the Democratic Party may lose by you.

Consider your legacy. Do you want to be remembered as Hillary the Pillorer, Hillary the Heckler, Clinton the Cutthroat? Surely not.

Doesn't Hillary the Healer seem more salving, other uplifting, on the pages of Democratic Party history? Surely you and Bill don't want to risk discarding your moneymaking memoirs in the trash heap of Democratic sore losers?

In so many intimate aspects of life, timing is everything. And in the end, even in the 24-7 gleam of panting journalists and pushy photographers, politics is a most intimate sport. Seize the moment.

As you walk to the podium, the photographers will bring their lenses in tight. You are smiling now – a broad, wise, embracing smile. (Was that a hint of dampness in one have an eye on or virtuous the glare?)

You spread your arms and speak. Shower love on your supporters. Thank them for showing that a woman can win in America, that women will be back – in 2012, 2016, 2020. Hint perhaps that it may equal be you. But therefore praise Obama for the reason that a person of toughness and integrity, a leader who can set a of recent origin course for America. Say that you power of determination stand by his side in his fight against John McCain. That he deserves to exist president. That you will fight with all your strength to make sure he gets in that place. That if called on, you will even serve as his vice president.

Again Hillary, timing is everything. Your fortune cookie reads: "Don't stoppage." So I'd speak out immediately. Why gamble away another $6.4 million on a campaign car that's leaking oil? There's no need to be the Ralph Nader of 2008; Ralph's already running. And who knows. By mid-June exactly some of your antique friends could be calling you the Benedicta Arnold of the Democratic Party.

But demean one’s self now and you will be an American heroine, irresistible to the TV bookers from Today to Tonight. Sure. Your campaign aides – and most devoted supporters – will feel hurt. Some may even feel sold out, and that's tough. But the press and notorious will hail you as a woman of character and principle, the savior of her participant, a fighter who understood that her contend was for America's people and not for herself.

I can't help tearing up just thinking about it. You can habitually write a happy ending to your narrative, Hillary. Tomorrow it may exist too late.

Warmest regards,

Jerry Lanson

• Jerry Lanson, who voted for Obama, teaches journalism at Emerson College.

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Hiring events

Career fairs

Edmonds Community College career fair takes place 10 a.m.-2 p.m. May 15 at Triton Union 202, 20000 68th Ave. W., Lynnwood. Info: www.edcc.edu/careerfair

Veterans career fair

RecruitMilitary Career Fair event, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursday, May 15, at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center, 1500 Broadway Tacoma (Greater Seattle), WA 98402. Programs help returning forces, other vets and avail members, and spouses provide jobs. Info: www.recruitmilitary.com

Récalculateé clinic

Bring your résumé to this interactive workshop and realize some résumé first-aid. Monday, May 12, 7 p.m.-8:15 p.m. Tully’s in Wallingford, 2100 N 45th (at Meridian), Seattle. Free, drop-ins welcome. Info: www.CareerCounselingWithaTwist.com/events

For older job-seekers

Age 55-plus job-search workshop

Learn about job-search readiness and job leads from 10:30 a.m.-noon May 14 at the Central Building, 810 Third Ave., Suite 150, Seattle. For Seattle-King County residents only. Info: seniors@seattle.gov

AARP Foundation WorkSearch

Free employment service and tuition-paid classes for workers 40 or older. If 55 or older and income-eligible, earn $500-plus per month while looking in opposition to work. Info: 206-624-6698 or blong@aarp.org

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A peril convention with a Wachovia Bank charged with execution introduced Andy Nino to the banking world. Now, Nino is the branch manager at a Marshall & Ilsley Bank in Indianapolis. He had worked in retail and longed for more unchangeable hours that would give him in greater numbers subdivision of an order time.

“Banking today isn’t the kind of it was 15 or 20 years ago,” Nino said. “Today it truly is a retail environment. It’s about centre of life able to reach out to your community [with] your sales adroitness.”

Nino has one of the top 25 Most Wanted U.S. occupations, according to Jobfox, a job search engine. Also amid the top jobs are positions for administrative assistants, product managers, advertising account executives and business analysts.

Here’s what it takes to get such a job:

Administrative assistant

Assists executive staff. May answer executive staff phones, prepare correspondence, prepare and write a critical notice of operating, financial and statistical reports such as payroll and attendance records. Maintains budget information, issues and interprets operating policies, reviews and answers correspondence. Should have existence outgoing and friendly, a problem-solver and able to work alone or in a team.

Training: On the job. Associate or bachelor’s degree may be required.

Average pay: $36,879.

Product manager

Directs and administers planning and development functions to improve existing or new products, processes and services. May arrange for contracts, order reports and recommend etc., expansion or end of projects. May also be responsible for recruiting, hiring and nurture pole. Should be a problem-solver, able to be in action independently or in a team.

Training: Bachelor’s division. Project-management professional certification available.

Average pay: $93,673.

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Thunderstorms and tornadoes tore across the nation’s midsection Saturday night, killing at least 11 people, mangling buildings and trapping people in areas reeling from other newly come bouts by severe weather.

A twister killed at least six people in the northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher and left widespread destruction, the government said.

The death toll could go higher, related Oklahoma Emergency Management spokeswoman Michelann Ooten. The tornado caused major detriment in a 20-block area, she related.

At least five people died in southwestern Missouri after the storms plowed through, the National Weather Service said.

Other tornadoes were reported near McAlester and Haywood in Pittsburg County and in rural Pushmataha County, both in southeastern Oklahoma.

Tornadoes killed 13 people Feb. 5 and seven more May 2.

Murdoch drops bid for Newsday

News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch withdrew his $580 million bid to purchase Newsday, his spokeswoman said Saturday.

Murdoch’s departure leaves two other bids for Newsday’s parent Tribune Co. to ponder: Cablevision Systems’ $650 million offer, or a $580 million bid from New York Daily News proprietor Mort Zuckerman.

“It became uneconomical in favor of us to persist,” said Teri Everett, of News Corp.

Murdoch and Zuckerman bid $580 million for Newsday and its subsidiaries, including the commuter paper amNewYork. But Cablevision countered by the higher bid.

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Heads up: Key reports on the U.S. economy are due out this week, from the federal parcel deficit on Monday to housing starts on Friday. Others include the Commerce Department’s reports on sell in small quantities sales for April and business inventories for March, the pair Tuesday; the consumer price index for April upon Wednesday; and pertaining production figures for April in succession Thursday.

Tuesday: The parade Employment Security Department releases jobs data for April. The March jobless rate rose sharply, to 4.9 percent; April’s numbers should provide evidence whether that was a blip or the start of a slowdown.

Wednesday: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates wish address more than 100 chief executives during the company’s annals CEO Summit at its Redmond headquarters.

Thursday: Nordstrom will discuss its first-quarter financial results in a 1:30 p.m. interview call that will exist webcast at www.nordstrom.com, Investor Relations section. … Puget Sound Energy customers can comment to state regulators on the utility’s proposed acquisition by an Australian-Canadian consortium, as very much as its beg to increase electricity and natural-gas rates. The public meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. at Bellevue Community College, Room 130 B, 3000 Landerholm Circle S.E., Bellevue.

by Lewis Braham

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Byrne’s small-cap strategies weren’t take advantage of to retail investors to the time when not long ago Evan Kafka

It takes an experienced hand to course today’s turbulent markets. But if you’re looking for a mutual fund that will see you through the swamp, don’t normal look at funds with long track records. Often these are victims of their confess success, having become so popular that their asset levels are bloated. As a result, managers may not be able to maneuver portfolios nimbly enough to sidestep downturns and may also miss out on potential buying opportunities.

A better strategy may be to buy a new fund launched by dint of. an old hand. Many veterans who have long overseen privy and institutional money successfully are diversifying and building their brands by launching deal out in small portions funds.

Consider, for instance, Prospector Funds in Guilford, Conn., that manages $3.5 billion, in the first place for two institutional clients. Launched in September, 2007, its two retail funds, Prospector Capital Appreciation (PCAFX) and Prospector Opportunity (PQPFX), have only a combined $17million. The managers, however, acquire a vast amount of experience. John D. Gillespie founded Prospector Partners in 1997 and manages the stock portfolios of OneBeacon Insurance (OB) and White Mountains Insurance, which has a long-term association with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. (Gillespie is a director of White Mountains.) Prior to founding Prospector, Gillespie worked toward Buffett’s Geico as a senior financial analyst and was a manager of several T. Rowe Price (TROW) funds.

Gillespie’s co-managers are equally overpowering. Richard P. Howard, lead good economist of Prospector Capital Appreciation, headed up T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation from 1989 through 2001 and was an algebraist with the fund from its 1986 inception. During his tenure, the national obligations had one down year, a 1.3% drop in 1990. Kevin R. O’Brien, who heads Prospector Opportunity Fund, worked for Neuberger Berman from 1996 through 2003, co-managing Neuberger Berman Genesis, a top-performing small-cap fund.

Some managers accept losses as far-reaching as they beat a benchmark, but avoiding any declines is Prospector’s first antecedence. It pursues “absolute,” rather than relative, returns. “We’ve never had a down year in any of our investing. products before this we started the house in 1997,” says Gillespie.

Capital Appreciation’s Howard pursues a strategy like to the same he created for T. Rowe Price, buying stocks of any size trading at a discount to what he thinks a smart buyer would pay in any acquisition. He combines those with convertible bonds to dampen portfolio volatility. The capital at this moment has 30% in such bonds, and its largest holding is electric utility stock Mirant (MIR), which Howard says will see insurrection cash flow due to greater demand for electricity. At Opportunity, O’Brien focuses mostly on small- and mid-cap companies able to fund their own growth. He likes UST (UST), which has a 90% share of the smokeless tobacco market.

Absolute returns are also the focus of the $100million Utopia Core Fund (UTCRX). The fund opened at the start of 2006, on the contrary manager Paul H. Sutherland has been investing for private accounts with about $700 the multitude in the same value-oriented style for more than a decade. Over the ended 10 years the medial sum go of those accounts has more than doubled that of the S&P 500 with considerably smaller downside. In his worst year, 2002, Sutherland lost 6.7% to the emporium’s 22% slide. (As with all the funds in this count, expenses fall near the medium for its public funds division.)

Utopia has a wide-ranging requirement. “We look everywhere for opportunities,” says Sutherland. It’s not uncommon to find Treasury bills alongside Asian real estate investment trusts (REITs) and short positions that bet on a falling stock recompense.

The sale of 50% of its retail business to Best Buy will give the British phone warehouse cash to pour into infrastructure

by Natasha Lomas

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Mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse is to sell 50 per cent of its sell in small quantities business to US sell in small quantities giant Best Buy for £1.1bn—and plans to conversion to an act the cash to grow its broadband business.

Carphone Warehouse, which operates the ‘free’ broadband brand TalkTalk in the UK, will keep a half-stake in the retail business, which will see Best Buy-branded stores arriving in Europe, but plans to hold onto all of its UK fixed-line telecoms businesses: AOL Broadband, Opal and TalkTalk.

It said it will use the £1.1bn “to pay down debt, invest in broadband buyer growth and infrastructure and endow in new areas of growth presented by the transaction”.

Ian Fogg, exploration monitor at JupiterResearch, aforesaid Carphone Warehouse is facing big investment decisions in its broadband business if it is to keep up with the competition as ADSL2+ products hit the place of traffic.

He told silicon.com: “The point they’re at with that business is they need to cause to become decisions about what investment they spend on their broadband infrastructure and where they see the long word business.

“Carphone [Warehouse] popularly is offering any up to 8Mbps yield—they privation to resort that to the next step if they want to be a serious player in the broadband market.”

But keeping up with other UK broadband players of the like kind as O2—which Fogg said has recently started heavily marketing its ADSL2+ produce—the company will need to upgrade accoutrement in exchanges and boost line capacity to cope through demand for higher speeds—investments that will not come cheap.

Bandwidth-draining apps such as the BBC iPlayer may also be causing ISPs to scratch their heads over their broadband strategies, he added.

Another potential use for the turn into money—and a short-cut way to grow its broadband customer base—could have existence acquisition of another UK doer, of that kind as Tiscali.

Fogg told silicon.com: “Clearly Tiscali appears to be up for grabs and it may have existence that Carphone Warehouse decides that at this field of the broadband market… that the easiest way to acquire customers is to buy Tiscali and obviously that would ask any investing. in the short terminus.”

He added: “In the longer term what’s going to take place is that at some flash of wit the UK ISPs will decide to invest in fibre in the UK. That’s beginning to be talked about—it’s happening in other countries in Europe but that pleasure require very large sums of investment—probably beyond the amount of money Carphone Warehouse are raising here.”