Berkeley Student Pol to be Stripped of Office FOR BEING CONSERVATIVE
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: ASUC President Plans To Override His Pick For Judicial Council
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

ASUC senators are alleging that a newly appointed judicial council member, who the senate confirmed Wednesday night, misled the Senate about her political group involvement.

Senators say Amaris White, a former Daily Cal reporter, did not reveal her ties to the conservative California Patriot magazine and the Berkeley College Republicans when senators asked what groups White participated in.

"Did she deliberately try to mislead us? The answer is definitely yes," said SQUELCH! Senator Ben Narodick, who confronted White about her group affiliations outside of the senate chambers Wednesday. "It was obvious that she wasn't being forthcoming with us."

White told the senate at her confirmation hearing that she provided art for student publications, but did not specify the publications.

An Internet search revealed that White is the art editor for the Patriot, Narodick said. He said he was unable to raise this issue during the hearing.

"I didn't mention it because I didn't think it was relevant," White said. "I don't think that it will be a problem because the cases that come before the council are mostly concerning the ASUC. My political views should have no effect whatsoever."

The concerns over White's honesty prompted CalSERVE senators to push the senate to reconsider her confirmation after the vote Wednesday, but they failed to garner the 14 necessary votes.

ASUC President Misha Leybovich, who nominated White for the seat, is expected to submit a veto to override the appointment and oust White from the council.

"Lying is unacceptable, especially in the body of ASUC that is supposed to hold the association accountable," Leybovich said. "To start off one's Judicial Council career with a dishonest way of getting there just really doesn't sit well with me. This is absolutely not a personal attack; clearly I think she's qualified to be on the council, but a lie provides a barrier that no qualification can overcome."

Political affiliation can often tip the scales in a potential council member's appointment, since the council hears suits that often split along party lines. Some senators are reluctant to vote for radical left-leaning or right-leaning appointees.

Leybovich said he has seen council appointees hide affiliations to ensure their appointment.

"I can see where she's coming from to hide that information, though I don't endorse her decision," said council Chair Robert Gregg. "This situation might reflect negatively on the credibility of individual justices."

Some senators and officials said the push to void White's appointment is driven by her political affiliation, not her failure to mention the Patriot.

"They're pissed as hell they voted for a Republican ... and are demagoguing that she lied to save face," former council Chair Mike Davis said in an e-mail. "It's nothing new. They were saying vicious things about me when I was on the council."

But the legitimacy of a presidential veto is also in question. Leybovich can override main motions, but officials are at odds over whether an appointment qualifies as a main motion.

"The president can veto legislative actions of the Senate, which an act of confirmation is certainly not," Davis said. "Amaris should apologize for lying and everyone should move on."

Daily Californian ** Senators Say Appointee Hid Conservative Affiliations

Universities Are Now The Power Base of the Left
Mood:  loud
Now Playing: Mike Rosen: CU is worth fighting for
Topic: News

Thank you Ward Churchill! As the poster child for so much of what's wrong with higher education today, you moved this issue from the back burner to the front burner of public policy. Whether you stay or go is merely another battle. This is about the war of ideas.

Richard Rorty is a philosophy professor at the University of Virginia. He's also editor of an unabashedly socialist magazine, Dissent, and a hero of the academic left. Here's his political assessment of academe: "The power base of the Left in America is now in the universities, since the trade unions have largely been killed off. The universities have done a lot of good work by setting up, for example, African-American studies programs, Women's Studies programs, and Gay and Lesbian Studies programs. They have created power bases for these movements."

Movements? If you had any illusions that these programs were simply "studying" these areas, now you know better. Like Churchill's Ethnic Studies program, they're all "movements." And American universities have become "the power base of the Left."

The debate stimulated by the Churchill affair has escalated into a long overdue exploration into the politics and processes of higher education. The sacred cow of tenure is under review, along with the limits of academic freedom and the shameful lack of ideological balance within college faculties. It's like peeling off the outer layers of an artichoke to get to the heart of the issue.

And this is it: 1) Ideology and politics. As Rorty proudly proclaims, the Left has taken over academe. We want it back. 2) Accountability. Self-important academics believe themselves to be beyond reproach, sitting as philosopher-kings, dispensing their wisdom to the ignorant masses. Nonsense. They're ordinary people, government employees dependent on their customers and the taxpayers for their income, and ultimately accountable to their bosses and the citizens who elect the Board of Regents. Academic freedom is not absolute.

One hundred ninety-nine CU faculty members, in an ad in the Boulder Daily Camera, have "demanded" that the investigation of Churchill be "stopped immediately." They argue that inquiries into his alleged plagiarism, misrepresentation of sources cited in his "scholarly" writings, false claims of Indian status in his affirmative action job application, and incitements to commit violence should be inadmissible because he had originally been criticized only for his ideas. Please. This is like saying a fugitive serial killer should be released because he was originally stopped by the police for making an illegal left turn. Churchill's potty mouth is what got him noticed.

Some of his apologists have resorted to playing the "McCarthyism" card. Nonsense. This implies that Churchill is being unjustly hounded for things he has not done or things that cause no harm.

On the contrary, Churchill's misdeeds appear to be quite tangible, deadly serious and extremely harmful. That's why there's an investigation. Let's see what it concludes.

Professor Charles Braider, director of the Center for Humanities and Arts, says the Churchill investigation has caused a "chilling effect" on curriculum and is "affecting the very life of the university." Good. It's about time. I'd prefer to call it a remedial, correcting effect.

Whatever the outcome for Churchill, the battle lines have formed and are hardening. Here's what many of us, I hope most, would like to see: substantive change, a revolution even, at the University of Colorado. It must start with electing regents who have a commitment to restoring real, intellectual diversity and an evenhanded exchange of ideas. That means hiring conservative professors to balance the now left-lopsided scales.

It means ending politically correct speech codes for students and the "diversity" and "sensitivity" re-education camps freshmen are forced to attend. It means a housecleaning of administrators, starting with President Betsy Hoffman. It means hiring new administrators with sufficient backbone to take on the entrenched, leftist faculty with knowledge that the regents will stand behind those administrators. If the changing culture disturbs some in the tenured left who preferred their monopoly, let them leave, and good riddance.

We're told that applications from out-of-state students - who subsidize Colorado students by paying six times the resident tuition - have fallen off sharply. Here's the perfect remedy: Convert CU into a bastion of conservative thought, making it the only big-time state university in the country of that kind. The pent-up demand for such a school is overwhelming.

Multitudes of students would beat a path to our door.

Rocky Mountain News Column ** Universities Are Now The Power Base of the Left

AIR AMERICA'S LOUSY RATINGS
Mood:  party time!
Now Playing: Liberal Talk Radio Continues to Struggle
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Michelle Malkin has a round-up of ratings data for Air America, a year into its life. the signs are not terribly encouraging. In most of its major cities, it has a found a niche audience of roughly one-third or less of the leading conservative talk radio station in the market. In fact, the #1 market data in New York is even worse, given the fact that most major cities have at least two conservative talk stations.

Nobody seems to want to point out that Air America's biggest handicap, aside from the lameness of its programming, is that it faces subsidized competition from NPR talk shows, which don't cause the audience to suffer through annoying commercials. To admit this would be to concede that NPR is left wing, and that government subsidies are a bad thing.

Air America's flagship station, WLIB-AM in New York, garnered a 1.2 share in the latest quarter, down 0.1 from the year-ago period. By comparison, WABC-AM, New York's leading conservative station, garnered a 3.8 share, up 0.1 from the year-ago period. WOR-AM, another conservative station, posted a 2.1 share, down 0.1 from the year-earlier period.

WLIB has now had a full year, a generous amount of time in broadcasting, to build an audience and figures are still flat compared with the previous niche Caribbean format the station featured. Often in radio that would mean imminent cancellation, but backers continue to be so noisy, they have generated enough industry hype to sustain poor performance a tad bit longer....

My contention is that if liberal talk radio can't find an audience in New York City, it certainly doesn't have a chance in San Antonio, Reno, Fresno and other places now gaining Air America stations that have small "progressive" populations.

LINKS: Arbitron Ratings Service ** Listings for New York, NY (#1 Market) Arbitron Results

Michelle Malkin ** AIR AMERICA'S LOUSY RATINGS

The Radio Equalizer ** Update: Liberal Talk Radio Continues to Struggle

Arbitron Ratings Service ** Listings by release date - Winter 2005 Phase 1 Arbitron Results

Democrats name building for Daschle
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Democrats name building for Daschle
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Tom Daschle has left the Senate, but when Democrats try to take control of the chamber in the future, he'll be on their minds.

The Democrats will be running their Senate campaigns out of a building named for Daschle, the South Dakotan who led them in the Senate from 1994 until his defeat last fall. The Capitol Hill office will be known as The Senator Thomas A. Daschle Building.

LOL, I WONDER IF THEY'LL PUT UP SUICIDE-PROOF FENCES ON THE ROOF !

Argus Leader: Sioux Falls, SD ~ Washington Bureau ** Democrats name building for Daschle

Coward Deanpeace, Unions Plot to Block Soc. Sec. Reform
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Dean Plots with AFL-CIO to Block Social Security Reform
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Democratic Party head Howard Dean met with top union leaders to plot a campaign to thwart President Bush's Social Security reform plan.

"The fate of the Democratic Party and the fate of labor are intertwined," Dean said Tuesday after the meeting. "It's in both of our interests to work together, and that's what we're going to do."

The closed-door meeting between Dean and the AFL-CIO's Executive Council came even as two unions are threatening to break from the organization over the direction of the labor movement.

The AFL-CIO plans a massive campaign against privatization of Social Security, hoping to defeat the proposal and boost the union's political strength in future elections.

NewsMax.com ** Dean Plots with AFL-CIO to Block Social Security Reform

GOP Jewish Group Critizes KKK Byrd's Remarks
Mood:  suave
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

A pair of Jewish groups accused Sen. Robert Byrd on Wednesday of making an outrageous and reprehensible comparison between Adolf Hitler's Nazis and a Senate GOP plan to block Democrats from filibustering. A GOP senator called for Byrd to retract his remarks.

Associated Press - MyWay.com ** GOP Jewish Group Critizes Byrd's Remarks

Bush Gets Credit for Middle East Change
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: NY Times Editorial
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance.

NYTimes.com ~ Opinion - Editorial ** MIDEAST CLIMATE CHANGE

GUN CONTROL ACTIVIST ARRESTED ON FIREARMS CHARGE.
Mood:  surprised
Now Playing: Million Mom March organizer arrested after firearm found at home
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Springfield, Illinois -
Annette "Flirty" Stevens, who began lobbying against gun violence after her son was shot to death in 2002 was arrested last week when police allegedly found an illegal gun and drugs in her home.

State Journal-Register - Springfield, Illinois ** Anti-gun activist arrested after firearm found at home

Vermont towns voting on anti-Iraq war referendum
Mood:  mischievious
Now Playing: Peacenik pacifists bitching and whining...
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Like the Vermont towns voting on anti-Iraq war referendum... where DNC chairman Coward Deanpeace is considered a "conservative."

C S Monitor ** In Vermont, a Town-Meeting revolt over Iraq war

HOW TO PLAY MUSIC IN YAHOO MESSENGER CHAT ROOMS
Mood:  lyrical
Now Playing: (SING AS LOUD AS YOU WANT WITHOUT BEING HEARD, AND TYPE AT THE SAME TIME)
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff
Clean Computers ** HOW TO PLAY MUSIC IN YAHOO MESSENGER CHAT ROOMS

For windows ME and XP (windows 98 users bottom comment)

If you have a gold speaker icon next to your clock, skip the next two screenshots. If you do not have a speaker: Click on start... settings...control panel. In Control Panel, find Sounds & Multimedia

Open it. At the bottom of the box, (see above) Put a check in show volume control on the taskbar, Click Apply, OK, close control panel You now have a gold speaker near your clock. Double Click the gold speaker next to your clock.

This will open your volume control panel Click on options ..... properties... When the box pops up, playback should be highlited.

Check the recording circle and make sure all the boxes are checked in the lower box, Click ok

A box should pop up for record control, and mic volume should be checked already. Check the box for stereo mix (XP is stereo out) and mic volume should uncheck automatically....

For some reason, on some people's computers, the microphone stays enabled, Usually computers that have a digital sound card have this problem.

You may have to read the help file for your digital sound card to remedy this. Open your music player, ( I use Winamp, but any media player you like is fine). http://www.winamp.com/download/ (if you want to try winamp) Adjust the volume of your music to suit yourself. Enable yaheek Yaheek.zip (download, (save to desktop) unzip it,open, read the readme.txt file)) If you need winzip, get it from: Winzip 8.1 (open from location and install) Then unzip yaheek and open it Start your song, Lock down your talk button, and your music will play directly into the chat room or private message box directly through your sound card.

IF your sound is too loud, lower the volume in the record control panel... (that is what people hear)

You lose your ability to speak if your computer disables your mic,

When you are done, unlock your talk button, Recheck mic volume in the record control box, and you're ready to talk again. (sometimes you may lose the ability to be heard) IF THIS HAPPENS, Shut off sound in the room, minimize the room, maximize it again and re-enable voice. This SHOULD fix the problem

You can do all of this before you enter chat, or while you are in chat. The record box will stay on your screen or enabled on your task bar for easy access.

Enjoy, but please be considerate of others. Ask if you can play a song first, because others may not like your particular style of music, or would just rather not hear music at all.

Windows 98 users

Exactly the same process... but: When you have the Record Control panel in front of you, select the Mixed Output.

Then play your music.