law: October 2006 Archives
The leaders of higher education's main technology association have written a powerfully worded letter urging Blackboard to relinquish the rights it gained under a
controversial patent of online learning technologies in the public domain and to drop a patent infringement lawsuit it filed in August against a Canadian competitor, Desire2Learn.
"We believe this action would be in the best business interests of Blackboard and in the best interests of higher education," Brian L. Hawkins, the president of Educause, and the group's Board of Directors said in a letter to Blackboard this month. "We do not make this request lightly or underestimate the courage it will take to implement. However, we believe it is the right action for your corporation and our community."
Following is an interesting spin from the New York Times. Were the Democrats "outmaneuvered," or were these past elections stolen? There is plenty of evidence to support the latter. Does this wording, which we suddenly hear everywhere (even Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update), prepare the American public to accept the proposition that Karl Rove is a master at getting out the vote - again - when the reality is that the election has been stolen - again?
Guardedly, Democrats Are Daring to Believe - New York Times
"For Democrats these days, life is one measure glee, one measure dread and one measure hubris. If they are as confident as they have been in a decade about regaining at least one house of Congress - and they are - it is a confidence tempered by the searing memories of being outmaneuvered, for three elections straight, by superior Republican organizing and financial strength, and by continued wariness about the political skills of President Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove."
With the critical mid-term elections weeks away from our publication date, this report looks at some of the serious problems that marred the 2004 presidential election and asks: are we any better off today than we were two years ago?
The authors of this report - The Century Foundation, Common Cause, and The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights - are uniquely qualified to answer that question. The three organizations did intensive monitoring of the 2004 elections and held a conference including several of the other major monitoring organizations in December of that year. They reported their findings in Voting in 2004: A Report to the Nation on America's Election Process, published in December 2004.
This follow-up report explores whether a sampling of 10 states with a history of various election problems and potentially close races - Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin - have taken steps to address the concerns addressed in our foundational report.
The findings of our report on the whole are troubling. Some states have made it harder to register to vote rather than easier. This is critical because problems with voter registration were among the most common complaints of voters in 2004. Another critical problem from 2004 - long lines for voters - is likely to recur because few states have dealt with the issue. New voter ID laws in certain states are likely to disenfranchise voters, and only one state has acted aggressively to address voter intimidation tactics.
FindLaw's Writ - Lazarus: The Key Issue of Judicial Independence
In legal circles, the issue of the moment is judicial "independence." For many years now, right-wing conservatives have been conducting an unrelenting attack on supposedly out-of-control "activist" judges, as part of their campaigns against abortion rights, affirmative action, and the judicially-imposed ban on prayer in public schools.
In the last few years, however, the assault on the judiciary has developed a new fury. In the wake of the legal maneuverings surrounding Terri Schiavo's tragic death, conservatives have not only ratcheted up their anti-judge rhetoric, they've started acting on threats to seek impeachment of federal judges they don't like, and to set up systems for monitoring judges who depart from their preferred legal views.
