Children, Dr. Graham tells us, if left to devise their own society, would most likely come up with something resembling William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies. In other words, an 11-year-old’s social milieu is “crude… stupid… [and] savage.” Given the similar authority figure-to-inmate ratio and the detachment, it also resembles prison. G. Gordon Liddy, having spent five years in federal ‘correctional institutions,’ often says on his radio program that the prisons are actually run by the prisoners.

Children are not intrinsically this way, Dr. [Paul] Graham argues. Mongol teenagers or Renaissance apprentices probably did not engage in such bullying behavior because they were busy. Suburban teens are, he continues, instead warehoused in schools mostly for baby-sitting and being drilled information that is perceivably less and less relevant to anything applicable in the real world. Now that children are not working alongside adults as they learn their crafts, they have little identification with [or respect for] the adult world and thus devise their own:

“Since the group has no real purpose, there is no natural measure of performance for status to depend on. Instead of depending on some real test, one's rank ends up depending mostly on one’s ability to increase one's rank. It’s like the court of Louis XIV. There is no external opponent, so the kids become one another's opponents in an inexorable zero-sum competition.”

It is important to point out that the child specialists [in the cited and other researched materials] do not consider bullying to be ‘normal’ -- and certainly not acceptable. They almost universally characterize it as destructive unnecessary behavior that must be actively curbed – some even naming it as a disorder. Although the professional literature certainly demonstrates a clear grasp of what causes bullying, solutions are not as definitive. There are vague recommendations to mobilize parents and teachers to combat the problem. There is little evidence offered of any effective answers.

In this writer’s not-so-humble opinion, child socialization and education are in many ways incompatible, especially for juveniles. These should therefore be separate experiences, wherein the child is individually educated according to his/her abilities. Socialization should be carefully supervised, with the parents and other concerned adults deciding which children will be interacting with each other and under what circumstances -- not a government-run institution staffed by the likes of NEA members.

Philip Allen Lacovara, [h]as argued numerous cases before the court. Writing in the December issue of the American Lawyer, he notes that in 1976-77, a typical year for that era, the court issued decisions after hearing oral arguments in 176 cases. In its 2002-03 term, by contrast, the number was 73, which is about the norm these days.

It's not that the court is strapped for the resources it needs to handle its caseload. Each justice now has four law clerks to provide assistance, up from one or two a few decades ago. Petitions to the court that used to be read by actual justices now are often left to clerks. It takes about $86 million a year to produce those 73 decisions.

The court's shrunken caseload only proves idle hands are the devil's workshop. As the justices have fewer cases to resolve, they spend far more time on gratuitous hairsplitting. Many of them often act like pop divas in concert — less intent on harmonizing than on outdoing each other in showy solos.

One fairly simple Fifth Amendment case last term somehow split the court more ways than a shattered windshield, yielding six different opinions, with few of the justices able to agree on much of anything. The recent decision on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was a law student's worst nightmare, running nearly 300 pages and requiring 26 lines of small type just to score the votes. If these nine go out to dinner together, you can bet they insist on separate checks.

Deciding fewer cases doesn't seem to produce happier justices. Nasty sniping is far more common than in previous decades. Justice Antonin Scalia is particularly prone to spice his disagreements with insults. Last term, he said a verdict striking down sodomy laws "is the product of a court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."

Campaign finance reform will undoubtedly also survive recent scandals — even the revelation of a New York City Council candidate who was apparently the first to realize that you could use donations to get matching funds and then hire those same donors as political consultants with the government money. With New York City offering four dollars of matching funds for every dollar raised, few legal investments provide that kind of return.

Others have noted that if former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Mr. Kerry and President Bush hadn't opted out of the public finance system, the program would be out of money now. Taxpayers have simply been unwilling to even redirect some of the taxes that they have to pay anyway into the system. When you have the Federal Election Commission just announcing that Lyndon LaRouche, the perennial conspiracy theorist candidate, will soon get a check from the government for $840,000, taxpayer distaste for the system is quite understandable.

The purposes of the law are, among other things, to maintain an even playing field among candidates as much as is reasonable, to give serious candidates who do not have access to sources of wealth an opportunity to compete in a meaningful way, to allow candidates to compete successfully without reliance on special interest money, to give the public meaningful and timely disclosure of campaign finances, and to inform the public about issues relating to New York City campaigns. At all times, of course, guarding the public fisc must be at the front of our concerns as we study the potential impact of reform generally and of candidates’ use of public funds in particular.

I believe that the items I will discuss today support these goals and are necessary and appropriate in the continuing evolution of the New York City Program, to maintain that Program as the premier model for similar reform efforts across the country. Indeed, the Council should pride itself that by considering the proposals before you today—many of which will tighten restrictions on the very elected officials who are being asked to adopt them—the Council is once again setting an example for the rest of the country.

Unfortunately for those of us who live in the Reston-Herndon area of Fairfax County, the sobriety checkpoint isn't all. Last Holiday season, police officers in both municipalities began crusing [sic] through local bars to administer breath tests and charge bar patrons with public drunkeness. Mind you, individuals weren't targetted [sic] for arrest if there [sic] were disruptive out on the street, the police simply walked into local bars and hauled people off their stools to be tested -- something I found to be a bit extreme.

Nicholas Provenzo - I am the primary author of and contact for the press release that may have prompted your December 15 letter. I've been in the business of defending my company -- also my father's company, for that matter -- for 30 years, and for a variety of reasons derived from three decades of personal experience, I don't entirely share the philosophy or perspectives you've espoused. But, if you're willing, I would like two signed copies of that letter on your official letterhead instead of just a fax. I'd like to frame one and keep the other for my scrapbook. If you decide to send them, the address is:

Garry L. Hamlin
[Address omitted]

Merry Christmas.

P.S. This is a personal communication. I am not functioning in any official capacity on behalf of my company or any other organization and this communication should not be used to suggest or imply that I am.

Millions of Chinese who have plunged into capitalism by starting businesses and investing in stocks and bonds will be guaranteed their right to private property for the first time since the 1949 revolution under a constitutional amendment proposed Monday by communist leaders.

The change would give an official status to the entrepreneurs who once were considered the enemy of communism but now drive China's economy, creating millions of jobs and dotting the skylines of Beijing and other cities with office towers and apartment blocks.

After months of debate, party leaders submitted the proposed amendment Monday to the National People's Congress, along with a proposal to enshrine in the constitution the theories of Jiang Zemin, the former leader who invited capitalists to join the party. Approval by the legislature should be a formality.

The changes reflect the party's decision to cast off leftist dogma in pursuit of prosperity and national status — and to embrace the forces driving change in order to stay in control.

"The Chinese leadership understands that the private sector will be the engine for economic growth," said Joseph Cheng, a political scientist at the City University of Hong Kong.

In part the change is symbolic, bringing the constitution up to date with China's market-driven reality. But it will also likely strengthen the rule of law in a business environment where many common transactions go on without legal structure or regulation. [AP]

BBC Online journalist Bill Thompson met Google co-founder Sergey Brin in 2000 and found the man "completely devoted to making a better search engine rather than making himself rich... Now his search engine is the equivalent of programmes on ITV, there solely to attract eyeballs for advertisers."

Recently, the British Government’s Independent Television Commission banned the further telecast of “The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board with Stuart Varney,” a current affairs discussion program produced in the United States, and initially aired in Britain on CNBC Europe. In a letter to CNBC Europe, the ITC “sharply reprimanded” the network for airing the program, because British policy prohibits current affairs programming from having commercial sponsors. The Wall Street Journal was accused of sponsoring the program in order to promote sales of their print newspapers. The ITC reasoned: “The finding against CNBC Europe has nothing to do with…‘the ability of a commercial TV network to exercise free speech,’ but everything to do with the right of viewers to have access to news and current affairs that is, and can be seen to be, free from commercial influence.”

The signature skyscraper at the World Trade Center site will be a 1,776-foot glass tower that twists into the sky, topped by energy-generating windmills and a spire that evokes the Statue of Liberty, new plans revealed Friday.

Saying it will "dramatically reclaim" the Manhattan skyline on the plot where the twin towers once stood, Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined the architects and Gov. George E. Pataki in unveiling the plans for the Freedom Tower. Pataki said the building "will show the world that freedom will always triumph over terror."

The drawings and models show what will be the world's tallest skyscraper, supported by crisscrossing cables meant to resemble another nearby icon: the Brooklyn Bridge. The spire at the top suggests the torch-bearing arm of Lady Liberty lifted high in New York harbor.

The plan was produced after months of contentious negotiations between Daniel Libeskind, who designed the overall five-building site plan, and David Childs, the lead architect for the Freedom Tower.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Libeskind held the new building plan at arm's length.

"We have very different approaches and ideas," he said, calling the revised Freedom Tower "Mr. Childs' building." Still, he said the two were able to compromise on important aspects such as the building's height and the 276-foot spire at its peak.

"At the end we both came up with something that is strong," he said.

The new design eliminates some of the angular shapes in Libeskind's original drawings, replaces Libeskind's visions of gardens atop the office space with windmills, and gives the building more of a twisting shape.

Childs said the tower is "iconic, simple and pure in its form, a memorable form that will reclaim the resilience and the spirit of our democracy."

The plan would create an open area above 70 floors of office space, with observation decks and a reprise of the Windows on the World restaurant that once occupied upper floors of the trade center's 110-story north tower. The windmills would provide 20 percent to 40 percent of the building's energy. [AP]

"It is helpful to divide the jurors into two groups: the personal responsibility group and compassion-altruistic group," Wenner wrote. "Jurors who are extreme on the personal responsibility bias, or who have a high need for personal responsibility, will strongly favor the defendant. In contrast, jurors who are extreme on the compassionate-altruistic bias, or who have a high need for compassion, will strongly favor the plaintiff."

Based on his research, jurors who believe in moral absolutes tend to have what Wenner called a "personal responsibility bias.

"The personal responsibility juror tends to see the world with bright line rules on how people should act," Wenner wrote. "People should be self-reliant, responsible, and self-disciplined. When people act irresponsibly and are not self-disciplined, there are consequences. People must be accountable for their conduct."

Such jurors, Wenner believes, are likely to question whether the plaintiff could have done something to avoid the injury they suffered.

"The motto of these jurors is that if a person is committed to personal responsibility, then he or she must first accept blame before blaming others. That means playing the blame game is unacceptable if the plaintiff was in the best position to avoid the injury," Wenner wrote. "If the plaintiff has not been completely responsible, do not expect the personal responsibility jurors to find for the plaintiff, even though the plaintiff may have been only partially at fault."

Dean describes himself as an anti-ideological pragmatist. "I'm not an ideologue," he said in an interview with In These Times. "I think the great problem with this president is that his is an ideological administration. Facts don't matter to them. I'm a complete pragmatist. I really believe that people who have ideologies that can't be bent and are insensitive to the facts can't govern."

“All mutual fund shareholders deserve lower fees. Not just shareholders who invested in funds that engaged in questionable trading practices; not just shareholders invested in one fund family; but all mutual fund shareholders deserve relief from fees that continue to rise.”

Appellants Angel McClary Raich and Diane Monson (the “patient-appellants”) are California citizens who currently use marijuana as a medical treatment. Appellant Raich has been diagnosed with more than ten serious medical conditions, including an inoperable brain tumor, life-threatening weight loss, a seizure disorder, nausea, and several chronic pain disorders. Appellant Monson suffers from severe chronic back pain and constant, painful muscle spasms. Her doctor states that these symptoms are caused by a degenerative disease of the spine.

Raich has been using marijuana as a medication for over five years, every two waking hours of every day. Her doctor contends that Raich has tried essentially all other legal alternatives and all are either ineffective or result in intolerable side effects; her doctor has provided a list of thirty-five medications that fall into the latter category alone. Raich’s doctor states that foregoing marijuana treatment may be fatal. Monson has been using marijuana as a medication since 1999. Monson’s doctor also contends that alternative medications have been tried and are either ineffective or produce intolerable side effects. As the district court put it: “Traditional medicine has utterly failed these women . . . .”

Looks like the New York Times has another ugly Jayson Blair-like scandal on its hands. This time, the young minority reporter is Charlie LeDuff, a part Native-American, part-Cajun writer, known as a rising star and favorite pet of former executive editor Howell Raines.

The hotshot LeDuff is now in hot water over his cribbing of anecdotes from someone else's book about kayaking down the Los Angeles River for his own Page One fluff story about — you guessed it! — kayaking down the Los Angeles River. An embarrassing correction published in the New York Times on Dec. 8 explained:

An article last Monday about the Los Angeles River recounted its history and described the reporter's trip downriver in a kayak. In research for the article, the reporter consulted a 1999 book by Blake Gumprecht, "The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth." Several passages relating facts and lore about the river distilled passages from the book. Although the facts in those passages were confirmed independently-through other sources or the reporter's first hand observation-the article should have acknowledged the significant contribution of Mr. Gumprecht's research.
Gumprecht, an assistant professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire and a former newspaper reporter, told Slate's Jack Shafer he was "fairly shocked" by the similarities between his book and the Times's story, and that LeDuff's borrowing went beyond accepted journalistic practices.

Perhaps not coincidentally, LeDuff was a good pal of the disgraced Jayson Blair.

In September, author and columnist Marvin Olasky reported that LeDuff attributed fake quotes to a naval officer in San Diego to fit the reporter's antiwar agenda.

Lieutenant Commander Beidler, 32, on his way to Iraq in January, was walking with his family toward the end of Naval Station Pier 2 when the Times's Charlie LeDuff asked him for his general view of war protesters. Mr. Beidler recalls stating, "Protesters have a right to protest, and our job is to defend those rights. But in protesting, they shouldn't protest blindly; instead, they should provide reasonable solutions to the problem." The LeDuff version had Mr. Beidler criticizing Los Angeles protesters but turning his guns at a complacent United States: "It's war, Commander Beidler said, and the nation is fat. 'No one is screaming for battery-powered cars,' he added." The journalist then turned to Commander Beidler wife's Christal: "'I'm just numb,' she said as she patted down his collar. 'I'll cry myself to sleep, I'm sure.'"

Mr. Beidler was at sea when he discovered how far at sea the Times's reporting was, but he sent off a letter to the editor stating what he had said and arguing that the quotes about national fatness and battery-powered cars "were completely fabricated by Mr. LeDuff in order to connect our nation's dependence on oil with the current military buildup in the Middle East."

Mr. Beidler also stated, "Mr. LeDuff continued his shameful behavior by attributing words and actions to my wife that were not her own. Not only did she not say she would cry herself to sleep, but she didn't pat down my collar either, which was impossible for her to accomplish with my civilian shirt hidden under my jacket and a duffle bag hanging on my shoulder closest to her."

In response, a Times editor shrugged off Beidler's complaint. LeDuff, he informed Beidler, "thinks that he accurately represented his interview with you and your wife, and therefore so do I. If you have another encounter some day with The New York Times, I hope its outcome is more satisfactory to you."

A top Roman Catholic official has attacked the way Saddam Hussein was treated by his US captors, saying he had been dealt with like an animal.

Cardinal Renato Martino said he had felt pity watching video of "this man destroyed, [the military] looking at his teeth as if he were a beast".

The cardinal, a leading critic of the US-led war in Iraq, said he hoped the capture would not make matters "worse".

A senior US official has defended the decision to show the pictures.

The official said the broadcast of Saddam Hussein undergoing a medical examination was allowed under the Geneva Conventions in order to maintain peace and security.

There was no attempt to humiliate the prisoner, the official said.

A daughter of Saddam Hussein has said she believes her father was drugged before US soldiers captured him.

Rallies in support of the deposed Iraqi president have continued in central and northern Iraq along with attacks on security forces.

'Compassion'

Cardinal Martino said on Tuesday that the US "could have spared us these pictures".

"Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he told reporters. [BBC]

Targeting the sellers of work-at-home schemes who were taking money out of consumers’ pockets with their deceptive pitches, the Federal Trade Commission today announced a joint federal and state law enforcement sweep cracking down on purveyors of fraudulent envelope-stuffing business opportunities. Joining the Commission in announcing its two federal district court complaints in “Operation Pushing the Envelope” were the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which announced five criminal and 22 civil cases; the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, which announced two state complaints; and 23 states and four other government agencies that participated in a nationwide consumer education and outreach initiative about the potential costs of such work-at-home opportunities.

As used in this section, the term `profane', used with respect to language, includes the words `shit', `piss', `fuck', `cunt', `asshole', and the phrases `cock sucker', `mother fucker', and `ass hole', compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms).

When Medicare was enacted in 1965, it barred the federal government from "exercising any supervision of control over the practice of medicine."

Partly to deter a physicians strike, doctors were promised that they'd be paid at the usual and customary rates that insurers such as Blue Shield had set over the years.

Hospitals got an even sweeter deal -- reimbursement that paid them essentially whatever their costs were, with a bonus on top.

In addition, Medicare spared both hospitals and physicians direct federal administration, instead allowing them to choose private administrative intermediaries that would pay their bills.

Since there was little reason why anyone offered a blank check would reject it, providers were fairly relaxed about provisions that locked them into the program over time. Now it is difficult and expensive for doctors to drop their affiliation, and nearly impossible for most hospitals to do so.

Will things go differently with drugs? Time will tell, but it seems unlikely. The government has habitually responded to budget stresses by changing the reimbursement mechanism and lowering payments. Whatever one thinks of government efficiency, this practice has worked well. Over the past two decades, physician and hospital payments have been regularly cut.

Because hospitals spent more, they were the first to get the bad news. In 1983 Congress enacted the Prospective Payment System. Instead of paying hospitals retrospectively for whatever they charged, Medicare imposed a system of administered pricing that allowed the federal government to set payment rates. Payments quickly declined precipitously.

A few years later the Medicare Fee Schedule for physicians was introduced. It was a terribly elaborate scheme that was based on measures of the complexity, time and resources involved in physicians' services. Its advertised purpose was to establish a fair and scientific basis for Medicare payments to physicians.

But ultimately it divorced doctors from their historical and customary fees. As with hospitals, Medicare imposed a system of administered pricing on doctors. By this time, of course, many physicians were dependent on their Medicare patient base and simply couldn't afford to walk away from the program, despite the lower reimbursement rates.

More insidious is a pattern my brother and sister-in-law, a family practice physician and an anesthesiolgist, observe in their area. The best general surgeons are going into cosmetic surgery, and they're luring the best anesthesiolgists into at least part-time cosmetic work. The dermatologists are telling patients with rashes to go elsewhere. Patients expect to pay for cosmetic work themselves, at market prices. They expect someone else to pay for health-related treatments, at lower prices. The result is predictable: the degradation of health care even as cosmetic care improves.

Applied to pharmaceuticals, this pattern would give us more skin care and baldness drugs, fewer treatments for complex diseases. We'll be good looking but sick. I'm all for cosmetic improvements, but that's not a tradeoff most of us would choose.

A Texas housewife is in big trouble with the law for selling a vibrator to a pair of undercover cops, and the Brisbane vibrator company she works for says Texas is an "antiquated place'' with more than its share of "prudes.''

Joanne Webb, a former fifth-grade teacher and mother of three, was in a county court in Cleburne, Texas, on Monday to answer obscenity charges for selling the vibrator to undercover narcotics officers posing as a dysfunctional married couple in search of a sex aid.

Webb, a saleswoman for Passion Parties of Brisbane, faces a year in jail and a $4,000 fine if convicted. [sfgate.com]

Wang is the founder of MLX.com, an interactive portal site that allows customers to access a real-time database of real estate listings. In her years as a real estate broker, Wang never faced a single consumer complaint. But her perfect record and satisfied customer base did nothing to dissuade the New York Department of State from trying to shut down her business. The Department claimed Wang's Internet database was, in fact, an unlicensed AIV. Wang disagreed, arguing that a real-time, interactive web portal was about as far from the static AIV lists of the 1970s as you could get. Her service had none of the consumer fraud pitfalls of those older, largely extinct businesses. But the Department would not waiver, and they suspended her real estate broker's license until she agreed to rid herself of MLX.com. . .

A small group of protesters briefly disrupted the official opening of the National Air and Space Museum's new annex at Dulles International Airport Monday, spilling a red liquid supposed to resemble blood near the Enola Gay exhibit and throwing an object that dented the airplane.

Two men were arrested after security broke up the demonstration. Thomas K. Siemer, 73, of Columbus, Ohio, was charged with felony destruction of property and loitering, while Gregory Wright of Hagerstown, Md., faced a misdemeanor loitering charge.

Several elderly atomic bomb survivors from Japan also expressed dismay that information on the effects of the bomb dropped by the Enola Gay on Hiroshima Aug. 6, 1945, was not included in the exhibit.

"If they want to show these planes, that's fine but we can't help but also demand that they show the damage and the stories that take place behind these weapons," said Terumi Tanaka, 71, a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb attack which occurred three days after Hiroshima. [AP]

A subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co. will pay a $2 million court-ordered penalty to the state of New York for illegal safety claims in advertising of its pesticides.

"By misleading consumers about the potential dangers associated with the use of their products, Dow's ads may have endangered human health and the environment by encouraging people to use their products without proper care," New York Attorney General Spitzer said Monday.

Spitzer said the penalty involving the popular Dursban and other pesticides is the largest penalty in the nation's history for this type of case.

Dow AgroSciences agreed to the $2 million penalty, but admitted no illegal or erroneous advertising, said spokesman Garry Hamlin. He said the firm settled to avoid a costly court case.

Spitzer had alleged that Dow AgroSciences violated a 1994 agreement between the company and the state that prohibited advertisements touting the safety of its pesticide products.

"The 1994 agreement restricted our ability to support and defend our products," said Guy A. Relford, the company's head of litigation, "even if our statements were true."

For instance, Relford said, the old agreement was interpreted by Spitzer as prohibiting telling people that the federal Environmental Protection Agency had registered one of Dow's products as a reduced risk pesticide.

State Supreme Court Judge Joan Madden in Manhattan issued the consent order that requires the firm to pay the $2 million penalty, prohibits it from making safety claims about its pesticides, and requires it to start a compliance program. That program will include an internal review of all ads and future ads by Dow in New York state and removal of any safety claims. The company will also have to provide training to comply with advertising restrictions. [AP]

NoRace.org is an organized protest of affirmative action. More specifically, we're protesting college entrance racism by organizing people who wish to mark their race incorrectly on college admission applications. If enough people do it, then schools' racial statistics become unreliable. Colleges and Universities will be placed in the position of trying to turn away people when they show up for classes because of the color of their skin. And, once we get a sizeable number of people who have signed up, we'll post the number of people from each school who have signed the petition, effectively informing entrance administrators that their system sucks. All this will expose racial preferences for what they really are: racism.

Stevens and O’Connor, JJ., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to BCRA Titles I and II, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to BCRA Titles III and IV, in which O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., joined, in which Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined except with respect to BCRA §305, and in which Thomas, J., joined with respect to BCRA §§304, 305, 307, 316, 319, and 403(b). Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to BCRA Title V, in which Stevens, O’Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring with respect to BCRA Titles III and IV, dissenting with respect to BCRA Titles I and V, and concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part with respect to BCRA Title II. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring with respect to BCRA Titles III and IV, except for BCRA §§311 and 318, concurring in the result with respect to BCRA §318, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part with respect to BCRA Title II, and dissenting with respect to BCRA Titles I, V, and §311, in which opinion Scalia, J., joined as to Parts I, II—A, and II—B. Kennedy, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part with respect to BCRA Titles I and II, in which Rehnquist, C. J., joined, in which Scalia, J., joined except to the extent the opinion upholds new FECA §323(e) and BCRA §202, and in which Thomas, J., joined with respect to BCRA §213. Rehnquist, C. J., filed an opinion dissenting with respect to BCRA Titles I and V, in which Scalia and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed an opinion dissenting with respect to BCRA §305, in which Ginsburg and Breyer, JJ., joined.

Some bonus.

Hourly workers at Tower Automotive received $15 gift cards redeemable at Meijer grocery-retail stores before Thanksgiving. Then the automotive supplier decided the cards were "same as cash" gifts subject to federal and state income taxes totaling 36.75 percent.

That means the "gift" will take $5.51 out of the workers' next paychecks, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported Friday.

"It's got a lot of people ticked off," said Donald McKee of Kingsley, a welding technician who's worked almost 13 years at the plant in Grand Traverse County's Garfield Township. "This is the lowest they've gone yet to give us something and then take it back."

A Tower manager who didn't want to be named told the newspaper the situation was "very unfortunate." Tighter accounting standards in the wake of Enron and other corporate scandals have prompted more scrutiny of employee benefits, including minor payouts like the gift card, he said.

United Auto Workers Local 5110, which represents about 300 hourly workers, has filed a contract grievance over the matter. Some workers also have returned the gift cards rather than pay the tax, Tower said.

Lee Boyd Malvo was legally insane during last year's sniper spree because of intense indoctrination by sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad, a defense psychiatrist testified Wednesday at Malvo's trial.

"Lee was unable to distinguish between right and wrong and was unable to resist the impulse" to commit the killings, said Neil Blumberg, who examined Malvo 20 times in jail. "From day one, I thought he met the legal criteria for insanity."

Psychiatrist Diane Schetky, who twice interviewed Malvo, also testified that the 18-year-old Malvo, 17 at the time of the killings, was unable to tell right from wrong.

Defense mental health experts have said Malvo was taught by Muhammad that right and wrong are artificial concepts and that the winner in a war determines who is right. Muhammad likened the sniper attacks to a war against the United States government, which he said oppresses blacks.

"He basically became a soldier in Muhammad's war against America," Blumberg said. "He was one with (Muhammad). He became absolutely convinced that what he was doing was a righteous cause."

Said Schetky: "He was merged with Mr. Muhammad. He was acting as his proxy. They were one and the same. He was like a puppet in his hands."

[ . . .]

Schetky diagnosed Malvo with a dissociative disorder, a mental illness that she said distorted Malvo's perception of reality, a result of indoctrination by Muhammad.

Blumberg said Malvo still has the disorder, citing as evidence the defendant's constant doodling during a trial in which he could be sentenced to die.

There is no such thing as a psychological disorder which leads people to become so loyal that they're willing to kill. It's conjecture and excuse-making taken to a nearly incomprehensible extreme. Did it ever occur to the defense psychiatrist that Malvo's loyalty was not to Muhammad but to his own irrational, twisted code of values?

First, prior to beginning the interview process, a club should prepare a job description that clearly and fully defines the role of its head coach and the qualities it is looking for in its head coach. Such basic questions as the extent of authority, reporting relationships to the owner and other club executives, responsibility for player personnel and salary cap management, and supervisory duties relating to other club staff need to and should be addressed before interviews begin. As the interviewing process proceeds, it may be appropriate to modify the job description.

* * * * *

Third, as part of the search process, clubs should make certain that they identify a deep and diverse -- by many different criteria -- pool of head coaching candidates. As part of this effort, clubs should be sure that they are knowledgeable about potential minority candidates for the head coaching vacancy both within and outside their own organization. The League Office can provide this information, and consideration should normally be given at the outset to using the League as a resource for helping to identify qualified minority and nonminority candidates.

It is a fact of life that perception is often more important than reality. This is especially so in politics, where people can be dogged by impressions even when they are completely untrue. A classic example is the notion that former Vice President Dan Quayle is stupid, a view still widely held that I know to be false, having worked with him dating back to his days in the Senate. Nevertheless, once this idea took root, it became impossible to dislodge. Everything Mr. Quayle did was interpreted through this prism, magnifying any mistake he made, no matter how small.

I believe President Bush is in danger of creating a perception about himself that may prove equally hard to eradicate if it is allowed to continue. That is the view he is "Nixonian," having an approach toward politics and policy paralleling that of Richard Nixon. It is characterized by a willingness to subordinate everything to one's re-election — to say and do anything to advance this goal, with no concern whatsoever for the long-term consequences.

* * * * *

This is very dangerous for President Bush. Nixon is one of the few presidents in history reviled almost equally by left and right. The former will never forgive him for Watergate and bringing down Alger Hiss. The latter remains disgusted by Nixon's wage and price controls, his creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory agencies, and his overtures to the Soviet Union and Red China.

So all of those "Got Milk?" ads you've seen aren't the result of milk producers getting together voluntarily to launch an ad campaign, they're the result of a federal mandate requiring every dairy producer to pay up, whether they want to or not.

IJ is representing a small dairy farm that wishes not to associate itself with its Big Dairy competitors.

I think there's another interesting angle to this story, too. The federal government is simultaneously requiring diary producers fund ad campaigns for milk, while cozying up to nanny-state organizations that criticize Big Dairy for promoting an unhealthy product in those very campaigns.

When the day comes that John Banzhaf finally launches his class action suit against Big Dairy or Big Pork, then, will he be able to name as co-defendant every dairy producer who was compelled by law to support the ad campaigns?

Prosecutors in the Washington Teachers' Union case said they are mired in evidence and have asked attorneys for the four defendants to waive their rights to a "speedy trial."

The problem is the government has 50 boxes of documents that could be introduced at trial, but federal prosecutors say they cannot pay to have much of the evidence photocopied because Congress has not approved the Justice Department's fiscal 2004 budget.

Conservatives have long had an uneasy relationship with health policy. Outside of their efforts to defeat "Hillary-care" and other Democratic initiatives to socialize our health-care system, the conservative movement rarely addresses health-care policy — a failure that has resulted in the issue being virtually monopolized by liberal Democrats in the eyes of both the media and voters.

The Medicare bill is not a perfect statement of conservative philosophy, to be sure. The cost is huge. But it does contain some good, meaningful, conservative policy reforms.

Conservatives will finally have an alternative to liberal arguments that the only way to cover the uninsured is by government fiat. This bill dramatically expands Medical Savings Accounts, now renamed Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). These accounts are owned and funded by individuals, just like IRAs, and are used to pay nearly any medical expense — all in tax-free dollars.

* * * * *

By definition, conservatives believe a market is preferable to a monopoly — and for the first time, a government entitlement program is losing its monopoly. While the legislation rejected the broad idea of all-out competition pushed by House GOP conservatives, it does provide for limited competition starting in 2010. Conservatives would be wise to support and protect this reform, because you can be sure liberals will try to kill it before it is even born.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hendrikus van Westenbrugge, a former co-Managing Director of JO Tankers B.V., based in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands, was charged in Philadelphia today with participating in an international cartel to allocate customers, rig bids and fix prices on parcel tanker affreightment contracts for shipments of specialty liquids to and from the United States and elsewhere, the Justice Department announced.

Van Westenbrugge has agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with the ongoing investigation. In addition, van Westenbrugge, a Dutch citizen, has agreed to serve three months incarceration and pay a fine of $75,000. The plea agreement and recommended sentence are subject to court approval. "This case demonstrates our ongoing commitment to prosecute high-ranking executives who participate in international cartels that victimize American businesses," said R. Hewitt Pate, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department's Antitrust Division.

Parcel tanker shipping is the transportation of bulk chemicals, edible oils, acids and other specialty liquids by compartmentalized deep sea vessels. The temperature and other specifications of the compartments in the vessels can be regulated according to the specific requirements of the type of liquid being transported. A contract of affreightment provides for the transportation of bulk liquids from one port to another and typically covers multiple shipments during a certain period.

According to the charges, van Westenbrugge joined the ongoing parcel tanker shipping conspiracy as early as January 2001 and participated until at least as late as November 2002. The criminal case charges that van Westenbrugge and his co-conspirators:

• engaged in discussions concerning customers and prices of parcel tanker shipping of products to and from the United States and elsewhere;
  
• agreed not to compete for one another's customers either by not submitting prices or bids to certain customers, or by submitting intentionally high prices or bids to certain customers; and
  
• discussed and exchanged prices submitted to certain customers so as to not undercut one another's prices.

As a result, the Department said consumers in the market for international parcel tanker shipping services paid non-competitive and higher prices for parcel tanker shipping.

A coalition of California telecommunications companies has asked the state attorney general to investigate whether some of the nation's largest phone companies violated antitrust law when they secretly discussed plans to build a war chest to lobby against government regulation.

In a letter to Attorney General Bill Lockyer, the coalition alleges that plans discussed at the October meeting "will harm competition in the state's telecommunications market and cost California consumers and businesses hundreds of millions of dollars per year.''

The letter was sent by the California Association of Competitive Telecommunications Companies (Caltel). It represents companies such as AT&T and Sprint that compete with local phone carriers, including SBC Communications and Verizon Communications. Several smaller telecom firms are also members.

The meeting of executives from SBC, BellSouth, Verizon and other companies took place last month in Washington, D.C. The executives asked their equipment suppliers to contribute to a multimillion-dollar war chest that would help "end government regulation of competition,'' says a memo that laid the groundwork for the meeting.

The report by the [Institute of Medicine], an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, noted that there has been a steady erosion in the number of vaccine producers over the past three decades. In the 1970s, there were 25 vaccine makers; today—because of slim profit margins and legislative and liability issues—there are just five. With such a small number of producers, shortages can develop quickly as a result of manufacturing problems or a bad guess on the expected demand.

* * * * *

For makers of all types of vaccines, the Institute of Medicine’s report traced the decline in manufacturers’ interest to the fact that the U.S. government—predominantly through the Vaccines for Children program run by the CDC—buys slightly more than 50% of the vaccines in the U.S. and keeps prices low.

An Oklahoma lawmaker is seeking to slice $92,500 from the federal government's annual payment to Metro because he is angry that the transit agency accepted advertising from a nonprofit group that wants to decriminalize marijuana.

Change the Climate Inc. has been using public service advertising space on the Metro system since 2001, but it was the latest round of advertising, this fall, that drew the ire of Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.).

The ad showed a man carrying a tanned blonde in a short white dress, the two of them set against the azure sky of some tropical retreat. Under the picture appeared the declaration: "Enjoy better sex! Legalize and Tax Marijuana."

In a Nov. 10 letter to Jim Graham, chairman of the Metro board, Istook called the ad "shocking" and said the board had "exercised the poorest possible judgment, so I must assure that [Metro] will learn the proper lessons from this experience and will only accept appropriate ads in the future."

This week, Istook inserted into a bill language that would cut Metro's funds by $92,500 and prohibit any transit system that receives federal funds from running advertising from a group that wants to decriminalize marijuana. The money is just a fraction of the federal government's $164 million subsidy to Metro for capital projects.

The language is part of an omnibus bill expected to come before Congress for a vote in late December or January.

"Metro is using taxpayer facilities to promote illegal activity," said Micah Swafford, Istook's press secretary.

Earlier this week, Chatterbox urged Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., to reveal who attempted to bribe him into voting for the Bush Medicare prescription bill, which he opposed on the grounds that it was too expensive. After the Nov. 22 vote, Smith had complained to the Associated Press that somebody—the AP report, in a paraphrase, said it was "House GOP leaders"—had exerted "the most intense and strongest pressure to change my vote that I've ever experienced." Subsequently, Robert Novak had reported in his column that "On the House floor, Nick Smith was told"—by whom, Novak didn't say—that "business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote." Smith is retiring at the end of this term, and his son Brad is seeking the Republican nomination to succeed him.

Those who wish to expand enforcement in ways that would retard the progression in recent decades toward sensible substantive and institutional norms now have an organization dedicated to that end, the American Antitrust Institute (AAI). The group's leaders call for enforcement that would disregard the prudent limitations observed in recent decades. Recommended areas of expansion include fuller use of per se rules, a return to 1970's style attacks on distributional restraints, greater reliance on structural presumptions against mergers, resurrection of the incipiency doctrine in merger cases, unprecedented expansion of alleged monopsony in merger cases, more emphasis on condemning price cutting, and even a return to the use of non-economic values in antitrust decision making. Although some of these individuals have produced important contributions to the modern antitrust consensus, enactment of their enforcement agenda would shatter that consensus, and return antitrust to its pre-1981 imperialism.

Conservative Republican frustration over the failure of the Bush administration and the House Republican leadership to restrain federal spending has boiled over in recent days, producing a rare confrontation between GOP lawmakers and party leaders.

The internal conflict, fueled largely by recent passage of the $78 billion Iraq reconstruction effort and the $400 billion prescription-drug benefit for senior citizens that squeaked through the House on Nov. 22, came to a head last week when President Bush abruptly terminated a phone conversation with a Florida Republican who refused his plea to vote for the landmark bill.

Well-placed sources said Bush hung up on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney after Feeney said he couldn’t support the Medicare bill. The House passed it by only two votes after Hastert kept the roll-call vote open for an unprecedented stretch of nearly three hours in the middle of the night.

Feeney, a former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives whom many see as a rising star in the party, reportedly told Bush: “I came here to cut entitlements, not grow them.”

Sources said Bush shot back, “Me too, pal,” and hung up the phone.

At the same time, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) castigated former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) after he wrote an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal opposing the bill. Armey wrote that he opposed the bill even though he had voted for two similar bills as a member of Congress.

House leadership aides said Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) felt blindsided by Armey’s op-ed, which came at a time when they were trying desperately to round up the necessary votes.

“The Speaker is very disappointed about the article, especially because Mr. Armey voted for prescription-drugs bills that had even less reform than the conference report did when he was a member,” Hastert spokesman John Feehery told The Hill on Monday.

Republican aides said conservatives who voted against the bill, including Reps. Mike Pence (Ind.), John Culberson (Texas), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Roscoe Bartlett (Md.) and Jim Ryun (Kan.), would suffer for their votes against the Medicare bill.

Leadership aides said those members “can expect to remain on the back bench” in the months ahead.

ATO: "You reckon that there are so many contradictions between the West and the Muslim world, is there any chance of reconciliation and dialogue between the two civilizations?"

Munawar: "There is none. The basic concepts of both civilizations are in total contrast with each other. When I say this I do not address Western civilization as Christianity. I speak of a man-made system completely devoid of divine guidance. Our concepts of God, human beings, the universe, are totally in contrast with the concepts of the Western world. We cannot segregate human lives into private and public, our lives are ruled by divine guidance, not by man-made rules based on his own prejudices and specific mindset characterized by its own dilemmas and shortcomings. Our concept of the universe is not materialistic, and the result of an 'accident'. Instead, it was a very well thought out process envisaged by the creator of the universe with a plan. So these basic concepts have made the difference between ours and Western approaches."

Potty parity. Squatters rights. Go ahead, make fun of the fact that several City Council members introduced a bill Wednesday to have more restrooms set aside for women than men in most buildings.

To women — and one male law professor dubbed "the father of potty parity" — it's a matter of gender equity.

"Women need more restroom facilities simply because women take longer," said John F. Banzhaf III, a public interest law professor at George Washington University Law School during a telephone interview Wednesday.

Banzhaf, who was dubbed the "father of potty parity" for filing several court complaints — including the first one on the federal level — wrote recently that these legal cases show that women are standing up for their rights "even if they can't stand up while exercising those rights."

"We would never tolerate a system where women would routinely have to wait five times longer than men to have their blood tested, even if men's and women's blood were tested for different things," Banzhaf argues. "And we shouldn't tolerate a system where women routinely are forced to wait five or more times longer than men to perform a basic and necessary personal function."

So why might women take longer in the bathroom? Because they often have small children to tend to, they wear more clothes, and, as Councilwoman Yvette Clarke put it, there's that anatomical difference.

"We don't have the same type of equipment that men have," said Clarke, one of the main sponsors of the "Restroom Equity Bill."

And women don't use urinals, said Banzhaf, another reason why men can zip in and zip out of restrooms.

Still laughing? You should stop now, Banzhaf said.

"I think the courts are recognizing that restroom facilities are an essential important service," he said.

The Connecticut senator, who led the fight to put parental warnings on movie, video game and music advertising, wants the Federal Trade Commission to determine whether there is a connection between junk food advertising and the rise in obesity among youngsters.

"We're talking about how the government can get back on the side of parents and families and support them in raising healthy children and giving them good values," said Dan Gerstein, deputy communications director for Lieberman's campaign. "Governments can't raise children. That's the job of parents. But we can help to pull with them and pull for them."

As president, Lieberman would push for three interim moves while the FTC conducts its study:

• Require junk food advertisements to include nutritional information that
  somehow issues a warning to parents, much like movie ads are accompanied by
  parental ratings.


• Ask Congress to require restaurant chains to include nutritional
  information on menus and mini-boards. There already is a bill pending in
  Congress to do this.


• Empower the Agriculture Department to set standards for food sold in
  schools, primarily vending machines. The USDA currently regulates lunch menus,
  but there are no limits on what companies can sell kids through vending
  machines.

Lieberman's campaign officials said the senator will not define what junk food is, leaving that to dietary and health care experts.

DEAN: [F]irst of all, 11 companies in this country control 90 percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their television. That’s wrong. We need to have a wide variety of opinions in every community. We don’t have that because of Michael Powell and what George Bush has tried to do to the FCC.
MATTHEWS: Would you break up Fox?
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I’m serious.
DEAN: I’m keeping a...
MATTHEWS: Would you break it up? Rupert Murdoch has “The Weekly Standard.” It has got a lot of other interests. It has got “The New York Post.” Would you break it up?
DEAN: On ideological grounds, absolutely yes, but...
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: No, seriously. As a public policy, would you bring industrial policy to bear and break up these conglomerations of power?
DEAN: I don’t want to answer whether I would break up Fox or not,
because, obviously
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Well, how about large media enterprises?
DEAN: Let me-yes, let me get...
(LAUGHTER)
DEAN: The answer to that is yes. I would say that there is too much penetration by single corporations in media markets all over this country. We need locally-owned radio stations. There are only two or three radio stations left in the state of Vermont where you can get local news anymore. The rest of it is read and ripped from the AP.
MATTHEWS: So what are you going to do about it? You’re going to be president of the United States, what are you going to do?
DEAN: What I’m going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one.
MATTHEWS: Well, would you break up GE?
(APPLAUSE)
DEAN: I can’t-you...
MATTHEWS: GE just buys Universal. Would you do something there about that? Would you stop that from happening?
DEAN: You can’t say-you can’t ask me right now and get an answer, would I break up X corp...
MATTHEWS: We’ve got to do it now, because now is the only chance we can ask you, because, once you are in, we have got to live with you.
(LAUGHTER)
DEAN: No.
MATTHEWS: So, if you are going to do it, you have got to tell us now.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Are you going to break up the giant media enterprises in this country?
DEAN: Yes, we’re going to break up giant media enterprises. That doesn’t mean we’re going to break up all of GE. What we’re going to do is say that media enterprises can’t be as big as they are today. I don’t think we actually have to break them up, which Teddy Roosevelt had to do with the leftovers from the McKinley administration.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... regulate them.
DEAN: You have got to say that there has to be a limit as to how-if the state has an interest, which it does, in preserving democracy, then there has to be a limitation on how deeply the media companies can penetrate every single community. To the extent of even having two or three or four outlets in a single community, that kind of information control is not compatible with democracy.
MATTHEWS: How-how far would you go in terms of public policy?
(APPLAUSE)
MATTHEWS: This is not-what you describe is not laissez-faire.
It’s not capitalism.
DEAN: It is capitalism.
MATTHEWS: How would you-what would you call it?
DEAN: I am absolutely a capitalist. Capitalism is the greatest system that people have ever invented, because it takes advantage of bad traits, as well as our good traits, and turns them into productivity. But the essence of capitalism, which the right-wing never understands—it always baffles me-is, you got to have some rules. Imagine a hockey game with no rules.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Would you-would you
(CROSSTALK)
DEAN: Nobody benefits. Nobody benefits. So you have got to have reasonable rules. And the rules have to protect everybody in the game.

As some New Yorkers have learned the hard way, the mere existence of an ashtray in a place where smoking is prohibited can lead to a summons. It doesn't matter if the ashtray is stored well away from public areas. It doesn't matter if it is used as a decoration, or to hold paper clips or M & M's. No ashtrays are allowed, period.

The reason is simple, said Sandra Mullin, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The presence of an ashtray might be taken by some people as an invitation to light up.

"Not having ashtrays and putting up no-smoking signs are two of the strongest ways to discourage smoking and to let people know what the current law is," Ms. Mullin said.

Since May 1, when the Health Department began to enforce the law in earnest, about 2,300 summonses have been issued, she said. A little more than 200 were for ashtray violations.

During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.

Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.

California's attorney general is investigating whether the nation's three largest grocery chains have broken antitrust laws by forming a financial pact.

Safeway Inc., Kroger Co. and Albertsons Inc. were issued subpoenas Monday by Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office, demanding they reveal details of a mutual-aid pact, which the companies reportedly made to share revenue so they could reduce losses in the event of a labor strike. Some 70,000 Southern California workers are in the eighth week of a strike and lockout.

Meanwhile, the grocers agreed to arbitrate a suit filed by a union seeking health-care benefits for striking members.

The Bush administration has decided to repeal most of its 20-month-old tariffs on imported steel to head off a trade war that would have included foreign retaliation against products exported from politically crucial states, administration and industry sources said yesterday.

The officials would not say when President Bush will announce the decision but said it is likely to be this week. The officials said they had to allow for the possibility that he would make some change in the plan, but a source close to the White House said it was "all but set in stone."

European countries had vowed to respond to the tariffs, which were ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization, by imposing sanctions on up to $2.2 billion in exports from the United States, beginning as soon as Dec. 15. Japan issued a similar threat Wednesday. The sources said Bush's aides concluded they could not run the risk that the European Union would carry out its threat to impose sanctions on orange juice and other citrus products from Florida, motorcycles, farm machinery, textiles, shoes, and other products.

Bush advisers said they were aware the reversal could produce a backlash against him in several steel-producing states of the Rust Belt -- including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. That arc of states has been hit severely by losses in manufacturing jobs and will be among the most closely contested in his reelection race.

The sources said that Bush's aides agonized over the options to present to the president and that they considered it one of the diciest political calculations of this term. A source involved in the negotiations said White House aides looked for some step short of a full repeal that would satisfy the European Union but concluded that it was "technically possible but practically impossible."

A county official has asked computer and video equipment vendors to consider eliminating the terms "master" and "slave" from equipment because they may be considered offensive.

"Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label," according to an e-mail sent to vendors on Nov. 18. The memo asks manufacturers, suppliers and contractors to change or remove any labels on components "that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature."

The county's 39 departments also were told to identify equipment with offensive labels.

"We got a note back from IBM saying thank you for bringing this to our attention and we'll take a look at this," said Joe Sandoval, who wrote the memo. Sandoval is division manager of purchasing and contract services for the county's Internal Services Department.

The term "master" and "slave" --when applied to electronic equipment-- describes one device controlling another.

In May, a black employee of the Probation Department filed a discrimination complaint with the county Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after noticing the words on a videotape machine.

"This individual felt that it was offensive and inappropriate ... given the experiences that this country has gone through in respect to slavery," office director Dennis A. Tafoya said.