Category: News

We know why you read Consumerist and why you donate. For one thing, it’s for our gripping reports from the front-lines of candy stores across America.

Don’t forget, Consumerist is a non-profit. You can give us money and then deduct it. Smart!

Donatetoconsumerist.com (FAQ)

Sure, the iPhonekiller might be a self-proclaiming iPhone hammer, but it will probably work with other devices as well. A laser-cut 25mm steel hammer doesn’t discriminate based on manufacturer or platform. [Open Design via Dezeen via BoingBoing]

Between Boost Mobile’s $50 unlimited plan (or $60 if you’re working with a BlackBerry), StraightTalk’s offerings, Common Cents Mobile, and the like, the prepaid industry is doing quite well.  To that end, T-Mobile today announced two new prepaid plans ___.  The “$15 Per Month Unlimited Text” plan will offer unlimited text, picture, and video messaging, along with nationwide calling for $.10 per minute; the “$50 Per Month Unlimited Talk and Text” will offer unlimited text, picture, and video messaging, along with unlimited nationwide calling.

The new plans will be available on Wednesday (the 19th).  I have to give T-Mobile a lot of credit here, because I think the two new prepaid plans will do exceptionally well across the board.  For the texting teen (who never talks on a regular basis anyway), the $15 monthly plan would make for a perfect – and cheap – alternative to adding a line on the family postpaid account.  For those that don’t want to sign a long-term contract, the $50 monthly plan would make for a great option – and it’s cheaper than anything I’ve seen in the postpaid department.

Needless to say, the prepaid battle is in full swing, and people seem to be responding.  I’ll be interested to see (a) how the new plans perform in the long-term, and (b) how the postpaid providers respond.  Care to render a guess in the comments section?

Filed under: Car Buying, Aston Martin

If you have the money, influence and inherent coolness to purchase one of the 77 Aston Martin One-77 super mega cars, it would be a good idea to put in your order as soon as humanly possible. That’s because while a limited run of 77 vehicles makes for a very exclusive exotic car club, one buyer may have made it even harder to join the sacred One-77 fraternity.

The Times of London reports that one buyer, believed to be of Middle-Eastern descent, has purchased 10 of the 77 super Astons. The buyer is reportedly picking up 13 percent of one of the rarest new rides on the planet, but the models will each be differentiated by color and interior trim.

The folks at Aston Martin aren’t spilling the beans on who the buyer could be, so this One-77-hoarding mad man lucky dog looks to be shucking the spotlight, at least for now. The total price for the 10 One-77s is $17 million, but now that the market for the most exotic of Astons has just shrunk by 10 units, we’re thinking that the secret owner’s collection could make all the 7.3-liter V12-powered One-77s more valuable. Thanks for the tip, David!

[Source: Fox News]

Mystery buyer allegedly puts in $17M order for ten Aston Martin supercars originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 17 May 2010 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The mean streets of the World Wide Web have proven too tough for one “Real Housewife.”

New York City socialite and former Playboy centerfold Kelly Killoren Bensimon will be deleting her Facebook account at the end of the week after snippy remarks from online foes became too much for the Bravo reality star to handle.

In a brief message to fans on Sunday, Kelly explained her decision to cut ties with the site — apparently in response to negative comments from fellow Facebookers: “I will be deleting this page by the end of the week. So for those who wish to stay a fan please go to my fanpage. And for those who choose not to…all the best. Please don’t follow me on Twitter and Facebook, it’s not good for you to waste time, with people you dislike…and end up getting blocked or deleted from my web team….”

In a later message, a fired-up Kelly wrote: “My Twitter and Facebook Fanpage are randomly monitered by my web team & the online security department of Twitter+Facebook ,just like any other public figure fan page, & reported 2 the correct authorities if hateful & bullying messages are posted. U will be blocked and reported. So if you are not a fan, don’t be! Don’t visit my pages wasting your time posting things that will cause you trouble. Move on!”

Looks like May’s a tough month to be a “Real Housewife.” Just last week, Kelly’s Real Housewives co-star Jill Zarin was viciously ripped by hundreds of angry Facebook commentors after she prematurely announced former bestie Bethenny Frankel’s baby arrival news on the site — and still managed to get the sex of the tot wrong.

Spotted@

I had no intention of bringing back the Beta of the Month contest, but these three sad sacks were an irresistible draw. The audience demands it, pay-per-view wants it, and the suits are throwing money at the talent scouts — namely, me.

BOTM Candidate #1 is a commenter to a ridiculously one-sided and myopic online article in The Atlantic called “Love, Actually: How girls reluctantly endure the hookup culture”, written by Caitlin Flanagan and dedicated to the proposition that the princess pedestal is the one true force of nature. I quote Flanagan:

This was how it was, during that endless, unhappy adolescence: my mother desperately trying to warn me of all the heartbreaks and dangers of womanhood […]

Today’s teenage girl—as much designed for closely held, romantic relationships as were the girls of every other era—is having to broker a life for herself in which she is, on the one hand, a card-carrying member of the over-parented generation, her extended girlhood made into a frantically observed and constantly commemorated possession of her parents, wrought into being with elaborate Sweet 16 parties, and heart-tugging video montages, and senior proms of mawkish, Cinderella-dream dimensions—and on the other hand she has also been forced into a sexual knowingness […]

She is a little girl; she is a person as wise in the ways of sexual expression as an old woman. […]

There might seem something wan, even pitiable, about all these young girls pining for boyfriends instead of hookups.

Hey Flanagan, one word: hypergamy. Look it up. Then try writing something that examines the issue of the sexual market with a little more full spectrum analysis.

The commenter’s handle is Uncle_Fred, and he writes in reply to Flanagan’s sexegesis (partial quote):

I’m of the Generation Y group (I’m 24). I don’t fret over it if my girlfriend wants to go out and have a one night stand with someone else. I just ask that that she calls me a couple times so I know she is safe. She is young and I would rather her have a good time while she can.

Enlightened Renaissance Man, or wretched loser? You be the judge!

A question for David Alexander Uncle_Fred comes to mind. Is this slut really your girlfriend, or is she your “””girlfriend”””, i.e. a chick who lets you sob on her shoulder but won’t let you sob in her cunt? You come out looking bad either way, but if the former description is in operation, you, sir, have descended to new lows of abject betahood. Your psyche may as well be the poster boy for microphallic minimasculinity.

Another commenter followed up to Uncle_Fred’s remark:

Wow, no kidding. Good for you for empowering your girlfriend that way… assuming that the arrangement has actually been tested?

It’s funny how in the face of psychological neutering and Darwinian obliteration, all these progressive-minded SWPLs can think about is how “empowering” it is for the woman involved. Something to keep in mind about empowerment — usually one person’s empowerment means another person’s powerlessness. Especially when the field of play is the sexual market, a zero sum game of the greatest urgency.

***

BOTM Candidate #2 is a classic cuckold, with a nauseating twist: he, like, totally forgiiiiiives his cheating wife and mother of their one-year-old child.

Tiffany Tehan, 31, disappeared Saturday, leaving behind husband David and 1-year-old daughter Lexie. The vanishing act triggered a cross-country search until police, acting on an FBI tip, found her staying at a Miami Beach motel with Tre Hutcherson, a man police had called a person of interest in her disappearance. Police quickly determined that Tehan was not in danger.

“She left voluntarily with this fellow and drove to Miami to — and these are her words — start a new life,” Miami Beach police Sgt. Wayne Jones said. […]

Husband Forgives Wife Immediately

David Tehan said Thursday he was angry at Hutcherson but that he “absolutely” forgives his wife. When asked why he forgave her, Tehan said, “I don’t know. It’s supernatural.

“She may have made some mistakes but everyone does and I can’t blame her for any of this,” the husband said. “She’s a person like anyone else getting through life, and it’s not always easy.”

Don’t these sound like the mincing words of a man who believes he cannot get any other woman? A big problem feeble betas have is a lack of understanding of the psychology of women. David doesn’t understand that by directing his ire at the interloping male and lavishing “forgiveness” on his cheating whore wife, he stokes his wife’s disgust with him. Not to mention he offers her a plenary indulgence from guilt or shame or any consequence whatsoever for her brazen cheating. What’s going to stop her from doing this again, to him or to any other similarly brainwashed man? As far as she knows, nothing. After all, her own cuckolded husband has called her blameless. “I’m a woman, please perch me high atop my victimhood pedestal and wash my dainty feet with oil!”

“Some mistakes.” “Mistakes were made.” “We all make mistakes sometimes.” The pathetic mewling of the untermensch. Wake up, son, and see the light.

The Beta:

The Bitch:

The Badboy:

***

BOTM Candidate #3 was submitted by reader Luke. He writes:

Unfortunately I have no information about this situation, other than it is in Madison Square Park, NYC. In any case, it’s good for a laugh.

This was the attached photo:

Anyone know anything about this guy? Could be a radio station prank, like the one pulled by a DC-based station last year. If it’s authentic, then there’s no denying the gravity of the groveling by this extraordinary beta.

***

The voting:

Filed under: Beta

You asked for it, so here it is: another round of Primal Blueprint Success Stories. Emails like these are basically why I continue to run Mark’s Daily Apple. It’s all about giving people the tools and resources they need to feel empowered to take control of their health, and in many cases completely turn their lives around.

Years ago I set a (lofty?) goal for myself: to personally play a role in helping 10 million people. If you’re one of the 10 million please let me know! If the Primal Blueprint has helped you in any way email me. It could be your story that helps others make the Primal leap. Grok on!

_________________________________________________________________________

Finding the Primal Blueprint has changed my life completely. My weight had always been an issue for me. Growing up my parents took us to fast food often, and I had unlimited access to chips, sodas, and snack food. I became obese at a very young age and was teased and tortured at school for being ‘the fat kid’. The last straw was when I 12 years old and no longer could shop at normal sized clothing stores. I vowed to myself that I would make it my goal to become healthy.

My crusade for achieving the perfect body led me through some very rough territory in the following years. Fad diets, chronic cardio, starving myself, diet pills, you name it, I tried it. Through conventional wisdom dieting and exercise I lost 35 lbs and stayed there for years. Even though most of the weight was gone, I experienced major dental problems, hair loss, migraines and digestive issues. I thought I was eating ‘healthy’ even though most foods I ate were processed ‘healthy’ snacks and frozen foods. As I began law school, even healthy processed foods were replaced with pizza dinners and sugary caffeine drinks to help keep me awake. I felt tired, stressed and hopeless. After finals I was 10 lbs heavier and miserable, I knew something needed to change.

I stumbled upon Marks Daily Apple in February 2010 and began reading everything I could get my hands on. I was ready and determined to make the change. I dove in head first and went 100% primal. My fiancé even jumped on the primal bandwagon as well. The progress came fast and I lost 6 lbs in the first two weeks. I got back into lifting heavy once a week and sprinted once or twice a week on the beach. Here it is 2 months into being primal and I am 7lbs lighter, stronger and finally feel as if I am in touch with my body. Now if I eat something not primal, my body sure lets me know that it does not approve. My hair is thicker and my headaches and digestive issues are a thing of the past. Before a workout would mean becoming a treadmill zombie at the gym, zoning out to the television for an hour. Now I sprint on the beach, carry/throw heavy rocks, climb on the jetty, and just have fun! Thanks Mark for all your doing. I know me and my Fiance are much healthier because of the Primal Blueprint.

Athena – Natural Selection

_________________________________________________________________________

270 Days of Primal Lifestyle

It has been quite a journey so far. A chance check of my blood pressure started this trip. My blood pressure registered at 198 over 120. I knew if I went to my doctor she would tell me to lose weight, exercise and change my diet. She would probably put me on drugs that would screw with the rest of my body so I decided to see if I could lose weight, exercise, change my diet and bring my blood pressure down myself.

My research started with Dr. Jay Wortman. He is a Canadian Doctor and is the author of “My Big Fat Diet.” This program put First Nation volunteers on a traditional diet to overcome their health issues. That got me thinking.

I Googled “What did humans eat 10,000 years ago?” and fortunately I ended up at Mark’s Daily Apple.

I’ve since been to see my Doctor and my success has given me some leeway. I’m still not on drugs (medication), but I’ve been getting some systolic readings in the high 130’s and diastolic readings in the high 80’s.

I’m not cured yet… but those numbers are considered high normal… and it has only been 270 days.

Let me share some other numbers with you. I’ve always considered August 4th 2009 as my start point. That is when I started to record this experience. My weight was 234 lbs. Today I’m at 192 lbs. My waist has gone from 46 inches to 39 inches. My chest has shrunk from 49 inches to 44 inches. (Sob) I’m melting… but then it has only been 270 days.

Excluding my love for potato chips and Irish whiskey, I would have told you I ate a nutritious diet. Conventional wisdom sucks!

I have learned a lot following PB. What I am focusing on now is balance. However this isn’t the balance of supporting the different segments of the agricultural industry. Sorry Dr. Kellogg but no shelf space for you!

Balance is about balancing the micronutrients. Why do we cut out grains? Besides a list of reasons, they screw up the balance. The ratio of Omega 3 and Omega 6 is covered in great detail on MDA. Did you know that the western diet has also thrown the sodium to potassium ratio out to lunch? Those with high blood pressure should be aware and learn more about it.

Based on the Omega 3-6 ratio and the relationship with sodium and potassium I’m convinced that it is the different ratios that are important. I still have much to learn on this subject… but then it has only been 270 days.

I really enjoy my exercise routine. Lift heavy, sprint occasionally and walk. I’m really getting into shape and on less than 20 minutes a week. What can’t you like about that?

I started with 1 rep static holds. My bench press went from 185 lbs to 425 lbs. My squat went from 245 lbs to 575 lbs. My dead lift went from 295 lbs to 555 lbs. My high intensity training took about 60 seconds a week. (Adjusting the weights kept me I the gym for about 30 minutes but my actual time under load was under 1 minute.)

In November I changed to the big 5. These are range of motion exercises but I time myself rather than counting reps. My performance improved when I cut it back from five exercises to 3. My best increase was with the leg press. It is important to note that I was only doing the one lower body exercise. I went from 360 lbs for 53 seconds to 630 lbs for 56 seconds. My high intensity training was now taking about 180 seconds a week. I almost broke into a sweat once or twice.

I’m taking my strength and conditioning to a new level of study. It can be broken down into three parts. The first is muscle growth. This is achieved by applying techniques that through sequential stimulation causes inroading. This is micro trauma at the cellular level. If correctly applied and allowing time to adapt it will create the body to grow more muscle tissue.

The second is synaptic facilitation. As Pavel Tsatsouline puts it… “Grease the Groove”. This is about using intense stimulation to strengthen the nerve impulses to the muscles to make them more efficient. The key to these stimuli is repetition with light to moderate weights.

The third is fascia recoil. The fascia wraps our muscle tissue. It can focus energy and momentum to make us stronger. While much research is going into the fascia for curing discomfort in the muscles and joints I see it as a means to greatly increase functional and explosive strength.

The breakdown into these types of training is in its infancy. I see how muscle growth and applying synaptic facilitation to everyday life skills will greatly enhance a person’s life. Fascia recoil helps us with explosive strength. I’ve a lot more to develop on this theory… but then it has only been 270 days.

As I continue this primal trek I need to maintain what got me this far. I will continue to research and apply my newfound knowledge in balancing my nutrients… 80% of the time.

I should walk more… but I’ll continue to do my high intensity resistance training once a week. I’m presently applying the new Max Pyramid protocol. I’m doing one upper body and one lower body exercise a week. This protocol should increase my high intensity training to a maximum of… gosh… it might hit 6 minutes a week. Will I handle the shock?

I personally want to thank Mark for MDA and his book The Primal Blueprint. I also want to thank the members of the forum. You have been excellent sources of information, ideas and support.

Vick

_________________________________________________________________________

Hey Mark,

I just love your book and website! I’ve been Primal since approx. March 5th and preparing for our city’s annual 12k race. Well, today was the race and I finished in 1hr:5mins, which is a record for me and a 8.71 minute mile, which I never was able to do before when I lived on bread, pasta and tons of sugary foods and drinks. I know that my time and my energy level during training and in the race is from adopting the Primal lifestyle. My energy levels have soared, and I no longer experience the energy dips that my coworkers and friends do. THANK YOU for all you do for everyone and a personal thanks for helping me do so well in my race and I have confidence in my performance in other races that I will do this summer.

Sherry

_________________________________________________________________________

I was born in 1966 and will turn 44 in December. I am 5′6″ and at my heaviest, I was 170 lbs. I realized this was unhealthy but did not know of a better way than what conventional wisdom taught. Every time I tried to eat whole grains and smaller portions, I would get hungry and as we know, hunger ALWAYS wins. My problem was sugar and carbs – too much of it. I wore size 34″ waist pants. Today I am 148 lbs which works out to a 13% loss of bodyweight. My latest pant size is 28″. My resting heart rate is 58 bpm. My blood pressure went from 130/80 to 105/70. You have already seen my blood work from January 2010.

My introduction to Primal Living was by way of Art Devany’s Evolutionary Fitness website (before it turned into a subscription site) when I was searching about a certain way to execute a golf shot. While Art’s information struck a chord within me, I did not find sufficient examples illustrating the implementation of Primal principles.

Researching more of this landed me on Marksdailyapple.com. Thanks to the writers and editors of this website, Marksdailyapple.com is the perfect blend of information. Detailed enough to be rich, aptly illustrated with captivating color photos yet not so academic that it is beyond my scope of apprehension. A superlative balance that is hard to achieve.

On October 23, 2009, my wife and I decided to change the way we ate and embrace Primal Principles. We now order organic produce and meats which is delivered to our house once a week. We try to abstain from all wheat and sugar. We really watch our refined carbs while freely dining on veggies and meats with fruits in moderation. Even though I am not a diabetic, I monitor my blood glucose levels to see the effects of certain foods, post-prandial changes and exercise.

If you look on my Facebook account you will find some good pictures of primal\paleo food I cook using a pressure cooker, slow cooker and cast iron pan complete with recipes:

Victor’s Eating and Cooking Channel 1

Victor’s Eating And Cooking Channel 2

I have friends from the UK to Australia who try these recipes! LOL.

I’ll attach some food\recipe pics (click the thumbnails to enlarge) so you have an idea what in the Facebook albums:

Take care,

Victor

_________________________________________________________________________

Mark,

My name is J.J. Valdivia and I am a 24 year old personal trainer down in Miami, Florida. First and foremost, I cannot thank you enough for the impact that your book and website have made on my life. I have been Primal now for almost one year and I am in the best shape of my life! I am 5′11, 165 lbs and carry around 6% body fat. Before discovering the Primal Blueprint I hovered at around 10-12% body fat and weighed in at around 175-180 pounds. All this considering I now exercise less than I ever have my entire life! I used to train six days a week religiously. I would alternate between one day of 1 hour circuit weight training and another day of 1 hour chronic cardio. I would count each and every calorie and needless to say I was miserable. I have always been into “health and fitness” and I was convinced that I was doing everything right, or so I thought. Constant overtraining mixed with a high carb, low fat diet led to binge eating on the weekends and a continuous cycle that led nowhere. I was always starving even though I was eating 5-6 small meals a day! Not only that, but I looked exactly the same and saw no results. That was one year ago…

Today I lift heavy weights three days a week, usually no longer than 35 minutes. I sprint once a week, and I do low level aerobic activity anywhere from 2-5 hours a week. I also eat only 2-3 times a day and I feel fantastic!

I became Primal about a month after I became a personal trainer, last May. (So June of last year) The company that I work for is an amenity management company and we are contracted to manage several corporate and residential fitness facilities throughout the east coast. I was hired to work for Royal Caribbean Cruises. I work in their corporate gym and I train a lot of their employees. The first thing that I do before I start training a new client is tell them to buy The Primal Blueprint. (Well, actually, the first thing I do is explain to them that yes, what I wear on my feet are indeed shoes and that yes, I exercise in them!) I then explain to them that my style of training and my understanding of health is based upon everything that they will read in that book. If they follow what is inside, they will acheive the results they desire. I explain to them that body composition is 80% what you eat, and 20 percent training and genetics. My clients are exercising much less than the other trainer’s clients but are seeing greater results! Needless to say, there are over 20 Royal Caribbean employees that have bought the book and are living according to the Primal Blueprint Laws, each one of them with their own success story. Thank you for everything Mark. I am truly grateful for the the change you have made in my life and in those of my clients. No matter what, I will continue to live the Primal lifestyle and lead others in reprogramming their genes!

J.J.

Get Free Health Tips, Recipes and Workouts Delivered to Your Inbox

Related posts:

1. Mark’s Daily Apple Readers “Go Primal”
2. The Best of Mark’s Daily Apple: June 2008
3. The Best of Mark’s Daily Apple: September 2008

Since January, we have been experimenting with a new way of working. Two programmers and one designer form a team and take on projects in short, mostly two week, iterations. It’s been a great success so far and has resulted in a huge list of new features across all 37signals products. But after two full terms of new features, one of our teams decided to start the third term with a little spring cleaning.

The three of us had something different to bring to this term — each of us had been focusing mostly on customer support recently. Jamis and Jeff were fresh off terms in our support programmer role and I had spent the last few months working daily to help customers on our Answers forum. That gave us a unique perspective on our products. We came together having each experienced all of the little things that can be big headaches for our customers. So we spent the past two weeks fixing, polishing, re-writing, and improving the places that we’d seen the most confusion from customers first hand.

Here is some of what we were able to accomplish:

Sign up/Sign in:

• Re-wrote and re-designed the sign in error states so that we could explain in context why someone’s login may not be working.
• Improved the sign in link to make it more visible when creating new product accounts.
• Added better detection and prevention of duplicate signups.
• Cleaned up and fixed various display issues with 37signals ID email notifications.
• Modernized the sign in screens using CSS instead of transparent PNG images.

Basecamp:

• When inviting new users, detect duplicates. This warns admins that they may be trying to invite someone who is already on their account avoiding multiple sign in confusion.
• Stop trying to automatically create users on an integrated Campfire account and simplify the process—members enter chats as themselves, non-members enter as guests.
• Fixed that the responsible party pulldown for to-dos shouldn’t include people who can’t see private items
• Fixed a longstanding issue with reordering of To-do templates.
• Corrected the decimal precision of the total number of hours displayed on time pages.
• Resolved various display issues, from text formatting to icon alignment.

Highrise:

• Updated monospaced font styles to render more consistently and attractively across browsers and platforms.
• Updated and improved iCal and API authentication copy.

Backpack:

• Exposed better invoice options, such as the email address and ‘Bill to’ field on the Account tab.
• Introduced per-user iCal feed to fix a recurring time bug whenever DST changes.
• Fixed an annoying issue with editing multi-day events that could result in the start date being incorrectly set to next year.

Improving our products isn’t just about new features. Polishing, re-writing, fixing, and improving existing features can do just as much to make them better and more enjoyable to use. Many of these fixes were directly related to repeated questions or suggestions from our customers so we’ll be keeping an eye on support to measure their impact.

The word of the day is obviously “deflation.”

The dollar is rallying, markets are tanking, and crude oil has fallen below $70.

This is obviously great vindication for the likes of Gluskin-Sheff’s David Rosenberg, who has been a deflationista from the beginning.

In today’s note, he offers 11 points of evidence that that deflation is the primary trend.

Credit is contracting

Image: Wikimedia

Wage rates are stagnating

Money supply growth is vanishing

Image: Planet Of The Nerds

The U.S. dollar is strong

Image: Won Park

Commodities have peaked

Image: BPProductions.com

U.S. home prices are rolling over … again

Lumber prices tumbling (down nearly 17% from April 2010 highs)

Wal-Mart is cutting prices on 10,000 items

Image: Wikimedia

Home Depot just cut prices on flowers, fertilizers, lawn equipment and outdoor furniture

Image: Wikimedia

Taco Bell is offering two dollar combo meals

Image: Wikimedia

The April U.S. retail sales report hinted at deflation in groceries, electronics, apparel and sporting goods

Image: Wikimedia

Don’t miss:

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bernanke–500.jpg

10 Reasons To Buy Bonds NOW >

Join the conversation about this story »

For Mac users, it’s been pretty hard not to get excited about Steam and what it means for the future of gaming on Macs. So how well does it actually work? As always, Tom’s Hardware comes through with the benchmarks. More »










Microsoft Windows – Apple – Macintosh – Steam – FAQs Help and Tutorials

by Duncan Hollis

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its first-ever international family law opinion today in Abbott v. Abbott.  You can access the decision here.  In short, a 6-3 majority (authored by Justice Kennedy) found that the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction treats ne exeat rights (that is, rights to consent before the other parent takes the child to another country) as “rights of custody” rather than “rights of access.”  That interpretation has significant consequences as violations of custodial rights trigger a right of return under the treaty, whereas violations of access rights do not.  I’ve only had a chance to read the opinion quickly, so let me offer some initial reactions, and reserve the right to come back later with a more detailed analysis.

The Court uniformly accepts the use of foreign law to interpret treaties
First, as regular readers know, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding the use of foreign law by some members of the Court in recent years.  Indeed, Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito and Justice Sotomayor were all called on in their confirmation hearings to denounce the use of foreign and international law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution.  I’d expect Elena Kagan to get similar questions when her nomination comes before the Senate this summer.  But, in Abbott the Court ignores this controversy, and thereby suggests its limited only to the use of foreign law in interpreting the Constitution.  Indeed, every member of the Court in this case–in both the majority and the dissent–end up citing and relying on foreign law as a significant part of their analysis of whether the ne exeat right is a right of custody or not.  The majority heavily relies on the fact that most foreign courts to consider the issue have found ne exeat rights are rights of custody to support reaching the same conclusion. Stevens’ dissent, in contrast, contests the uniformity and strength of those views, while emphasizing other foreign court decisions taking the opposite position.  Thus, whether it’s Justices Scalia, Sotomayor, or Stevens, the Court seems clearly willing to accept and employ foreign law decisions when it comes to interpreting U.S. treaties and the statutes that implement them.  Indeed, as the dissent notes, the Court was willing to do this in Abbott even if it meant overruling almost all the U.S. Court of Appeals’ decisions that had found ne exeat rights were not rights of custody. 

A victory for Justice Sotomayor
Second, the case represents a victory for Justice Sotomayor, who, as I’ve noted before, dissented in the leading Court of Appeals decision on this topic, Croll v. Croll.  Justice Kennedy’s opinion covers much the same ground as her earlier dissent.  Indeed, although I haven’t re-read her dissent closely, it’s my sense that the Abbott Majority adopts both her method of analysis and her specific findings on this question nearly in toto, whether in looking at the treaty’s text, its object and purpose, the negotiating history, and other foreign law decisions.

This was a treaty interpretation case, not a custody case. 
Third, although this was the first international family law case to come before the Court, the opinion ends up being more about treaty interpretation than the custodial fight that generated the case itself.  Indeed, the Majority ends its opinion by noting that even if the treaty provides a right of return when custodial rights are violated (including the ne exeat right at issue here), the Hague Convention also provides exceptions to the obligation to return a child if the child might (a) face a grave risk of harm or an otherwise intolerable situation, or (b) have reached an age and sufficient maturity to express a preference on being returned.  As a result, even as the Court resolved the ne exeat treaty interpretation question, it left open whether or not the child at issue in this case actually had to be returned to Chile.  And given that the child in question is around 15 now, I suspect that continued litigation on his return may soon become moot since the treaty’s provisions only apply to children under the age of 16.  Thus, the Abbott case is likely to have any lasting influence in terms of its approach to treaty interpretation rather than any resolution of the difficult custody fight that brought the case to the court in the first place. Which brings us to my final point.

The Court takes treaty interpretation seriously
Both the majority and the dissent expend a lot of time and resources to figure out what was, by all accounts, a close question of treaty interpretation.  Although in the past, many have questioned if the Supreme Court’s interpretative method aligns with the international law rules on treaty interpretation, I don’t think this case suggests a deep departure from the international law rules.  Indeed, even though it does not reference them, the majority’s method largely tracks articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, looking at the treaty’s text first, then the context (although I don’t think they ever call it that), the treaty’s object and purpose, state practice, the negotiating history, and the views of publicists on the question.  And, in those few areas where the Court takes into account factors left out of the VCLT (i.e., the Majority’s deference to the State Department’s view that a ne exeat right is a right of custody) the Majority does so with relatively little elaboration.  At the same time, the Court’s emphasis on the Hague Convention’s object and purpose may actually prove influential going forward.  The Court ended up its treaty analysis by suggesting that its interpretation made sense since, to hold otherwise, would have meant legitimizing many of the removals that the Court thought the Convention had been drafted to prevent.  That sort of approach runs counter to a purely textual interpretation and suggests, for better or worse, that the Court may demonstrate a more dynamic approach to treaty interpretation issues in the future.

It was Friday evening, Gawker writer Ryan Tate’s wife was out of town, and he was whiling away the lonely hours by watching 30 Rock when an iPad commercial popped up that touted the new Apple gadget as nothing less than a revolution. Tate got annoyed, fired off an email, and soon found himself in an email fight with Steve Jobs himself. Apple’s CEO is known to personally answer some of the emails that flood into the [email protected] address, and it seems that Tate’s pointed message goaded the exec into action. Tate, who has long taken issue with Apple’s tight rules on how apps can be written and what content is permissible, argued that the iPad couldn’t be considered revolutionary because “revolutions are about freedom.” Several hours later, Jobs fired back with his version of what the iPad offers: “Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom.” And it was on. Tate got pretty heated in some of his messages to Jobs, but in the aftermath he stresses his respect for Jobs and his methods. As Tate writes in his blog post digesting the whole affair:
Rare is the CEO who …

A piece on adjuncts in Inside Higher Ed has been attracting a lot of attention among academics of my acquaintance.  Its description of academic life is shockingly brutal–shocking even to me, who knows enough PhDs to be acquainted with the dismal facts:

When I began teaching at Columbia and Barnard in the 1960s, almost
all the positions in their German departments were tenure-track. I came
to SUNY New Paltz in the 70s, when there were only a couple of
virtually silent and invisible part-time adjuncts among the 35 teachers
in the entire Foreign Language Division. It was not until a few years
after the dawn of the new millennium that I, like Rip Van Winkle,
“awoke” after decades to a brand new reality: the number of
tenure-track faculty in my department had shrunk to a mere 10, while
some two dozen adjuncts were now teaching the bulk of our foreign
language courses. Yikes!

As everyone in academe now knows, the
professoriate has experienced a radical transformation over the past
few decades. These enormous changes have occurred so gradually,
however, that they are only now beginning to receive attention. The
general public has remained largely unaware of the staffing crisis in
higher education. As contingent colleagues around the country came to
outnumber the tenured faculty and as they were assigned an ever larger
share of the curriculum, they became an inescapable fact of academic
departmental life.

Nationally, adjuncts and contingent faculty — we call them ad-cons
— include part-time/adjunct faculty; full-time, nontenure-track
faculty; and graduate employees. Together these employees now make up an amazing 73 percent
of the nearly 1.6 million-employee instructional workforce in higher
education and teach over half of all undergraduate classes at public
institutions of higher education.

Now, he’s lumping together a bunch of different things:  I don’t really care if part timers and graduate students don’t get paid much . . . at least as long as the graduate students are on track to better jobs.  The core issue is full-time adjuncts, and whether the graduate students have a reasonable shot at a tenure-track position.

Unfortunately, the answer now is that they don’t.  Academia has bifurcated into two classes:  tenured professors who are decently paid, have lifetime job security, and get to work on whatever strikes their fancy; and adjuncts who are paid at the poverty level and may labor for years in the desperate and often futile hope of landing a tenure track position.  And, of course, graduate students, the number of whom may paradoxically increase as the number of tenure track jobs decreases–because someone has to teach all those intro classes.

I have long theorized that at least some of the leftward drift in academia can be explained by the fact that it has one of the most abusive labor markets in the world.  I theorize this because in interacting with many professors, I am bewildered by their beliefs about labor markets more generally; many seem to think of private labor markets as an endless well of exploitation where employees are virtual prisoners with no recourse in the face of horrific abuses.  Yet this does not describe the low wage jobs in which I’ve worked–there were of course individuals who had to hold onto that particular job for idiosyncratic reasons, but as a class, low wage workers do not face the kind of monolithic employer power that a surprising number of academics seem to believe is common.

It is common, of course–in academia.  Until they have tenure, faculty are virtual prisoners of their institution.  Those on the tenure track work alongside a vast class of have-nots who are some of the worst-paid high school graduates in the country.  So it’s not surprising to me that this is how academics come to view labor markets–nor that they naturally assume that it must be even worse on the outside.  And that’s before we start talking about the marriages strained, the personal lives stunted, because those lucky enough to get a tenure-track job have to move to a random location, often one not particularly suited to their spouses’ work ambitions or their own personal preferences . . . a location which, barring another job offer, they will have to spend the rest of their life in.

What puzzles me is how this job market persists, and is even worsening, in one of the most left-wing institutions in the country.  I implore my conservative commenters not to jump straight into the generalizations about how this always happens in socialist countries; I’m genuinely curious.  Almost every academic I know is committed to a pretty strongly left-wing vision of labor market institutions.  Even if it’s not their very first concern, one would assume that the collective preference should result in something much more egalitarian.  So what’s overriding that preference?

















Education – Higher education – Tenure – Colleges and Universities – Rip Van Winkle

As a massive oil spill and its underwater plumes continue to threaten fisheries in parts of the Gulf, charter captains are in an immediate pinch: their prized red snapper season is about to open on June 1 for just 53 days, but clients are foregoing fishing trips because they are worried about whether it is safe to visit the coast and fish in the Gulf during the oil spill. Offshore fishing outside the closed spill area remains good, and fishing captains are ready to accommodate customers.

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[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] in Abbott v. Abbott [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report] that a ne exeat clause, which prohibits one parent from removing a child from the country without the other parent’s consent, confers a “right of custody” within the meaning of the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction [text]. The Hague Convention requires a country to return a child who has been “wrongfully removed” from his country of habitual residence. Under Art. 12, a “wrongful removal” is one that occurs “in breach of rights of custody.” The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held [opinion, PDF] that ne exeat rights do not constitute “rights of custody” within the meaning of the Hague Convention. Reversing the decision below, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote:

Because Mr. Abbott has direct and regular visitation rights, it follows that he has a ne exeat right under article 49. The Convention recognizes that custody rights can be decreed jointly or alone and Mr. Abbott’s ne exeat right is best classified as a “joint right of custody,” which the Convention defines to “include rights relating to the care of the person of the child and, in particular, the right to determine the child’s place of residence.” Mr. Abbott’s right to decide [his child’s] country of residence allows him to determine the child’s place of residence, especially given the Convention’s purpose to prevent wrongful removal across international borders. It also gives him “rights relating to the care of the person of the child,” in that choosing [his child’s] residence country can determine the shape of his early and adolescent years and his language, identity, and culture and traditions. That a ne exeat right does not fit within traditional physical custody notions is beside the point because the Convention’s definition of “rights of custody” controls.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in dissent and was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. The case was remanded to the lower court.

The case was brought by petitioner Timothy Abbott after his ex-wife, respondent Jacquelyn Abbott, removed their son to the US from Chile without his permission in 2005. He argued that his ne exeat right gave him joint authority over the child’s place of residence and that removing the child from Chile violated this right.

The rumored and highly likely Google TV project, which is supposedly in the works as a partnership between Google, Intel and CE manufacturers, has just gotten its name thanks to a new report from the Financial Times. The “Smart TV” platform, as it will be called, apparently, is slated for launch within a couple of days at … (read more)

The New York Times’ David Carr has an interesting column on how the Internet changes headline writing. A century ago, headlines meandered down the page like a “wedding cake,” Carr writes. Some magazines like the New Yorker and New Republic still hold fast to two-word punches. But the trend online is toward short, keyword-heavy descriptors that trade cleverness for clarity.

This makes sense. Twenty years ago, if I bought a magazine, its editors could afford to write witty and indirect headlines that offered more of a mood than a complete picture, because after all, I bought the magazine. Nobody owns our time, online. Selecting an article to read on the Internet is like running through a bazaar while the merchants shout their wares. For online headline writers, the wares are the news, and they don’t waste time selling through witty indirection.* What’s more, since many readers get their news through search engines, putting key words in the headline maximizes the chance that Google’s robots will identify your story and place it toward the top of a relevant search page.

Carr writes that, “Google’s crawlers and aggregators like Digg quit paying attention after
60 characters or so, long before readers might.”  But Digg and Google aren’t providing aggregation services for robots or aliens. They’re keeping things short because on the Web, because human audiences ruthlessly scan lots of content in little time, and short, descriptive headlines do better than long-winded “wedding cake” titles that amount to short paragraphs.

“People who worry that Web headlines dumb down public discourse are probably right,” Carr says. Really? I like wit and puns and alliteration as much as the next guy. But knowing headlines are often about making the reader see the copy editor’s wit. Descriptive headlines are about making the reader see the story’s purpose. The “public discourse” is a fort under multi-variable assault from cable news and hysterical media entertainers and all the old villainous culprits. One hopes it can at least withstand a battery of prominent keywords.

_________
* Incidentally one reason why I write many headlines in the form of questions is that it’s a way to touch the heart of the story without resorting to boring newsy statements. For example, if the story is that Democrats and Republicans have reached an agreement on leverage limits in financial regulation, rather than stretch for cleverness with something like “Dems and GOP, Together, Sing ‘Take It To the Limit’” it’s more valuable for readers to see a headline that acts as a kind of lede or prompt: “Will the Bipartisan Deal on Leverage Limits Work?” That headline tells you (1) the news that there is a bipartisan deal on leverage limits and (2) that this is an analytical story that will evaluate the news. It’s more literal, of course, and less whimsical and maybe even more boring. But it’s also arguably more useful for the Web’s speedy readers.

Google – New York Times – Web search engine – New Yorker – New Republic