Word: act
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...intended to impress Trudy, who is 20, has pink streaks in her hair and calls Shane "Daddy." (The old joke is that in horror movies, the African-American characters always get killed first. Here they are saddled with such unpleasant stereotyping that being taken out in the first act would seem like a favor.) Dave grudgingly agrees to the loan because he's a mensch but reminds Shane of all the financial trouble he's in. Does anyone bring up those finances when it comes to the bill for Eden? No, because they need Shane and Trudy for comic relief...
...poll, 53% of Americans now say things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan. And few are saying that as vehemently as those who have picked the anniversary as their day to demonstrate. Student organizations on 25 college campuses, along with members of antiwar groups like the coalition Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) and Veterans for Peace are holding rallies on Oct. 7; others have already descended on Washington. On Oct. 5, 61 people were arrested in a demonstration in the capital, including Cindy Sheehan, the onetime face of the Iraq antiwar movement, who chained...
...roots and an interest in maintaining the Union, and they made common cause with Northern groups who opposed emancipation and the draft. The antidraft riots of 1863 - dramatized in the 2002 Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York - were sparked by opposition to the government's recently passed Conscription Act and, in part, by fears among Irish immigrants that freed slaves would come North and take away jobs...
Conscription played a recurring role in protests for the next century. At the start of World War I, Socialists and isolationists opposed the draft on the grounds of civil liberties: Charles Schenck, the general secretary of the Socialist Party of America, was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for distributing leaflets that urged men to resist the draft. In the famous case Schenck v. the United States, Schenck argued (unsuccessfully) that conscription was the equivalent of "involuntary servitude" and thus prohibited by the 13th Amendment...
...block the bill, nor is the White House expected to object. And prospects for any referendum effort to halt same-sex marriages appear equally dim. When opponents sought a ballot initiative to halt the earlier bill, the board of elections deemed the effort illegal under Washington's Human Rights Act, a decision that was upheld in court. A pending effort to do the same with Catania's new bill will likely meet the same fate. (See a pictorial history of the battle for gay rights...