For those who have an exam tomorrow… my condolences, and best wishes. Good luck!

For those who don’t… the party’s at Bookmakers tonight! Join your fellow 2Ls there at 10:00 PM!

Tony Blair’s Labour Party will keep its majority in Britain, but an exit poll shows the Labourites getting just 37% of the nationwide vote (to 33% for the Conservatives and 22% for the Liberal Democrats), and their parliamentary majority is expected to drop from 161 to 66 seats, which is seen as “incredibly bad news for Blair. The result is much better than the Conservatives thought they were going to get.” There is speculation an intra-party rival such as Gordon Brown may seek to replace Blair as prime minister.

UPDATE: As actual returns trickle in, things are looking even worse for Labour. According to my dad, the words “hung parliament” have been uttered on the BBC. Stay tuned, as they say.

What are y’all doing this summer? Nobody answered this question when I asked it before. :(

I’m staying in South Bend, working as a law clerk for a government agency downtown. How about you? Do tell!

If you have any Cinco de Mayo partying/bar-hopping plans for this evening — or if you know of anyone who does — please comment or e-mail me! I missed the Wednesday-night festivities due to my post-exam sleepiness, so I gotta make up for lost time here, people. :)

P.S. Not everybody has the opportunity to party tonight, of course. :( Brooke’s in the non-Kelley class, so she has an exam tomorrow… and naturally, she has haikus, including:

Lujan and wildlife
Scalia just laughs at them
Sorry, no standing

The Tenth Amendment
Is it a tautology?
Does it mean something?

Heh. Read ‘em all.

Brought to you by my home town, Buffalo, NY, is Don Herbert, a fireman who lost consciousness in 1995 after a building collapsed on him and he was trapped without oxygen for nearly 10 minutes.

This month, Herbert woke up and spoke coherently with his wife and family.

Herbert apparently had no idea that he had been in a near vegetative state for the past 10 years. He thought his teenage son with 3 years old.

So, how does a man slip into a coma for ten years and wake up talking? Well, on extremely rare occasions, near PVS patients will just wake up although they typically will not obtain full brain function. In this instance, Herbert’s doctor started giving him neurostabilizers and stimulants that have proven effective in Parkinson’s patients. Within days of starting the medication regimen, Herbert woke up.

The current theory postulates that these drugs enabled Herbert’s brain to rewire itself in a way that provided for consciousness. It remains to be seen whether or not his sentience will last, or whether he will slip into a coma once again.

On the same day that British citizens are choosing a new government, a decidedly bizarre act of terrorism struck the British consulate in New York City:

There are few clues as to who did it, or why, but…two homemade grenade-type devices - one apparently shaped like a pineapple, and the other like a lemon, according to one police officer - exploded shortly after [3:30 AM EDT].

Sounds like something out of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Infinite Improbability Drive!

Thankfully, no one was injured, and the damage was minimal — some shattered glass, and a chunk missing from the “large cement flower tub” in which the fruit-grenades were placed, but that’s about it. A deliberately harmless blast, says I — although “anyone walking by at that moment would certainly have suffered injury.”

The early assumption is that whoever did this, knew the consulate was there, and was making some kind of protest or statement to coincide with voting today across Britain.

But New York’s unflappable mayor, Michael Bloomberg, sought to curb speculation when he spoke to reporters at the scene.

“We at this point, have absolutely no knowledge of what the motive was… It is true the British Consulate is in that building, but I don’t think anybody should jump to conclusions,” he said.

C’mon, Bloomie. The British are the only people on Earth peculiar enough to come up with the idea of a terrorist attack using bombs shaped like fruit. :)

Inspired by Andrew Leyden’s commendable comment to this post, let us now pause before the imminent flood of Returns mesmerizes the world :), to pay homage to the excellent Diversity of the Ballot in Her Majesty’s Kingdom. Below, a mere Sampling:

Build Duddon and Morecambe Bridges
Church of the Militant Elvis Party
“Death, Dungeons & Taxes”
English Independence Party [> go, Angles! go, Saxons! ~the guestblogger :]
Imperial Party [> go, Lord Andrew! ~the guestblogger :]
Removal Of Tetramasts In Cornwall
Motorcycle News Party
Monster Raving Loony Party
New England Party [> my personal favorite of course / ~the guestblogger :]
New Millennium Bean Party
People of Horsham First Party
Personality AND Rational Thinking? Yes! Party
Residents` Association of London [> here included for its BBC Abbrev: Res Ass / ~the guestblogger :]
Save Bristol North Baths Party
Telepathic Partnership
Virtue Currency Cognitive Appraisal Party
Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket

Read the whole silly lot. :)

In other election news:

Hundreds of Voters! Thrown Out!! Fel-THAM!!! Isle-WORTH!!!:)

“Electors will choose MPs in 645 constituencies. The election has been postponed in the 646th constituency, Staffordshire South, because one of the candidates died.”

Now there’s where the Brits could learn something from the Colonials. We’d never let that stop us; they can ask Mel Carnahan. Well they can’t actually. :> But by Jove, we’ll soldier on with a General Election even when half of the Postal Voters are deceased. :) Especially then actually. :)

I only slept for, oh, 20 hours or so. :)

But after those finals and all the hours of sleep-deprived studying that preceded them, I definitely needed it!

So much for Wednesday-night post-exam partying. (I went to sleep at around 7:30. Becky lured to me to bed with the old “come cuddle with me” trick, and I was OUT COLD within a minute or two.)

But that’s okay, I still have tomorrow night! Here’s Dmytro’s schedule (he’s in the other ConLaw section, and so has a final tomorrow):

End of Con Law Exam (about 4:30ish) - 6:30ish: LEGENDS
6:30ish - 7:00: DRUNKENLY RAVAGE SDH* ONE LAST TIME (we may be drunk enough to forget to do this, in which case we’re still at Legends)
8:00-10:00: FIDDLER’S HEARTH (hourlong gap for “I’m drunk trying to find a cab” time)
10:00-12:30: THE STATE (they’re having a party - $2 16oz, $4 pitchers, music (and other things) by request
12:30-close: THE ‘BACKER

*SDH is South Dining Hall, for you Domer-illerate types… like me. :)

Dmytro points out that, since he’s spending his 2L year in Germany, “this is all y’all’s last chance to break it down with me until 3L.” Everyone is invited!

I just read in the NYTimes that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a sales tax cut for clothing and shoes in the Big Apple. The slice would effectively knock the tax down from 8.625% to 4.625%. I just thought I’d give him a big brendanloy.com shout-out for his efforts.

If only the doodie-heads in Buffalo would hop on the tax-cut gravy train…9.25% is a little excessive. And all hail NH; every time I shop here, I feel like I’m getting a de facto 10% discount. :-)

I think that more or less says it all.

Scientists have untapped yet another use for human stem cells. Using scrapings of stem cells off the ovaries of mature women, scientists have stimulated the growth of human egg cells in the laboratory. Egg cells are in high demand among the infertile population, and thus, fertility experts have popped their corks over this discovery.

Some pro-life groups aren’t happy, however. They assert that scientists will use these test tube eggs to create embryos for stem cell research. My rather unempathetic response is, and? So what?

My only reservation about using such eggs for research purposes is that they come from older women and I would contend (without knowing the actual stats) that most children are born to women under the age of 35. Younger eggs and younger sperm make better babies.

Viva el Cinco de Mayo!

It’s almost over, bar the voting. After 30 days of intensive electioneering the public is delivering its verdict.

All will become clear during the early hours of 6 May, and the BBC will be on hand to offer comprehensive coverage on television, radio and online.

…Through the night the BBC News website will offer up-to-the-minute results, breaking news, and analysis.

Our seat-by-seat guide will be updated regularly as declarations pour in from up and down the country.

…The big moments to watch out for through the night - and after - include:

2200 BST THURSDAY 5 MAY
Polls close up and down the country.

2201 BST
Just one minute later the BBC will broadcast the results of an exit poll based on a sample of 13,000 voters from 320 polling stations in marginal constituencies.

2330 BST
The first result of the night is expected. The race to be first is traditionally intense, with Houghton and Washington East, Sunderland North and Sunderland South likely to be among the contenders.

..The fastest ever count took place at a by-election in 1928 in Ashton-under-Lyne where the mayor arranged for coloured rockets to be fired from the town hall roof to declare the result.

0000 BST FRIDAY 6 MAY
The first trickle of results should turn into a torrent in the next hour, with more than 30 declarations expected at 0030 alone. First result from Scotland, in Na h-Eileanan an Iar (formerly the Western Isles), expected at 0001, and first in Wales, in Islwyn, expected at 0030.

0100
By now nearly 150 results should be in, and the likely shape of the next parliament should be clear.

Whole thing.

Main page re, Let us Never Forget the General Election. (Apologies & RIP, John Lennon :)

O God bless England is our Prayer.

:)

Well at least the firefighters were familiar with the premises ~

NEWINGTON — A three-story, town-owned building used by four fire departments for training drills was heavily damaged by fire Wednesday night.

“Part of our training is getting calls for a fire as practice at the center,” one firefighter said. “But we knew this was not a training exercise. We knew it was the real thing.”

About 35 volunteer firefighters brought the blaze under control in about 20 minutes.

The building, which was not in use when the fire was reported shortly before 7 p.m., was gutted, according to Chris Schroeder, the town fire marshal and acting fire chief. The cause is being investigated. Schroeder said it did not appear suspicious. No injuries were reported.

This comes on the heels of the Great Hartford Blackout of ‘05 :) in which, according to The Hartford Courant,

…utility crews working on a power line at the Trumbull Center in downtown Hartford triggered the breakdown of a separate line that feeds power to several large corporate buildings as well as the Legislative Office Building and several state office buildings…

I love my town & my capital city but this is getting a little embarrassing, here. :)

The fourth Harry Potter movie, Goblet of Fire, will come out on Nov. 18. You can see a sneak preview on Saturday, during the network television premiere of the second movie, Chamber of Secrets, on ABC. Woohoo!