Miscellaneous News Items

[a.k.a.]

Laser chips could power petaflop computers

* 18:31 21 March 2006
* NewScientist.com

news service
* Will Knight

Laser communications chips capable of pumping data through the veins of

gargantuan "petaflop" supercomputers have been demonstrated by NEC in Japan.

The communications chips can

transfer information through optical fibres at a blistering 25 gigabits per second (a gigabit is a billion bits).

This is a record for such components, according to NEC, and is many times faster that the purely electronic

interconnects used in today's supercomputers.

Communications chips can convert electronic signals into

optical ones. Using optical fibres to relay data between the chips is what may give this type of supercomputer the

edge over previous ones using processors connected electronically.

NEC used a type of semiconducting laser

diode called a Vertical-Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) which generates laser pulses in response to an

electrical current. Researchers at the company created more efficient VCSEL devices by making the diodes from a

blend of gallium arsenide and indium gallium arsenide - they used indium instead of the more conventional aluminium.

This made it possible to transfer laser pulses more rapidly through optical fibre.

The new VCSEL chips could

be used to make supercomputers of unprecedented power by routing data more efficiently between thousands of

individual computer processors. NEC believes the chips could prove crucial to the development of the first

petaflop class supercomputer - a machine capable of carrying out a thousand trillion mathematical calculations every

second.

"Petaflop-class performance can be achieved in the next-generation supercomputer installed with

the new VCSEL, in about 2010," a spokeswoman from NEC told New Scientist.
Off-the-shelf

Such an

achievement might enable NEC to regain the supercomputing crown that it held between 2002 and 2004 with the Earth

Simulator - a supercomputer installed at the Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology in Yokohama,

Japan. This is because efficiency with which purely electronic chips share data is a crucial bottleneck in

supercomputer design. Most of today's supercomputers operate at a maximum speed of few teraflops (trillions of

operations per second).

Many supercomputers are essentially made by linking up thousands of off-the-shelf

computer processors. However, the current number one, an IBM machine called BlueGene at Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory in California, US, is made from customised components and is capable of a fearsome 360

teraflops.

While external experts agree that VCSEL chips could be used to construct formidable

supercomputers, they say the cost of such components will also be crucial. "Raw bandwidth alone is not necessarily

the most pressing issue for petascale computing," says John Shalf at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in

California, US. "The question is whether we can afford such components."

Furthermore, although VCSEL chips

promise to be cheaper than comparable optical technologies - such as indium phosphide lasers - Shalf says a cheaper

solution could be to combine several electronic connection channels in a single data "pipe". Another approach may be

to send several optical signals through the same cable, a technique known as wavelength division

multiplexing.
Unprecedented complexity

"The ability to go to 25 gigabits per second using VCSELs provides

some opportunities for more cost-effective components, but that remains to be seen," Shalf told New Scientist. "You

can be assured the market will provide the answer when these things become real products."

Horst Simon,

another supercomputing expert at Lawrence Berkeley, adds that other issues will affect the development of the next

generation of supercomputers. "Building a petascale system with a useful amount of memory - say at least 200

terabytes - and then powering and cooling this system will be the bigger challenges," he says.

Regardless of

the challenges ahead, NEC is confident that petaflop supercomputers will be able to carry out experiments of

unprecedented complexity. "It will be able to carry out entire simulation of the human body from genes and cell

level to the organs and even the entire body," the NEC spokeswoman adds. "Complex and detailed simulation of the

behaviour of nano materials, from elementary particle to device level, is planned."

[Mtnjim]

From Infoworld:

Homeland

Security probes L-1 visa abuses
Office of the Inspector General finds significant flaws in overseas hiring

program

By Ephraim Schwartz
March 21, 2006

In the course of my research for a column on misuse of the

L-1A and L-1B visa program for temporary workers in the United States, I was alerted to the Inspector General’s

report published in January of this year by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), titled “Review of

Vulnerabilities and Potential Abuses of the L-1 Visa Program."

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First, some background on what the L-1 visa program is. The program allows a foreign worker employed by a

company overseas for at least one year to enter the United States temporarily, “in order to continue to render his

services to the same employer or a subsidiary or affiliate … in a capacity that is managerial, executive, or

involves specialized knowledge.”

According to Frank Robinson, CFO at Darwin Partners, insurance companies are

bringing in foreign workers under L-1, providing food and lodging, but are paying the guest workers at the salary

they were getting back home. If a typical programmer in the United States makes $60,000 to $80,000 per year, these

workers are being paid as little as one-quarter of that. And they can stay as long as five to seven years.

These

workers may be employees of the insurance company; or worse, they could be employees of IT services companies, known

as “body shops,” who hire them out for a fee.

I called some leading insurance companies and got a response from

one.

“There is a lot of internal sensitivity to this,” my source -- whom I won’t name -- says. “It involves some

displacement of people. We have done our best to keep a low profile on that.”

Using foreign workers and paying

them below American scale is only one abuse. A second is bringing in workers for training. In this case, there is no

way to pretend that these workers have skills that the company needs. I am told that many high-tech companies do

this and that I should ask Intel (Profile, Products, Articles) about it, especially at Intel’s Folsom, Calif.,

location. I called three or four Intel public relations people I know but got no response.

The irony here is that

when workers are brought in like this for training, the American workers are in essence training their own

replacements, according to Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild.

Finally, that DHS report I mentioned

calls L-1 “The Computer Visa,” saying nine out of 10 companies that use the L-1 are “computer- and IT-related.” The

report says that it is “difficult to be confident that a firm truly intends using an imported worker” as a manager

or executive. It suggests that the term “specialized knowledge” is so broad that “adjudicators believe they have

little choice but to approve almost all petitions.” And while L-1 workers must be employed by the importing company

abroad for at least a year, the report finds that the United States has “little ability to evaluate the

substantiality of the foreign operation” and even allows “petitioners to transfer themselves into the United

States.”

There are a lot of things wrong with this. But what bugs me the most are the statements made by our

leading high-tech CEOs about the poor quality of American education and the fact that there aren’t enough U.S.

workers to fill the jobs. All the while, these same CEOs bring in outside workers -- not because the education is so

much better abroad, but because doing so benefits their own bottom lines.

[belgareth]

Is anybody besides me getting

sick of politically correct crap?

St. Louis can't display an Easter Bunny because it might offend

non-christians?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060323/ap_on_fe_s

t/easter_bunny_1. I'm a non-christian and I personally wish the politically correct terrorists would stop

claiming the speak for me and others like me. An easter bunny, a christmas tree, a manora, or even the ten

commandments offends me not in the least. As a matter of fact, I'm happy to see them placed in public places.



Drug free zones target minorities unfairly?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/studyfuelsdebateondrugfreezones;_ylt=Ai8kOjTv_WZsv ZwophsG

5WZvzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA-- Oh, BULL! They put themselves in that position when they decide

of their own free will to deal drugs in zones labelled drug free. They have no right to be dealing drugs, the laws

don't care if the person selling drugs is black, yellow or purple with yellow polka dots. All it says is that if

you are convicted of selling drugs in this area you will suffer these consequences. It is entirely up to you whether

you take that risk or not.

In reality, maybe the politically correct should consider that tougher penalties

within the cities might be in the best interests of minority children. Might actually save some of their lives or

help reduce drug use among inner city kids. Of course, they'd never stoop so low as to do more towards educating

them better about drug use. That would be unfair too. After all, my white kids in the 'burbs aren't getting the

educational benefit the inner city kids are.

Personally, I'm for decriminalization of all drugs for adult use.

However, I'd also make the penalties far worse than anything on the books for drug use that affected children.

[InternationalPlayboy]

Here's one that

popped up on my Yahoo page today:

Finding drunks in a bar -- what are the chances?

Texas has

begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic

Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.

The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb

where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission's Carolyn

Beck.

Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkeness, Beck

said.

Full article at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060323/od_nm/bars1_dc

[Mtnjim]

Here's

one that popped up on my Yahoo page today:

Finding drunks in a bar -- what are the chances?



Full article

at


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060323/od_nm/bars1_dc

Geez

Next they'll be in public rest rooms arresting people for wizzing in public!

[belgareth]

That's absurd! Why do people

go to bars if it isn't to drink? The law enforcement people need to find something useful to do! I'm more than a

little embarassed to admit that it was very near here that some useless functionary tried to prosecute a lady for

selling HIM a vibrator. That's such a waste of money and resources that could be going to something useful.

[Mtnjim]

The law

enforcement people need to find something useful to do!

A few months ago, my truck was broken in to and

my bag was stolen. I filed a police report since some state owned keys were amoung the items gone. The next day some

woman calls and asks if I had had a white minivan stolen, because she had found papers with my name and phone number

on them on the front seat. Appearently some guy was stealing cars all the time and parking them in her apartment

parking lot (and sleeping in them). She gave me her phone number and told me the guy would be back that night. I

called the (La Mesa, California) cops and told them about it, and they said "so what"!
I asked to speak to the

watch commander and he told me if it wasn't a murder, they didn't care.

Ya, something useful.

[belgareth]

That sounds about right. I've

seen similar things. Whatever happened to the old motto "To protect and Serve"?

[belgareth]

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer




WASHINGTON - The National Security Agency could have legally monitored ordinarily

confidential communications between doctors and patients or attorneys and their clients, the Justice Department said

Friday of its controversial warrantless surveillance program.
Responding to questions from Congress, the department also said that it sees no prohibition to using

information collected under the NSA's program in court.
"Because

collecting foreign intelligence information without a warrant does not violate the Fourth Amendment and because the

Terrorist Surveillance Program is lawful, there appears to be no legal barrier against introducing this evidence in

a criminal prosecution," the department said in responses to questions from lawmakers released Friday

evening.
The department said that considerations, including whether

classified information could be disclosed, must be weighed.
In

classified court filings, the Justice Department has responded to questions about whether information from the

government's warrantless surveillance program was used to prosecute terror suspects. Defense attorneys are hoping

to use that information to challenge the cases against their clients.
Since the program was disclosed in December, some skeptical lawmakers have investigated the Bush

administration's legal footing, raising questions including whether the program could capture doctor-patient and

attorney-client communications. Such communications normally receive special legal

protections.
"Although the program does not specifically target the

communications of attorneys or physicians, calls involving such persons would not be categorically excluded from

interception," the department said.
The department said the same

general criteria for the surveillance program would also apply to doctors' and lawyers' calls: one party must be

outside the United States and there must be reason to believe one party is linked to al-Qaida. The department's

written response also said that these communications aren't specifically targeted and safeguards are in place to

protect privacy rights.
Michigan Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting

record), the House Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, complained about the department's evasiveness in answers to

questions from the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, submitted to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. All but

two of 45 answers to the House Judiciary Democrats were vague and unresponsive, Conyers

said.
He found the response regarding doctor-patient and

attorney-client privilege particularly troublesome. More generally, the "need for oversight is especially glaring,"

he said in a statement.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse

said the department "has been extremely forthcoming and clear about the administration's legal analysis through

multiple briefings with Congress, three hearings with the Attorney General, multiple letters to Congress, a 42-page

white paper and dozens of questions for the record."
Responding in 75

typed pages, the department clarified some points in the three-month-old debate over the program. But it also left

many questions unanswered, citing the need for national security.
The

House Democrats asked if any other president has authorized wiretaps without court warrants since the passage of the

1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs intelligence collection inside the United

States.
Choosing its words carefully, the department said, "if the

question is limited to 'electronic surveillance' ... we are unaware of such

authorizations."
The department also made clear that the program — as

confirmed by President Bush — has never been suspended since it began in October 2001. That would include 2004, when

reports indicate serious doubts about the program were raised by Justice Department

officials.
But the department refused to discuss, or even confirm, a

meeting in 2004 at then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital bed. News reports indicated that White House

Chief of Staff Andy Card and Gonzales, then White House counsel, needed his help to quell dissent about the

program.
Lawmakers also asked whether federal judges on a secretive

intelligence court objected to the program and, if so, how the administration

responded.
The department wouldn't answer, citing the need to protect

classified information. "We assure you, however, that the department keeps the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance

Court fully informed regarding information that is relevant to the FISA process," the response said.


The department also avoided questions on whether the administration

believes it is legal to wiretap purely domestic calls without a warrant, when al-Qaida activity is suspected. The

department wouldn't say specifically that it hasn't been done.
"Interception of the content of domestic communications would present a different legal question," the

department said.

__________________

[tim929]

I hate to disapoint anybody but

cops dont protect or serve anymore.All they realy do is drive fast,park baddly and thrust thier snouts into piles of

doughnuts when nobody is looking.If it doesnt amount to "revenue enhancement" then law enforcement wants nothing to

do with it.Thats why they set up these stupid sting opperations...they can write you up and you have to pay a

fine.If they arrest a car thief all they get is another mouth to feed until the trial.

And the next time a cop

tries to spew that silly line about how "dangerous" his job is,let him know that a pharmacist is four times more

likely to die in the line of duty from violence than a cop is.And when a pharmacist speaks to you,they are required

to smile,be polite and actualy help you instead of just making you feel intimidated.

On another note,the

national debt has topped nine trillion dollars.That works out to 36,000 dollars per man,women and child in the

U.S.

[belgareth]

From what I've read, he probably doesn't have a chance of winning but I'd seriously consider him

ahead of anybody else I know who is in the running so far. He makes a lot of sense.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2006040

1/ap_on_el_se/brf_new_york_senate_race



http://www.dartreview.com/issues/2.7.00/greenstein.

html

[Netghost56]

In my

Sunday paper:

Guests or gate crashers?
By Thomas Sowell

Immigration is yet another

issue which we seem unable to discuss rationally -- in part because words have been twisted beyond recognition in

political rhetoric.

We can't even call illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants." The politically correct evasion

is "undocumented workers."

Do American citizens go around carrying documents with them when they work or apply

for work? Most Americans are undocumented workers but they are not illegal immigrants. There is a difference.

The

Bush administration is pushing a program to legalize "guest workers." But what is a guest? Someone you have invited.

People who force their way into your home without your permission are called gate crashers.

If truth-in-packaging

laws applied to politics, the Bush guest worker program would have to be called a "gate-crasher worker" program. The

President's proposal would solve the problem of illegal immigration by legalizing it after the fact.

We could

solve the problem of all illegal activity anywhere by legalizing it. Why use this approach only with immigration?

Why should any of us pay a speeding ticket if immigration scofflaws are legalized after the fact for committing a

federal crime?

Most of the arguments for not enforcing our immigration laws are exercises in frivolous rhetoric

and slippery sophistry, rather than serious arguments that will stand up under scrutiny.

How often have we heard

that illegal immigrants "take jobs that Americans will not do"? What is missing in this argument is what is crucial

in any economic argument: price.

Americans will not take many jobs at their current pay levels -- and those pay

levels will not rise so long as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs.

If Mexican

journalists were flooding into the United States and taking jobs as reporters and editors at half the pay being

earned by American reporters and editors, maybe people in the media would understand why the argument about "taking

jobs that Americans don't want" is such nonsense.

Another variation on the same theme is that we "need" the

millions of illegal aliens already in the United States. "Need" is another word that blithely ignores prices.

If

jet planes were on sale for a thousand dollars each, I would probably "need" a couple of them -- an extra one to fly

when the first one needed repair or maintenance. But since these planes cost millions of dollars, I don't even

"need" one.

There is no fixed amount of "need," independently of prices, whether with planes or workers.

None

of the rhetoric and sophistry that we hear about immigration deals with the plain and ugly reality: Politicians are

afraid of losing the Hispanic vote and businesses want cheap labor.

What millions of other Americans want has

been brushed aside, as if they don't count, and they have been soothed with pious words. But now the voters are

getting fed up, which is why there are immigration bills in Congress.

The old inevitability ploy is often trotted

out in immigration debates: It is not possible to either keep out illegal immigrants or to expel the ones already

here.

If you mean stopping every single illegal immigrant from getting in or expelling every single illegal

immigrant who is already here, that may well be true. But does the fact that we cannot prevent every single murder

cause us to stop enforcing the laws against murder?

Since existing immigration laws are not being enforced, how

can anyone say that it would not do any good to try? People who get caught illegally crossing the border into the

United States pay no penalty whatever. They are sent back home and can try again.

What if bank robbers who were

caught were simply told to give the money back and not do it again? What if murderers who were caught were turned

loose and warned not to kill again? Would that be proof that it is futile to take action, when no action was

taken?

Let's hope the immigration bills before Congress can at least get an honest debate, instead of the word

games we have been hearing for too long.

Part II

Bogus arguments are a tip-off that you wouldn't buy

the real reasons for what someone is doing. Phony arguments and phony words are the norm in discussions of

immigration policy.

It starts with a refusal to call illegal aliens "illegal aliens" and ends with asking for

"guest worker" status for people who are not guests but gate crashers. As for the substantive arguments, they are as

phony as the verbal evasions.

What about all those illegal workers that we "need"? Many of the illegals are

working in agriculture, producing crops that have been in chronic surplus for decades. These surplus crops are

costing the American taxpayers billions of dollars in government storage costs and in the inflated prices created by

deliberately keeping much of this agricultural output off the market.

Do we "need" illegal workers to produce

bigger surpluses?

In California, surplus crops grown and harvested by illegal immigrants are often also

subsidized by federal water projects which charge the farmers in dry California valleys far less than the cost to

the government of providing that water -- and a fraction of what people in Los Angeles or San Francisco pay for the

same amount of water.

Surplus crops grown with water supplied at the taxpayers' expense and raised by illegal

workers can be grown elsewhere with water provided free of charge from the clouds and raised by American workers

paid American wages.

Naturally, when the real costs of those crops have to be paid by the farmers who raise them,

less will be grown -- that is, there will not be as much of a surplus going to waste in government-rented storage

bins.

With some crops, we don't really "need" any of it. If the United States had not produced a single grain of

sugar in the past 50 years, Americans could have gotten all the sugar they wanted and at lower prices, simply by

buying it on the world market for half or less of what domestic sugar costs.

Sugar has been in chronic surplus on

the world market for generations. It can be grown in the tropics far cheaper than it can be grown in the United

States. All the land, labor, and capital that has been spent growing sugar here has been one huge waste.

We

don't "need" to grow sugar, with or without illegal workers.

Many people are understandably sympathetic toward

Mexican workers who come across the border illegally, not only because of the poverty which drives them from their

homelands but also because their willingness to work makes them in demand.

When you see beggars on the street,

they are usually white or black, but almost never Mexican. But American immigration laws and policies are not about

whether you like or don't like Mexicans, though some demagogues try to play the race card.

For too long, we have

bought the argument that being unfortunate entitles you to break the law. The consequence has been disastrous,

whether the people allowed to get away with breaking the law are Americans or foreigners.

Legalizing illegal

actions is the easy way out, so it is hardly surprising that politicians go for that.

One of the ways of

legalizing illegal acts is by the automatic conferring of American citizenship on babies born to illegal aliens in

the United States.

The law that made all people born here American citizens made sense when people crossed an

ocean and made a commitment to become Americans.

Today, it is just another way of essentially legalizing illegal

acts by making it harder to deport those who broke the law.

One of the most bogus of all the bogus arguments for

a "guest worker" program is that it is impossible to find all the millions of illegal aliens in the country, so it

is impossible to deport them.

If tomorrow someone came up with some brilliant way to identify every illegal alien

in the country, it would not make the slightest difference. Right now, those who are identified as illegal, whether

at the border, in prisons, at traffic stops or in any of our institutions, face no penalty

whatsoever.

Identification is not the problem. Doing nothing is the problem.

Thomas Sowell is the prolific

author of books such as Black Rednecks and White Liberals and Applied Economics.

[Netghost56]

That article is pretty much

my opinion on illegal immigrants as a whole. Plus the fact that I've seen this first hand in my town.

[InternationalPlayboy]

While doing errands

last Friday morning, I turned the corner and ran right into a crowd of high school students blocking access to the

main street in town as they protested the immigration issue. Many were waving Mexican flags and others were driving

cars with huge Mexican flags over the hoods. Impatient, I made a U-turn and went home instead of continuing my trip.

At my house a few blocks away, I could hear horns honking and sirens from police cars.

Many of these kids

have parents who are illegals but the kids themselves are American citizens as they were born on this side of the

border. I'm sorry, but impeding my travel is not the way to endear me to your cause. In fact, after that

experience, I'm leaning towards revoking the citizenship of kids with illegal parents and sending them back with

the parents. And if you really want to be Americans, why were there no American flags on display? Even the Miexcan

Consulate down the street from my house flies the American flag adjacent to the Mexican flag.

[belgareth]

Its a sad situation all around.

I find myself completely opposed to allowing people who entered this country illegally to stay. Yet, I know they go

back to a life of poverty. There's no good answer.

I encourage every person here illegally to do whatever it

takes to demonstrate that you are willing to be a part of this country and follow its laws. Otherwise, you don't

belong here. Waving mexican flags and inciting high school student to demonstrate when they should be in school only

serves to demonstrate you are not interested in being a part of this nation. For now, you are knowingly breaking the

laws of this country, no person who really supports this nation can support your actions.

[Holmes]

That article is

pretty much my opinion on illegal immigrants as a whole. Plus the fact that I've seen this first hand in my

town.

Good article.

Did you see the last Maher? Funny stuff (Seth Green is

hilarious).

I found myself agreeing with Rohrabacher.

[Holmes]

I encourage every

person here illegally to do whatever it takes to demonstrate that you are willing to be a part of this country and

follow its laws. Otherwise, you don't belong here. Waving mexican flags and inciting high school student to

demonstrate when they should be in school only serves to demonstrate you are not interested in being a part of this

nation. For now, you are knowingly breaking the laws of this country, no person who really supports this nation can

support your actions.

Right on.

Putting it politely, being here should be considered as much

of a privilege as it is a right.

You're illegal, you're in someone else's house. At least pretend to be

tactful.

[Mtnjim]

It's really easy to end the

illegal immigrant problem from Mexico. Since they really want to be "Americans", we should just annex Mexico and

make the 51st through 83rd states. Then we would have a much narrower southern border to patrol.

Why didn't

anyone think of this sooner?

[Netghost56]

Yeah. For once I sided with

the conservative on the show.

Maher just doesn't get it.

[InternationalPlayboy]

And if you really want to be Americans, why were there no American flags on display?

Even the Miexcan Consulate down the street from my house flies the American flag adjacent to the Mexican

flag.

I need to correct this statement. I noticed today that the Mexican Consulate does not fly the

American flag. It only has one pole, for the Mexican flag. To properly display the American flag along with it,

there would have to be a second pole, so both flags could be flown at the same height.

I've been reflecting

on this topic a bit after noticing the flag situation this afternoon. Yuma was where I really first experienced

racisim. I lived a pretty sheltered childhood, resided mostly on Army posts and in small towns. My parents raised me

not to discriminate by race and never to use the "N word." I still cringe to this day when people use it in

conversation.

If we would have stayed in Hawaii for a couple more years, I would have had to go to school off

post, where they beat up white kids. The alternative was Lutheran school, but we moved away before I had to face

that. The first day on the school bus in Yuma, I found the black guys wouldn't let the white guys share a seat with

them. Ok, whatever.

In town, it was more the Mexicans discriminating against the whites in school. Again,

whatever, it wasn't anything major, just a few outspoken people. But to have that carried over to attitudes from

high school teachers is another matter. My Spanish teacher talked one day about how she majored in Spanish and

minored in French, because the romance languages were "so beautiful." To reinforce her point she said, "te amo" (I

love you in Spanish), then to compare it to German, she went "haaack, puti." My dad being American born but full

blooded German, I took offense to that but kept quiet. I wish now I had the balls to speak up. Nowadays, that would

be grounds for litigation.

This same teacher in another class did a similar move. Someone wrote on the

blackboard in a class a friend attended, "viva la raza," a Mexican rallying slogan meaning "long live the race."

Although several kids protested, she wouldn't erase the slogan. That is until my friend walked up and tacked on the

end, "de los Alemans" (of the Germans). The teacher immediately erased the sentence.

This woman later became

a guidance counselor. She was a nice woman, but I don't think it is the place of a teacher to conduct herself like

that and show favoritisim towards your own race at the expense of another.

[Netghost56]

Wow, some of that was

blatant.

Back in the day (my days included ) we didn't run to the press everytime we were offended. Maybe we

had thicker skins, I don't know.

But I find it troubling that kids these days threaten ligitation everytime a

teacher gets bold or contraversial. The students are hurting themselves in the end; teachers will be so scared of

offending that they won't teach ANYTHING.

ED:
This brings to mind the Hitler-Bush connection uttered by a

teacher recently at some school. The kid was recording the class for notes, and was "offended" by the remark so he

took his cassette recorder to the local radio station and the audio was aired. I think the teacher was fired for it.

If I was the father of that boy I would have belted him. LOL, then I'd probably be imprisoned. No dicipline these

days.

Anyhow, racial tensions are just as strong as they used to be, but they're not centered on

african-americans anymore. It's spread pretty evenly across all lines, IMO. It's all about the environment where

you're raised. Here, in my town, the white people watch the mexicans buy big fancy homes and cars, get good jobs

and benefits (at no extra cost), and parade around town with their colors.

Found this just a min ago:

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an

hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.
Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain's job offer.


"I'll take it!" one man shouted.
McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete

season. "You can't do it, my friends."
Some in the crowd said they didn't appreciate McCain questioning their

work ethic.

GOD, I wish I had been there. They would have had to throw me out of the room . But that just

infuriates me to no end. $50/hour to pick lettuce?! That's the greatest job in the world, IMHO. Hell, I got 100

sqft of lettuce growing in my garden right now!

[belgareth]

But I find

it troubling that kids these days threaten ligitation everytime a teacher gets bold or contraversial. The students

are hurting themselves in the end; teachers will be so scared of offending that they won't teach

ANYTHING.

Go to California and look at the school system if you want to see a perfect example of that. It

is disturbing, very badly so.

[InternationalPlayboy]

This brings to mind the Hitler-Bush connection uttered by a teacher recently at some school. The

kid was recording the class for notes, and was "offended" by the remark so he took his cassette recorder to the

local radio station and the audio was aired. I think the teacher was fired for it. If I was the father of that boy I

would have belted him. LOL, then I'd probably be imprisoned. No dicipline these days.

I'm more

of a "Situation with Tucker Carlson" and "Countdown with Keith Oberman" type of guy, but I occasionally catch Sean

Hannity on the radio while driving. When your example was in the news, a student called into Hannity's show to tell

him about his professor. Hannity encouraged him and others to tape their teachers' "anti-American" comments, after

finding out whether it's legal to tape in class, and send the recordings to him for air play.

[Netghost56]

Yeah, the boy was on Hann. &

Colmes on Fox. I sided with the other guy, who said the boy had no right to air the comments.

[Holmes]

Back in high school, one of our

best - an exceptional educator - was quietly let go because some snot-nosed brat told his daddy on the Board of

Trustees that he heard something he didn't like.

Now they're taping classes and sending them in to Hannity

for airplay?

These kids today...

[InternationalPlayboy]

I hope I didn't

give the impression that I thought a lawsuit or dismissal was warranted for this teacher's comments. In general,

she was a nice lady. I just feel that her spitting comment about the German language was in poor judgement. If I

would have made a similar comment about Spanish back then, I probably would have had my ass kicked by half the

school.

[koolking1]

I suspect that you can get

real Americans to pick lettuce for $10 an hour as opposed to $50. How much does a migrant illegal get for doing so?

I don't know but imagine it's not a whole lot. McCain should keep his opinions on American's work ethic to

himself since he has such a low opinion of them. It becomes more and more obvious every day that the powers that be

here in the USA really do not care about the average American.

Mexico is very lucky to have this escape

valve that always seems to be open.

Wonder what the powers that be would do if Haiti were next door.



Why don't we close the Mexican border and just say "hey, it was a good run while it lasted" and then just

ship in a whole bunch of Ethiopeans and Burmese - don't they need a break too?

[belgareth]

There was once a proposal to

allow the prison systems to rent out prisoners for farm labor. The system would get part of the money and the

prisoner would get part deposited in a savings account for when they were released. It was roundly defeated by

people like the United Farm Workers union and the ACLU. They felt it would be to demeaning to allow prisoners a

chance to voluntarily earn some money they would have available when they would need it.

[Mtnjim]

[3] Congress Continues to Scrutinize Warrantless Surveillance

Program
================================================== ======================

The Senate and House Judiciary

Committees recently held three hearings
in which they continued to ask questions about the National

Security
Agency's controversial warrantless surveillance program.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee

held its third hearing on the
surveillance operation, focusing on the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court and

the extent of executive power during wartime. The
committee heard testimony from four judges who have served on

the
secretive court, all of whom endorsed a bill proposed by Senator Arlen
Specter that would require the program

to be subject to the court's
oversight. Judge James Robertson, who resigned from the court shortly
after the

program became public, sent a letter to the committee
expressing support for the bill.

Also testifying was David

S. Kris, a former high-level official in the
Justice Department. Documents obtained by EPIC in March through

Freedom
of Information Act litigation revealed Kris' skepticism that the
surveillance was permitted by the

Authorization for Use of Military
Force Resolution. In one e-mail, Kris wrote that the Justice
Department's legal

arguments for the program "had a slightly
after-the-fact quality or feeling to them." During his testimony,

Kris
said that he believes the program violates the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, and voiced support for

legislation to govern the
program.

Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee also held a hearing on Senator
Russ

Feingold's resolution to censure President Bush for authorizing the
surveillance program. Members of the House

Judiciary Committee also
pressed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for answers about the program
during a Justice

Department oversight hearing on April 5.

In related news, U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy

recently
granted the Justice Department's motion for more time to process
material about the warrantless

surveillance program in a Freedom of
Information Act lawsuit pursued by EPIC, the ACLU and the National
Security

Archive. In February, Judge Kennedy ordered the agency to
process and release documents related to the program by

March 8. The
Justice Department released some unclassified material by the deadline,
but relied on classified

affidavits to press for four additional months
to process other documents. Judge Kennedy has ordered the agency

to
process some records by early May, and all other material by early July.

S. 2453, National Security

Surveillance Act of 2006:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:S.2453:

EPIC's

Domestic Surveillance FOIA page:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/nsa/foia/default.html

EPIC

Feature: Resources on Domestic Surveillance:

http://www.epic.org/features/surveillance.html

[Mtnjim]

EFF files against AT&T surveillance - <http://www.securityfocus.com/>Security Focus
The Electronic

Frontier Foundation has filed legal briefs and evidence against AT&T, claiming they are diverting Internet traffic

to the NSA for widespread secret surveillance and possibly breaking federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth

Amendment.
[Read More]: <http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/181>http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/181