- Jakob Lee is exceptional, a top student with a room full of academic medals to prove it. He's been accepted at UC Berkeley, no easy feat these days. But like most of the estimated 2 million undocumented minors in the United States, he's got a big problem. He doesn't know how he can afford the education he worked so hard to prepare for. He's ineligible for federal aid and most state aid. If the DREAM Act were law, Jakob's own dream might come true.
- Here are some examples showing why the work of Chris Hondros of Getty Images was so much respected. Along with Tim Hetherington, Hondros was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata Wednesday.
- The most impoverished place in America with a population over 10,000 is Kiryas Joel, N.Y., where 70 percent of the households are below the poverty line. But while the average family has six children, low incomes are common, adults without high school diplomas are the majority, fewer than 5 percent have bachelor's degree and fluent English-speakers are rare, poverty is more of a statistical anomaly, a choice, than a hard fact of life.
- Apple came out worst in How Dirty Is Your Data, a report released by Greenpeace today that examines just how green cloud computing companies are. Many are
"?perpetuating our addiction to dirty energy technologies of the last two centuries. We analysed the data centre investments of 10 top global cloud companies and our findings show a trend across the industry towards extolling the external effects of IT products and services, while failing to take seriously the need to power this widespread aggregation of the world?s information with clean, renewable electricity. demonstrated a commitment to driving investment attached to clean sources of electricity, the sector as a whole still seeks to define 'green' as being 'more efficient'. This failure to commit to clean energy in the same way energy efficiency is embraced is driving demand for dirty energy, and is holding the sector back from being truly green.
While Apple scored worst of 10 tech companies on Greenpeace's "Clean Energy Index," because of its heavy dependence on coal-fired electricity, it got C grades for transparency and mitigation strategies. By contrast, Twitter, No. 5 on the list, got Fs for both those categories as well as for infrastructure siting. Overall, Yahoo fared best in the report. But nobody got an A in any category.
- The flow of undocumented immigrants from Mexico has plummeted over the past decade, particularly the past five years. Once-deluged Border Patrol agents used to car chases and prioritizing who they went after are afflicted by an unexpected problem: boredom. Nodding off on the job from lack of action is common and "felony sleepers" bring pillows and other comforts to work.
- Sen. Scott Brown adds his name to the ransom note the Republicans are sending Democrats on the raising of the debt ceiling:
It's unclear if Brown knows what the debt ceiling is, or what his desired "reforms" might include. It's also unclear why a so-called moderate would threaten to destroy the economy as part of a hostage strategy.
But the simple senator from Massachusetts nevertheless raised a point worth watching as the debate proceeds. As we move closer to a dangerous standoff over the debt limit, Republicans aren't just talking about spending cuts. In some ways, this would be much easier if they were.
Rather, as the ransom note starts to get filled in with specifics, we're talking about structural and procedural changes. Republicans, in other words, will shoot the hostage (the economy) unless Democrats agree to make it all but impossible to make investments, not just now, but also in the future.
- Whoops, I spaced. 4/20 was yesterday. On the University of Colorado campus in Boulder, yes, that's my alma mater (Class of '69), the annual 4/20 marijuana smoke-in drew a few participants, as you can see here.
- Having been losing in its efforts to smash the drive for equal rights, the Heritage Foundation has opened up a new front in its decades-long hate campaign against gays. Unlike its earlier attempt to get anti-"sodomy" laws enforced, the focus on limiting freedom under the guise of maintaining it is "conscience rights." Gays are just the latest target of this phony scheme.
How does Heritage justify describing the removal of government barriers to a loving couple freely deciding to marry as a threat to liberty? Simple: Heritage worries that if gays are allowed to marry, florists who hate gays might face sanction if they discriminate against gay customers who want flowers for their wedding. Seriously.
But Heritage knows it's a losing argument to say it favors the rights of bigots to discriminate. So instead it disingenuously claims to be concerned with defending "individuals' right of conscience." In Heritage's telling, this means three things: Protecting the "rights" of medical professionals to refuse to provide family planning and abortion services, protecting the "rights" of Christian businesses to discriminate against non-Christians, and protecting the "right" to discriminate against gays.
- Fox Nation headlines its report on the President's Facebook Town Hall meeting: Obama Launches Sickening Class War Assault Against Republicans. You don't often get more fair and balanced than that. (h/t to News Hounds)
- Initial claims for unemployment compensation were down in the latest week, but the four-week average was up for the fourth time in five weeks. More indication of how slow job-creation is even though the recession has officially been over for 22 months.
Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/TMIoL0hnApM/-Midday-open-thread
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