Shame on Selah

Here's a proMM blogger's take, with some back and forth in the comments

Apple juice anyone?

Tree Top and China

The Big Apple

Ugly stuff. But there's more.
And even more--They've been reading Friedman.
And the whole list.

Lesson Plan Day 28, Lab

1. Quiz Monday over The Quiet Crisis and The Untouchables
   
2. Dirty Little Secrets
3. Learn How to Learn (302)
4. What does the equation CQ + PQ>IQ mean?
1. What does it mean for educators?
5. You have to like people (306) or just be interested in them.
6. Use your right brain.
7. What does all of this mean for educators? (309)
   
1. Change admissions?
2. What are threads?
8. America's secret sauce (322)
   
9. Tilt
10. Let’s try this:
1. Education in the Yakima Valley
2. Agriculture in the Yakima Valley
3. Wal Mart
4. Immigration
5. New Niche
   
6. Other
   i. Find what Friedman might say about them.
1. What are the synonyms for your topic?
2. Start with the Index
3. Try the Amazon search inside
4. ii. Get a list of quotes and page numbers.

iii. What are the sides?

iv. Where can we get information?

Minute Men Close to Home

From a Minute Men blog

Pro Minute Men site

In response to: Photos Just In: Washington State

Larry Ashby [Visitor] · http://home.earthlink.net/~info23skidoo/webdocs/todays_arrests_2005.htm

We live in "litte Mexico" AKA the Yakima Valley, Washington. Towns like Sunnyside, Mabton, Granger, Toppenish, and Wapato, WA, are 85% to 95% Mexican. A great percentage are ILLEGALS who harvest in summers but are on welfare programs all year long. These are folks who may slip over a Southwest U.S. border, but actually settle up north here. On a personal level, one can't live here and not grow to love many of them. Some, however, are mean, nasty sonsabitches who regularly have been killing among themselves and are starting to kill white folks (see http://home.earthlink.net/~info23skidoo/webdocs. Thoroughly check out this website and see the problems we're having with "Latino" crime. Those who aren't into drug dealing are hired by local agri-business corporations and large propietor-owned ag businesses. If there are any projects for which we can volunteer in Eastern Washington, please give us a heads up. We've got cameras, binoculars, cell phones and walkie-talkies---toys we can use if needed in the effort. We're also pretty good at research and reporting if that's handy.

What's the Flat Earth Worth?

---

February 19, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

China's Cyberdissidents and the Yahoos at Yahoo

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Suppose that Anne Frank had maintained an e-mail account while in hiding in 1944, and that the Nazis had asked Yahoo for cooperation in tracking her down. It seems, based on Yahoo's behavior in China, that it might have complied.

Granted, China is not remotely Nazi Germany. But when members of Congress pilloried executives of Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems at a hearing about their China operations on Wednesday, there were three important people who couldn't attend. They were Shi Tao, Li Zhi and Jiang Lijun, three Chinese cyberdissidents whom Yahoo helped send to prison for terms of 10 years, 8 years and 4 years, respectively.

Only Mr. Shi, a Chinese journalist, has gotten much attention. But Chinese court documents in each case say that Yahoo handed over information that was used to help convict them. We have no idea how many more dissidents are also in prison because of Yahoo.

It's no wonder that there's an Internet campaign to boycott Yahoo, at www.booyahoo.blogspot.com. But it's a mistake to think of all the American companies as equal sinners, for Google appears to have done nothing wrong at all. Here's my take on the four companies:

Yahoo sold its soul and is a national disgrace. It is still dissembling, and nobody should touch Yahoo until it provides financially for the families of the three men it helped lock up and establishes annual fellowships in their names to bring Web journalists to America on study programs.

Microsoft has also been cowardly, but nothing like Yahoo. Microsoft responded to a Chinese request by recently shutting down the outspoken blog of Michael Anti (who now works for the New York Times Beijing bureau). Microsoft also censors sensitive words in the Chinese version of its blog-hosting software; the blogger Rebecca MacKinnon found that it rejected as "prohibited language" the title "I Love Freedom of Speech, Human Rights and Democracy."

Cisco sells equipment to China that is used to maintain censorship controls, but as far as I can tell similar equipment is widely available, including from Chinese companies like Huawei. Cisco also enthusiastically peddles its equipment to the Chinese police. In short, Cisco in China is a bit sleazy but nothing like Yahoo.

Google strikes me as innocent of wrongdoing. True, Google has offered a censored version of its Chinese search engine, which will turn out the kind of results that the Communist Party would like (and thus will not be slowed down by filters and other impediments that now make it unattractive to Chinese users). But Google also kept its unexpurgated (and thus frustratingly slow) Chinese-language search engine available, so in effect its decision gave Chinese Web users more choices rather than fewer.

Representative Chris Smith, who called the hearing and drew the Anne Frank analogy, has introduced a bill to regulate Internet companies abroad, but that's an overreaction. For, as Mr. Anti noted in his own critique, the legislation would just push out foreign companies and leave Chinese with rigidly censored search engines like Baidu.

That said, American companies shouldn't be abjectly surrendering. Microsoft could publish a list of the political terms that it blocks as "prohibited language." Google could post a list of all the Web sites it blocks. They can push back.

In any case, the tech companies are right about a fundamental truth: the Internet is a force for change in China. There are already 110 million Internet users in China, and 13 million bloggers — hugely outnumbering the 30,000-odd censors.

China's security forces try to filter out criticisms, but they often fail. A study by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School found that China managed to block 90 percent of Web sites about the "Tiananmen massacre," 31 percent of sites about independence movements in Tibet, and 82 percent of sites with a derogatory version of the name of former President Jiang Zemin. In other words, some is stopped but a lot gets through.

So think of the Internet as a Trojan horse that will change China. Yahoo has acted disgracefully, but the bigger picture is that the Internet is taking pluralism to China — and profound change may come sooner rather than later, for unrest is stirring across the country.

It's the blogs that are closed that get attention and the cyberdissidents who are arrested who get headlines, just as in America it's the planes that crash that make the evening news. But millions of Chinese blogs and podcasts are taking off, and they are inflicting on the Communist Party the ancient punishment of "ling chi," usually translated as "death by a thousand cuts."

We're Going to Be Ok?

NYTimes Op Ed

---

February 2, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

The Nation of the Future

By DAVID BROOKS

Everywhere I go people tell me China and India are going to blow by us in the coming decades. They've got the hunger. They've got the people. They've got the future. We're a tired old power, destined to fade back to the second tier of nations, like Britain did in the 20th century.

This sentiment is everywhere — except in the evidence. The facts and figures tell a different story.

Has the United States lost its vitality? No. Americans remain the hardest working people on the face of the earth and the most productive. As William W. Lewis, the founding director of the McKinsey Global Institute, wrote, "The United States is the productivity leader in virtually every industry." And productivity rates are surging faster now than they did even in the 1990's.

Has the United States stopped investing in the future? No. The U.S. accounts for roughly 40 percent of the world's R. & D. spending. More money was invested in research and development in this country than in the other G-7 nations combined.

Is the United States becoming a less important player in the world economy? Not yet. In 1971, the U.S. economy accounted for 30.52 percent of the world's G.D.P. Since then, we've seen the rise of Japan, China, India and the Asian tigers. The U.S. now accounts for 30.74 percent of world G.D.P., a slightly higher figure.

What about the shortage of scientists and engineers? Vastly overblown. According to Duke School of Engineering researchers, the U.S. produces more engineers per capita than China or India. According to The Wall Street Journal, firms with engineering openings find themselves flooded with résumés. Unemployment rates for scientists and engineers are no lower than for other professions, and in some specialties, such as electrical engineering, they are notably higher.

Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation told The Wall Street Journal last November, "No one I know who has looked at the data with an open mind has been able to find any sign of a current shortage." The G.A.O., the RAND Corporation and many other researchers have picked apart the quickie studies that warn of a science and engineering gap. "We did not find evidence that such shortages have existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the horizon," the RAND report concluded.

What about America's lamentable education system? Well, it's true we do a mediocre job of educating people from age 0 to 18, even though we spend by far more per pupil than any other nation on earth. But we do an outstanding job of training people from ages 18 to 65.

At least 22 out of the top 30 universities in the world are American. More foreign students come to American universities now than before 9/11.

More important, the American workplace is so competitive, companies are compelled to promote lifelong learning. A U.N. report this year ranked the U.S. third in the world in ease of doing business, after New Zealand and Singapore. The U.S. has the second most competitive economy on earth, after Finland, according the latest Global Competitiveness Report. As Michael Porter of Harvard told The National Journal, "The U.S. is second to none in terms of innovation and an innovative environment."

What about partisan gridlock and our dysfunctional political system? Well, entitlement debt remains the biggest threat to the country's well-being, but in one area vital to the country's future posterity, we have reached a beneficent consensus. American liberals have given up on industrial policy, and American conservatives now embrace an aggressive federal role for basic research.

Ford and G.M. totter and almost nobody suggests using public money to prop them up. On the other hand, President Bush, reputed to be hostile to science, has increased the federal scientific research budget by 50 percent since taking office, to $137 billion annually. Senators Lamar Alexander and Jeff Bingaman have proposed excellent legislation that would double the R. & D. tax credit and create a Darpa-style lab in the Department of Energy, devoting $9 billion for scientific research and education. That bill has 60 co-sponsors, 30 Democrats and 30 Republicans.

Recent polling suggests that people in Afghanistan and Iraq are more optimistic about their nations' futures than people in the United States. That's just crazy, even given our problems with health care, growing inequality and such. America's problem over the next 50 years will not be wrestling with decline. It will be helping the frustrated individuals and nations left so far behind

The Leap from PC to TV

Amazon and TiVo teaming up.

Who Owns What?

Apple CEO says stop protecting music.
Itunes anyone?

Internet Boom in China is Built on Fun

Here's a really interesting article about the internet and China. Online currency is overtaking the real stuff. Tencent, QQ, are the new Yahoo and Google?

Quote:

While America’s Internet users send e-mail messages and surf for information on their personal computers, young people in China are playing online games, downloading video and music into their cellphones and MP3 players and entering imaginary worlds where they can swap virtual goods and assume online personas. Tencent earns the bulk of its revenue from the entertainment services it sells through the Internet and mobile phones.

Another distinguishing feature is the youthful face of China’s online community. In the United States, roughly 70 percent of Internet users are over the age of 30; in China, it is the other way around — 70 percent of users here are under 30, according to the investment bank Morgan Stanley.

Employers Ethics

A nice story about bosses and the little guy.

A bit more on Min Wage

Big quote:

There are good reasons to believe that it would take a very large rise in the current minimum wage to exact a significant toll on jobs. Raising the floor on pay to $7.25 an hour from $5.15, as Congress is considering, is unlikely to do much damage. Still, American history offers many examples of how raising the wages of low-paid workers will provide a powerful incentive for employers to eliminate their jobs.

India as Buyer

Will India buy the world?

Key quote:

With the value of overseas bids by Indian companies soaring to $21 billion last year from less than $1 billion in 2000, according to the market researcher Dealogic, an elite slice of this country is growing intoxicated by the fantasy that it may one day own the world.

Immigrant Entrepeneurs Shape a New Economy

Here's a NYTimes piece on the subject of the impact of immigrants on the booming economy, and the culture, of Queens NY.

The Budget

Here's a round up:
NYTimes from Monday.

The proposed basic budget for the Defense Department is $481.1 billion, a 62 percent increase over 2001, Mr. Bush’s first year as president, and an increase of $49 billion over what Congress provided for this fiscal year. But the figure does not include more than $93 billion in supplemental money in this fiscal year and about $145 billion in the next fiscal year for the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.

As staggering as the Pentagon figures are, they are topped by the proposed spending for the Department of Health and Human Services -- some $700 billion -- and for the Social Security Administration, about $656 billion.

Google's Moon Shot

Here's the latest from the New Yorker on Google's attempt to build the ulitmate library--every book ever published. Searchable. Let the lawsuits begin.

WiMax

Goodbye to your modem?

Here's the latest from the NYTimes on WiMax and other technology that will bring it to everybody, like water from your tap.

Lesson Plan Friday Library

1. Names for panel? Two panels? Three?

• Education? Agriculture? Management? Labor?

2. Loads of links below. Check them out. No. Really. Check them out.

3. Essays back for 830. Hand them out. Hand them in.

4. Essays back for 1030/1130 "early" next week.

5. Walker's lecture? 1030/1130?

6. Flatteners, cont.

7. Reading schedule for the weekend:

If you are using 1.0:

Jan 31^st: 47

Feb 2^rd: The Triple Convergence 173-181

Feb. 3^th: 181-200

Feb. 4^th: The Great Sorting Out 200-208

Feb 5^th: 208-222

If you are using 2.0

Feb 2^rd: The Triple Convergence 201-210

Feb. 3^th: 210-233

Feb. 4^th: The Great Sorting Out 234-242

Feb 5^th: 242-247

Almost forgot

Here's Bush on CEO pay.

Here's the Senate 's version of Minimum Wage Hike.

And, here's today's NYTimes editorial on trade policy--

February 2, 2007

Editorial

A Bipartisan Trade Policy

The newest Democratic members of Congress have arrived in Washington with an important message from the voters: American workers are feeling economically insecure, and globalization and trade are heightening their fears. The White House and the new Congress still have a chance to create a bipartisan consensus on trade. They should seize it, for the good of the American economy, and for the good of the world’s poorest nations, which need freer trade to pull themselves out of poverty.

There are some quick steps the White House and Congress should be able to agree on. To reassure workers at home, they could expand federal assistance to anyone thrown out of a job because of trade. At the same time, new tariff benefits for the least-developed countries, like Bangladesh and Cambodia, would send a positive signal to the rest of the world.

Over all, trade has been very good to the United States, which is still the world’s largest exporter of goods and services. The trade liberalization measures put in place after World War II produce now, by one estimate, an additional $1 trillion in income for Americans annually, and millions of new jobs. The inexpensive foreign goods that arrive here because of free trade keep prices down. Low prices are good for consumers, and by keeping inflation and interest rates in check, they encourage economic growth and job creation.

Still, there is no question that the hundreds of thousands of workers who lose their jobs to trade-related dislocations each year are paying the price. The government has not done enough to take care of these displaced workers, and much of the blame lies with the economic policies of the White House and the last Congress, which was led by Republicans.

Now that the Democrats control Congress, they can champion both free trade and the rights of American workers. They should push to improve the social safety net, especially access to health insurance. And they should promote increased retraining and wage assistance for displaced workers.

To win Democrats’ support, the White House will have to accept some of their demands for stronger labor provisions in future trade accords. Bans on forced labor and child labor, and similar mandates, are laudable goals. But Democrats who propose minimum-wage rules have to recognize that what is low pay for Americans may pull a family out of poverty in a less-developed country.

The administration’s proposed farm legislation looks like a decent first step toward reducing subsidies and bringing American agricultural policy into line with our trade commitments. Now, if the administration can put together a solid plan for proceeding with negotiations for the Doha round of global trade talks, Congress should renew the president’s fast-track negotiating authority. But if the global talks cannot be jump-started, the White House and Congress should move ahead with bilateral agreements with Peru, Panama and Korea.

Democrats are right to insist that the trade agenda advance the interests of all Americans, not just large corporations. But they need to acknowledge that putting the brakes on global growth is still the surest path to losing American jobs.

Minutemen at Columbia University

Some links from the this week

From Thursday: Minutemen in Selah.


From Wednesday:

Wine tourism

WTO verdict