Child Translators...Bad?

There's an interesting article on the main site about the neccessity of child translators...now here's a fairly gut-wrenching account that balances out the issue.

Child Medical Translators -- At Grandpa's Bedside, Trying to Find Words for 'Defeat'

Google Bombing

Can an arsenal of non-nuclear weapons match the force of Googlebombing?

Watch What You Read

From the Washington Post:

"House and Senate negotiators reached a tentative agreement yesterday on revisions to the USA Patriot Act that would limit some of the government's powers while requiring the Justice Department to provide a better accounting of its secret requests for information on ordinary citizens.

But the agreement would leave intact some of the most controversial provisions of the anti-terrorism law, such as government access to library and bookstore records in terrorism probes, and would extend only limited new rights to the targets of such searches."

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- Jean Chen

Is this for real?

From AP:

"An experimental project in Canada to inject carbon dioxide into oil fields has proven successful, removing 5 million tons of the heat-trapping "greenhouse" gas, while enhancing oil recovery, the Energy Department said Tuesday."

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Civil Rights Shift

From the Washington Post:

"The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the nation's anti-discrimination laws for nearly half a century, is in the midst of an upheaval that has driven away dozens of veteran lawyers and has damaged morale for many of those who remain, according to former and current career employees.

Nearly 20 percent of the division's lawyers left in fiscal 2005, in part because of a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at pushing out those who did not share the administration's conservative views on civil rights laws. Longtime litigators complain that political appointees have cut them out of hiring and major policy decisions, including approvals of controversial GOP redistricting plans in Mississippi and Texas.

At the same time, prosecutions for the kinds of racial and gender discrimination crimes traditionally handled by the division have declined 40 percent over the past five years, according to department statistics. Dozens of lawyers find themselves handling appeals of deportation orders and other immigration matters instead of civil rights cases.

The division has also come under criticism from the courts and some Democratsfor its decision in August to approve a Georgia program requiring voters to present government-issued identification cards at the polls. The program was halted by an appellate court panel and a district court judge, who likened it to a poll tax from the Jim Crow era."

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- Jean Chen

Hoax

There's an interesting article in the NYTimes about evangelical christians who are combating global warming. But this part of the article is frightening:

"A major obstacle to any measure that would address global warming is Senator James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and an evangelical himself, but a skeptic of climate change caused by human activities.

Mr. Inhofe has led efforts to keep mandatory controls on greenhouse gases out of any emission reduction bill considered by his committee and has called human activities contributing to global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

What kind of crazy person thinks that global warming is a hoax? I can't believe this man is the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

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- Jean Chen

Flandemic

I saw this in The Onion and it made me laugh out loud:

New Custard Could Cause Worldwide Flandemic
November 2, 2005 | Issue 41•44

ATLANTA—A recently discovered strain of custard could cause a worldwide flandemic, Centers For Dessert Control warned Monday. "We are warning people who come into contact with milk, egg yolks, sugar, and whole vanilla beans that they are at risk of concocting this custard," CDC director Paul Liddleston said. "All reports indicate that it is extremely non-resistible." Liddleston said the government's present reserve of dried tapioca is "useless" in combating a flandemic, and until a more effective vaccine is created, "the proof will be in the putting of containment teams in high-risk areas."

- Jean Chen

Long Way to Go

This is why I can't fully mourn the death of Rosa Parks. From the Washington Post:

Before he enters a crosswalk outside his downtown law office, Johnnie Bond scans the cars stopped before him. Is there a white woman alone? Will he hear it this time?

Click.

Such a tiny sound.

Click.

Like a pistol cocking.

Click.

The sound of a car door locking when a black man approaches.

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- Jean Chen