Sunday, November 06, 2005

Roland notes: "I want to..." or "I need to" or "How do I?" According to the author, Phil Bradley, "these are all questions we all ask all the time. This is a small collection of resources that will help to answer those questions. It is not complete, nor will it ever be. I will be adding to this on a regular basis, so feel free to bookmark it and come back and visit." Source: Phil Bradley, last version dated November 6, 2005 11:19:11 PM    comment []

Saying Goodbye California Sun, Hello Midwest. A growing number of people are leaving California after a decade of soaring home prices, according to separate data from several agencies. By MOTOKO RICH and DAVID LEONHARDT. [NYT > Business] 11:17:10 PM    comment []

Phil G with an idea: Radcliffe Southwestern Pre-Professional College for Women of Color. Some friends were discussing Radcliffe College the other day.  When Harvard College, its sibling institution within Harvard University, decided to accept female students, the school was left with a huge endowment and no students.  The bureaucrats running Radcliffe responded by running a fellowship program for female scholars, nearly all of whom were older than college age and working on obscure academic subjects.  Radcliffe faded into oblivion and eventually most of their endowment was stolen by the larger university. Could they have done something different with their hundreds of millions of dollars? My idea was that they should have aggressively shucked off their reputation as a snobby northeastern school for rich girls, but kept their mission of educating women aged 18-22.  The growth in U.S. population is happening mostly in the Southwest so the new Radcliffe would be there, perhaps in Phoenix, Santa Fe, or Los Angeles.  To ensure that the graduates took up powerful places in society, the school would have only three majors:  Pre-Med, Pre-Law, 5-year MBA.  To make sure that the press and the public would recognize the new demographic, the school would accept only "women of color".  No white or Asian-American students would be permitted to apply. The new school would have been called "Radcliffe Southwestern Pre-Professional College for Women of Color".  Compare to what they are actually doing these days: http://www.radcliffe.edu/ . [Philip Greenspun Weblog] 11:15:36 PM    comment []

Your Life Under Secret Microscope. Washington Post: The FBI's Secret Scrutiny. The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans. Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot. The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined. This is how tyranny gets its legs: A secrecy-manic administration that is absolutely contemptuous of individual rights -- except the right to buy guns and pollute the environment, among other things -- and assisted by a Congress that doesn't even want to know what is happening. I'm afraid for the future of liberty. We live in a nation that is tossing it overboard, one horrible law at a time. But I'm grateful that the Post and a few other news organizations, after being so afraid to speak after 9/11, are starting to do their jobs. We are in deep trouble in so many ways. A nation founded on liberty requires a vibrant press, and maybe, just maybe, it's coming back. [Dan Gillmor's blog] 11:15:04 PM    comment []

From Benton Headlines: US-BACKED ARAB TV NETWORK TO BE INVESTIGATED [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Guy Dinmore] Al-Hurra, the Arabic language satellite television network set up by the US administration to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East, is to be investigated for possible irregularities, the state department confirmed on Thursday. The Broadcasting Board of Governors, a federal agency, has asked the state department's inspector general to investigate. The House of Representatives subcommittee on oversight and investigations is also looking into al-Hurra, which started broadcasting in February 2004. A hearing has been set for November 10 with Kenneth Tomlinson, BBG chairman, and Mouafac Harb, the news director of al-Hurra, called as witnesses. The channel by the BBG and has a budget from Congress of $49 million for 2005 and is intended to balance an anti-American bias in Arab media. 6:55:21 AM    comment []