Attorney General Eric Holder admitted a while back that he hasn’t read the new Arizona immigration bill that he condemns. He claims that his knowledge of the bill is based on feedback he hears from TV, news, and other public sources. He said he was expecting an actual briefing on the bill – all 16 pages of it.
That’s right, it’s 16 pages long. You can get a free download of all 16 pages here.
Holder is waiting for a team of advisers to review the law for him.
Meanwhile, proponents of the law argue that it is the same as California’s immigration law.
Several other states enforce similar immigration laws, but they haven’t drawn fire in the growing controversy over the southern border invasion.
Having weighed in heavily on the amnesty side, it would behoove Holder to get the full text of what he’s talking about even if he has to ask someone to read it to him.
Computer literacy means knowing how to use technology, and how not to.
High schoolers are texting their way to social stardom and social stupidity. “Sexting” is now a commonly used word among teens, and it has become extremely popular. Sexting is a combination of “sex” and “texting.” Teens are taking pictures of themselves nude or semi-nude and sexting them to boyfriends and girlfriends
Some of these girls don’t care where the photos show up. Others trust that their pals won’t share the photos. Many photos are extremely explicit.
Hundreds of the photos get re-sexted, or uploaded on social media websites. Most websites have restrictions against CP -short for kiddie porn- but they can’t verify ages in the late teen years. Some girls are getting embarrassed, and others are getting blackmailed.
Tech2 News reported, “The most prominent case is of Philip Albert, an 18-year-old Floridian who, after a particularly nasty break-up with his ex-girlfriend, distributed the nudie photos she texted him to more than 70 people. One of the recipients was his ex-girlfriend’s grandparents. When police busted Albert, he was sentenced to five years of probation and was obligated to register as a sex offender — a label he’ll carry for the next 25 years. The girl was never charged.
In other cases, girls have been blackmailed with the threat of exposure. Caution your literacy parents and teens about using a cell phone camera too liberally.
The 2010 Agriculture in the Classroom Conference in Baltimore Maryland runs from June 24th to June 26th. It’s a don’t-miss opportunity to see what’s available in lesson plans, nutrition education, historical studies, and a variety of topics all related to agriculture.
The hands-on gardens that many schools now have are increasing students’ understanding of nutrition, labor, vermiculture, botany, biology and a lot of other subjects. And for those with a love of reading there are plenty of gardening books to go around.
Baskin Robbins is scooping the news today with its 31-cent scoop night. The company plans to give $100,000 to charity. 
According to All Business , Baskin-Robbins and DreamWorks SKG partnered this month in support of First Book, a national non-profit organization that provides free, new books to children from low-income families. For every scoop served during its May 2 Free Scoop Night, Baskin-Robbins made a donation to First Book …”
Thank them for their support. Get your scoop at the nearest Baskin Robbins!
Financial Literacy is often the difference between good money management and debt. People paid unfair debts and double bills just to keep creditors at bay.
Financial literacy includes information on debt management, and the resolution of unfair debt. Here’s a great resource for managing unfair debt or unreasonable collection practices.
Steven Kats, AKA the “credit terrorist” schools debtors on consumer protection laws that help debtors fight debt collectors who engage in violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
In 2009, 8,287 lawsuits were filed citing violations of the act.
Wednesdays supreme court decision ruled that collectors can’t shield themselves from lawsuits by claiming that they misinterpreted the laws. This will make it easier for consumers to fight unfair debts.
Debt collectors aren’t pleased with the trend. Debt collection is not a self-regulating industry, so it’s no surprise that consumers are finding ways to fight back.
If you have received unfair debt notices, Debtsmanship.com is a good place to find information and help.
With the American Library Associations Celebration of personal freedoms coming up (May 2nd -9th), let’s take a moment to reflect upon those books that were banned.
Some of these are objectionable to some of us, but who would sell their personal freedoms to prevent something from being in print?
Here’s a list of books that have made feeble minds choose to be subjects of a state rather than citizens of a state.
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L’Engle
The Witches - Roald Dahl
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest - Ken Kesey
Our Bodies, Ourselves – Boston Women’s Health Collective
Celebrate your freedom. Read something from the banned book list this week.
Intellect has always been easy on the eyes. Maybe that’s why people don’t imagine librarians the way they imagine, well… toll booth operators. People tend to imagine sexy librarians. And they put that sexy intellect to good use: protecting your right to privacy.
In addition to telling you to “shush,” and maintaining collections, librarians are responsible for maintaining patrons’ privacy. In 2005, the FBI demanded that some librarians in Connecticut give them “any and all subscriber information they wanted.”
Librarians George Christian, Peter Chase, Janet Nocek and Barbara Bailey became the center of an FBI investigation when they fought for their patrons’ privacy and challenged the the FBI’s unconstitutional antics.
The clash has continued, with librarians everywhere stepping up efforts to protect personal
freedoms.
Join them next month when Ameria’s Libraries “Choose Privacy” campaign begins. From May 2nd to May 8th you can join the Choose Privacy celebration to protect your intellectual freedoms.
It’s no secret that your computer has a camera. But you probably don’t think it’s been used to spy on you.
Students in the Lower Marion School district in Philadelphia made the same assumption, and were wrong. The students were using school computers at home. According to the district, computers were loaded with “tracking devices” that would enable theft recovery.
The tracking devices were designed to take a snapshot every 15 minutes, and relay the photo for tracking purposes. It seems like a simple GPS feed would have been more accurate, but the district wanted pics. Why?
How many candid pics did the district get? 56,000
Roughly 38,500 of those images are believed to have been captured by 6 stolen laptops. So that leaves 17,500 candid pics of high school students taken without permission. 
The FBI has gotten involved and the case is under investigation.
This raises continued safety issues for students and responsible educators everywhere. Warn your students that their computers are visual, 2-way devices, and a cheap video camera can be as small as a flash drive.
The more we use computers to learn, the more important it becomes to protect our privacy and the privacy of those we teach.
April 22nd, is Earth Day. It’s often celebrated as Arbor Day as well, because the founder of Arbor Day, Julius Sterling Morton, was born on the 22nd. Alternately, Arbor day is celebrated on the 4th Friday in April.
It’s a great day to bring the classroom outside and add environmental literacy or agricultural literacy to your game plan.
According to recent surveys, the technology highway has changed library traffic. More than 50% of adults now visit libraries. In the past, this group was largely made up of children with parents, and retirees.
There’s a new generation at the libraries though: Generation Y, the 18 to 30 year olds. But Generation Y is there for the computers instead of the books.
The survey results indicate that computer literacy is a factor in the demographic changes. Internet users are twice as likely to go to libraries as non-internet users.
More than five years ago, some public libraries made the specific decision to become more than a community resource, and to focus on educational offerings as part of their public service plans for the future. This could result in libraries upping their technology offerings, and becoming better research and homework centers.
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