Flexible Reality
Saturday, February 21, 2004
The Outsourcing Game
From: Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education: March 1997"While the continuing expansion of international trade has the potential to confer substantial long-term benefits on American companies and workers, it also presents certain challenges. As trade barriers fall and cross-border transaction volume increases, our children will find themselves competing more directly with the citizens of other countries to provide goods and services within the world marketplace. Indeed, the effects of international competition have already become evident in the (permanent or temporary) loss of U.S. market share to European and Asian economic competitors within certain industries and in competition-induced productivity improvements which, while beneficial in the long term, have been accompanied in some cases by "corporate downsizing" and economic insecurity on the part of American workers. "
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The 2000 U.S. Census indicated that 37% of Hispanics, 43% of African Americans, and 77% of Whites have access to computers in their homes.
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And What About The Teachers?
Although almost 30% of school leaders believe that at least one in five students soon will receive a substantial portion of their instruction over the Internet, about 80% of district leaders report that the primary instructional use of the Internet is for research, including teachers’ research for their lessons. Internet use for students in subject areas is primarily for history/social studies (76%) and science (58%).
“More than half of school leaders report that students are providing technical support in their districts,“ often assuming major responsibilities for troubleshooting hardware, software, and infrastructure problems and for technical maintenance.
“There is significant variation in perception of new teacher competence with technology integration, depending on district size. Overall, 43% of district leaders rate new teachers as only “average” in competence to integrate technology with instruction. School leaders from smaller districts rate 35 percent of their new teachers expert in contrast to school leaders from larger districts who rate only 18 percent of their new teachers expert in technology integration with instruction.
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More College Students Drop Out Than Graduate By Leslie Gevirtz
BOSTON (Reuters)8/15/01 - Fewer than half of U.S. college students make it to graduation, which means that Americans have a better chance of getting an accurate weather report than they have of getting a university degree.
Less than 50 percent of students entering four-year colleges or universities actually graduate, Council for Aid to Education (CAE) researchers said in a report. ''And that's a conservative estimate,'' said Richard Hersh who co-authored the report on the quality of higher education for the National Governors Association.
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Some Stats:
90% - Of All Children Aged 5 -17 Using Computers Regularly
84% - Adults 25 Yrs + Who Graduated from High School
80% - Of Total Population Lives in Urban Areas
77% - Of White Population with Access to Computer at Home
60% - Of All College Students are Female
62% - Total Employment/Total Population Ratio
56% - Of Total Population Are Married
54% - Of Total Population Using the Internet Regularly
47% - Of 2005 US Budget Classed as Discretionary Spending
47% - Of the Nations Wealth Owned by Top 1% of the Population
46% - US Population "Unchurched"
45% - Percent of Population Using Email
32% - Of Total Employment is Classified as Blue Collar
26% - Of Total Adult Population with at Least A Bachelor's Degree
25% - Of Households are Single Persons
21% - Of Total Population Over 65 Years Old
13% - Portion of All US Businesses With More Than One Employee
11% - African American Portion of Total Population
12% - Hispanic Portion of Total Population
11% - Portion Of Total Pop Living in Poverty
10% - Foreign Born Portion of Total US Population
6% - Portion of All Adults with at Least A Master's Degree
2% - Corporate Taxes as Percent of GDP
1% - Portion of All Adults with a Professional Degree (Law or Medicine)
0.2% - Percent of All US Businesses with More than 500 Employees
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I.B.M. Explores Shift of White-Collar Jobs Overseas
Tuscaloosa News
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
July 22, 2003
With American corporations under increasing pressure to cut costs and build global supply networks, two senior I.B.M. officials told their corporate colleagues around the world in a recorded conference call that I.B.M. needed to accelerate its efforts to move white-collar, often high-paying, jobs overseas even though that might create a backlash among politicians and its own employees.
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U.S. jobs jumping ship
Cheap overseas labor is not just for manufacturers any more -- is your job headed offshore too?
January 19, 2004: 2:20 PM EST
By Mark Gongloff, CNN/Money Staff Writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - As painful as the labor market has been lately, what's even more painful is that many of the 2.5 million jobs lost in the past few years are never coming back. That's because U.S. employers in a wide range of industries are moving more and more jobs overseas.
That may be old news for manufacturers, who have been cutting jobs and moving them offshore for decades, but it's starting to gather steam in services, especially information technology, formerly one of America's best-paying industries.
"By 2004, more than 80 percent of U.S. executive boardrooms will have discussed offshore sourcing, and more than 40 percent of U.S. enterprises will have completed some type of pilot or will be sourcing IT (information technology) services," Gartner Inc. (IT: Research, Estimates), a technology consulting firm, said in a study late last year.
In fact, some of the biggest firms in the United States have been seriously discussing outsourcing recently. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that officials at IBM (IBM: Research, Estimates), the world's biggest computer maker, discussed saving about $168 million beginning in 2006 by moving thousands of programming jobs overseas, according to internal documents the paper obtained. An IBM spokesman wouldn't comment on the documents, according to the journal, but acknowledged IBM plans to move about 3,000 U.S. jobs overseas this year.
In July, a labor group called the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers published on its Web site a link to a Power Point presentation given by Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates) Senior Vice President Brian Valentine on July 2, entitled "Thinking About India." In the presentation, Valentine cites all the advantages to moving operations to India, including the chance to "leverage the Indian economy's lower cost structure," where a company can get "two heads for the price of one."
Valentine's presentation said several firms -- including Cisco (CSCO: Research, Estimates), General Electric (GE: Research, Estimates) and Dell Computer (DELL: Research, Estimates) -- already "have this religion" and that it was "time for Microsoft to join the party." Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake told CNN/Money Valentine's presentation was simply an effort to encourage employees "to think globally and explore ways to improve our customer reach."
"We will continue to have the majority of our core development work in the United States," Drake said.
A developing taste for offshore labor
U.S. businesses, battered by the recent three-year bear market in stocks and an economy struggling to find its footing, have already developed a taste for super-cheap labor in developing countries, where workers are increasingly better-trained -- especially if they've spent significant time working in the United States on temporary visas.
A February survey of 145 U.S. companies by consultant Forrester Research found that 88 percent of the firms that look overseas for services claimed to get better value for their money offshore while 71 percent said offshore workers did better quality work.
That's news that can't stay quiet for long, and companies like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ: Research, Estimates), Intel (INTC: Research, Estimates) and CNN/Money parent company AOL Time Warner (AOL: Research, Estimates) already are responding.
"Over the next 15 years, 3.3 million U.S. service industry jobs and $136 billion in wages will move offshore to countries like India, Russia, China and the Philippines," Forrester analyst John McCarthy predicted in a 2002 report. "The IT industry will lead the initial overseas exodus."
How will it affect the economy?
Though Gartner has said the impact of overseas outsourcing could be "significant," many economists doubt the trend is big enough yet to disrupt the broader U.S. economy. Imports of business services account for less than 1/20 of 1 percent of gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economy. The nation's unemployment numbers are a lot worse than you think. CNNfn's Kathleen Hays takes a look at the grey zone in a very grim labor market.
But economists are starting to take note. "If it's not a big story yet, it could become one," said Josh Bivens, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that focuses on labor issues.
At the least, it's not doing much to end the longest U.S. labor-market slump since World War II. More than 9.3 million people are unemployed, giving employed workers less leverage when seeking a raise. As a result, wage and salary growth has begun to slow, threatening consumer spending, which fuels more than two-thirds of the economy.
IT workers feel the pain
In few areas has the competition for jobs had a bigger impact on wage growth than in the IT industry. In the 1990s, it seemed all one had to do to buy a ticket to Easy Street was learn a programming language or how to manage corporate computer networks. Those days are gone, with unemployment rising, IT spending in a slump and software services moving offshore.
What's more, some IT professionals and immigrant groups complain that U.S. employers manipulate H-1B and L1 visas, which let college-educated people from overseas work in the United States temporarily. They're supposed to be paid a "prevailing wage," but many employers pay them as little as possible. With such cheap labor available right here in the United States, there's even less reason for IT wages to rise.
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Note: If the US is going to promote the ideas of universal free trade, a global economy, unrestricted maximazation of shareholder stock value, and a market based value on all goods and services it cannot exempt certain industries or classes of workers without creating resentment.
However, the US Government certainly can, and should, regulate the excesses of these processes for the benefit of all it's citizens, not just the IT domain.That is one of it's primary roles; but it should not be done a la "Steel Tariffs", rather it could be incorporated into the Sarbanes/Oxley law since the majority of such excesses occur with large corporations.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
California Finances
The previous Democratic Governor of California presided over the initiation of a $10B bond issue to carry the State through 2003; but it was challenged in court, and never took effect. The current Governor, Republican Arnold Schwatzeneggar, is now on the stump encouranging a $15B bond issue to provide financing for California's budget deficit. As of November 2003, the state had about $36 billion of General Fund bond debt outstanding. General Fund State spending five years ago was in the $52B range, while the 2004 General Fund spending is anticipated to be $90B. Pump Up Indeed !!Science & The Bush Administration
Scientists Say Administration Distorts FactsBy JAMES GLANZ
NY Times
Published: February 19, 2004
More than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement yesterday asserting that the Bush administration had systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad.
The sweeping accusations were later discussed in a conference call organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization that focuses on technical issues and has often taken stands at odds with administration policy. On Wednesday, the organization also issued a 38-page report detailing its accusations.
The two documents accuse the administration of repeatedly censoring and suppressing reports by its own scientists, stacking advisory committees with unqualified political appointees, disbanding government panels that provide unwanted advice and refusing to seek any independent scientific expertise in some cases.
"Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systemically nor on so wide a front," the statement from the scientists said, adding that they believed the administration had "misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies."
Dr. Kurt Gottfried, an emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University who signed the statement and spoke during the conference call, said the administration had "engaged in practices that are in conflict with spirit of science and the scientific method." Dr. Gottfried, who is also chairman of the board of directors at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the administration had a "cavalier attitude towards science" that could place at risk the basis for the nation's long-term prosperity, health and military prowess.
Dr. John H. Marburger III, science adviser to President Bush and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, said it was important to listen to "the distinguished scientific leadership in this country." But he said the report consisted of a largely disconnected list of events that did not make the case for a suppression of good scientific advice by the administration.
"I think there are incidents where people have got their feathers ruffled," Dr. Marburger said. "But I don't think they add up to a big pattern of disrespect."
"In most cases," he added, "these are not profound actions that were taken as the result of a policy. They are individual actions that are part of the normal processes within the agencies."
The science adviser to Mr. Bush's father, Dr. D. Allan Bromley, went further. "You know perfectly well that it is very clearly a politically motivated statement," said Dr. Bromley, a physicist at Yale. "The statements that are there are broad sweeping generalizations for which there is very little detailed backup."
The scientists denied that they had political motives in releasing the documents as the 2004 presidential race began to take clear shape. The report, Dr. Gottfried said, had taken a year to prepare, much longer than originally planned, and was released as soon as it was ready.
"I don't see it as a partisan issue at all," said Russell Train, who spoke during the call and served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. "If it becomes that way I think it's because the White House chooses to make it a partisan issue."
The letter was signed by luminaries from an array of disciplines. Among the Nobel winners are David Baltimore and Harold Varmus, both biomedical researchers, and Leon M. Lederman, Norman F. Ramsey and Steven Weinberg, who are physicists. The full list of signatories and the union's report can be found at www.ucsusa.org.
Aside from some new interviews with current and former government scientists, some identified in the report and others quoted anonymously, most of the information in the documents had been reported previously by a variety of major newspapers, magazines, scientific journals and nongovernmental organizations.
According to the report, the Bush administration has misrepresented scientific consensus on global warming, censored at least one report on climate change, manipulated scientific findings on the emissions of mercury from power plants and suppressed information on condom use.
The report asserts that the administration also allowed industries with conflicts of interest to influence technical advisory committees, disbanded for political reasons one panel on arms control and subjected other prospective members of scientific panels to political litmus tests.
Dr. Marburger said he was unconvinced by the report's description of those incidents. "I don't think it makes the case for the sweeping accusations that it makes," he said.
But Dr. Sidney Drell, an emeritus professor of physics at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who was not a signatory to the statement, said the overall findings rang true to him.
"I am concerned that the scientific advice coming into this administration seems to me very narrow," said Dr. Drell, who has advised the government on issues of national security for some 40 years and has served in Democratic and Republican administrations, including those of Presidents Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson. "The input from individuals whose views are not in the main line of their policy don't seem to be sought or welcomed," he said.
Another source for related concerns about the Bush Administration's manipulation of scientific information is The National Academies who wrote in their report:
"Another hurdle facing CCSP, according to the committee, is ensuring the scientific independence and credibility of its research efforts. The presence of high-level political leaders in CCSP management should help the program secure resources, but it also may lead to a real or perceived political influence that could discredit the program. To prevent this, CCSP should seek independent oversight, preferably by a standing advisory body. CCSP reports also should be reviewed by the wider scientific community and stakeholders such as government decision-makers, nongovernmental organizations, private industry, and other users of climate science. The committee noted that CCSP has already set a high standard for government research programs by seeking advice not only from the Research Council but also from many other outside scientists and stakeholders."
Investigating the State of Science under the Bush Administration
Today's NPR episode had a section on the manipulation of scientific information by the Bush Administration The source of many of the accusations come from the report of a House Committee which was presented to Rep. Henry Waxman. It included a section on the distortion of public information, the manipulation of scientific committees, and interference with scientific research.Others groups have stated: "Bush Administration has manipulated scientific research and invades areas once immune to this kind of manipulation"
Science Magazine had an article entitled: "Researchers Rip Bush on Science" which contained many of the same concerns echoed in the Waxman Report.
Then came the following from Reuters today:
Bush Administration 'Distorts Science' -Report
Wed Feb 18, 4:57 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top scientists and environmentalists on Wednesday accused the Bush administration of suppressing and distorting scientific findings that run counter to its own policies. They backed a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists that said the administration had suppressed research on global warming, air quality, sexual health, cancer and other issues.
The report said there had been a systematic effort to manipulate the government's supposedly independent scientific advisory system "to prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration's political agenda." "We are not ... taking issue with the administration's policies. We are taking issue with the administration's distortion of the process with which science enters into its decisions," Dr. Kurt Gottfried, a professor of physics at Cornell University and chairman of the UCS, told reporters.
Russell Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) under former Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said that during his tenure "I do not recall ever receiving a suggestion, let alone an order, from the White House as to how I should make a regulatory decision."
"How times have changed," Train added. Neal Lane of Rice University in Houston and former science adviser to ex-president Bill Clinton (news - web sites) said scientific findings were being kept from decision-makers. "I am afraid that our leading policymakers simply don't know what they don't know given the manipulation of the science advice process," Lane told reporters.
WHITE HOUSE DENIAL
The White House denied the accusations.
"I can assure you that this is an administration that makes decisions based on the best available science," President Bush's spokesman Scott McClellan said. "I just don't think these incidents or issues add up to strong support for the accusation that this administration is deliberately acting to undermine the processes of science," John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told reporters in a conference call.
Marburger noted that the group making the complaints included esteemed scientists and said the government obviously needed to do a better job of communicating its policies. The UCS reviewed long-standing complaints that the federal government had deliberately disregarded a worldwide consensus that human industrial activity is to blame for much of the steady warming of the planet's climate over the past century.
It also cited what it called the suppression of an EPA study that found the bipartisan Senate Clear Air Bill would do more to reduce mercury contamination in fish and would prevent more deaths than the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act would.
"This is akin to the White House directing the National Weather Service to alter a hurricane forecast because they want everyone to think we have clear skies ahead," said UCS president Kevin Knobloch.
Public health groups have long complained that the White House changed advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to support the administration's abstinence-only sex education policy. They have said it removed from the CDC's Web site a CDC fact sheet on condom use. "I don't know anything about that," Marburger said.
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The Union of Concerned Scientists Website has this action letter:
"I am writing to urge you to halt the Bush administration’s abuse of science, which threatens our health, environment, and national security.
The United States has an impressive history of investing in the capabilities of scientists, and respecting their independence. This legacy has brought us sustained economic progress, science-based public health policy, and unequaled scientific leadership within the global community.
More than 60 leading scientists—including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors, and university chairs and presidents—recently issued a statement charging that the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies and taken actions that have undermined the integrity of scientific advisory panels.
Rather than manipulate the scientific process to forward policies that threaten our health, environment, and national security, the administration should restore the integrity of science in federal policymaking. Please urge your colleagues on congressional science committees to take up this serious issue. I look forward to your response.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Daly Goes Up, Down and Back Up Again
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 17, 2004
SAN DIEGO, Feb. 16 (AP) — John Daly always seems to show up when no one expects him.
Daly resurrected his career again Sunday in the Buick Invitational, winning a full-field tournament on United States soil for the first time in 10 years and capturing his first PGA Tour event since the 1995 British Open.
He won $864,000 — more than he earned the last two years combined — and is No. 6 on the money list. "A lot of good things can happen out of it," Daly said after his playoff victory over Chris Riley and Luke Donald. "Hopefully, I can just stay consistent and stay positive, and hopefully do it again." But whenever Daly gets on track, a train wreck is waiting to happen. By now, his troubles are well known.
Three former wives. Drinking binges that led him to alcohol rehab twice. Trashed hotel rooms. Forty-three rounds with scores in the 80's, and more missed cuts than cashed checks. But he always bounces back, which is one reason he has become so beloved among galleries. The gallery sounded as if it belonged at the Daytona 500, not the prim and proper PGA Tour, as they chased Daly around the South course. "One guy said, `Put the cows in the barn,' " Daly said Saturday. "I'm from Arkansas, and I'm still not sure what that means. I knew it was a compliment, so it was kind of cool."
70 Million - Year - Old Bird Fossil Found
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 17, 2004
CLUJ, Romania (AP) -- Scientists have unearthed the skeleton of a prehistoric bird and the remains of its eggs dating back more than 70 million years, in western Romania, a paleontologist said Tuesday. Professor Vlad Codrea, who is considered to be Romania's top paleontologist, said the enantiornithine is the country's oldest bird fossil. The size of a blackbird, it is believed to be between 70 and 72 million years old, he said.
"The discovery is extremely important,'' Codrea said. "Due to the fragility of the bird skeleton and especially the fragility of the eggs, discoveries like these are very rare.'' He said the discovery was made recently near the city of Hateg, about 220 miles northwest of the capital. It was the third major discovery for Codrea, who is a professor at the University of Babes-Bolyai in Cluj.
Last year in Transylvania, he unearthed two fossils of rhabdodon robustus -- small dinosaurs with birdlike feet. Three years ago, he found an ancient relative of the crocodile and eight nests of petrified dinosaur eggs. French and Belgian science and history museums helped finance his research.
Beyond Delicious: Could Chocolate Also Be Good for You?
By ELIZABETH OLSON
NY Times
Published: February 17, 2004
That Valentine's box of delectable chocolates that made your heart sing last weekend also might — if it is the right type — help make it tick better and longer, scientists gathered last week in Washington said.
Raw cocoa contains flavonoids, plant-based compounds with protective antioxidants like those in green tea. The antioxidants, which may help decrease blood pressure and improve circulation, according to preliminary study results released at a daylong session centered on the medical uses and developmental potential of the cocoa tree. As far back as the Mayas, the South American native tree, formally called the Theobroma cacao, inspired songs praising the liquid, which they called the "food of the gods." The ancient inhabitants produced it from the beans of the tree's football-size pods.
Judging by samples of their pepper-laced version — the ancient recipe was reproduced for sessiongoers to sample — the fiery cocoa they brewed was strong enough to jolt the drinker into good health. And for centuries, people followed the Maya and Aztec prescriptions and consumed cocoa, the ground beans of the cacao, for an array of ills.
People believed it would calm their nerves, shrink their hemorrhoids, ease their hangovers, relieve their tuberculosis symptoms and help them lose weight, said Dr. Louis E. Grivetti, a professor in the nutrition department at the University of California at Davis, who spoke at the session.
The seminar was held by the National Academy of Sciences, and its sponsors included the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health, the University of California, the Smithsonian and the chocolate company Mars.
Though chocolate's popularity as a favored sweet trumped its medicinal uses beginning in the mid-19th century, scientists turned again to investigating its health benefits more than a decade ago, financed partly by Mars, which is privately held. So far, researchers have begun to connect flavonoids with lowering the death rate from heart disease, said Dr. Helmut Sies, chairman of the biochemistry department at the University of Düsseldorf in Germany.
The heart benefits of chocolate consumption are far from confirmed. In-depth comparative studies still need to be conducted to learn whether certain elements of cocoa act like baby aspirin for the heart. And some experts point out that the fat in chocolate could instead be associated with deadly cardiovascular and kidney diseases.
Dr. Norman K. Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, investigated the Kuna Indians of the San Blas islands of Panama to examine the connection between cocoa consumption and blood pressure.
The Indians have a high-salt diet but normal blood pressure, he said, and they consume locally grown cocoa at every meal. His study tracked some Kuna Indians to the city, where they started drinking commercially ground cocoa. Then, he said, their blood pressure readings tended to rise.
While presenting the results of his research, published in the December 2003 issue of the Journal of Hypertension, Dr. Hollenberg cited a second study showing that cocoa rich in flavonoids could help increase blood flow in the brain and in the hands and legs.
The study, financed by National Institutes of Health grants and by Mars, involved 27 healthy people ages 18 to 72. Each consumed a cocoa beverage containing 900 milligrams of flavonols (a class of flavonoids) daily for five days. Using a finger cuff, blood flow was measured on the first and fifth days of the study.
After five days, researchers measured what they called "significant improvement" in blood flow and the function of the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels.
Dr. Hollenberg's research indicates, preliminarily, that consuming high-flavonol cocoa helps regulate the synthesis of nitric oxide, a compound in the body that helps it maintain blood pressure and blood flow in the endothelial cells. The flavonols may also help vessels dilate and help keep platelets from clustering on the blood vessel walls.
Monday, February 16, 2004
The Five Sisters
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
NY Times
Published: February 16, 2004
WASHINGTON — If one huge corporation controlled both the production and the dissemination of most of our news and entertainment, couldn't it rule the world?
Can't happen here, you say; America is the land of competition that generates new technology to ensure a diversity of voices. But consider how a supine Congress and a feckless majority of the Federal Communications Commission have been failing to protect our access to a variety of news, views and entertainment.
The media giant known as Viacom-CBS-MTV just showed us how it controls both content and communication of the sexiest Super Bowl. The five other big sisters that now bestride the world are (1) Murdoch-FoxTV-HarperCollins-WeeklyStandard-NewYorkPost-LondonTimes-DirecTV; (2) G.E.-NBC-Universal-Vivendi; (3) Time-Warner-CNN-AOL; (4) Disney-ABC-ESPN; and (5) the biggest cable company, Comcast.
As predicted here in an "Office Pool" over two years ago, Comcast has just bid to take over Disney (Ed Bleier, then of Warner Bros., was my prescient source). If the $50 billion deal is successful, the six giants would shrink to five, with Disney-Comcast becoming the biggest.
Would Rupert Murdoch stand for being merely No. 2? Not on your life. He would take over a competitor, perhaps the Time-Warner-CNN-AOL combine, making him biggest again. Meanwhile, cash-rich Microsoft — which already owns 7 percent of Comcast and is a partner of G.E.'s MSNBC — would swallow both Disney-ABC and G.E.-NBC. Then there would be three, on the way to one.
You say the U.S. government would never allow that? The Horatius lollygagging at the bridge is the F.C.C.'s Michael Powell, who never met a merger he didn't like. Cowering next to him is General Roundheels at the Bush Justice Department's Pro-Trust Division, which last year waved through Murdoch's takeover of DirecTV. (Joel Klein, Last of the Trustbusters, now teaches school in New York.)
But what of the Senate, guardian of free speech? There was Powell last week before Chairman John McCain's Commerce Committee, currying favor with cultural conservatives by pretending to be outraged over Janet Jackson's "costume reveal." The F.C.C. chairman, looking stern, pledged "ruthless and rigorous scrutiny" of any Comcast bid to merge Disney-ABC-ESPN into a huge DisCast. Media giants — always willing to agree to cosmetic "restrictions" on their way to amalgamation — chuckled at the notion of a "ruthless Mike."
McCain's plaintive question to Powell — "Where will it all end?" — is too little, too late. This senatorial apostle of deregulation, who last week called the world's attention to the media concentration that helps subvert democracy in Russia, has been blind to the danger of headlong concentration of media power in America.
The benumbing euphemism for the newly permitted top-to-bottom information and entertainment control is "vertical integration." In Philadelphia, Comcast not only owns the hometown basketball team, but owns its stadium, owns the cable sports channel televising the games as well as owning the line that brings the signal into Philadelphians' houses. Soon: ESPN, too. Go compete against, or argue with, that head-to-toe control — and then apply that chilling form of integration to cultural events and ultimately to news coverage.
The reason given by giants to merge with other giants is to compete more efficiently with other enlarging conglomerates. The growing danger, however, is that media giants are becoming fewer as they get bigger. The assurance given is "look at those independent Internet Web sites that compete with us" — but all the largest Web sites are owned by the giants.
How are the media covering their contraction? (I still construe the word "media" as plural in hopes that McCain will get off his duff and Bush will awaken.) Much of the coverage is "gee-whiz, which personality will be top dog, which investors will profit and which giant will go bust?"
But the message in this latest potential merger is not about a clash of media megalomaniacs, nor about a conspiracy driven by "special interests." The issue is this: As technology changes, how do we better protect the competition that keeps us free and different?
You don't have to be a populist to want to stop this rush by ever-fewer entities to dominate both the content and the conduit of what we see and hear and write and say.
The Health of Nations
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times
Published: February 17, 2004
The Economic Report of the President, released last week, has drawn criticism on several fronts. Let me open a new one: the report's discussion of health care, which shows a remarkable indifference to the concerns of ordinary Americans — and suggests a major political opening for the Democrats.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 82 percent of Americans rank health care among their top issues. People are happy with the quality of health care, if they can afford it, but they're afraid that they might not be able to afford it. Unlike other wealthy countries, America doesn't have universal health insurance, and it's all too easy to fall through the cracks in our system. When I saw that the president's economic report devoted a whole chapter to health care, I assumed that it would make some attempt to address these public concerns.
Instead, the report pooh-poohs the problem. Although more than 40 million people lack health insurance, this doesn't matter too much because "the uninsured are a diverse and perpetually changing group." This is good news? At any given time about one in seven Americans is uninsured, which is bad enough. Because the uninsured are a "perpetually changing group," however, a much larger fraction of the population suffers periodic, terrifying spells of being uninsured, and an even larger fraction lives with the fear of losing insurance if anything goes wrong at work or at home.
The report also seems to have missed the point of health insurance. It argues that it would be a good thing if insurance companies had more information about the health prospects of clients so "policies could be tailored to different types and priced accordingly." So if insurance companies develop a new way to identify people who are likely to have kidney problems later in life, and use this information to deny such people policies that cover dialysis, that's a positive step?
Having brushed off the plight of those who, for economic or health reasons, cannot get insurance, the report turns to a criticism of health insurance in general, which it blames for excessive health care spending.
Is this really the crucial issue? It's true that the U.S. spends far more on health care than any other country, but this wouldn't be a bad thing if the spending got results. The real question is why, despite all that spending, many Americans aren't assured of the health care they need, and American life expectancy is near the bottom for advanced countries.
Where is the money going? A lot of it goes to overhead. A recent study found that private insurance companies spend 11.7 cents of every health care dollar on administrative costs, mainly advertising and underwriting, compared with 3.6 cents for Medicare and 1.3 cents for Canada's government-run system. Also, our system is very generous to drug companies and other medical suppliers, because — unlike other countries' systems — it doesn't bargain for lower prices.
The result is that American health care, which at its best is the best in the world, offers much of the population a worst-of-all-worlds combination of insecurity and high costs. And that combination is getting worse: insurance premiums are rising, and companies are becoming increasingly unwilling to offer insurance to their employees.
What would an answer to the growing health care crisis look like? It would surely involve extending coverage to those now uninsured. To keep costs down, it would crack down both on drug prices and on administrative costs. And it might well cut private insurance companies out of the loop for some, if not all, coverage.
But the administration can't offer such an answer, both because of its ideological blinders and because of its special interest ties. The Economic Report of the President has only negative things to say about efforts to hold down drug prices. It talks at length about insurance reform, but it mainly complains that we rely too much on insurance; it says nothing about either expanding coverage or reducing insurance-company overhead. Its main concrete policy suggestion is a plan for tax-deductible health savings accounts, which would be worth little or nothing to a vast majority of the uninsured.
Booze tests reveal all about your drinking
New Scientist.com Website
19:00 11 February 04
If you tend to be a little less than honest when your doctor asks you how much you drink, beware. A battery of new tests on blood, urine and hair can reveal how much someone has drunk not only in the past days, but also in the past weeks and months.
Doctors are likely to be the first to employ some or all of the new tests, to monitor patients with alcohol problems. But they are also likely to attract the interest of employers, insurance companies and forensic scientists. Airlines could, for instance, identify pilots who are heavy drinkers by testing their hair. A urine test might allow police to prove many hours or even days after an accident that someone had been drinking.
Used together, the set of tests could provide a comprehensive picture of someone's drinking habits, revealing when they had last been drinking and whether they are heavy or light drinkers. "It covers the whole time spectrum following alcohol consumption," says Friedrich Wurst of the University of Basel in Switzerland, head of one of the multinational teams developing and validating the tests.
Indirect evidence
Alcohol itself vanishes from the body within hours. After this point there are a number of existing methods of telling whether someone has been drinking, but almost all of them rely on indirect evidence, such as levels of liver enzymes in the blood. Because other toxins or even pregnancy can cause similar changes, none of these tests is very reliable.
In the past decade, however, various groups worldwide have been studying breakdown products unique to alcohol. One of these indicators, ethyl glucuronide (EtG), starts accumulating in blood as alcohol levels decline.
"Ethyl glucuronide, plus the absence of alcohol itself, indicates a potential hangover state," says Wurst. The presence of EtG could show whether drivers or workers who have been involved in an accident were drunk at the time, even if they are not tested until hours or days later. EtG lasts for up to five days in urine, and confirms beyond all doubt that someone has had a drink in that time.
Another test that looks for phosphatidyl ethanol (PEth) provides an intermediate measure. PEth lasts for up to three weeks in the blood of people who consume more than around three beers a day, or the equivalent. Wurst's team has shown it is a far more reliable indicator than liver enzymes. "We found no false negatives," he says.
Looking at the combined levels of four fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) in hair provides an even longer-term measure of alcohol consumption. FAEEs appear in blood within 12 to 18 hours of alcohol being consumed, but end up stored in hair.
In the latest study, Wurst's team monitored around 40 drinkers and teetotallers, and showed that FAEE levels in hair can distinguish between light and heavy drinkers (Alcohol and Alcoholism, vol 39, p 33). "The only way to remove the evidence is to shave all body hair," says Wurst. Other researchers say the work could greatly extend the power of testing. "We don't really have comparable tests for prolonged intake," says Charles Lieber of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "We don't have anything similar in place, and there is potential there. But it is important that it is duplicated by other investigators."
"It's a great start, and the first paper of its kind," says Christine Moore, lab director at US Drug Testing Laboratories, a private company in Chicago. "In the US, I don't know of anyone who tests EtG yet, and only one lab that does PEth," she says.
But she thinks the hair test could be widened to include more than the existing four ethyl esters: at least 10 have already been unequivocally linked to ethanol. "It would extend it and make it even better," she says.
Moore is investigating whether it is possible to find out if mothers have been drinking excessively during pregnancy by looking at the levels of FAEEs in meconium, the first faeces of a newborn. If they had, it would be too late to help that child, but any future pregnancies could be monitored more closely.
The Endless Loop: Madlyn Murray O'hair & Religious Programming
From the FCC Consumer Fact SheetFeb. 2004
Background
A rumor has been circulating since 1975 that Madalyn Murray O’Hair, a widely known, self-proclaimed atheist, proposed that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) consider limiting or banning religious programming. Also circulating is a rumor that the FCC granted Ms. O’Hair an FCC hearing to discuss this proposal.
These rumors are untrue. In December 1974, Jeremy D. Lansman and Lorenzo W. Milam filed a petition (RM-2493) asking the FCC to inquire into the operating practices of stations licensed to religious organizations, and not to grant any new licenses for new noncommercial educational broadcast stations until the inquiry had been completed. The FCC denied this petition on August 1, 1975. Ms. O’Hair was not a sponsor of this petition.
Since that time, the FCC has received mail and telephone calls claiming that Ms. O’Hair started the petition and that the petition asked for an end to religious programs on radio and television. Such rumors are false. The FCC has responded to numerous inquiries about these rumors and advised the public of their falsehood. There is no federal law that gives the FCC the authority to prohibit radio and television stations from broadcasting religious programs.
For general information on other telecommunication-related issues, you may contact the FCC’s Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau via the Internet at www.fcc.gov/cgb, or at the address below. You may also call the FCC’s Consumer Center at 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322) voice or 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322) TT
WMD - A Technical Paper
After almost three years of hearing about Weapons of Mass Destruction, the average US citizen can not speak knowledgeably about what constitutes a WMD, how they are technically segmented, or the dynamics of control, delivery, or interdiction that form the basis of the US Government's plans; or even about the practical requirements needed for these weapons to be used against our people and allied countries.For a deeper understanding of the issues involved, check out this 265 page primer. You most likely will then become less prone to cower in fear everytime someone attempts to scare you into acquiescence of their responses by suggesting WMD's are being aimed at you and your family.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
The Real Man
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times
Published: February 13, 2004
To understand why questions about George Bush's time in the National Guard are legitimate, all you have to do is look at the federal budget published last week. No, not the lies, damned lies and statistics — the pictures.
By my count, this year's budget contains 27 glossy photos of Mr. Bush. We see the president in front of a giant American flag, in front of the Washington Monument, comforting an elderly woman in a wheelchair, helping a small child with his reading assignment, building a trail through the wilderness and, of course, eating turkey with the troops in Iraq. Somehow the art director neglected to include a photo of the president swimming across the Yangtze River.
It was not ever thus. Bill Clinton's budgets were illustrated with tables and charts, not with worshipful photos of the president being presidential.
The issue here goes beyond using the Government Printing Office to publish campaign brochures. In this budget, as in almost everything it does, the Bush administration tries to blur the line between reverence for the office of president and reverence for the person who currently holds that office.
Operation Flight Suit was only slightly more over the top than other Bush photo-ops, like the carefully staged picture that placed Mr. Bush's head in line with the stone faces on Mount Rushmore. The goal is to suggest that it's unpatriotic to criticize the president, and to use his heroic image to block any substantive discussion of his policies.
In fact, those 27 photos grace one of the four most dishonest budgets in the nation's history — the other three are the budgets released in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Just to give you a taste: remember how last year's budget contained no money for postwar Iraq — and how administration officials waited until after the tax cut had been passed to mention the small matter of $87 billion in extra costs? Well, they've done it again: earlier this week the Army's chief of staff testified that the Iraq funds in the budget would cover expenses only through September.
But when administration officials are challenged about the blatant deceptions in their budgets — or, for that matter, about the use of prewar intelligence — their response, almost always, is to fall back on the president's character. How dare you question Mr. Bush's honesty, they ask, when he is a man of such unimpeachable integrity? And that leaves critics with no choice: they must point out that the man inside the flight suit bears little resemblance to the official image.
There is, as far as I can tell, no positive evidence that Mr. Bush is a man of exceptional uprightness. When has he even accepted responsibility for something that went wrong? On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that he is willing to cut corners when it's to his personal advantage. His business career was full of questionable deals, and whatever the full truth about his National Guard service, it was certainly not glorious.
Old history, you may say, and irrelevant to the present. And perhaps that would be true if Mr. Bush was prepared to come clean about his past. Instead, he remains evasive. On "Meet the Press" he promised to release all his records — and promptly broke that promise.
I don't know what he's hiding. But I do think he has forfeited any right to cite his character to turn away charges that his administration is lying about its policies. And that is the point: Mr. Bush may not be a particularly bad man, but he isn't the paragon his handlers portray.
Some of his critics hope that the AWOL issue will demolish the Bush myth, all at once. They're probably too optimistic — if it were that easy, the tale of Harken Energy would have already done the trick. The sad truth is that people who have been taken in by a cult of personality — a group that in this case includes a good fraction of the American people, and a considerably higher fraction of the punditocracy — are very reluctant to give up their illusions. If nothing else, that would mean admitting that they had been played for fools.
Still, we may be on our way to an election in which Mr. Bush is judged on his record, not his legend. And that, of course, is what the White House fears
President Carter announces anew his allegiance in Baptist debates
by Art Toalston
October 20, 2000
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Former President Jimmy Carter, echoing his words in 1993, stated Oct. 19 he no longer counts himself as a Southern Baptist.
Carter's Oct. 19 announcement received immediate attention in the nation's news media, as did his first such declaration in 1993 on key faith issues which prompted a conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention.
In 1993, Carter declared, "In the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, my wife and I have found a home [and will] cast our lot with this fellowship for the rest of our lives," in addressing the General Assembly of the denomination-like CBF, which was formed in 1991 in protest against the Southern Baptist Convention leadership.
Carter, in an interview with Associated Baptist Press, said of his Oct. 19 announcement, "This is a torturous decision to make. I do it with anguish and not with any pleasure."
In a letter being mailed to 75,000 Baptists across the country, Carter said he has been "disappointed and [I] feel excluded by the adoption of policies and an increasingly rigid SBC creed," a sentiment expressed among anti-SBC leaders within CBF and within the Baptist General Convention of Texas after the SBC's adoption of a Baptist Faith and Message statement of beliefs at its June annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., replacing a statement dating back to 1963.
In distancing himself from the SBC's Baptist Faith and Message, Carter's stance may have the same effect with the Georgia Baptist Convention. A resolution affirming the BFM as having "great value as information, as a guide to interpretation, as a source of enlightenment and instruction concerning basic Baptist belief" was approved by Georgia Baptist Convention's executive committee on a 73-23 vote Sept. 12. The recommendation will be presented to messengers to the state convention's annual meeting in November.
The Georgia recommendation also describes the BFM "while not being an official creed, and while possessing only such authority as voluntary acceptance imposes, as a general consensus of what Southern Baptists believe."
Morris H. Chapman, chairman of the SBC Executive Committee, issued a statement Oct. 20 on Carter's announcement the previous day.
"The decision by former President Jimmy Carter is not surprising. His identity has been with the moderate faction of the Southern Baptist Convention for some time now," Chapman said.
Chapman recounted, "Several years ago, he invited SBC leaders to meet with him at the Carter Center. In conversation with him at that time, it was apparent he had a much better grasp of the moderate perspectives than the conservative perspectives.
"The core difference between these two groups of Southern Baptists is their beliefs about the authority of God's Word," Chapman noted. "The moderates believe the Bible contains God's Holy Word. Southern Baptist conservatives believe the Bible is God's Holy Word. We appreciated the time with him because it gave us opportunity to convey to him our convictions about the need for the Southern Baptist Convention to return to the biblical roots of our forefathers.
"President Carter's timing and need to make a public announcement are curious," Chapman said, "but I do think an individual should follow the dictates of his own heart. I pray God's continued blessings upon him and Mrs. Carter as they serve our nation and our Lord."
The mailing of Carter's letter to 75,000 Baptists across the country is being accompanied by a video tape of Charles Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, addressing issues surrounding the BGCT's upcoming vote to reduce funding to the SBC by $5.3 million. The vote is slated for the Oct. 30-31 BGCT annual meeting in Corpus Christi.
Of Wade, Carter wrote in his letter: "Not having any religious or theological training, I am not qualified to explain how profound and revolutionary are the changes in the Baptist Faith and Message that are being proposed to unsuspecting Baptists. The best explanation that I have heard is by Dr. Charles Wade ... . I hope you will listen carefully to this tape ... ."
In his letter, Carter also wrote, "I had never been involved in the political struggle for control of the SBC, and have no desire to do so."
Yet the Dallas Morning News reported Oct. 20 that a key Texas Baptist leader, David Currie, gave Carter counsel to publicly end his Southern Baptist identity.
Carter initiated a meeting with him in September, Currie told the Dallas Morning News. "He was sharing his feelings and he said, 'What can I do to help?'" Currie recounted. "I said, 'Well, Mr. President, Baptists across the nation need to know how you feel. All Baptists know who you are, and they need to know how you feel.' He said, 'I kind of have a letter in my head [that] I'd like to share with Baptists.'"
Currie is the coordinator of a key anti-SBC organization, Texas Baptists Committee, and a former finance official with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Also at the meeting, according to Associated Baptist Press, was Becky Matheny, director of the Georgia Baptist Heritage Council, which the news service described as a Baptist "moderate" organization.
Conservatives embraced Carter in his run for the presidency in 1976 as he publicly described himself as a born-again Christian, but they began to back away from Carter once he was in office after such actions as appointing Sarah Weddington -- the lead attorney in the landmark 1973 abortion case, Roe v. Wade -- to the White House position as assistant to the president.
As Carter distinguished himself after leaving office in his diplomatic, human rights and humanitarian initiatives, such as in Habitat for Humanity, conservatives continued to be wary when Carter agreed in 1992, for example, to serve as honorary co-chair of a fund-raising dinner for one of the nation's leading homosexual advocacy groups, the Human Rights Campaign. In doing so, Carter became the first president of the United States to associate himself with a fund-raising effort in the homosexual community. The other co-chair of the Atlanta HRC dinner was South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Carter, in his Oct. 19 stance against the SBC, stated that he shares concerns with "most Texas Baptists, Virginia Baptists and the CBF" in such areas as separation of church and state, servanthood of pastors, priesthood of believers, a free religious press, and equality of women."
"Most disturbing has been the convention's recent decision to remove Jesus Christ, through his words, deeds and personal inspiration, as the ultimate interpreter of the Holy Scriptures," Carter said in a news release. "This leaves open making the pastors or executives of the SBC the ultimate interpreters."
The charge has drawn an array of responses from SBC leaders, such as R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s this summer in Kentucky Baptists' Western Recorder newsjournal.
"The Bible is not a fallible witness to the revelation of God, it is God's perfectly inspired Word," Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote. "The written Word testifies of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, as our Lord Himself explained."
Back in Texas, as tensions continue to build over the proposed BGCT cuts in SBC funding, Bill Streich, leader of the Texas Baptist Laymen's Association, noted that "if the conservative resurgence was indeed necessary, it must have ultimately come to a purging of those who -- purged by their own conscience -- demand soul freedom FROM biblical truth to the end that their own conceptions of the Christian faith might be nurtured."
"May Southern Baptists faithfully and humbly be slaves to the Christ of the Bible, and never to the Christ of our own imagination," Streich said, "even if it means that kings despise us."
This article reprinted by permission from Baptist Press
This article was reprinted from http://www.baptist2baptist.net/b2barticle.asp?ID=193
Copyright (c) 2004 Southern Baptist Convention
Former President Jimmy Carter's Letter to 75k Baptist Ministers in 2000 is here.
And following his mailing and the related news stories about it, a torrent of OpEd articles about
Jimmy Carter leaving the Southern Baptist Convention were published. Some of the better ones are here.
Source: UPI / BeliefNet
URL: http://beliefnet.com/story/47/story_4798_1.html
ATLANTA, Oct. 20 (UPI)--Former President Jimmy Carter, the son of a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher, has disassociated himself from the nation's largest Protestant denomination and criticized its "increasingly rigid creed."
Statement by
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, President
Southern Baptist Convention Resolution* to Missionize Jews
June 14, l996
We are offended that the Southern Baptist Convention is dedicating its resources to an ambitious campaign to proselytize Jews. This divisive campaign is offensive in that it singles out the Jewish people at a time when the need is great for interfaith understanding and dialogue among all religions.
The freedom to practice religion is a fundamental tenet of American democracy, and we respect the Southern Baptists right to hold beliefs that differ from our own. But we do not welcome their attempt to impose those beliefs on the Jewish people, who have survived for 3,000 years with a strong faith in a God that cares for all people, of all faiths.
Respect for each other's religious beliefs and the celebration of America's pluralism are fundamental American values. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations has always made dialogue with our Christian brethren a foremost priority. We continue to do so. We will work closely with those who share our commitment to interfaith cooperation and dialogue. And we are saddened that the Southern Baptists appear to have removed themselves from the dialogue by this campaign.
Big bang busted in science class for high schools
By LAURA DIAMOND
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/13/04
When scientists learned last month that the word "evolution" had been removed from Georgia's proposed science curriculum for middle and high schools, some wondered what else might have been deleted. Some feared that the big-bang theory — the dominant scientific theory about the origins of the universe — would be absent.
Their fears were well founded. The big bang had been eliminated from the science curriculum, and lessons on plate tectonics had been scaled back. Concepts like the big bang, evolution and plate tectonics can be controversial in some circles because they offer scientific explanations of how the world began that don't correspond with some religious beliefs about how God created the universe, Earth and humans. Scientists say the concepts are key to understanding physics, chemistry and other natural sciences. Sarah Pallas, associate professor in biology at Georgia State University, said the science portion of the proposed curriculum was "definitely written to be acceptable to biblical literalists. Any phrase that would upset a creationist is gone."
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NEWS RELEASE
Georgia Student Finance Commission
May 22, 2002
by Alma Bowen 770-724-9018
Georgia has been ranked No. 1 in the nation for the fifth consecutive year for student aid that is not based on family income. Also, Georgia once again is No. 1 in estimated grant dollars to individual undergraduates and No. 1 on the percentage of undergraduates receiving state-financed grants and scholarships for education beyond high school. The No. 1 status is attributed to Georgia's HOPE Scholarship program, which is funded by the Georgia Lottery for Education.
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Note: According to the 2002 PPi Rankings of Economic Index Rankings by State, Georgia ranks 22nd overall in the US; however it is 5th in Job Churn: (The number of new start-ups and business failures, combined, as a share of all establishments in each state.), 40th in Workforce Educational Attainment, and 43rd in the Country for the number of Scientists & Engineers as a percentage of the workforce.
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The NEA reported that the average teacher's salary has gone up in Georgia, from ranking 27th in the Nation in 1997, to ranking 16th in 2002.
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In the Morgan Quitno "Smartest State Rankings" for 2002, Georgia came in ranked 40th, while Connecticut came in 1st.
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The 2000 Census listed Georgia as having 29.2% of the population being African American, which ranked 5th highest in the US. Connecticut had 10%, or 3% less than the National Average.
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The 2000 Census has the Georgia Hispanic population at 5.3%, compared to the National average of 12.5%
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Georgia is ranked 41st in the Nation on the UHF's State Health Rankings in 2002, based in part on a very low high school graduation rate at 51.4% of incoming ninth graders who graduate within four years.
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In 1998, 36% of all births were to unmarried women compared with a US average of 33%. Also the proportion of children under 18 years living in a single parent home was 36%, about 6% higher than the National average.
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