I wish I had mod points.

There are thousands of jobs with no need for algebra skills. There are thousands of jobs with no need for knowledge of biology. There are thousands of jobs with no need for knowledge of great works of literature. There are thousands of jobs with no need for knowledge of art. There are thousands of jobs with no need for an understanding of evolution, history, or geography.

Yet we require these classes for pretty much everyone who goes to college.

Computers are such an integral part of life today that everyone should really have a basic understanding of how they work and what they're capable of. Learning a programming language teaches you that.

Requiring two programming languages for an ad agency is nutty, but requiring one programming language for all college graduates is very reasonable.

I've been doing Java for quite a few years and would like to do something different. I'm finding that employers are looking for specific languages and I'm having trouble getting considered for any job that isn't Java. The differences between object-oriented procedural languages aren't that great and my resume shows that I've learned quite a few different languages. It's pretty frustrating not being considered for jobs that look interesting just because they use a different language.

I remember a few months ago the Republicans were offering a bill to make it easy for foreigners to earn PhDs from American universities to stay. To keep it from affecting overall immigration levels the bill would have cut the number of other people allowed in by the same number.

The Democrats killed it.

Good point. The tell us that we have to import workers to fix the wage disparity, but that we can't bring in cheaper products to deal with the price disparity of, for example, DVDs.

What we need to understand is that some jobs can be exported and some can't. If the job can be exported, it makes sense to bring the foreign worker here where he'll earn an American wage and compete with Americans on an equal footing. It will lower the wage here of course, but not as much as exporting the job to the foreign country would do. Anyone know how much it costs to ship a piece of software from a factory in Poland to America?

If the job can't be exported, like cleaning hotel rooms, gardening, picking vegetables, etc. then it makes sense to keep the competition out and reserve the jobs for Americans so that the wages can go up. (and don't say Americans won't do the work - offer them the right pay and working conditions and they will)

So basically, bring the skilled IT workers here and keep the unskilled migrant workers out.

Since I'm not wealthy enough to employ such cheap workers they don't help me that much. They're great to have around if you're rich enough to own a factory and can use them to replace your American workers. They're also great to have around if you're rich enough to use them as gardeners and domestic servants.

But for the rest of us they're a strain on government services and competition for jobs.

This is why the 1% of both political parties support illegal immigration.

If the ebook is to be used on a internet browser, it could be that the parents had to purchas a hardcopy of the book due to a poorly designed website.

It would also be interesting to try the experiment with some other unpopular and/or demonized things like

KKK
Nazi
Moral Majority
Democrat
Republican
Lobbyist
Pro-Life
Focus on the Family

(wow, are "Pro-Life" and "Focus on the Family" the best I can do for modern conservative positions/organizations (Moral Majority is old)? I can't think of any that have the name recognition of liberal organizations like "NOW", "NAACP", "Planned Parenthood", etc.. Is that because conservative groups aren't called on as "experts" or as spokesmen for various groups when news organizations are covering stories the way the news organizations use liberal groups as supposed experts/representatives, or is it because of the rule that organizations tend to drift toward being liberal?)

It depends on who you mean by "them".

The American justice system certainly has a lot of problems, but there is a big difference between a poorly implemented justice system combined with worse prisons, and slavery.

He must of meant the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico. America stood for individual freedom at its founding. It stood even more strongly for it once it got rid of slavery.

Whether the people who wrote and passed the first amendment had those specific words in mind or not, they are clearly protected when spoken or written.

That would be April 2, right?

Oh? Sorry, I thought you said "towell day".

I agree with you that the government shouldn't be regulating so much of our lives. However the idea that all such decisions should be made by the courts is problematic. A Chinese philosopher said you should treat every elder as your father. Another Chinese philosopher replied that you shouldn't, because to treat every elder as your father would mean you treat your father as every other elder.

In America we have enumerated rights because we say those rights are so special and necessary that they deserve special protection. However if we start to treat every issue as though it has the same value as an enumerated right, a right that must be litigated before it can be legislated, then start to treat every right as though it were no more important than any other.

The right to communicate anything with words is special because it is sufficient and necessary to have a debate and discuss what the laws should be and who the leaders should be. The merits of making movies of people having sex is something we can debate if we have the right to communicate anything with words; but we don't need to be able to make movies of people having sex in order to debate the merits of free speech.