Reference your editorial on June 2, Releasing Inmates Early Can Lead to Tragedy, as One Family Here has Learned.
I love your justification. "The board presumably made the best decision it could make based on the inmate's record, seriousness of offense, time served, disciplinary actions taken while imprisoned and programs completed while incarcerated."
What were they thinking? What are you thinking "seriousness of offense?" He killed a woman. He did not kill out of temper or fear. He killed her because he did not want her to testify in court. He killed her because he wanted her quiet and the only way to ensure that was to make her dead. He should have been executed. He should have been killed in the same manner in which he killed.
Look at reality. Beginning at 17-years he lived among animals for 33 years and you think there is anyway he can get along in society when he is 50-years-old? For 33 years he lives in a world kill or be killed, take what you want prison guards making decisions for him. What have you been smoking?
How about he moves next door to you and your family or the families of those decision makers?
The judicial system in this country is a joke. Life in prison should mean life in prison. The death penalty should mean death.
How Can a University Education Be Free?
Chris Anderson
FREE The Future of a Radical Price.
You don't have to enroll at UC Berkeley to watch Richard A Muller deliver his popular "Physics for Future Presidents" lectures. They're on YouTube, along with talks from more than a hundred other Berkeley professors that have been collectively watched more than 2 million times. And Berkeley is not alone: Stanford and MIT also release lectures on YouTube, and MIT's "OpenCourseWare" initiative has put virtually all of the university's class curriculum online, from lecture notes to assignments and demonstration videos. It can cost $35,000 a year to attend these universities and take these classes. Why are they giving them away?
Lectures aren't a university education. Aside from the small matter of a degree, which you can't get via YouTube, a college education is more than lectures and readings. Tuition buys direct proximity to ask questions, share ideas, and solicit feedback from academics like Muller. It's access to the network of other students and the idea exchange, help, and relationships this provides. For universities, free content is marketing. Top students get their pick of schools. Sampling the mind-blowing fare of a particular program or professor can win them over.
Create demand for expertise. To date, one of Muller's lectures has garnered 200,000 views. That's three times the capacity of the football stadium at UC Berkeley. After becoming a Web celeb of sorts, Muller secured a book deal to write a popular hardback version of the textbook he penned for his class. Released in the summer of 2008, Physics for Future Presidents was widely reviewed atop one of Amazon's best-seller lists. It's easy to see just how good Free has been to Professor Muller.
(2). We will immediately go into a two year isolationist attitude in order to straighten out the greedy big business posture in this country... America will allow NO imports, and we'll do no exports. We will use the 'Wal-Mart's policy, 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.' We'll make it here and sell it here!
(3). When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on it coming in here.
(4). All retired military personnel will be required to man one of the many observation towers located on the southern border of the United States (six month tour). They will be under strict orders not to fire on SOUTHBOUND aliens.
(5). Social Security will immediately return to its original sta te. If you didn't put nuttin in, you ain't gettin nuttin out. Neither the President nor any other politician will be able to touch it.
(6). Welfare. -- Checks will be handed out on Fridays, at the end of the 40 hour school week, the successful completion of a urinalysis test for drugs, and passing grades.
(7). Professional Athletes -- Steroids? The FIRST time you check positive you're banned from sports ... for life.
(8). Crime -- We will adopt the Turkish method, i.e., the first time you steal, you lose your right hand. There is no more 'life sentences'. If convicted of murder, you will be put to death by the same method you chose for the victim you killed: gun, knife, strangulation, etc.
(9). One export of ours will allowed: wheat; because the world needs to eat. However, a bushel of wheat will be the exact price of a barrel of oil.
(10). All foreign aid, using American taxpayer money, will immediately cease and the saved money will help to pay off the national debt and, ultimately, lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we'll ask The American People if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can make the decision as to whether, or not, it's a worthy cause.
(11). The Pledge of Allegiance will be said every day at school and every day in Congress.
(12). The National Anthem will be played at all appropriate ceremonies, sporting events, outings, etc.
Dear Mayor Castro,
I am writing on behalf of my family and many other ranching families who live in South Texas. I listened to your opinion about the actions of the Governor of Arizona, and I respectfully disagree.
We have had to deal with illegal immigrants crossing onto our land for many years, and before the drug cartels and terrorists entered the picture, it was always our policy to help these people by giving them something to eat and drink. It is something we wanted to do to help them, but now things have changed and we feel that our lives are in danger from the recklessness shown by those crossing the borders. In the past nine months, "coyotes" have driven through our fences SIX times while attempting to escape law enforcement.
Just this past week, they have crashed three stolen vehicles on the ranch and have abandoned the people who were being transported, including a 14 year old girl who was injured. (The driver had to be air lifted to San Antonio, at a cost to us tax payers.) The vehicle had been stolen from Travis county and it had to be towed. Another tax payer expense, to say nothing of what it has cost us to repair fences and pay for vet bills to pay for an injured horse. (See below.)
Last summer around eleven o'clock at night, another stolen vehicle broke through our fence and managed to drive through three other fences in an attempt to escape the Border Patrol. While our men were repairing the fence so that the livestock wouldn't get out onto the highway, the Border Patrol, Sheriffs from two towns (Pearsall & Dilley), mounted law enforcement officers (with their tracking dogs) from the Dilley Prison, a helicopter, and a wrecker were here searching for the coyote and his passengers. During the hunt, one of the prison dogs was bitten by a rattler and she died later that night, despite medical treatment. One of our working ranch horses was so frightened that he ran into a tree and cracked his skull. Meanwhile, most of the bad guys managed to elude capture. When the coyote was finally apprehended, he was found to have around $39,000 in his pockets…all taken from the people he had abandoned.
It is easy to live in a city away from the problems we are experiencing here near the border, but we would welcome you and your family to join us and see what is happening firsthand. It would be an eye-opener and it might change your mind when you criticize what the people of Arizona are doing in trying to protect their citizens.
Racial profiling has nothing to do with following the laws that are supposed to be in effect concerning Illegal immigration. Personally, whenever I write a check, go for a doctor's appointment, or break a traffic law, I am always asked for my identification. I believe it's the same for you, too.
The Border Patrol is so understaffed, and even if they do apprehend someone they have no power to hold them at gun point. Their lives are put in danger every day while our government officials sit back and offer only criticism of the job they are trying to do.
This land where we live has been in my husband's family since 1881, and never before have we had any fear about leaving our doors unlocked, walking down a sendero, or driving through a pasture. Now we've had to instruct our men not to confront any strangers they come upon because we are unarmed, and they may not be. My husband and I want to leave a legacy of love for this part of God's country to our children and grandchildren, not one of fear. Please reconsider your stance about enforcing stricter immigration laws, and stand behind the brave men and women who protect our families, as well as your own.
I appreciate the chance to give you some idea of what we are dealing with, and it is my prayer that you will support defending our borders before it is too late.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Several years ago friends told me that Dennis was a Day Trader. That he had developed a program that would monitor the markets, buy and sell. The program was guaranteed to make money. They mentioned he would sell the program for $1,000. It seemed too good to be true. I passed. Some time later I heard he was traveling around the world giving presentations and selling the program for $10,000 a copy. I wondered if I had passed up a great thing. I knew Dennis from his shop he had had in Gatlinburg and through school activities. He was quiet and did not talk about his Day Trading activities. Then he built that house 5 stories with a bridge crossing between the mountains to get to his garage and a great view of Gatlinburg and Mount LeConte. He was a celebrity. People and organizations could not help themselves from wanting to be around him and give him their money.
As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of: I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.
Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens , Huntington Park , etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title 1 schools.
Title 1 schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll -- but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten.
I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more have cell phones. The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids.
I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America.
I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students, here in the country less then 3 months, who raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them "Putas"(whores) and throwing things, that the teachers were in tears.
Free medical, free education, free food, free day care etc., etc, etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements?
To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the TRUE costs.
Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases. For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes.
Americans, we need to wake up.
It does, however, have everything to do with culture: It involves an American third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 and that refuses to assimilate, and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about "political correctness" that we don't have the will to do anything about it.
CHEAP LABOR? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about?
Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage.
Consumers don't want expensive produce.
Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs.
But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase "cheap labor" is a myth, a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as "cheap labor."
Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200 free.
He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.
He qualifies for food stamps.
He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care.
His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.
He requires bilingual teachers and books.
He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.
If they are, or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. If qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicaid. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense.
He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.
Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.
He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits.
Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6..00/hour left after paying their bills and his.
Cheap labor? YEAH RIGHT!
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States
"We have been recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God. Intoxicated with unbroken success, the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."
Dear Editor:
