Univision board OKs sale, Spanish-language U.S. broadcaster goes for $12.3b

The figure agreed upon late Monday equals $36.25 a share, according to a news release on the sale. That's a 13 percent premium to Univision's closing stock price on Monday. The group of investors will also assume about $1.4 billion in debt.

read more | digg story

Librarians wins, FBI drops demand for records

Library refused to comply with FBI national security letter for records on privacy grounds. Text of national security letter included. First instance of public disclosure on one.

read more | digg story

Librarian disciplined for upholding Constitution

Hasbrouck Heights (NJ) Library Director Michele Reutty is under fire for following the 4th amendment and not giving private info to the police without a subpoena. She faces a 30 day suspension without pay.

read more | digg story

Online Quiz - Do You Have What it Takes to Become a Citizen?

MSNBC has posted a sample citizenship quiz to see whether you've got the national knowledge required to become a citizen of the United States. Time to dust off those history books.

read more | digg story

20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA

80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S, and the vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

read more | digg story

Bush Even Less Popular Among Voting Latinos

Thought he was unpopular before? Latino approval ratings are down for Bush and his party, according to the non-partisan Latino Coalition:

read more | digg story

California Startup Promises Large-Scale, Cheap Solar Electricity

"Nanosolar, a startup in Palo Alto, announced plans to build a production facility with the capacity to make enough solar cells annually to generate 430 megawatts. This output would represent a substantial portion of the worldwide production of solar energy. Nanosolar also announced this week more than $100 million in funding from various sources."

read more | digg story

U.S. Not Prepared For Internet Outage

The CEOs of America's biggest companies assert that the US is not ready to handle a large-scale assault on the Internet, but they have some ideas for getting the country ready.

read more | digg story

Concerns Raised Over AT&T Privacy Policy

"Consumer advocates said yesterday that a new privacy policy from AT&T Inc. marks the first time a major telecom company has asserted that customer calling and Internet records are corporate property and raises concerns about how the company tracks consumer behavior and shares data with government and law enforcement agencies."

read more | digg story

Minorities Lead The Broadband Charge

Contrary to popular belief, minorities are heavy users of broadband and IP services, including VoIP. So concludes a recent report from the US Internet Industry Association.

read more | digg story

What Frequencies can 'you' hear?

Test your hearing with different frequencies of the same noise at the same volume. I can hear up to 21,000khz. How about you?

read more | digg story

Time Warner to Probe Executive in Sex Scandal

Time Warner (TWX) yesterday said it's probing whether its chief financial officer used company funds to act as a "sugar daddy" for a buxom young Brazilian woman accused of running a high-end Manhattan call-girl ring.

read more | digg story

Fuel from Sugar in the US?

Sugar producers in the US are hoping the country will follow Brazil's model and start making ethanol from sugar cane and beets instead of only corn. The US will study the idea, but the main problem being the sugar is cheaper in Brazil, so corn seems to make more sense for now.

read more | digg story

Ignorant racist video games spread on internet

America's immigration debate has led to the spread of video games on the Internet where Black Hispanics and Jewish people are caricaturized, stereotyped, shown as objects for derision and hate ... even used for target practice. This just proves there are still idiots in this world and racism still exist in the US.

read more | digg story

Latino Soldiers have History of Dying at Higher Rates in American Conflicts

What can we say of the young Latino men who sacrificed their lives in Iraq? That they fought without knowing their enemy, played their role as pawns in a geopolitical chess game devised by arrogant bureaucrats, and died simply trying to get an education; trying to have a fair shot at the American Dream that has eluded the vast majority of Latinos for over a century and a half.

Jorge Mariscal, a professor at the University of California, San Diego.

As U.S. casualties in Iraq continue to mount, so does the worry in the country’s Latino community that its children are dying in unusually high numbers and are being lured into dangerous service with targeted recruiting by the Armed Forces.

Many in the community worry that Hispanic men and women are being disproportionately exposed to risk and sent to the front lines.

while Latinos make up 9.5 percent of the actively enlisted forces, they are over-represented in the categories that get the most dangerous assignments — infantry, gun crews and seamanship — and make up over 17.5 percent of the front lines.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center,

These worries have been exacerbated during the recent conflict in Iraq. As of Aug. 28, Department of Defense (DOD) statistics show a casualty rate of more than 13 percent for people of Hispanic background serving in Iraq.

The casualty rate for Hispanics during the Iraqi engagement has been ‘’unfortunate and tragic'’, says Teresa Gutierrez, of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER).

‘’The people who are fighting the war are youths who cannot find jobs or afford university fees because there is an economic draft in the army that is particularly relevant to Latinos,'’ she told IPS.

Recent census numbers reveal why the U.S. government might be interested in specifically targeting Latinos.

According to the 2000 Census, Latinos have surpassed African Americans as the largest minority group in the country. Hispanics now comprise 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, and are the fastest growing minority.

In 2000, one in seven 18-year-olds was of Hispanic origin, a number that is expected to climb to more than one in five during the next 15 years, found the census.

Also, more than 50 percent of the Hispanic population (almost 18 million people) lived in Texas and California, states that are historically large recruitment centers for the Armed Forces.

While DOD officials denied knowledge of any program specifically targeted at Latinos, past actions by the U.S. government paint a different story.

According to ‘The Army Times’ newspaper, in 2001 Army Brigadier General Bernardo C. Negrete told a DOD audience, ‘’we’ve made significant improvement by going after Hispanics in a manner we’ve never done before'’.

‘’We’re giving our recruiters goals to meet in order to bring the Hispanic population in the Army on par with the general population in the country.'’ Negrete’s plans called for achieving that parity by 2006.

Another tactic suspected of targeting Hispanics is an executive order signed by U.S. President George W. Bush in July 2002, expediting naturalization for aliens and non-citizen nationals who serve in active-duty status during the administration’s ‘’war on terrorism'’.

Army troops at the U.S. Army’s “Generaciones” Reception, September 13, 2005

The order, effective for all military personnel who enlisted after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, allows non-citizens to apply for citizenship immediately upon arrival at their first military base, rather than having to wait the usual three to four years.

According to Bush, persons ‘’serving honorably in active-duty status in the Armed Forces'’, do a service to their new country so they should be granted citizenship more quickly than via regular channels.

DOD numbers reveal 35,000 non-citizens currently in the active Armed Forces, 15,000 of whom became eligible for expedited naturalization under the executive order.

Department officials strenuously denied that the order was targeted at the Hispanic population.

While two army recruiters in the Washington area denied using the expedited citizenship order as a selling point during recruitment pitches, both told IPS that they mention the ‘’benefit'’ as one part of the recruitment package.

But both recruiters insisted that no potential recruits had asked for expedited citizenship and that Latinos who express interest in joining the military do so for ‘’patriotic reasons'’.

One recruiter did say that since the executive order was passed his office had seen a sharp increase in applications from people of Hispanic background. But both recruiters denied targeting Latinos, and said they were unaware of any policies specifically targeted at that group.

A Defense official told IPS that while he was not ‘’aware of any particular effort to recruit any particular ethnic group, there are programs that appeal to certain groups'’.

Gutierez said that any DOD official who denies the existence of targeted ethnic recruiting needs only to ‘’check their own website and promotional materials'’.

While only 12 percent of Latinos in the United States ever qualify for a university education, she lamented, many are recruited into the Armed Forces with promises of financial help and job security.

According to Gutierrez, once recruited, many qualified applicants stay in the military, foregoing college.

‘’What can we say of the young Latino men who sacrificed their lives in Iraq?” asked Jorge Mariscal, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the issue of ‘Counterpunch’.

”That they fought without knowing their enemy, played their role as pawns in a geopolitical chess game devised by arrogant bureaucrats, and died simply trying to get an education; trying to have a fair shot at the American Dream that has eluded the vast majority of Latinos for over a century and a half.'’

wrtten by

Related article here written by RICHARD GONZALES

read more | digg this

Hispanic Teens at Risk of Suicide

13% of Hispanic high school students use drugs and attempt suicide at far higher rates than their white and black classmates, says a new federal survey (U.S. CDCP) that has the experts somewhat perplexed.

Other sources:

-Survey: Hispanic kids leading in suicide attempts, drug use [here]

-Hispanic kids leading in suicide attempts, drug use, survey shows [here]

-Risky behavior soars among Latino teens. [here]

read more | digg this

Verizon Pays $48.9 Million in Race Discrimination Suits

Verizon Communications will pay a total of $48.9 million to settle old lawsuits claiming its predecessor telephone companies Nynex and Bell Atlantic discriminated against brown people, a government agency said on Monday.

read more | digg this