Dowbrigade

Despite repeated pleas from all of America’s
major universities, despite continuing declines in foreign graduate students
coming to the United States, despite lengthy delays and difficulties
in obtaining student visas, and despite repeated breakdowns and glitches
in implementation of SEVIS, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information
System, an electronic tracking system designed to make sure Foreign Students
actually study, and leave the country when they finish, the Department
of Homeland Security is declaring the program a success.

Homeland Security officials are touting the success of
the 1-year-old Web-based system that tracks foreign students at U.S.
universities and colleges and has led to 187 arrests for various violations.

A total of 8,737 colleges and exchange visitor programs,
representing more than 9,500 campuses, are certified to participate in
the program.
Information on more than 770,000 students and exchange visitors is
maintained in the database. The system also maintains records on more
than 100,000 dependents of students and exchange visitors.

from the Federal Computer Weekly

A German company has invented a pair of glasses that come apart to
double as chopsticks.
The ‘sushi specs’ have detachable arms that can be used to eat traditional
Japanese food.
Those who aren’t adept at using chopsticks can have forks attached as an
alternative.

Designer of the glasses Ralph Anderl says he came up with the idea after
noticing that eating on the go was becoming increasingly popular.

"The idea came from the common need for cutlery at any time. Nowadays
people don’t have time to stop and eat lunch in a restaurant, they want
to eat
while they’re walking to their next job," said Mr Anderl.

And we thought we were supposed to eat sushi with our FINGERS. We
are tempted to try the fork variety, but are worried about stabbing
ourselves
repeatedly
in
the
ear….

article from Ananova

Hammering
together the poarty platform used to be one of the main jobs of the nominating
convention, but led to unsightly rows and delays; nowadays it is written
and approved months in advance. While covering the Democratic convention
we never actually saw a copy of the platform, and only heard it refered
to once, by a Congressman objecting to a plank on Water Rights. However,
we are sure that each party is closely parsing the OTHER side’s platform,
looking for weak points or evidence of "extremism."

Republicans approved
a platform yesterday that puts the party firmly on the record
against legalized abortion, gay marriage and other forms
of legal recognition for same-sex couples, reflecting the political
clout of social conservatives and setting up a stark contrast with the
Democrats
for the fall campaign.

article from the New York Times

pdf of the Republican platform