Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ-Life Links (040306)

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• France is not the only country with an unruly youth immigrant problem, and maybe not even the most serious one –
  

  Police brought in as teachers lose control at Berlin school
  31 March 2006

  BERLIN - Violence at a Berlin school dominated by Arab and Turkish youths and the nearby slaying of police officer, shot in the head while trying to arrest muggers, has fuelled alarm that troubled parts of the German capital are lurching out of control.

  Police have now been brought in to help control the situation at the Ruetli school in the immigrant-dominated Neukoelln district, with six officers checking students for weapons.

  Teachers at the school published a letter this week widely interpreted as saying conditions at their school had become so bad that it should be closed down.

  The letter said teachers had lost all authority and were now so afraid that they only entered classrooms with a mobile phone so they could call for help in an emergency.

• This is the kind of news that makes you think the prosperity will stay with us for a while — IT Spending to Pick Up, Says SG Cowen (a consulting firm).
• Katherine Harris’s Florida Senate candidacy appears to be in trouble — campaign staff are leaving, money isn’t coming in, etc. I think this is a classic case of attempting too much too soon, combined with an annoying entitlement mentality. She has been portrayed as a hero or villain for merely doing the job the law mandated she do in the 2000 presidential election. Those who praised her, and those damned her, both overplayed thin hands. Harris was able to parlay the notoriety received from that event quickly into a successful congressional run. But she has always seemed to feel that the Bush Administration owed her something, like a clear shot at becoming a US Senator, and I’ve never understood that. If her campaign is indeed fizzling, it should be a lesson to overeager politicians to bide their time.
• A bus company plans Detroit-Chicago fares for as little as $1. You read that right.
• Looming cuts at bankrupt Delphi, which is closing 21 of its 29 plants, are angering auto workers. Not as much as total liquidation would.
• Another unsettling voting machine security story, this time out of Utah. You don’t need to be a tinfoil hatter to wonder what in the world is going on.