Immigration

On Friday, thousands of people marched in protests and demonstrations against the government cracking down on illegal immigrants. In protest, many places had work stoppages, also schools staged school walkouts. Many immigrants and people were very upset by the bill that was passed by the House of representatives, which makes it a felony to be an illegal immigrant, also the bill makes new penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants and it calls for more fences to be put up along the border. On Saturday, protests continued, with 500,000 protesters demonstrating in Los Angeles. Protestors wore white to symbolize peace also they carried a variety of Mexico, United States and other countries flags. Immigrants, are outraged that it would be a felony to be an illegal immigrant, they say that they have the right to a better life just as much as legal citizens. Many Hispanic people call this bill, inhumane an unfair do to the fact that they work very hard and are here just to work, in fact many clame that they are doing jobs that no other people would and so they have the right to be here. Overall the police reported that the 500,000 people protest in LA was pretty peaceful, no force was necessary to keep the crowd under control. The crowd just simply let the government know that this bill should not be passed and that there demonstation should acknowledge that fact.

Calabasas California Bans Public Smoking

On thursday, January 26, 2006 California became the first state to state secondhand smoking as an air pollutant. The reason California made secondhandsmoking an air pollutant, is because of its links to certain diseases, such as asthma, heart disease, some forms of cancer and premature births. On March 19, 2006, in Calabasas California, Smoking in public places was banned. The law prohibits smoking in indoor businesses, parks, restaurants, and apartments. The law was passed do to the harm secondhand smoking has on the public. This ban, was considered one of the strictest smoking laws passed. The law also states if a nonsmoker asks a smoker to put out his cigarette, the smoker must comply or face the consequences of a fine or a lawsuit. Scientific assesments have shown that by this law passing, many nonsmokers will lower their risks of getting disseases caused by secondhand smoking, also smoking is not completely illegal, there will be certain areas were smoking will be promitted. Many residents of the Calabasas area who are smokers are already complaining about this law saying it is unfair and violates their rights of freedom to smoke if they want to, some even go as far as to say that smokers are being discriminated by the city. I think this law is good and that now innocent citizens will not be put in harms way by the choices of others who choose to damage their bodies by smoking.

Iran rejects Russias proposal

On Saturday, the Iranian Interior minister spoke out against the U.N. Security Council saying Iran is ready to use gas and oil as a weapon against the Security Council's if sanctions were put into action against their nuclear program. Iran is the second producer in the gas countries. On Sunday, Iran contradicted itself sayting that it never intended to use gas and oil as a weapon against the U.N., despite its comments by its interior minister. Also Iran rejected Russia proposal to let Iran enrich uranium on Russian soil, they said that they shouls not have to give up their rights to having nuclear energy or enriched uranium, because other states do not want them to have this capacity. The countries that do not want Iran to have enriched uranium, continue to say that Iran is planning to make nuclear weapons,despite Irans denial of such things. Iran continues to say that it purpose for having enriched uranium is to produce energy, and that its rights to have uranium enriched on their own soil is being violated, they responded to this by saying that they will still continue to enrich uranium in their country. Russia responded to this outrage by saying that was Iran's last chance to avoid sanctions by the U.N. when they meet to decide how to take action on Iran.Hopefully none of this we lead to military actions.

Japan makes good use of Cattle Dung

In Tokyo, at the University of Agriculture, professor Sakae Shibusawa succesfully came up with the method and process of extracting gasoline from cattle dung. Shibusawa extracted 1.4 ml of gasoline from cow dung, he did this by applying extreme heat and pressure. This new advancement in the gasoline industry is not only good for the gasoline consumers, but also for the cattle owners, for instance now cattle owners will no longer have to dispose of 500,000 metric tons of cattle dung a year, now they can sell it and it can be converted into gasoline. The other benefits of this discovery are it makes Japan have its own method and source for producing fuel if all goes well, because most of their oil resources come from other countries. The process that Shibusawa used to produce this gasoline was he added metal catalysts to the cattle dung and put it into a container that was then subjected to a 30 atmosphere pressure and a heat of 572 degrees Fahrenheit, which in turn produced gasoline. The last thing that was found that could be extracted from cow dung, was an aromatic version of vanilla. The vanillin ingredient can be found in candles and shampoo, this could also benefit these items. Shibusawa hopes to improve his methods for making this gasoline product and for the vanilla process, and be ready for commercial use in 5 years.