Undocumented students get a reprieve

President Obama will announce a new immigration policy today that will allow some undocumented youths to avoid deportation and receive work permits to remain in the United States. Students in the U.S. who are in deportation proceedings or those who would have qualified for the DREAM Act and have yet to come forward to Department of Homeland Security officials will not be deported and will be allowed to work in the United States.

Though exact details of the plan are still unclear, it could benefit as many as one million undocumented students living in the country, and it will almost certainly have tangible benefits for the long-term health of the American economy.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the DREAM Act — which Republicans blocked in 2010 — would increase federal revenues by $1.7 billion over the next 10 years, reducing federal deficits by $2.2 billion over that time. DREAM-eligible students would generate between $1.4 and $3.6 trillion in taxable income over the course of their working lives, according to a study by UCLA’s North American Integration and Development Center.

Why Obama’s Decision To Stop Deporting DREAM-Eligible Youth Is Good For The Economy

Lift Retirement Age To 70

Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim, who is the world’s richest manwith a fortune of $65 billion, believes that struggling countries need to raise their retirement age to 70 in order to help fix their finances:

Countries should have people work until they are older to reflect longer life expectancy rates, Slim reportedly said…Slim added the current retirement age was established “when jobs were more physical and people died at 60, but now we live until 85 or 90.”

Ray Bradbury dies at 91

One of my favorite authors that also turned me on to the world of science fiction

Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and other beloved science fiction novels, died Tuesday night at the age of 91, according to the AP.

"His legacy lives on in his monumental body of books, film, television and theater, but more importantly, in the minds and hearts of anyone who read him, because to read him was to know him. He was the biggest kid I know," his grandson told the i09 science fiction blog.

Bradbury sold eight million copies of his books in 36 languages, according to The New York Times' obit.

He attributed his success as a writer to never having gone to college--instead, he read and wrote voraciously. "When I graduated from high school in 1938, I began going to the library three nights a week," he said in an interview with The Paris Review. "I did this every week for almost ten years and finally, in 1947, around the time I got married, I figured I was done. So I graduated from the library when I was twenty-seven. I discovered that the library is the real school."

Ray Bradbury, beloved science fiction author, dies

Ignore Global Warming Science

Carolina GOP legislators want to stop the use of science to plan for the future. They are circulating a bill that would force coastal counties to ignore actual observations and the best science-based projections in planning for future sea level rise. These lawmakers want to mandate a formula that projects a sea level rise of at most 12 inches this century, far below what the science now projects.

A state-appointed science panel reviewed the recent literature and reported that a 1-meter (39 inch) rise is likely by 2100. Many coastal studies experts think a level of 5 to 7 feet should be used, since you typically plan for the plausible worst-case scenario, especially with expensive, long-lived infrastructure.

The 2011 report by the National Academy of Science for the U.S. Navy on the national security implications of climate change concluded:

Based on recent peer-reviewed scientific literature, the Department of the Navy should expect roughly 0.4 to 2 meters global average sealevel rise by 2100, with a most likely value of about 0.8 meter. Projections of local sea-level rise could be much larger and should be taken into account for naval planning purposes,

Ignore Global Warming Science