Monday Quick Hits/Links

• Apple had their usual Steve Jobs Fiesta today and one of the announcements that he made was that Safari, the Apple browser, was going to be released for Windows. I downloaded it and have the following to say: loved it, except that it seems to be set up for a 1-button mouse. My forward/back buttons didn't do jack and neither did my right click. I'm using a Logitech MX Revolution. Note to Steve: fix it and I will indeed use it.
• Are Hispanic immigrants not assimilating? Are they worse than prior waves (Chinese, Irish, etc)? According to the WSJ (fair use excerpt:) Mexican-born men, for example, had higher labor force participation rates than native-born male workers, 88% compared with 83%, and lower unemployment rates than native workers, 4.4% compared with 5.1% in 2006. Labor force participation rates of illegal aliens are higher yet, a whopping 94%. More importantly, the children of Hispanic immigrants are graduating from high school. The high school completion rate for young, U.S.-born Hispanics is 86%, only slightly lower than the 92% of non-Hispanic whites. Hispanic immigrant children who do enroll in school after they come here are as likely as American-born Hispanics to earn a high school diploma (although half of Mexican immigrants 15-17 years-old do not enroll in school). Hispanics are more likely than either whites or blacks to continue their education at two-year institutions; in 2000 they represented 14% of all students enrolled in two-year institutions. Only 12% of U.S.-born Hispanics earn four-year degrees compared with 26% of non-Hispanic whites.
• Has Hugo Chavez bitten off more than he can chew? Closing down RCTV and clamping down on the universities is not the best way to keep people happy. From the Journal again: The number of Venezuelans who have a favorable opinion of the president has fallen 10 percentage points to 39% since November, according to Hinterlaces, a Caracas pollster. Skyrocketing crime, inflation and shortages of basic foods have contributed to Mr. Chávez's fall in popularity since he won re-election by a landslide in December. In the past, Mr. Chávez, who has spent billions of dollars on social-welfare programs aimed at the poor, has deftly manipulated Venezuela's sharp class divisions to portray his foes as U.S. manipulated "oligarchs." That tactic hasn't worked this time, as students come from all walks of life and many are poor or working class. "You see all kinds of students here. There are no 'oligarchs,'" says Pamela Lora, a 20-year-old public-health student at UCV. "This has nothing to do with President Bush or with any 'empire,'" she scoffs.