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Ardas Kran

SUKSHINDER SINGH SIKH GURBANI SONG MARCH 2010

As the league prepares for a frenetic free agency period, one that will almost certainly open with a slew of deals on Friday (despite the league's insistance that no pacts can truly be consummated before then), we've been inundated with questions asking if the Celtics can sign Player X or Player Y.

If you're asking, the answer is probably, "No."

Here's the bottom line: The Celtics will be a luxury tax-paying team and therefore will have only the mini mid-level exception ($3 million) with which to attract anything more than a minimum-contract player. The Celtics are already over the salary cap with the team on the hook for $64.9 million for seven players (that's including a $5.7 million qualifying offer to Jeff Green, and that price tag should only rise). Boston will be able to sign its rookies and use Bird Rights to potentially pay to retain the likes of Green and Glen Davis.

After that? It's minimum contracts or bust.

Samuel Dalembert? Greg Oden? Tyson Chandler? Kwame Brown?

No. No. Heck no. Now you're talking! (And even Brown might get overpaid by another team).

That's not to say the Celtics can't get creative with the goal of bringing in another big contract. The team could work a sign-and-trade with Davis. Trouble there is that he's an unrestricted free agent and a team with deep pockets can sign him without the need to involve Boston (though it could be financially beneficial to Davis to go that route).

The Celtics also have to be financially responsible this offseason should they wish to maintain their cap flexibility next offseason, when the likes of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen come off the books (and the team will have its amnesty clause if it wishes to axe another contract). Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge knows the challenge he's facing.

"Every year is a challenge, it brings different challenges," Ainge said this week. "A few years back, we had a target and we went after Rasheed [Wallace], and it was easy that way. We don’t have the same [financial] flexibility this [offseason] to do some of those things. We’re just in the game. We have a list of players we’d like to get. Right now there’s a lot of money out there, lot of teams with cap space. Players are waiting for the big paydays, so we have to be patient in this process."

There's still low-cost players with high-reward talent available. The Celtics could attempt to bring back players like Delonte West and Marquis Daniels, two guys worth more than the minimum if able to stay healthy. Otherwise, Boston will be left looking at veterans willing to sign at low money for a chance to ride with a championship-caliber squad.

Shaheed Bhai Harjinder Singh Jinda's mother Bibi Gurnam Kaur has passed away.
Sijda e dil ton Bibi Gurnam Kaur jehiyan maavan nu jihna ne aise soorbeer yodhe nu janam ditta! Waheguru ji ka khalsa, Waheguru ji ki fateh!

RIP

(Its easy to update status about death of celebrities but quite tough to write about mother of the marty who sacrificed for the truth and stood up for "WHEN INJUSTICE BECOMES LAW, REBELLION BECOMES DUTY".)

Akhan vich 'hanjoo' kyu aunde ne.tanhai vich 'gum' kyu staunde ne.hanjoo ponj k koi dse menu.ke aksr jina nu parwah v ni sadi o hi ena yad kyu aunde ne

funny pic

WASHINGTON: Amid charges of racial profiling by a group of 38 civil rights organizations led by the Sikh Coalition, the US Transportation Security Administration is investigating allegations that Mexican travellers were being targeted for extra screening.

The allegations of such targeting at Honolulu International Airport "resulted in launching an immediate and thorough investigation of the behaviour detection programme at HNL," the TSA stated on Thursday.

"Pending the completion of the investigation, TSA also provided HNL Behaviour Detection Officers refresher training to ensure the programme is focused solely on identifying suspicious behaviours."

"TSA's behaviour detection programme in no way encourages or tolerates profiling," the agency said. "Profiling is not an effective form of security and our security officers are trained to treat every passenger with dignity and respect."

The statement came as 38 civil rights organizations led by Sikh Coalition called for an independent audit of the TSA to determine whether the agency engages in racial profiling.

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the groups expressed concern about reports that TSA officers targeted Mexican and Dominican travellers for extra scrutiny at airports in Hawaii and New Jersey.

TSA officers at the Honolulu International Airport targeted Mexicans so often that their colleagues called them the "Mexicutioners," it said.

Sikh travellers are routinely selected for secondary screening at some American airports, even after clearing advanced imaging technology machines without incident, the letter said.

The Sikh Coalition said it believes that "these troubling reports are the tip of the iceberg" for TSA profiling. "Based on Sikh experience, we've long suspected that TSA officers are engaged in a pattern of profiling minorities instead of focusing on criminal behaviour."

ichard Vedder is distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of "Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much." Matthew Denhart is administrative director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.College costs too much, both for students and for society as a whole.
This year, according to the College Board, average published in-state tuition and fee plus room/board charges exceed $17,000 at four-year public institutions, a 6% increase from only one year earlier.
In 2009, spending by Americans for post-secondary education totaled $461 billion, an amount 42% greater than in 2000, after accounting for inflation. This $461 billion is the equivalent of 3.3% of total U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) and an amount greater than the total GDP of countries such as Sweden, Norway and Portugal.The public is taking notice. The Occupy Wall Street protesters have featured student debt forgiveness as one of their demands, and students in California have demonstrated several times in the past year after their tuition was raised twice.
Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed some of these concerns in a speech where he urged colleges to get serious about their cost problem. But there's only so much the federal government can (and should) do. The underlying structure of American higher education needs dramatic reform before there will be any relief in sight.
Whereas private businesses cut prices for consumers and costs to themselves through efficiencies that increase profits and incomes, universities lack those incentives.
Indeed, the typical successful university president views his or her key constituencies not to be the customer (students and their parents who pay tuition charges or the granters of research funds), but rather others -- the faculty, important alumni, key administrators, trustees and occasionally politicians. They please these constituencies by raising, and then spending, lots of money.hey effectively bribe powerful faculty with low teaching loads, high salaries and good parking. They give the alumni successful intercollegiate athletic programs that are expensive and usually financed off the backs of students. They give trustees whatever they want, no matter how costly or eccentric.
Universities do a second thing unheard of in the private sector -- they often deliberately turn customers away.
A fast food chain or discount store succeeds by selling more hamburgers or television sets; no customer was ever kept from spending money at McDonald's by an "admissions office." Yet for American universities, the "bottom line" is measured by college rankings that often reward schools for turning people away, becoming more "selective." Many believe the Ivy League offers the best education in the world, so why do we encourage those elite institutions to deny access to thousands of highly qualified students every year?
Like health care, prices are rising rapidly for higher education because of the predominant role of third-party payments -- federal student loans and grants, state government support for institutions and students, private philanthropic gifts and endowment income. College seniors who borrow to finance their education now graduate with an average of $24,000 in debt, and student loan debt now tops credit card debt among Americans. When some else is paying a lot of the bills, students are less sensitive to the price, thus allowing the colleges to care less about keeping prices under control. And the nonprofit nature of institutions reduces incentives for colleges and universities to be efficient.The key to getting costs under control is contained in three words that begin with the letter "I"-- information, incentives and innovation.
Customers are ignorant of college outcomes because we do not measure in any coherent and consistent manner what students actually learn, how well they do after graduation or whether they think better in a critical manner as a result of the college experience. Even basic financial information on how colleges spend money is often not fully shared with trustees or key politicians who help fund or oversee college operations.
As mentioned above, incentives to conserve resources are few. Once, as a department chairman, I successfully battled for more faculty members to do the same amount of work, thus lowering productivity. The result? My faculty evaluated me highly so I got a nice raise. Where else do the employees get to decide who their bosses will be or how much they will be paid?
If information and incentives are provided, innovation will come. Already, we know several online and other innovations can work to deliver high-quality education services at potentially lower prices. Duncan highlighted Western Governor's University, a nonprofit online institution, as one such example.
Nondegree forms of education need more emphasis, since the number of college graduates exceeds the number of jobs available in occupations for which degrees historically have been desirable -- jobs in the managerial, technical and professional areas. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008 some 29.7% of flight attendants, 24.4% of retail salespersons and 17.4% of baggage porters had a bachelor's degree or higher.
According to my analysis of the data, more than 17 million college graduates were "underemployed" in 2008. Surely these people needed some form of post high school training, but an expensive four-year degree may not have been the best approach. Rather, perhaps we should be encouraging some students to develop skills at lower costs by utilizing innovative free courses provided by groups such as the Saylor Foundation and Khan Academy.
College costs cannot rise faster than income forever -- we cannot afford it. Necessity is the mother of invention. Like it or not, American higher education is in for big change in the next generation.