Record warmth is forcing the organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia to helicopter in snow to cover mountains. The planet’s changing climate is threatening the start of the Olympics, as “sloppy, foggy weather” has canceled training runs on both Whistler and Cypress Mountains. In Vancouver, the “average temperature in January was 44.9 degrees, besting the previous warm record of 43.3 in 2006 and well above the historic average of 37.9 degrees”:

After the warmest January in Vancouver history, organizers moved more than 5,000 cubic meters of snow onto Cypress by helicopter and truck from nearby mountains. Some 750 workers are bringing in snow and building courses before competition starts on Saturday.

Vancouver’s troubles are part of a broader trend of warmer winters across the Northern Hemisphere. Increased warmth and changing weather patterns have led to glacial retreat and unreliable snowfall across the globe, putting the future of alpine sports in jeopardy. Globally, we are in the warmest winter on record. Locally, the weather forecast for the Olympics “calls for more rain and warm temperatures for the next five days.”

Latina Lista is reporting that Ana Mateo, a bilingual school secretary, has filed a lawsuit against her former employer, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, claiming that her civil rights were violated after she was allegedly fired for continuing to speak Spanish to parents. Local Charlotte station WSOC broke the news:

The lawsuit against Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools is now in federal court because a former employee said the CMS violated her civil rights because she spoke Spanish to parents even though she was hired to be the school’s bilingual secretary…

She claims in September of 2008, when a new principal came to the school, a new rule was given to all staff members to not speak Spanish to parents. The lawsuit claims Mateo, a bilingual secretary, continued to speak Spanish to many parents, after all, the school is more than a third Hispanic, well above the district average…Within a month of the alleged new rule, Mateo was told the school accepted her resignation, even though she says she never offered to resign.

Mateo filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which issued a response indicating that there is evidence that supports her allegations. While the school district claims it does not have an official English-only policy, WSOC also found that school staff members were telling parents that they could not even speak Spanish to one another on school grounds.

In the past, the National Education Association (NEA) has slammed English-only initiatives in schools as “government-sanctioned bigotry” that only makes it more “difficult for schools to prepare students for jobs of the future.” A study posted on NEA’s website states that school administrators “must have skills and the means for communicating with Latino parents and enlisting them as allies.” “There is a critical role for teachers and schools in helping parents to support their children’s schooling,” concludes Patricia Gándara of the University of California–Los Angeles.

Yesterday, Senate Finance Committee members Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released what they were calling a jobs bill, an $85 billion piece of legislation composed of tax incentives for businesses to hire as well as a handful of extenders to expiring tax provisions (that had nothing to do with job creation). Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) had been working on a jobs package, but as Ezra Klein put it, “the Finance Committee wants control of the process, so it’s trying to muscle its way in front of them.”

The Baucus/Grassley bill was roundly panned by the rest of the Democratic caucus. “It looks more like a tax bill than a jobs bill to me,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). So Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) scrapped it in favor of a $15 billion bill with four pieces: a payroll tax break, and one-year extension of highway funding, an extension of the Build America bond program, and a business tax break for equipment expensing.

Republicans, who were keen on many of the tax provisions in the Baucus/Grassley bill, immediately cried foul, complaining that Reid was undermining economic recovery with his actions. Grassley spokeswoman Jill Kozeny said that Reid “pulled the rug out from work to build broad-based support for tax relief and other efforts to help the private sector recover from the economic crisis.”

But it’s funny that the GOP suddenly feels that the legislation is must-pass to boost an economic recovery considering that earlier in the week they said that it wouldn’t create a single job:

Kyl, a member of Finance, said he most definitely “would not call it a ‘jobs bill’,” though…“No, I dont call that a jobs bill,” Kyl said emphatically…”All of that has to be done, but it does not create one job.”

And even though they readily admitted that the bill was full of stuff “that has to be done,” Republicans were placing all sorts of conditions on their support, including unanimous consent to vote on a huge cut in the estate tax that would give billions in tax breaks to the heirs of wealthy families.

So Reid was wise to pitch the Baucus/Grassley bill overboard and to say that he’d revisit the tax extenders later. Even before it came out, economic analysts and members of the administration were saying that it would “only work on the margins” in terms of boosting employment. The New York Times’ editorial board noted that “it was not even in the same league as the modest House-passed $154 billion jobs bill.” There was no reason to allow the GOP to wring out concessions in order to pass a bill that wouldn’t have done anything.

Which isn’t to say that Reid’s $15 billion effort will do all that much either. With the administration’s Council of Economic Advisers estimating that unemployment is still going to be above eight percent in 2012, a much more concerted effort is necessary, including aid to states and some sort of direct job creation.

Cross-posted on the Wonk Room.