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updated: 2019-12-19
 

"The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency." --- attributed to Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov Lenin by J.M. Keynes but unverified

 
 

2009 June

U	M	T	W	R	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

 

"God gave me my money   I believe the power to make money is a gift from God... to be developed & used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind   Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money & still more money & to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience." --- John D. Rockefeller 1905

 
 
 

captain William Scott's flag for the Republic of Texas.

2009-06-01

2009-06-01
_Open Congress_
Status of S877

2009-06-01
Stephen Zyskiewicz _CocoaHeads_
[MEET] June CocoaHeads Mac Developer Meetings
"CocoaHeads is an international Mac programmer's group. Meetings are free and open to the public. We specialize in Cocoa, but everything Mac programming related is welcome. Thursday, 2009 June 11, 18:00 

Australia	Melbourne
Australia	Sydney
Germany	Aachen	Thursday, 2009 June 18, 19:00
Germany	Berlin	Thursday, 2009 June 11, 19:00
Germany	Frankfurt
Germany	Munich	Thursday, 2009 June 18, 20:00
Japan	Tokyo	Wednesday, 2009 June 14
Saudi Arabia	Riyadh	Tuesday, 2009 June 9, 20:00
South Africa	Johannesburg	Thursday, 2009 June 11, 18:30
Spain	Madrid	Friday, 2009 June 26, 15:30
Sweden	Stockholm	Monday, 2009 June 1, 19:00
United States of America	Atlanta, GA	Thursday, 2009 June 18, 19:00
United States of America	Boston, MA	Thursday, 2009 June 11, 19:00
United States of America	Boulder, CO	Thursday, 2009 June 4, 19:00
United States of America	Colorado Springs, CO	Thursday, 2009 June 11, 19:00
United States of America	Des Monies, IA	Thursday, 2009 June 11, 19:00
United States of America	Fayetteville, AR	Thursday, 2009 June 11, 18:00
United States of America	Lake Forest, IL	Wednesday, 2009 June 10, 19:00
United States of America	Nashville, TN	Thursday, 2009 June 11, 19:00
United States of America	New York, NY	Thursday, 2009 June 11, 18:00
United States of America	Philadelphia, PA	Thursday, 2009 June 18, 19:00
United States of America	St. Louis, MO	Saturday, 2009 June 27, 14:00

Some chapters may have yet to post their meeting for next month. CocoaHeads meeting times may change. Locations and more information here.   Also be sure to check for an NSCoder Night in your area.

2009-06-01
David Marsh _MarketWatch_
How gold and GM give history lessons

2009-06-01
_Daily Illini_
Abuses in admission process advance cycle of corruption
Jodi S. Cohen, Stacy St. Clair & Tara Malone: Chicago Tribune: Clout goes to college: Rezko relative is among those admitted to U. of I. in shadow system influenced by trustees and other insiders
"In one case, a relative of Antoin 'Tony' Rezko, the now-convicted influence peddler for former governor Rod Blagojevich, got admitted after U. of I. President B. Joseph White wrote an e-mail stating that the governor 'has expressed his support, and would like to see admitted' Rezko's relative and another applicant...   Since 2005, about 800 under-graduate students have landed on the clout list for the Urbana-Champaign campus.   It's unknown how many would qualify for entry on their own, but their acceptance rate is higher than average.   For the 2008-09 school year, for example, about 77% [of those on the list] were accepted, compared with 69% of all applicants...   In 2008 March, Board of Trustees Chairman Niranjan Shah pushed for a student to be admitted to the rigorous MBA program, even though Chancellor Herman warned that school officials 'had serious concerns about his ability to handle the academics' and the student's GPA was 'below what is admissible'.   'May be [sic] he can be on probation during first year.', Shah suggested.   E-mails show that when Shah pressed for a decision before he visited the student's family in India, the business school relented and offered the applicant a spot...   Andy Wethekam, a York Community High School student who thought he would follow in his father's footsteps and attend U. of I., was denied admission to its business school this year despite earning a 31 on the ACT and a 4.1 grade-point average."
Inside Higher Education
Christine Des Garennes: Urbana IL News-Gazette
Megan Twohey: Chicago Tribune: Battle for admission to University of Illinois means many applicants feel they need all the help they can get
"In 1984, nearly 14K students applied for roughly 6K freshman spots on the Urbana-Champaign campus, few students from outside Illinois enrolled and high school graduates with decent grades had a good shot of getting in.   Today, 26K students are bidding for 7,100 spots, non-residents make up a growing percentage of the freshman class and applicants across the board have more impressive academic credentials than ever before, said Stacey Kostell, director of admissions...   In 1989, non-residents made up 7% of the freshman class; in 2008, they made up 17%.   As a result of all the changes, the average ACT score of freshman applicants at the U. of I. increased from 25.4 to 28.2 out of a possible 36 from 1987 to 2009...   The bad economy makes the high value of admittance to the U. of I. even more pronounced."
Stacy St. Clair, Jodi S. Cohen & Robert Becker: Chicago Tribune: How politicians pressure U. of I. to admit students
"Documents show both Democrats and Republicans asked lobbyists to track the status of more than 500 applicants, accounting for well more than half of the names on a clout list maintained during the past 5 years.   The list of students -- referred to by school officials as 'Category I' applicants -- also includes requests and recommendations from Illinois congressmen, a U.S. senator, down-state mayors and ex-governor James Thompson...   Most names reach the clout list through the university's top 2 lobbyists, Richard Schoell and Terry McLennand, records show...   Representative James Brosnahan (D-Evergreen Park) inserted himself in the admissions process in February after a constituent was rejected despite having a 32 ACT score and a near-perfect grade-point average from Marist High School in Chicago.   After the student lost his appeal -- an unadvertised option for those on the clout list -- Brosnahan and senator Edward Maloney (D-Chicago) pushed for a reversal...   The assurances [of fairness] offer little solace to U. of I. alum Gary Gasbarra.   The Flossmoor man watched his son apply to the University of Illinois the first day the admissions office accepted applications two years ago, believing the teen's 32 ACT score and high class rank would gain him entry to the business school."
Chronicle of Higher Education: U. of Illinois Takes Heat for Newspaper's Report About Political Influence on Admissions
Jack Stripling: Gainesville FL Sun: Med student admitted without committee's backing
"In a move that breaks with the norms established by medical school accreditors, the dean of the University of Florida's College of Medicine has opted to admit a student from a politically connected family, even though the student didn't have the backing of the Medical Selection Committee...   Before Kone took over as dean in 2007 May, governor Crist sent a letter to UF in 2007 February on Mendelsohn's behalf.   The letter, addressed to UF's admissions officer and copied to UF President Bernie Machen, urged UF to admit Mendelsohn to the Junior Honors Medical Program, an accelerated 7-year program that combines bachelor's and medical degrees...   UF received 2,783 medical school applications this year, according to the university's admissions office.   The class is limited to 135 seats."
U of IL trustees
more on U of IL trustees

2009-06-01
Aisha Labi _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Brit university executive Roy Anderson says the UK's top 5 universities should go private, charge unlimited tuition and fees and admit more foreign students
Tim Ross: London Evening Standard

2009-06-01
Patrick Thibodeau _Computer World_/_IDG_
State and local government profligacy could boost off-shoring
IT World
CIO
"Take Aneesh Chopra, Obama's pick to be the nation's first-ever CTO, for example.   Chopra was Virginia's secretary of technology when the state signed a 2007 out-sourcing contract for content management development with HCL America Inc., a unit of Noida, India-based out-sourcing firm HCL Technologies Ltd.   At the time, the Virginia Information Technologies Agency said it would allow work under the contract to be performed at HCL facilities in India...   The other top technology officer appointed by Obama, federal CIO Vivek Kundra, signed a similar deal with Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp., a Washington-based company with operations in India, in his previous position as CTO of the District of Columbia."

2009-06-01
Robert T. Miller _First Things_
Sotomayor the Subjectivist: a teaching moment about judicial philosophies and the role of judges
"liberals and conservatives tend to explain their respective positions using the same words with systematically different meanings...   impartiality entails excluding irrelevant factors that would divert one from the objectively correct answer, impartiality presupposes objectively correct answers; hence, in the absence of objectively correct answers, impartiality loses its meaning."

2009-06-01 Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Steepening yield curve on government bonds shows expectation of even more steeply increasing inflation

2009-06-01
_Great Falls MT Tribune_/_Gannett_
New on-line vehicle registration system shut down

2009-06-01
Rita Zeidner _Society for Human Resource Management_ vol54 #6
High U.S. unemployment rates—and employer abuses—are fueling debate about foreign workers

2009-06-01 (5769 Sivan 09)
Dave Barry _Jewish World Review_
Can't we all just get along? Are you a meshugena?
 
 

2009-06-03 11:03PDT (14:03EDT) (18:03GMT)
Alistair Barr _MarketWatch_
Mega-grants of stock options to executives re-appear
"Seagate Technology, SunTrust Banks, Capital One Financial...   The resurgence is being driven by corporate boards, which are trying to make sure CEOs get a certain [hideously excessive] level of target compensation, Hodgson explained.   The two most important variables in valuing stock options are the number of options and the exercise or strike price.   So when share prices slump, companies have to give executives a lot more options to make sure the total value of the awards are maintained, Hodgson said.   The problem with this is that it doesn't align the interests of executives with those of share-holders, one of the cardinal sins of corporate governance."

2009-06-03
Austin Cassidy _Jacksonville Observer_
FSCJ's First Annual Budget

2009-06-03
Louie Gohmert
Job Fair Helps Match Hundreds of East Texas Job Seekers with Hiring Employers

2009-06-03
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
Economic Policy-Makers Have Created A Perfect Storm

2009-06-03
Ron Paul _Ron Paul Library_
Mistakes: Just a Few!

2009-06-03 (5769 Sivan 11)
Walter E. Williams _Laurel MS Leader Call_
Dumbest Generation getting dumber?
DeSoto Times Tribune
Patriot Post
Town Hall
Lancaster Eagle Gazette/Gannett
Santa Rosa CA Press Gazette/Freedom Communications
Washington Times
Jewish World Review
WikiPedia SAT score by year
graphs

2009-06-03 (5769 Sivan 11)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Out of Context part 2

2009-06-03 (5769 Sivan 11)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Should terrible teacher be exposed?
 
 

2009-06-04

1783-06-04: Montgolfier brothers tested hot air balloon
1942-06-04: battle of Midway began

2009-06-04 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 496,822 in the week ending May 30, a decrease of 41,577 from the previous week.   There were 300,989 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.5% during the week ending May 23, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 6,014,501, a decrease of 141,671 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.1% and the volume was 2,757,822.   Extended benefits were available in AK, AZ, AR, CA, CT, DC, GA, ID, IL, IN, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MT, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, VT, VA, WA, and WI during the week ending May 16.   [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs

2009-06-04
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Car paper-work/privacy violation becomes big wait: Signs of improvement in registration system turn out to be elusive
Evelyn Pyburn: Big Sky Business Journal
May 29, the day the Justice Department shut down its new computerized title system so private contractor 3M and state officials could work out some bugs in the $21M system, known as the Montana Enhanced Registration and Licensing System, or MERLIN. &nbp; MERLIN is a product of Archon Technologies, a 3M company.

2009-06-04
_Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_/_AP_
Some officials confident in car registration computer system
"BearingPoint, has filed for protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, [and] is not fulfilling its obligation to fix bugs under the contract price."

2009-06-04 06:51PDT (09:51EDT) (13:51GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
US productivity rose 1.6% in 2009Q1

2009-06-04
Ben Worthen _Wall Street Journal_
Tech Execs on Another Lobbying Spree

2009-06-04
_Wall Street Journal_
Angela Merkel's rebuke to central bankers is welcome

2009-06-04 Patrick Thibodeau _Computer World_/_IDG_
Evidence that H-1B visa program drives down compensation is growing
CIO

2009-06-04
Graham Taylor _Body Shopper UK: The IT Body Shopper Portal_
Visa rules are being abused to bring in off-shore IT staff
"A former contractor at BT Global Services claimed he was told by a BT manager that he was being displaced by an Indian contractor from an off-shore supplier for cost reasons.   According to the BBC, the contractor was told: 'We have to cut costs, you've got to go.'   He added that his rate had been £400 a day, while he was told by his line manager the off-shore contractors cost £220 a day...   the off-shore contractor, Tech Mahindra...   'We had been hearing for some time from contractors that BT may perhaps be one of the worst offenders for replacing contract staff with workers on Intra-Company Transfer visas...'"

2009-06-04
Frosty Wooldridge _Border Fire_
Excessive mass immigration intentionally destabilizing USA's political system

2009-06-04
Walter E. Williams _New Jersey News-Room_
Grade Inflation
WikiPedia SAT score by year
graphs

2009-06-04 (5769 Sivan 12)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Out of Context part 3
 
 

632 Mohammed died in Medina
1783-06-08: Laki volcano in Iceland started eruption which lasted 8 months
1789-06-08: Bill of Rights proposed to congress by James Madison 1789
1809-06-08: Thomas Paine died
1854-06-08: Gadsden Purchase completed
1861-06-08: Tennessee seceded from the USA
1869-06-08: Frank Lloyd Wright born
1874-06-08: Cochise died

2009-06-08
John Murrell _Silicon Valley_/_San Jose Mercury News_/_McClatchy_
Red Chinese censorship reaching out to US hardware makers? No problem -- we'll just label it as the Special Limited Edition

2009-06-08
Ruffin Prevost _Billings MT Gazette_
Freeze warning issued Sunday night around Bighorn Basin: 3 inches of snow in Cody, WY, 6 inches of snow in Crandall
"over-night low temperatures around Cody of about 28 degrees, threatening young and vulnerable crops."

2009-06-08
Erica Yuenger _Daily Illini_
Task force to re-examine rules regarding ban on home-baked goods at farmers' markets

2009-06-08
James van de Berg _Daily Illini_
U of I students can rent Zipcars for $35 per year plus $8 per hour

2009-06-08
Jeff Rowes _Wall Street Journal_
Left and right show too much deference to congress' unconstitutional legislation
"The practical result is that judges of both persuasions almost never enforce any constitutional limit on the power of government to regulate property and the economy.   Given that the vast majority of law concerns these two areas, the real crisis in constitutional law is not judicial 'activism' but judicial passivism.   It all began in the late 1930s, when the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for New Deal economic regulation.   In essence, conservatives have adopted the big-government agenda of that era.   The liberal-conservative consensus explains why nomination fights focus on a few 'culture war' issues such as gay marriage or guns.   Liberals and conservatives squabble over these esoteric questions because there is such harmonious accord on everything else.   The time-honored justification for judicial deference is that when courts refuse to enforce property rights and allow economic liberties to be trampled by legislatures they are showing respect for the democratic process...   The Constitution's framers understood that legislatures are as much nests of vice as of virtue.   That is why they went to such lengths to define the limits of government, set forth our rights broadly, and create an independent, co-equal branch of government to protect those rights...   Special interests love licensing because it restricts competition and thus drives up the prices they can charge."

2009-06-08
Jason Scott _Cumberland county PA Sentinel_
Road projects have begun, but budget holds up education stimulus in PA

2009-06-08
Sean Gabb _V Dare_
England: The Peasants are Revolting

2009-06-08 (5769 Sivan 16)
Mark Steyn _Jewish World Review_
A super-power that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on left-overs from the past

2009-06-08 (5769 Sivan 16)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?
 
 

2009-06-09

1894-06-09: Oil found in Corsicana, TX

2009-06-09
Michael Jamison _Missoulian_/_Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
State firms cry foul over stimulus procedures which favor multi-nationals
Susan Gallagher: Charleston WV Daily Mail/AP
"That's because the government is using a controversial contracting method that speeds bidding but also tilts the playing field in favor of mega-companies.   It's called IDIQ contracting, which is shorthand for 'indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity', and it's essentially an all-you-can-eat money buffet for big corporations...   only a handful of large firms can afford to engage on such undefined and unrestricted terms.   In Montana, where about $78M is ear-marked for border-station construction, that means Swank and CTA are out, while Parsons Corp., from Pasadena, CA, is in.   Parsons, with 12K employees worldwide and revenues pushing $3.5G last year, is no stranger to IDIQ contracting, or to the controversy that comes with it...   In fact, Parsons ranked third among the nation's construction-services firms in terms of federal campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle, donating about $600K split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats.   The company also spent more than $1.5M lobbying federal law-makers between 2004 and 2008, with $305K shelled out during the 2008 presidential election year...   The Department of Homeland Security refused interview requests regarding its contracting methods, but Sahar Wali, at the General Services Administration, said her agency is choosing big firms with IDIQ contracts already in place because recovery funds must move fast if they are to stimulate the economy."

2009-06-09
Kevin Bogardus _The Hill_
Tech executives and their lobbyists ramp up battle against Obama proposal to tax profits from US capital sent over-seas
"While the business community has opposed the proposal, tech lobbyists believe their industry in particular would be most affected because of their global operations.   That has led to a lobbying blitz out of Silicon Valley...   The Information Technology Industry Council, TechAmerica and the Semiconductor Industry Association are coordinating the visits [with congress and white house aides]...   Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association...   Technology CEO Council...   PhRMA..."

2009-06-09
David Gratzer _Wall Street Journal_
Canada backing away from socialized medicine

2009-06-09 (5769 Sivan 17)
Anne Bayefsky _Jewish World Review_
Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

2009-06-09 (5769 Sivan 17)
Frank J. Gaffney _Jewish World Review_
America's first Muslim president?

2009-06-09 (5769 Sivan 17)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Variety of ways of doing nothing
Redding Record Searchlight
Abilene KS Reporter Times
Pasadena CA Star-News
San Gabrel Valley Tribune

2009-06-09
_MoneyControl_
NASSCOM calls for subsidies for Indian bodyshops
 
 

2009-06-10

1190-06-10: Frederick Barbarossa drowned during 3rd Crusade
1610-06-10: governor of VA, lord de la Warre (Delaware), arrived
1735-06-10: John Morgan born
1776-06-10: committee appointed to write Declaration of Independence
1768-06-10: John Hancock's sloop "Liberty" was seized for alleged customs violations
1801-06-10: Tripoli declared war on USA, demanding tribute
1854-06-10; first graduation from US Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD
1861-06-10: Dorothea Dix appointed superintendent of female nurses for US Army
1895-06-10: Hattie McDaniel born
1898-06-10: US Marines landed in Cuba
1901-06-10: Frederick Loewe born
1906-06-10: president Theodore Roosevelt gets Russia and Japan to agree to peace talks
1907-06-10: 11 drivers begin race from French embassy in Beijing to Paris.
1909-06-10: first SOS transmitted from SS Slavonia, wrecked in the Azores
1915-06-10: Saul Bellow born
1916-06-10: Mecca, under control of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, fell to Arabs during Great Arab Revolt
1922-06-10: Judy Garland born
1940-06-10: Italy declared war on France and Britain; Canada declares war on Italy
1943-06-10: Allies begin bombing Nazi Germany around the clock
1967-06-10: 6-Day War ended
2004-06-10: Ray Charles died in Beverly Hills, CA

2009-06-10 04:52:24PDT (07:52:24EDT) (11:52:24GMT)
_San Gabriel Valley Tribune_
Red China chills the web

2009-06-10
Michael Riknick _Sharon PA Herald_
Union VP complains that Duferco Farrell over failure to buy American
"Duferco's Farrell plant buys slabs over-seas -- mainly in Russia -- and then rolls them into steel coils.   The company has said it does that because the slabs it needs are generally not available in the U.S.A.   The Buy American provision of the $787G stimulus package specifically calls for steel used in public works projects to be poured in the U.S.A.   For months Duferco has been trying to secure an exemption -- so far without success...   Conway noted the plant is a joint venture between Duferco Farrell and OJSC Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works, better known as NLMK of Russia.   NLMK, Conway said, owns an electric furnace shop at the Port of Indiana operating as Beta Steel Corp. and melts steel into slabs which Duferco can use to meet the Buy American requirements.   However, Conway said Duferco contends that's not the best solution as it prefers 10-inch slabs rather than the 8-inch slabs produced by Beta Steel.   Another American steel producer, which he declined to identify, also is willing to sell Duferco 10-inch slabs, he added."

2009-06-10
Dorothy Tucker _CBS 2 Chicago_
College Graduates Face Worst Job Market In Years
"only 1 out of every 5 is landing a job right out of school...   In 2007, 50% of grads had a full-time job when they graduated; in 2008, it was 25%. So far this year, it's only 19%."

2009-06-10
Lee E. Ohanian _Forbes_
$787G Mistake

2009-06-10
Jay Furst _Rochester MN Post-Bulletin_
Off-Shore Out-Sourcing at the Mayo Clinic

2009-06-10 (5769 Sivan 18)
Walter E. Williams _Patriot Post_
Americans Love Government
World Net Daily
GOP USA
Capitalism Magazine
Jewish World Review

2009-06-10 (5769 Sivan 18)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The Character of Nations
Patriot Post
National Review
Capitalism Magazine
 
 

2009-06-11

1919-06-11: Sir Barton won triple crown

2009-06-11 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 576,695 in the week ending June 6, an increase of 76,312 from the previous week.   There were 373,046 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.6% during the week ending May 30, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 6,127,413, an increase of 93,810 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.1% and the volume was 2,828,892.   Extended benefits were available in AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MT, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, VT, VA, WA, and WI during the week ending May 23.   [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs

2009-06-11
Ed Kemmick _Billings MT Gazette_
Restored B-17 lands in Billings

2009-06-11
_Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_
Fort William/Fort Laramie commemorates 175th year
national park service on Ft. Laramie

2009-06-11
Jeremy N. Smith _World Trade Magazine_
bodyshopping 50 years ago, off-shoring moving up the skills chain
"In January of 2006, judge Nicholas Tsoucalas told the government to rethink its position.   By April, the Department of Labor complied.   Henceforth, it said, full assistance would be available to the 4 CSC programmers and colleagues.   Just in time.   Almost simultaneously, CSC announced it would cut 5K jobs in the United States and Europe and replace them with Indian employees.   Rivals EDS and IBM, among others, immediately matched or exceeded CSC's move.   'Off-shoring is moving up the technological food chain with more sophisticated jobs and facilities going over-seas.', Representative Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat, responded.   His estimate: since 2000, approximately 500K Americans a year have lost work to over-seas workers."

2009-06-11 09:59PDT (12:59EDT) (16:59GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
US household wealth dropped for 7th straight quarter for total drop of $14T: $1.3T drop to $50.4T in 2009Q1

2009-06-11
Scott Ott _Washington Examiner_
US government occupies GM, establishes "secure Green Zone"

2009-06-11 (5769 Sivan 19)
Victor Davis Hanson _Jewish World Review_
Our Historically-Challenged President
 
 

2009-06-12

History Net: Today in History
c. 325-06-12: first Council of Nicaea at Isnuk, Turkey
1442-06-12: Alfonso V of Aragon crowned king of Naples
1458-06-12: college of St. Mary Magdalene founded at Oxford University
1665-06-12: New Amsterdam renamed New York
1744-06-12: David Brainerd was ordained by the Society of Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge in Newark, NJ
1765-06-12: MA organized commitees of correspondence in response to Sugar Act
1775-06-12: MA governor general Gage declared martial law
1776-06-12: Declaration of Rights adopted by Virginia
1778-06-12: Philip Livingston died
1786-06-12: Carl Magnus Wrangel died
1787-06-12: senators required to be at least 30 years old
1798-06-12: John Morisson died in Canisbay, Scotland
1806-06-12: John A. Roebling born in Muehlhausen, Prussia
1812-06-12: Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia
1829-06-12: Johanna Spyri born
1839-06-12: first baseball game
1840-06-12: world anti-slavery conference erupted into shouting because American women attended
1849-06-12: Lewis Haslett of Louisville, KY patented gas mask
1857-06-12: Ottomar Cloeter arrived in Crow Wing, MN
1867-06-12: Austro-Hungarian empire formed
1868-06-12: August F. Zich born near Stargard, Pomerania, Germany
1989-06-12:Emilio Aguinaldo declared Philippines independent
1901-06-12: Cuba accepted Platt Amendment and became USA protectorate
1915-06-12: David Rockefeller born
1917-06-12: Secret Service begins providing protection to families of the presidents
1918-06-12: first use of USA airplanes to drop bombs in France
1920-06-12: Farmer Labor party organized in Chicago, IL; Warren G. Harding nominated for president by Republicans
1921-06-12: president Warren G. Harding urges every young man to attend a military training camp
1924-06-12: George H.W. Bush born in Milton, MA
1926-06-12: Brazil leaves League of Nations in protest over plans to admit Germany
1929-06-12: Anne Frank born
1937-06-12: in purge, 8 of Stalin's generals were sentenced to death
1942-06-12: Hitler orders that Slavic people be enslaved; US dropped bombs on oil refineries in Ploesti, Rumania
1952-06-12: USSR set aside peace treaty with Japan
1963-06-12: civil rights lawyer Medgar Evers was killed outside his home in Jackson, MS
1967-06-12: in Loving v. Virginia US supreme court declared Virginia's "Racial Integrity Act of 1924" which banned inter-racial marriage to be unconstitutional

2009-06-12
Steve Giegerich _St. Louis MO Post-Dispatch_
"Wonderfully skilled people" flocking to state career centers
"The primary objective is to start collecting a regular paycheck again, a goal Harrison shares with 14.5M other Americans currently out of work.   Forecasters say the job market is showing a few signs of recovering from what has been a brutal period -- 7M jobs lost since the recession began in 2007 December.   The Society for Human Resource Management estimated this week that 25% of the country's manufacturers are adding jobs this month; more than 40% of employers in the service sector are doing the same...   'Right now, we are really seeing wonderfully skilled people walk in.', said Jim Robbins, a career counselor at North Oaks, tucked behind a McDonald's at a busy Normandy intersection...   the jobs often come with lower pay and less prestige than what the jobless worker once had."

2009-06-12
Sarah Feeley _Bristol Evening Post_
Government discourages honesty

2009-06-12
_RTE Dublin Ireland_
400K people were signing on the Live Register (unemployment insurance rolls)
"the main area of growth was globally traded business services [i.e. cross-border bodyshopping]"

2009-06-12
_Aberdeen Scotland Press & Journal_
students have hit a "wall of fear" as awareness of the harsh market dawns
"The UK Graduate Careers Survey of 16,357 graduates by High Fliers found a record 52% regarded prospects for new graduates as 'very limited' -- the highest since the survey started in 1995.   Debt exacerbates student concerns.   Having invested an average of 15K pounds sterling on their degrees, tens of thousands of finalists are now set to leave university with significant sums to repay."

2009-06-12
_Times of Malta_
Dismal job market for graduating USA students
"Only 43% of employers in a survey by on-line job web site CareerBuilder.com intended to hire new college graduates this year, down from 56% last year and 79% in 2007.   The site surveyed about 2,500 hiring managers and human resource officials from February 20 to March 11...   Nationally, less than 20% of graduating college seniors who applied for a job this year have one, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.   That's down more than 30% from 2 years ago when more than half of those who applied for a job had one by the time of graduation."

2009-06-12
Rickeena J. Richards _Bellevilel IL News-Democrat_/_McClatchy_
Will younger workers be able to land summer jobs?

2009-06-12 02:55PDT (05:55EDT) (09:55GMT)
Janice Revell, Carolyn Bigda & Donna Rosato _CNN_/_Money_
The down-sizing of the U.S. consumer
financial calculators

2009-06-12 02:56PDT (05:56EDT) (09:56GMT)
Janice Revell, Carolyn Bigda & Donna Rosato _CNN_/_Money_
The Demise of the Ownership Society

2009-06-12 02:58PDT (05:58EDT) (09:58GMT)
Janice Revell, Carolyn Bigda & Donna Rosato _CNN_/_Money_
The rise of body shopped nation
"the down-turn that began 17 months ago has certainly accelerated the transformation...   Today about 30% of the U.S. job market -- roughly 42M workers -- is made up of independent contractors, part-time or temporary staffers, and the self-employed.   By the end of the next decade, long after this recession is a distant memory, this contingent work-force will have grown to about 40% of the market, experts predict."

2009-06-12
Dennis Cauchon _USA Today_
Even the employed are seeing tough times
iStock Analyst
"The employed worked fewer hours in May -- an average of just 33.1 hours a week -- than at any time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began counting in 1964.   Part-time work is at a record high.   Over-time is at a record low...   Businesses cut total wages at a 6.2% annual rate in the first quarter.   Federal, state and local governments increased spending on wages by 6.1%, offsetting some of the decline...   Baby boomers -- 79M people born from 1946 to 1964 -- have been hit particularly hard.   Unemployment rates for workers 45 and older have soared to their highest level since at least 1948, when the government started tracking it.   Job losses for baby boomers come at a difficult time: during the traditional peak earning years, as retirement nears."
graphs

2009-06-12
_Earth Times_
ILO warns of likely 4- or 5-year lag between economic recovery and employment
Monsters & Critics

2009-06-12
Megan Dooley _Martha's Vineyard Gazette_
crippling recession and a staggering job market

2009-06-12
_Gaithersburg MD Gazette_
Unilever closing ice cream plant in Hagerstown, MD; "green" jobs fell from 1998 to 2007 in MD
"Unilever Ice Cream...   Production at the Hagerstown plant -- which manufactures Klondike, Popsicle and Good Humor novelty ice cream, as well as Ben & Jerry's cones and Breyers Fruit Bars -- will be transferred to other company sites in several phases...   Other Unilever brands include Bertolli, Country Crock, Degree, Dove personal care products, Hellmann's, Lipton, Popsicle, Promise, Q-Tips, Skippy, Slim-Fast and Vaseline.   Unilever employs nearly 12K people in the U.S.A., including Puerto Rico -- generating nearly $10G in sales in 2008, according to company information...   Aid Networks, APE-Bridgepath Scientific, Bacilligen, BioAssay Works, Biomedica Management, CynerGene IDMP, DS-Byte Solutions, HeMemics Biotechnologies, Imagilin Technology, Intelligent Substrates, Juxtopia and Theradigm [have received about $50K each from the Maryland Technology Development Corp.   through the Fort Detrick Technology Transfer Initiative].   The program is designed to help businesses 'harness the technologies being developed at Fort Detrick and apply them to the commercial sector', senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Baltimore) said in a statement."

2009-06-12 07:39PDT (10:39EDT) (14:39GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index rose from 68.7 in May to 69 in mid-June

2009-06-12 11:29PDT (14:29EDT) (18:29GMT)
Greg Morcroft _MarketWatch_
Stimulus fraud could reach $50G

2009-06-12 11:07PDT (14:07EDT) (18:07GMT)
_MarketWatch_
What Madoff lost in 20 years, the Feds will lose in weeks: "Stimulus" package comes with a steep cost

2009-06-12
Michael Cutler _News Blaze_
Thorough, Not Faster Immigration Policy Needed
"Foreign workers most significantly impact national security, the economy and education...   The high tech industries don't generally hire illegal aliens.   They hire temporary workers who have the education that makes them desirable as employees of many high tech industries.   These foreign workers also have another valuable trait: they will accept significantly lower salaries than their American counterparts.   Often, immigration law firms, not unlike salesmen who want to close a deal, do whatever they can to get employers to hire foreign workers.   For the law firms, their livelihood depends on this and so they are very motivated to make certain that foreign workers take priority over American workers...   You have members of Congress doing everything in their power to expand the number of Hi1B visas to facilitate the entry of foreign workers into the United States to under-cut Americans attempting to support their families!   It is clear that there is no shortage of Americans with the high-tech skills, only a shortage of political leaders who have integrity and who are actually willing to represent their constituents...   It was this opportunity to achieve greatness that created the 'Can do' spirit that became America's motto.   By under-cutting America's brightest, we are creating disincentives for our college students!"

2009-06-12
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #2025
 
In a new article by Frosty Wooldridge, an essay I authored was mentioned: "Displaced Americans" was published in a 2006 pamphlet titled: "The Ethics of Immigration Policy".
 
The essay was very short because it had to fit into a pocket sized pamphlet, so it lacked detail.   In this news-letter I will discuss in further detail a comparison of the situation that caused the riots in France with the powder keg that is just waiting to explode in the U.S.A.
 
In France, Muslims from Africa were imported for several generations by using a temporary guest worker program.   These cheap laborers were in theory temporary, but in practice many of them stayed either legally or illegally.   France gave most of the early guest-workers citizenship and welcomed their families also.   It was the French version of Comprehensive Immigration Reform.   BLECH!
 
The French government vowed to make sure that all of the immigrants that stayed permanently would go through assimilation programs, but for many of them that never happened.   Due to budget cuts and indifference the French government didn't follow through on their promises, and the truth is that many of the Muslims had no intention of changing their loyalty to France.   Instead of assimilating, the immigrant laborers were isolated into slums around major cities such as Paris.   The population of angry Muslims began to swell.
 
In addition to the guest-workers there was a growing flow of illegal immigrants from Arab countries into France.   Unemployment rose most dramatically among the youngest age groups who were typically second or third generation French citizens.   Muslim communities transformed into large populations of disenfranchised people who had no real stake in the success of the country and who grew desperately poor.   It was a perfect formula for social unrest [just as the Muslim countries set up in Palestine].
 
The result: riots broke out in 2005.   Sporadic violence has continued ever since.   One of the main factors driving the civil unrest is youth unemployment, which surpassed the 20% level in 2005.
 
Hopefully the U.S. doesn't follow France's example, but if unemployment was a major factor in the riots in France then we had better prepare for the same thing here.   That's because in the U.S.A. the unemployment rate of young American minorities is rising far above the levels that sparked violence in France.   The situation has deteriorated considerably since I wrote that essay in 2006.   To see just how dire the situation is, here are some quick stats from the BLS:
 
Non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rates vs. age range and year

racial/ ethnic group	age range	2006	2009
blacks	16-19	33%	47%
Hispanic	16-19	22%	43%
all	16-19	5%	10%
blacks	20-24	17%	28%
Hispanic: 20-24	18%	28%
all	20-24	9%	18%

blacks -- African American
Hispanic -- Hispanic or Latino
all -- all race groups combined
 
Folks, look at the numbers and you will begin to understand why the U.S.A. is sitting on a powder keg!   Our young people aren't getting jobs and that's a formula for unrest -- and violence.   In the years since 2006 the unemployment numbers have worsened.   The situation is especially bad for blacks and Hispanics because they compete directly with illegal aliens for jobs.   Comparing unemployment rates in France and the U.S.A. may be somewhat erroneous because the methodologies are probably quite different, but at some point the fuse to the bomb is going to ignite in the U.S.A.   Rates of unemployment over 20% are a disaster waiting to happen.   Even when whites are factored in the rates are hovering near 20%.
 
One thing you can count on is that when the riots break out the main-stream media will conclude that racism is the cause, not immigration. I'm using France to foretell our future of course, but consider this written by the Canadian TV in 2007:
 
Media accounts of the riots that spread across France in the fall of 2005 lay the blame squarely on a racist society that has marginalized the children and grandchildren of North African immigrants.
 
The entire article is worth reading and it gets quite amusing when the delusional author explains that riots won't happen in Canada because they are so much smarter than France.   LOL!
 
So, what is President Obama doing about this impending crisis?
 
This week the Obama administration has been working hard to roll back e-verify which is used to guarantee that employers hire those who are in the U.S.A. legally.   All indications so far are that Obama and the globalists in Congress are hell-bent on passing amnesty, which will encourage even more immigration into the U.S.A.   IOW, Obama is exacerbating a very dangerous situation!   Stimulus money isn't going to help the problem unless we start demanding that all unskilled labor and entry level jobs go to our young people instead of immigrants and illegal aliens.
 
As the Boston Globe said:
 
It is ironic that at the same time that the nation was electing its first African-American president, it was displacing record numbers of black men from the ranks of the employed.
 
That's quite a profound statement, but the authors avoid one of the most important reasons why so many young black men are unemployed. The Globe came up with the top 4 things to do in order to turn this worsening unemployment situation around and yet they never mention anything about immigration.   How stupid can they be to not see their own set of ironies?
 
REFERENCES:
The Ethics of Immigration Policy (pdf)
 
There is a companion pamphlet called "Common Sense on Mass Immigration"
 
You can purchase copies of these two publications at the Social Contract Press. They are pocket sized pamplets that are convenient to give to friends and acquaintices. Go here:
Buy pamphlets
Mark Krikorian: L'Intifada en Los Estados Unidos, The French riots and us
A job crisis for young black men
France riots -- Understanding the violence
Frosty Wooldridge: Questioning the Morality of Displacing US Workers

2009-06-12
_Wolters Kluwer/CCN_
E-Verify federal contractor rule delayed yet again until 2009 September 8

2009-06-12
doctor Tom Mack _Aiken SC Standard_
Local archaeological site shows human occupation as far back as 50K years
"In 2004, Goodyear and his team dug 4 meters below the surface and found artifacts in a layer of burnt plant remains that were subsequently tested via radiocarbon dating.   The finding that this charcoal deposit is as old as 50K years may lend credence to the theory that human habitation on this continent dates much, much earlier than anyone supposed.   Goodyear himself asserts that 'Topper is the oldest radiocarbon-dated site in North America.'   The verdict is still out, however, as to whether this evidence alone contradicts the long-held belief that early humans first arrived in America from Asia 13K years ago."

2009-06-12
Graham Summers _Gold Eagle_
The Coming Economic Collapse

2009-06-12
Peter D. Schiff _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Why the Melt-Down Should Have Surprised No One
"The government solution is high prices but low mortgage payments subsidized by the government.   The free-market solution is low prices.   Because if real-estate prices go down, you don't need to borrow that much money to buy a house.   So it doesn't matter that your mortgage payment is a little higher.   But the government still looks at the problem [as being] that home prices are falling.   That's the solution.   The problem is that they went up...   the one place that the government needed to regulate was Fannie and Freddie, and that's where they didn't regulate.   In fact, every attempt to regulate them was thwarted by congress.   Freddie and Fannie gave huge amounts of money to both Democrats and Republicans -- anybody that tried to regulate them...   If the government didn't guarantee bank accounts, then banks would not be doing foolish things with our deposits.   Because people would care, because people could know, gee, if you make loans and they don't get paid back, I'm going to lose my money.   So banks would not just compete on how much interest they'd pay, but they would compete on how safe their balance sheets are...   look what Bernie Madoff was able to pull off.   Do you think he could have done that without the SEC giving him a stamp of approval.   Or without FINRA?...   When you have President Obama talking about how everything is different than George Bush, how his administration is change -- we're doing it differently.   He hasn't changed anything.   He's doing exactly what Bush did.   He inherited the same situation, only worse, and he's doing the same thing, only worse...   And that the only way we're going to rebuild this economy is with a smaller government, not with a bigger government.   And we need sound money."

2009-06-12 (5769 Sivan 20)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Obama's High Commissioner

2009-06-12
_Commodity News Center_/_Moore Research_
historical commodity price graphs

2009-06-12

DJIA	8,799.26
S&P 500	946.21
NASDAQ	1,858.80
Nikkei	10,136
10-year US T-Bond	3.78%
crude oil	$72.04/barrel
gold	$940.70/ounce
silver	$14.875/ounce
platinum	$1,258.70/ounce
palladium	$254.10/ounce
copper	$0.14834375/ounce
natgas	$3.877/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$2.0431/gal
heatingoil	$1.8375/gal
dollarindex	80.22
yenperdollar	98.26
dollarspereuro	1.4022
dollarsperpound	1.6450
swissfranksperdollar	1.0793
indianrupeesperdollar	47.605
mexicanpesosperdollar	13.4035
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	462.04

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Commodities" and "Metals" and "Currencies" columns.
 
 
 

2009-06-13

40-06-13: Gaeus Julius Agricola born
1777-06-13: Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de la Fayette arrived in America to aid in American Revolution
1786-06-13: Winfield Scott born
1831-06-13: James Clerk Maxwell born
1863-06-13: second battle of Winchester, VA
1865-06-13: William Butler Yeats born
1884-06-13: first roller coaster in USA, designed by La Marcus Thompson, opened at Coney Island, NY
1893-06-13: Dorothy Leigh Sayers born
1894-06-13: Mark van Doren born
1920-06-13: US Post Office ends sending of children by parcel post
1927-06-13: Charles Lindbergh awarded Flying Cross for flight across Atlantic
1940-06-13: Paris evacuated as Nazi forces approach
1943-06-13: Nazi spies landed on Long Island, NY
1944-06-13: first V-1 buzz-bomb hit London
1978-06-13: in attempt to trade land for peace Israel forces withdrew from Lebanon
1979-06-13: Sioux awarded $105M for lands seized 1877-02-28 in Black Hills of SD

2009-06-13
Matt O'Brien _Contra Costa Times_
In 2nd recession within Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama depression, demand for work visas drops
"45,800 applications have been filed since April 1, said Sharon Rummery, spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services [USCIS]...   Last week, this newspaper reported that East Bay employers shed 1,850 jobs in the technology or telecommunications sector this year, although in a few subsectors -- including software and computer systems design -- employment levels have grown slightly."
Development Design Group in Baltimore, MD, pays H-1b Architects $32K salary
"But according to the DoL's LCA data-base, the MEDIAN is about $42K, while over 25% earn less than $35K.   Now go to the BLS web site, where one finds that the mean wage for an architect in Baltimore is $69,210."

2009-06-13
Michelle R. Meissner _Phoenix Examiner_
How much does out-sourcing affect our economy?

2009-06-13
_Jacksonville FL Observer_
FSU budget calls for eliminating another 200 jobs
WCTV
The university plans to cut $56.6M from the university's budget in addition to $82M cuts previously planned and lay off as many as 200 faculty and staff (including about 25 tenured professors), the merging and restructuring of many academic programs and a 15% tuition increase.   UF has proposed $30.6M in specific cuts and 58 lay-offs.   College of Business will cut $1,879,573; Social Sciences and Public Policy, $2,045,091; and Arts & Sciences will face a whopping $6,154,529 in cuts.
FSU budget
 
 

2009-06-14

1777-06-14: Flag Day
Library of Congress
History Net
1775-06-14: US Army founded
1777-06-14: US flag adopted
1789-06-14: cast-away captain William Bligh landed in Timor
1811-06-14: Harriet Beecher born
1864-06-14: California republic declared
1864-06-14: battle at Pine Mountain, GA
1893-06-14: first Flag Day in Philadelphia, PA
1951-06-14: UNIVAC demonstrated
1954-06-14: "under God" added to US pledge of allegiance

2009-06-14
Kimberly Miller _Palm Beach FL Post_
GI Bill could double enrollment at Palm Beach Community College
"Statewide, higher education officials have predicted up to 41K veterans will enroll in a Florida university or community college this Fall...   The benefits, which can be used up to 15 years after separation from the military, pay tuition to any public or private college or university but are capped at the cost of the most expensive public school in the state.   In Florida, the cap is $6,538 for a full year -- the cost of tuition and fees at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee...   Florida's 11 public universities have limited freshman enrollment because of crowding and budget cuts.   The state's 28 community colleges can't limit enrollment."
 
 

2009-06-15

2009-06-15
History Net
Library of Congress
Brainy History
1215-06-15: king John signed Magna Carta
1389-06-15: Ottoman Turks defeated Serbia
1607-06-15: Fort James completed at JamesTown, VA
1752-06-15: Benjamin Franklin and his son conduct lightning experiment using a kite
1767-06-15: Rachel Robards born
1779-06-15: general "Mad" Anthony Wayne captured British fort at Stony Point, NY
1843-06-15: Edvard Grieg born
1916-06-15: Boy Scouts of America incorporated
1928-06-15: Herbert Hoover nominated
1947-06-15: All-Indian congress accepts British plan to partition India

2009-06-15
Joseph Cress _Cumberland county PA Sentinel_
Hope Station to host annual Juneteenth celebration Saturday

2009-06-15
_Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_
Too many people, too little water discussed at Western Governors' Association meeting

2009-06-15
_Rochester MN Post-Bulletin_
Pray for immigration reform

2009-06-15 04:40:02PDT (07:40:02EDT) (11:40:02GMT)
_Rochester MN Post-Bulletin_
Tuition can be a road-block on the way to an education

2009-06-15 10:27PDT (13:27EDT) (17:27GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Home builders' expectations index faded slightly
"At 15, the index shows that about one in 6 home builders thinks the market is 'good'.   The index peaked at 72 four years ago and was at 18 a year ago."

2009-06-15
_CBS_/_AP_
AIG lawyer tells jury that Hank Greenberg plundered reitirement program after being forced out
American Law Daily
eCommerce Journal
News Assurances
Reporter
Lilla Zuill: Reuters
Houston Chronicle

2009-06-15
Chelsea Schiller _World Net Daily_
Tally of Independence Day Tea Parties Growing Rapidly

2009-06-15
Ron Paul _Campaign for Liberty_
Statement on Global Warming Petition Signed by 31,478 US Scientists

2009-06-15 (5769 Sivan 23)
Binyomin Netanyahu _Jewish World Review_
How Judea and Samaria can become "Palestine"

2009-06-15 (5769 Sivan 23)
Daniel Pipes _Jewish World Review_
Where Netanyahu's speech failed
 
 

2009-06-16

2009-06-16
Today in History
1775-06-16: US Army Corps of Engineers
Today in Soccer History
Today in Baseball History
History Today
Today in Legal History

2009-06-16
_Cumberland county PA Sentinel_
War College celebrated 234th birthday of US Army

2009-06-16
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Ivy League "realism" lost connection with reality

2009-06-16
George Will _Rochester MN Post-Bulletin_
Living within our means

2009-06-16
_Daily Illini_/_AP_
Chicago Tribune sues University of Illinois over political influence in admissions, asking for personal private info about indvidual students

2009-06-16
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #2028
Cheap Post-Doc BioPhysicist Wanted at Arizona State
"Arizona State University posted a notice that they will be hiring a post-doctoral biophysicist on an H-1B visa [described in 8 USC 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b)].   The H-1B worker will be paid just over $39k/yr (before taxes) for 3 years and will receive full benefits such as health insurance.   Now you know what a PhD in biophysics is worth.   For a copy of the actual document click the link below.   A text version is supplied with this news-letter. &nbnsp; To find out more about public postings of Labor Condition Applications.
ASU LCA posting (pdf)

2009-06-16
Michelle Malkin _V Dare_
Obama's AmeriCrooks and Cronies Scandal -- The Chicago Way Comes To Washington

2009-06-16 (5769 Sivan 24)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Career vs. Careerism

2009-06-16 (5769 Sivan 24)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Obama's losing streak and Israel: Netanyahu's speech suffered from two flaws that may come back to haunt the premier in the years to come

2009-06-16 (5769 Sivan 24)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Equality or Pay-Back?

2009-06-16
"Jon" _Constitutionalism_
What Does and Doesn't Work
 
 

2009-06-17

1775-06-17: Battle of Bunker Hill (and Breed's Hill)
1885-06-17: Statue of Liberty arrived in NY from France
1928-06-17: Amelia Earhart began her 1st trans-Atlantic flight
1944-06-17: Republic of Iceland founded

2009-06-17
Linda Halstead-Acharya _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
"Stimulus" funds reaching well project in Columbus, MT
"The 60-foot well was actually drilled last year, before stimulus funds were available.   With its water rights permit in place, the project lacked only funding."

2009-06-17
_Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
2 girls in Great Falls MT get perfect ACT scores
"Dower said she wants to study engineering at Montana State University.   Carlson isn't sure where she'll go to college, but she wants to study some sort of science."

2009-06-17
Karen Colbenson _Rochester MN Post-Bulletin_
Teachers learn to open GATEway for gifted students

2009-06-17
_Rochester MN Post-Bulletin_
Minnesota teen is two-millionth Eagle Scout
"His first role will be to help break ground on a multi-million-dollar project to transform historic Fort Snelling into 'Base Camp' -- an urban Scouting camp featuring rope courses, rock-climbing walls and an environmental learning center."

2009-06-17
George Will _Rochester MN Post-Bulletin_
Constitutionalists are not amused

2009-06-17
Patrick Thibodeau _Computer World_/_IDG_
speaking before the U.S.-India Business Council, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urges stronger ties with India, but doesn't delve too deeply

2009-06-17 08:29PDT (11:29EDT) (15:29GMT)
Byron Harris _WFAA_
TN visa allows easy immigration for cheap foreign aircraft mechanics while over 100K US citizen aircraft mechanics remain unemployed
Rob Sanchez
NAFTA TN Lawyer says mechanics not covered by TN
NAFTA TN Visa -- Scientific Technician / Technologist <,br />OAS: NAFTA Chapter Sixteen: Temporary Entry for Business Persons
Customs and Border Protection
ORL&C Flight Engineer Job Description, Career as a Flight Engineer, Salary, Employment -- Definition and Nature of the Work, Education and Training Requirements, Getting the Job
Pat Choate: Dangerous Business: The Risks of Globalization for America

2009-06-17
Donald A. Collins _V Dare_
Those hateful mud-throwers of hatred

2009-06-17 (5769 Sivan 25)
Rabbi Yonason Goldson _Jewish World Review_
The Language of Confusion: 60 years later, Orwell's dystopian vision is more prophetic than ever
"incompetent use of language guarantees muddled thinking...   When illegal aliens become 'undocumented workers', we lose all sense of the danger posed by the porous condition of our borders.   When terrorists become 'insurgents', we more readily accommodate the moral equivalence that blurs the line between aggressors and defenders.   When abortion becomes 'reproductive freedom', the horror over the indiscriminate murder of innocents vanishes altogether.   Similarly, when marriage is bereft by judicial fiat of the definition that has served for thousands of years, the foundations of the family structure erode like sand castles before the approaching tide...   In truth, for advertisers, politicians, special interest groups, and the politically correct, the real purpose of language is no longer to convey meaning -- it is to obscure meaning, to appeal to emotions while bypassing the intellect.   Their motive is obvious: it is far easier to evoke a strong emotional response than it is to present a logically developed argument.   But by allowing meaning to be drained from our language and our words, we have not only denuded them of their clarity, but also of their depth."

2009-06-17 (5769 Sivan 25)
Walter E. Williams _Town Hall_
Live Free or Die
Cybercast News
GOP USA
Human Events
Deseret News
World Net Daily
Patriot Post
Jewish World Review
 
 

2009-06-18

1778-06-18: American forces re-entered Philadelphia
1812-06-18: USA declared war against Britain
1815-06-18: Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated near Waterloo, Belgium
1908-06-18: William Howard Taft was nominated for president
1940-06-18: Winston Churchill urged people to conduct themselves in a manner that would prompt future generations to say, "This was their finest hour."
1959-06-18: Ethel Barrymore died in Los Angeles, CA
2004-06-18: al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia beheaded American engineer Paul M. Johnson.

2009-06-18 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 554,405 in the week ending June 13, a decrease of 26,791 from the previous week.   There were 349,255 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.5% during the week ending June 6, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 6,058,847, a decrease of 85,499 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.1% and the volume was 2,799,719. Extended benefits were available in AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, VT, VA, WA, and WI during the week ending May 30.   [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs

2009-06-18
Mike Shedlock _Global Economic Analysis_
Unemployment insurance claims: Are they worth getting excited over this week?

2009-06-18
Mark Thornton _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Joseph D. Salerno comments on the main-stream

2009-06-18
S.M. Oliva _Ludwig von Mises Instittue_
Obama is prolonging and deepening the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama depression

2009-06-18
Tom Hamburger & Peter Wallsten _Chicago Tribune_
Senator questioning firing of 3 inspectors general
Barb Shelly: Kansas City Star
Ignatius Reilly: Right Pundits
Jake Tapper: abc
abc
more details from abc
abc Grassley asks questions
abc Was law followed in firing?
Ed O'Keefe: Washington Post: McCaskill, other law-makers questioning dismisal of AmeriCorpse IG

2009-06-18
Jill Richardson _La Vida Locavore_
Lobbying has been leading to perverse legislation and regulation

2009-06-18
Linda Thom _V Dare_
The Strawberries of Wrath: Abel Maldonado Plants A New People -- At Tax-Victim Expense

2009-06-18
Michelle Malkin _V Dare_
The ObummerDoesn'tCare Horror Story You Won't Hear

2009-06-18
Daniel Henninger _Wall Street Journal_
"Public Option": Son of Medicaid: Lard atop lard that only a politician or bureaubum could love

2009-06-18
Dana Gabriel _Border Fire Report_
US-Canada border security and military integration

2009-06-18
Charles Breiterman _Numbers USA_
Frederick Douglass on Cheap Labor
Americans for Legal Immigration

2009-06-18
_Daily Paul_
HR1207 to audit the Federal Reserve has 234 co-sponsors and counting 
 

2009-06-24
Jason Scott _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Pat Toomey: Arlen Specter may still be eliminated in primary

2009-06-24
Jason Scott _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
First resume boot camp by Cumberland County Economic Development held Tuesday: but tweaked resumes will do little good in this job market

2009-06-24
Charles S. Johnson _Billings MT Gazette_
"Employee Free Choice Act" to eliminate secret ballot on unionizing fires up debate
"One ad features [leftist] icon George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, criticizing a key provision...   In Montana, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has hired 15 'organizers', and the national AFL-CIO has sent 2 staffers to the state to work the issue...   A study in the Monthly Labor Review shows that only 12.4% of Montana's nonagricultural workers, both in the public and private sectors, carried union cards in 2008.   That's one-third of the 1964 rate.   McGarvey said 90% to 95% of Montana public employees -- state and local government workers, teachers and school employees -- are union members.   Only 10% to 12% of private sector workers belong to unions, he said.   The current law, the National Labor Relations Act, was passed during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term.   If more than 30% of workers sign cards seeking union representation, the union can ask a federal agency to conduct a secret-ballot election at the workplace.   If more than 50% of workers sign the cards, an employer must either accept the union or seek an election.   Under the proposed law, if 30% of the workers sign the cards, they could request a secret ballot.   The crucial change is that if more than 50% of workers sign cards, the union would automatically win the election without a secret ballot."
Baucus and Tester not talking

2009-06-24
Becky Shay _Billings MT Gazette_
Crowd protests cap-and-trade proposal
Refineries pay air quality fines levied by MT Dept. of Environmental Quality
"The CHS refinery at Laurel paid a $165K administrative penalty, and Conoco paid a $351,500 penalty to the DEQ as part of the settlements."

2009-06-24
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
big push for national socialist health care is on: ObummerDoesn'tCare

2009-06-24
_Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_
Bozeman stops searchign "social networking" sites to get the goods on job applicants
"KBZK-TV reported last week that applicants for city jobs were asked for usernames and passwords for Web sites and social-networking sites, sparking an outcry from those who thought the policy went too far...   'I'm sorry we couldn't get in front of this quicker.', Commissioner Jeff Krauss said.   'We apologize for wandering down a road that violated basic rights of our citizens, and we will do all we can to restore that public trust.'   Commissioner Jeff Rupp called the policy an 'egregious violation of privacy', and asked why it wasn't vetted by the legal and information technology departments before being added to city hiring manuals...   Kukulski said, 'Human resources, our police and fire departments were doing something they believed was consistent with our core values.'"

2009-06-24
_Daily Illini_
Iranian citizens show courage by speaking out and reporting on protests of rigged election

2009-06-24
_Wall Street Journal_
Ben Bernanke vs. WSJ on Inflation: What Bernanke said when the credit bubble first became apparent, and the lesson for today
"Recall that by the end of 2003 the economy was well into recovery [aside from fragile dysfunctional job markets]."
Speed Demons at the Fed
Fed Thought Slack Labor Markets Could Hold Down Prices While They Inflated the Money Supply

2009-06-24
Kiera McCaffrey _The Hill_
100 House Dems want new trade rules

2009-06-24
Jim Hightower
Why support executives who don't support us?

2009-06-24
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #2031
Are there Indian and out-sourcing connections to the DC Metro train crash?
 
As most of you have probably heard by now, the DC Metro crash was possibly caused by a computer failure.   That news got me and a few others interested if the DC Metro has been outsourcing work to India or bodyshops, and employing H-1Bs.   The reasoning behind the research is that when employers are looking for the cheapest labor they often get what they pay for.
 
In the rest of this news-letter allow me to share with you a surprising number of connections.   They could be all coincidence at this point, and therefore have nothing to do with the crash.
 
Several previous news-letters have been published concerning President Obama's appointment of Aneesh Chopra for Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vivek Kundra for Chief Information Officer (CIO).   Besides their obvious ethnic similarities, keep in mind that Aneesh Chopra led a large junket to India in 2006 to promote the outsourcing of Virginia state jobs.   Read the previous news-letters on these two appointments to see how both of them have a long record of promoting the outsourcing of American jobs to India.   Chopra and Kundra are definitely friends of India.
 
Please forgive the links below, which can be tedious to piece together.   It's just too late and I'm too tired to provide shortlinks, so you will have to copy and paste them together if you want to go to the web pages.
 
The following information isn't in any particular order, and I think we should all be careful about what conclusions are drawn. Too little is known about the cause of the crash yet to blame any particular contractor so until more is known all of this should be considered circumstantial evidence.   That said as a disclaimer, here is the stuff:
 
Primary contractor for the DC Metro is Optimal Solutions & Technologies (OST).
 
OK, I lied! Here is one short link to the contract.
DC.gov
OST web page
 
Vivek Kundra has many connections to OST.   He was even on their board.
 
But that wasn't the only reason Kundra put Optimal Solutions and Technologies in charge of nearly 100 sub-contractors eager for a piece of as much as $75M a year in technology contracts.
 
And what about the role of Optimal Solutions and Technologies, a DC-based company founded in 1999 by Vijay Narula?
 
Though allegedly Acar and Bansal violated city rules by regularly meeting and talking, Narula said his company, which has about 8 employees assigned full time to the contract, was powerless to detect such behavior.
 
Remember Sushil Bansal?   He was the one that was arrested and jailed, and was the reason the FBI raided Kundra's office.   Acar has been charged with bribery.
 
OST is heavily involved in our transportation infrastucture. They even have an FAA Software Design and Development Services Contract.   Vijay Narula is their CEO.   OST's contracts are some of the most important in the nation because they involve public safety, and yet it's very difficult to find out where Narula was born -- he is very much an enigma.   Try finding his biography with Google, and get back to me when you find out something.
 

FAA contract
 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Awards an Information Technology Contract to Optimal Solutions and Technologies (OST, Inc.)
 
GRPA is another out-sourcer that does business with the WMATA. They have offices in India, and perhaps they send some work there.
 
GRPA is a registered IT services provider to the state of Maryland, various counties, and other organizations like Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the World Bank, and several Credit Unions, etc.
 
GRPA is considered a minority owned business, which gives them a large advantage over other companies that want to win state contracts.   The company name explains their minority status: G.R. Patel & Associates, Inc.
CATS Master Contract, Master Contractor Details, GRPA; Master Contractor Name: G.R. Patel & Associates, Inc. (GRPA); Minority Business Enterprise: Yes; Name: G.R. Patel; Title: President
Contracts to G.R. PATEL & ASSOCIATES, INC. (FY 2000-2008)
 
If you want even more connections go here -- it's too complicated to describe:
FBI raids office of DC CTO, Obama appointee
 
Some of the high tech workers on the WMATA engineering and computer/IT system have similar ethnic backgrounds.   It is not known at this time what their visa status is:
Anurag Mehta; Enterprise GIS Architect at WMATA (DC Metro); Washington DC Metro Area
thesis help!!!; Anurag Mehta mehtaag at ucunix.san.uc.EDU
Anurag Mehta (pdf)
Pradip (Roy); Sr Electrical Engineer at WMATA; Washington DC Metro Area
Naheed Monower; Deputy Chief, Operations and Maintenance at Washington Metropolitan Area; Transit Authority; Washington DC Metro Area
VENKAT SUBRAMANIAN; Founder, President & CEO, ANGARAI Location; Washington DC Metro Area; Founder, President & CEO at Angarai Past; Managing Trustee at Angarai Foundation; Program Manager at WMATA; President & CEO at Angarai Technology Group, Inc.

2009-06-24
Nicholas Stix _V Dare_
Sotomayor Supporter Robert Morgenthau and His Regime of Racialized "Justice" in Manhattan

2009-06-24
George Washington
How to Increase Your Intelligence

2009-06-24
Ron Paul _InfoWars_
Inter-National Bail-Out Brings Us Closer to Economic Collapse

2009-06-24 (5769 Tamuz 02)
Rabbi Yonason Goldson _Jewish World Review_
Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

2009-06-24 (5769 Tamuz 02)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Another "Good Thing"
"Nothing is easier in politics than setting some arbitrary goal -- preferably based on numbers -- and go after it, in utter disregard of the costs or the repercussions...   A certain amount of education is undoubtedly very beneficial for some people but, at some point, enough is enough, even for geniuses.   For each individual, depending on that individual's interests and dedication as well as ability, the time comes to leave the class-room and go out into the real world."

2009-06-24 (5769 Tamuz 02)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Vicious academic leftists
"When there are policies that emphasize and reward academic achievement, Asians excel.   College officials and others who are proponents of 'diversity' and 'equal representation' find that outcome offensive...   the American people, who fund universities either as parents, donors or [tax-victims], should not accept this evilness and there's a good way to stop it -- cut off the funding to racially discriminating colleges and universities."
 
 

2009-06-25

253-06-25: St. Lucius I became pope
741-06-25: feast day of Adalbert of Egmond
1080-06-25: Wibbert of Ravenna chosen as anti-pope Clemens III
1096-06-25: crusaders slaughtered Jews in Werelinghofen, Germany
1115-06-25: Bernard of Clairvaux founded the 4th house of the Cistercians in Clairvaux, France, and became its firt abbot
1139-06-25: Alfonso I defeated Moors at battle of Ourique
1178-06-25: 5 Canterbury reported seeing an explosion on the moon
1212-06-25: Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, born
1524-06-25: Peasant's Revolt started at Stuehlingen
1667-06-25: doctor Jean-Baptiste Denys performed first blood transfusion
1788-06-25: VA ratified USA constitution
1798-06-25: Alien Act allows president to deport dangerous aliens
1807-06-25: Napoleon Bonaparte met Alexander I near Tilsit
1867-06-25: first patent for barbed wire was granted to Lucien B. Smith, an Ohio inventor
1868-06-25: Andrew Johnson signed law establishing 8 hour work-day for government employees
1876-06-25: George Armstrong Custer's last stand
1900-06-25: lord Louis Mountbatten (great-grand-son of queen Victoria, last viceroy of India) born
1903-06-25: George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) born; Boston Beaneater Wiley Piatt became the only 20th-century pitcher to lose two complete games in one day, falling to Pittsburgh 1-0 and 5-3.
1938-06-25: Fair Labor Standards Act
1942-06-25: about 1K British Royal Air Force bombed Bremen, Germany; general Dwight David Eisenhower arrived in London
1947-06-25: tennis shoe debuted
1950-06-25: North Korea invaded the South
1951-06-25: CBS sends firt color show featuring Arthur Godfrey
1957-06-25: United Church of Christ formed through merger of General Council of Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church
1995-06-25: Warren Burger died
1996-06-25: truck bomb killed 19 Americans and injured hundreds in Saudi Arabia
1997-06-25: Jacques Cousteau died

2009-06-24 18:00PDT (2009-06-24 21:00EDT) (2009-06-25 00:00GMT) Janet Novack & Brian Wingfield _Forbes_
How congres will suppress economic recovery

2009-06-25 05:00PDT (08:00EDT) (12:00GMT)
Robert Powell _MarketWatch_
Dead is the new retirement

2009-06-25 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 566,586 in the week ending June 20, an increase of 8,548 from the previous week.   There were 358,159 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.6% during the week ending June 13, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 6,098,083, an increase of 19,737 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.1% and the volume was 2,852,599.   Extended benefits were available in AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, VT, VA, WA, and WI during the week ending June 6.   [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs

2009-06-25
Matt Hagengruber _Billings MT Gazette_
Knowledge transfer

2009-06-25 06:56PDT (09:56EDT) (13:56GMT)
David Callaway _MarketWatch_
It's past time for the tech executives to man up, clean up their acts on professional ethics
"Personal computer makers such as Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Apple Inc. and Lenovo have said nothing public of any substance about [Red China's] requirement for them to install Web-censoring software on all new PCs sold in the country, despite the fact that the dead-line is July 1.   And Google Inc. has completely rolled over on [Red China's] recent demands for it to reduce the level of pornography that is searchable on its engines.   It's an admirable request, until you realize that home-grown [Red Chinese] search engine Baidu.com is getting a free pass on porn in the meantime, and that the rule may simply be designed to punish Google.   It seems that once again, when it's about money -- and [Red China] -- ideals take a back seat...   For it's apparently against their business principles to disparage any potential partner or business opportunity.   No matter how bleak those opportunities probably are in reality, no matter how much it might help them in the eyes of the rest of the world looking for leadership in the area of Internet freedom, and no matter what other principles might be over-run in the process."

2009-06-25
_Billings MT Gazette_
Government, GM executives demand suffender of rights and prerogatives of dealers and customers
"Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock last week joined 36 other state attorneys general to file objections in U.S. bankruptcy court in New York.   Bullock and the other AGs contend that GM is claiming it can flout state laws designed to protect dealers from unfair business practices by GM and to protect consumers from defective GM products.   Another concern raised is the possibility of GM selling customer data to other companies."

2009-06-25
Jason Scott _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Carlisle area continues to fare better than some regions of the country during this recession, banking professional says: "Moving in the right direction"

2009-06-25
_Ulitzer_/_PR News Wire_
The Road To America's Economic Meltdown

2009-06-25
_WashTech_
Internal MSFT Document on In-State Tuition for Guest-Workers (HB1487) Leaked
Lornet Turnbull: Seattle Times

2009-06-25
Michael Shedlock _Global Economic Analysis_
Decade of Lost Jobs

2009-06-25
Thomas Claburn _Information Week_
NSF: Graduate Science Enrollments Rising, as is "Diversity"
"'Even more than the trend toward gender parity, increasing racial and ethnic diversity has represented the largest change in the demographic composition of S&E graduate students in the United States: white, non-Hispanic students accounted for 71% of all U.S. citizens and permanent residents enrolled in 2000, as compared with 66% in 2007', a new National Science Foundation report says...   The number of post-doctoral appointments at academic institutions also reached a new high of about 36K, up from about 30K in 2001...   Enrollment in S&E graduate programs in the U.S. reached 516,199 in 2007.   72% of the students were enrolled full time.   Men accounted for 56% of the student total and 67% were classified as white, non-Hispanic students."

2009-06-25
Giuseppe Valiante _National Post_
Mexicans seek refuge in Canada: Asylum back-log; drug violence, promise of easy entry blamed for increase

2009-06-25
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
Gun Control: What is the agenda?

2009-06-25
Tony Pugh _McClatchy_
Most recent college grads are working low-skill jobs (with graphs)
"New monthly survey data from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston finds that during the first four months of 2009, less than half of the nation's 4M college graduates age 25 and under were working in jobs that required a college degree.   That's down from 54% for same period last year."

2009-06-25
Steven Milloy _Human Events_
Waxman's Economy Killer: HR2454
"Green Hell Web Log"
Junk Science

2009-06-25
Michelle Malkin _V Dare_
EPA's Game of Global Warming Hide-and-Seek: Truth in science took a back seat to protecting eco-bureaucrats

2009-06-25
Robert P. Murphy _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
CBO's Phony Cost Estimate of Waxman-Markey Cap & Trade (HR2454) Pulls Out All the Gimmicks

2009-06-25
_Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Tilting at Green WindMills
George F. Will: Washington Post

2009-06-25 (5769 Tamuz 03)
Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf _Jewish World Review_
The Absurd Power of Truth
 
 

 

2009-06-26

1963-06-26: John F. Kennedy declared that he was a jelly doughnut.

2009-06-26
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
Cheyenne riders mark 133rd anniversary of battle of Little Bighorn/Greasy Grass
Susan Olp: Spectators marvel at re-enactment of Little Bighorn with narration written by Crow historian Joe Medicine Crow

2009-06-26
Mary Pickett _Billings MT Gazette_
Montana State U at Billings got $1M to ease them through frozen tuition

2009-06-26
_CFO_/_Economist_
USA employees appear stoical in the face of pay cuts and compulsory unpaid leave

2009-06-26 07:10PDT (10:10EDT) (14:10GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
"Stimulus" checks make some incomes surge

2009-06-26 07:45PdT (10:45EDT) (14:45GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index rose slightly from 68.7 in May to 70.8 in June

2009-06-26
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
Beverly Hills High School Revisited -- How It Was Then Versus How It Is Now

2009-06-26
S.M. Oliva _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Government Self-Parody Is Alive & Well

2009-06-26
Stephen Kinsella _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Hoppe's Phoenix Is Coming

2009-06-26
Wilhelm Roepke _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
"Repressed Inflation": The Ailment of the Modern Economy

2009-06-26 (5769 Tamuz 04)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Barack Obama vs. International Law

2009-06-26 (5769 Tamuz 04)
Rabbi Yoni Posnick _Jewish World Review_
Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

2009-06-26 (5769 Tamuz 04)
R' Pinchas Winston
Ups and Downs
"There is seder -- order -- to this world.   Secure people know that, respect that, and work with it.   They undertand and appreciate that true success can only be achieved this way.   All Failure is the result of those who ignore the Divine seder of Creation, and try to make reality something it is not, just to make it work out better for them.   They do no one any favors, and least of all, themselves."

2009-06-26

DJIA	8,438.39
S&P 500	918.90
NASDAQ	1,838.22
Nikkei	9,877
10-year US T-Bond	3.53%
crude oil	$69.16/barrel
gold	$940.70/ounce
silver	$14.128/ounce
platinum	$1,203.00/ounce
palladium	$247.20/ounce
copper	$0.14334375/ounce
natgas	$3.949/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.8741/gal
heatingoil	$1.7303/gal
dollarindex	79.830
yenperdollar	95.10
dollarspereuro	1.4068
dollarsperpound	1.6538
swissfranksperdollar	1.5219
indianrupeesperdollar	48.10
mexicanpesosperdollar	13.2427
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	451.81

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
 

"The best lobbyists' work is basically just socializing..   They want that little bit of access   That's what does it   You can hear it   It clicks home   They'll call their chief executive officer, & they've delivered   That's how it works   It's not illegal   They work on a personal basis." --- Christopher Matthews 1985-08-07 (quoted in Hedrick Smith 1988 _The Power Game_ pg 231)

 

2009-06-27

2009-06-27
Mary Vail _Billings MT Gazette_
government-run health care is not the answer

2009-06-27
Michael Mandel _Business Week_
Immelt Speech: U.S. Companies Begin to Realize Off-Shoring Was a Mistake

2009-06-27
_Los Angeles Examiner_
Josephine Owaissa Cottle a.k.a. Gale Storm b: 1922-04-05 d: 2009-06-27
CNN
Los Angeles Times

2009-06-27
George Washington
What Red China's Push for an Alternative World Reserve Currency Means

2009-06-27
_24Ahead_
White House immigration meeting of amnesty all-stars
 
 

"CBO's capabilities enabled Congress largely to ignore Reagan budgets after 1981 & to develop its own budgets..." --- Hedrick Smith 1988 _The Power Game_ pg 288

 

2009-06-28

2009-06-28
Steve Miller _Missoulian_
"Dark Knight" buoys family's dark days

2009-06-28
_Billings MT Gazette_/_Montana State University_
Architects up-grade to masters

2009-06-27 21:01PDT (2009-06-28 00:01EDT) (2009-06-28 04:01GMT)
Greg Robb & NVBob _MarketWatch_
Damp conditions to limit fire-works from ISM & pay-rolls: The rate at which we are going in the ditch is slowing, but we are still going in the ditch!

2009-06-28 05:08PDT (08:08EDT) (12:08GMT)
Paul B. Farrell _MarketWatch_
Public enemies run our banks today: Pretty Boy Paulson, Helicopter Machine Gunner Bernanke, Bonny Dodd, Clyde Geithner and the Goldman Gang: Don't give the recovery to the same idiots who created the mess

2009-06-28
_Tri-City Herald_/_AP_
Over 40 Washington public school districts hire cheap foreign teachers

2009-06-28
Ramon Renteria _El Paso TX Times_
Crime drives residents of Juarez to seek refuge
"De la Vega is convinced that widespread drug addiction, drug lords, the notorious Azteca gang and smaller narcotics pushers all contribute to daily criminal activity in Juárez...   He suggests that smaller criminal elements have grown in stature.   He has also heard estimates indicating 30 percent of the 3K to 4K Azteca gang members operating in Juárez live in El Paso and routinely cross the border to engage in drug smuggling and other crimes.   De la Vega praised the 5K to 6,500 Mexican soldiers and their commanders in Juárez for trying to restore law and order.   Calderón sent them there as part of the national crackdown on drug smugglers...   He emphasized that many of the high-caliber entrepreneurs and professionals responsible for Juárez's growth and prosperity in the past 40 years are among the families resettling in El Paso.   He also estimates 30K Mexicans from Juárez and other major cities in Mexico have fled the violence and moved to the U.S.A. in the past 3 years."
 
 

"In the best of circumstances, it is difficult for a powerful executive to escape the 'yes-men hazard'.   The clear-eyed executive will understand that he should be concerned about the possibility that he may, with the best of intentions, misuse his power -- through some lack of sophistication, mistaken judgment, or shading of the truth to protect his personal reputation." --- Henry M. Jackson (quoted in James Reston 1987-07-23 _NYTimes_ pg A27, quoted in Hedrick Smith 1988 _The Power Game_ pg 613)

 

2009-06-29

2009-06-28 17:25PDT (2009-06-28 20:25) (2009-06-29 00:25GMT)
Moira Herbst _Business Week_
Norm Matloff -- a computer science professor with a wife born in China -- says the H-1B visa system abuses workers everywhere
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Re: BusinessWeek profile
 
BusinessWeek was originally going to do a piece on the various players in the H-1B reform movement, but decided to focus on me instead...   Of course, I do have some comments.
 
As are most advocates on immigration issues, Matloff is a controversial figure.   He's admired by supporters -- including activists on H-1B visa issues -- but criticized by other academics who don't share his views and who chafe at his often-abrasive rhetorical style.   Critics also suggest there could be a xenophobic undertone implicit in his critique of the H-1B visa program.   Matloff posts opinionated blog entries on the web site of Numbers USA, a group calling for lower levels of immigration.   His writing prompted one tech worker, Arthur Hu of Bothell, WA, to create a web page criticizing Matloff, whom he calls the "Hatchet Man of Asian Immigration".
 
Some of the reader comments on this article take BusinessWeek to task for giving a voice to "Kevin, the IT Grunt", who is obviously some fringe guy on the H-1B issue.   I might say the same for Arthur Hu.   With hundreds of millions of web users, there is likely to be one that rants against any topic under the sun, and it happens that one of Arthur's topics is me. :-)   That's fine, but some readers of the article may mistakenly take this to mean that Asian-Americans agree with him on the H-1B issue, which they don't.   Every time I'm invited to speak to an Asian-American conference, such as the Asian Pacific American Conference on Law and Public Policy at Harvard and the Asian-American Out of the Silence Conference at Stanford, I get solid support from the audiences.   This should be no surprise -- with so many Asian-Americans in engineering, H-1B puts their jobs at risk.   My support from my own students, two-thirds of whom are Asian-American (not Asian foreign students), is also quite strong.   I'm proud to say that they've nominated me for various teaching awards, some of which I've been fortunate to win.
 
Matloff has influence on the H-1B visa debate beyond his web page and e-mail news-letter.   He has worked with Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) on a bill introduced in April that would add restrictions to the H-1B visa program.
 
Small correction: Though I've worked with Grassley's office, I've never talked to the senator himself. (itgrunt.com).   "THAT IS ONE ARTICULATE [expletive]", wrote Kevin in a post in April referring to Matloff.   (Matloff distances himself from "Kevin" and his web site and says his views are "unrepresentative".)
 
Maybe this is a small correction too, but I want to clarify that what I told Moira Herbst, the reporter, was that I had never even heard of Kevin/IT Grunt until she herself brought him to my attention.
 
Matloff has his share of supporters and critics in the academic world, too.   "Matloff routinely attacks the work of other academics by citing statistics and data which have no basis.", says Vivek Wadhwa, a Duke University engineering professor and fellow with the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.   (Wadhwa is also a columnist for BusinessWeek.com.)   "He claims to have performed his own research, but this research doesn't seem to have been published by credible authorities or have received any form of peer review."
 
I wish Ms. Herbst had given me a chance to comment.   Vivek's statements here are unfair and I believe close to being legally actionable.   They are not quite as bad as what he told a San Francisco radio station recently, which I reported on here at the time.   To suggest that an academic is dishonest in his research is to endanger his ability to make a living, and I wish BusinessWeek had not given its colleague such lattitude.   I'll leave the reader to peruse the details but I will comment on a couple of points here.
 
First, my University of Michigan article that Herbst mentions was indeed peer-reviewed, and obviously was in a very prestigious venue.   To my knowledge, it is the most extensive paper ever published on H-1B, 99 pages in length with over 300 foot-notes.   My other article cited by Herbst was in a publication of the California State Bar Association, and was written at their invitation.   I've also written articles at the invitation of publications of the Association for Computing Machinery [ACM] (the main computer science professional organization), IEEE (the main electrical engineering association), and so on.
 
Second, the vast majority of my analyses use publicly available data, from the U.S. Census PUMS database, the U.S. Dept. of Labor PERM data, NSF's NSCG survey and so on.   Thus anyone can confirm my analyses.
 
Putting Vivek's remarks aside, the much more important point is that he and I agree on the main issues:
(a) H-1B is widely used by employers as a source of cheap labor.
(b) The employers under-pay the H-1Bs in full compliance with the law, exploiting loop-holes.
(c) There is no tech labor shortage.
 
Vivek wrote the following in The American last year:
 
Moreover, I know from my experience as a tech CEO that H-1Bs are cheaper than domestic hires.   Technically, these workers are supposed to be paid a "prevailing wage", but this mechanism is riddled with loop-holes.
 
We also agree on point (c); see for example this.
 
Finally, there is a quote from Lindsay Lowell:
 
But other academics say they respect his work. "Matloff understands the guts of the issue in a way many academics don't.", says B. Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration.   "He brings a lot of passion to the subject, which has its up-sides and down-sides.   At times it can detract from his message."   Lowell adds that "as a professor, I believe he may take the career options of his students seriously and believes, to some extent, that an over-supply of highly skilled immigrants -- H-1Bs in particular -- is not in the interest of the domestic supply line."   But Lowell says that like many researchers in this area, Matloff lacks definitive data on, for example, the proportion of older workers who are laid off and replaced by younger workers or H-1B visa holders.
 
In turn I have had high praise for Lindsay.   Readers will recall my praise of his Urban Institute study with Hal Salzman that contradicted the dooms-day reports we see so often in the press (often fed to the press by organizations with their own agendas) on America's educational system.   See my postings on this here and there.
 
Concerning Lindsay's "lacks definitive data" comment, though, I must point out the following.   The data showing the under-payment of the H-1Bs and the problems of older (age 35+) workers in the field is overwhelming.   What Lindsay is referring to, though, is a connection between the two.   Has the negative impact of H-1B on older tech workers been "definitively" established?   I believe it has, though not in the way in which Lindsay has posed the question, in terms of lay-offs.
 
Yes, it does sometimes happen that older Americans are laid off and replaced by younger workers or H-1Bs.   (Statistically, most H-1Bs are young.)   But typically it's not so direct.   Instead, a job opens, and the young Americans and H-1Bs are hired instead of the older Americans.   There is excellent, yes "definitive", data on this, such as those by American University and the National Research Council [NRC], the latter commissioned by Congress.
 
The industry lobbyists try to spin this as lack of modern skills on the part of the older Americans.   This is a red herring, as I show extensively in my University of Michigan and California State Bar articles.   Even Vivek, a former tech CEO [cross-border bodyshopper], has said this many times:
 
...even if the [older] $120K programmer gets the right skills, companies would rather hire the younger workers.   That's really what's behind this.
 
As a professional statistician and former statistics professor, I would like to make one more point about data: It must be coupled with qualitative knowledge of the matter being studied.   Otherwise, the analyst is like the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, constructing ever more intricate mathematical theories based on totally false premises (sun revolving around the Earth).   In the H-1B salary area, for instance, there are lots of pitfalls for the unwary.   I have a detailed discussion of this in my University of Michigan paper.
 
The article follows below.   Sorry for my absence these last few weeks.   I've been busy with family matters.   But I've got a lot to write about in the next couple of weeks, including my long-awaited analysis of the Kerr/Lincoln paper on immigrant patenting.
 
Norm
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2009-06-29
_Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_
Wyoming plans to keep coal in energy mix
"the area's coal industry, which includes 2 of North America's largest producing mines...   'We have enough coal to last us 500 years'...   It's taken the lead in crafting laws regulating carbon capture and storage projects, and contributed $50M in a venture with General Electric Co. [backers of cap and trade legislation] to build a $100M plant to research turning Wyoming coal into cleaner burning natural gas..."

2009-06-29
Michele Johnson _Billlings MT Gazette_
Todd Buchanan alone on the Board of Regents had the wisdom and the fortitude to vote against new fees and increasing college tuition

2009-06-29
Bridget Mulcahy _Daily Illini_
University of Illinois released last of "clout list" related e-mail messages
"In an e-mail message from Paul Pless, associate dean for the College of Law, to Dean Hurd in March of 2007, Pless wrote, 'We currently have admitted 6 SI (special interest) applicants for the Class of 2010.   These all came from high profile donors of the College.   While all 6 have LSATs below the median and 4 have GPAs below the median, overall they would have fit the profile of the College's entering class 3 years ago with an average LSAT of 162 and GPA of 3.6.'"

2009-06-29
Stephen Z. _CocoaHeads_
July CocoaHeads Mac Developer Meetings
CocoaHeads is an international Mac programmer's group.   Meetings are free and open to the public.   We specialize in Cocoa, but everything Mac programming related is welcome.

Australia	Brisbane	Wednesday, 2009 July 15, 19:00
Canada	Toronto	Tuesday, 2009 July 14, 18:30
Germany	Berlin	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 19:00
Poland	Warsaw	Friday, 2009 July 10, 19:00
South Africa	Johannesburg	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 18:30
United States	Ann Arbor, MI	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 19:00
United States	Atlanta, GA	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 19:00
United States	Boston, MA	Thursday, 2009 July 9
United States	Boulder, CO	Tuesday, 2009 July 14, 19:00
United States	Chicago, IL	Tuesday, 2009 July 14, 19:00
United States	Colorado Springs, CO	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 19:00
United States	Dallas, TX	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 19:00
United States	Denver, CO	Tuesday, 2009 July 14, 19:00
United States	Des Monies, IA	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 19:00
United States	Lake Forest, IL	Wednesday, 2009 July 8, 19:00
United States	Nashville, TN	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 19:00
United States	Philadelphia, PA	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 19:00
United States	St. Louis, MO	Saturday, 2009 July 25, 14:00
United States	Upper Connecticut River Valley	Thursday, 2009 July 9, 19:00
United Kingdom	Swindon	Monday, 2009 July 6, 20:00

Some chapters may have yet to post their meeting for next month. Meeting times may change. Locations and more information here.   Also be sure to check for an NSCoder Night in your area.

2009-06-29
Andrea Ciccocioppo _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Area students honored for achievements
42 students from 7 area high schools, along with 4 Girl Scouts and 29 Eagle Scouts, were presented awards by senator Patricia H. Vance (R-31)."

2009-06-29
Allan Wall _V Dare_
Angelo M. Codevilla seems to cheer Mexican take-over of USA

2009-06-29
Martin Hutchinson _Prudent Bear_
Lessons from the Industrial Revolution
Asia Times

2009-06-29
William Anderson _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Krugman Tries to ReDefine Treason
Heritage Foundation
Donald J. Boudreaux: Business & Media Institute: Krugman's Treason

2009-06-29
George Washington
Debasing the Currency is Leading to Financial Collapse... Just as It Has for Thousands of Years

2009-06-29
Susan Ainsworth _Chemical & Engineering News_
Flexible Work Schedules
"According to a 2008 survey of 90 U.S. employers that Hewitt staff conducted, 66% of companies said that flexible work programs increased employee engagement, 64% said they improved employee retention, and 49% linked them to enhanced recruitment results."
index

2009-06-29
Ron Paul
audio regarding Waxman-Markey Cap & Trade (HR2454) vote in US House

2009-06-29
_NASA_
Mount Fuji

2009-06-29 (5769 Tamuz 07)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Beware of "Caveat Emptor"

2009-06-29 (5769 Tamuz 07)
Steven Emerson _Jewish World Review_
ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas terrorists
 
 

"Remember: Consensus is reached when every one in the group can buy into (or live with) the decision without feeling compromised in any way..   it does not mean that every one believes the solution is the best, but that every one is satisfied   Encourage people to surface & keep voicing their concerns until their fears have been dealt with   They are doing the group a valuable service by pointing out short-comings of the solution; in the end the quality of the final solution will be higher." --- Michael Doyle & David Straus 1982 _How To Make Meetings Work_ pp 66, 244

 

2009-06-30

2009-06-30
Jason Scott _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Regional unemployment again on the rise

2009-06-30
Murat Halstead, Chauncey Mitchell Depew & Augustus J. Munson
Life and Distinguished Services of William McKinley

2009-06-30
Susie Madrak _Crooks and Liars_
It's Not Your Imagination. It Really IS Much Harder to Get Hired During a Recession

2009-06-30
Mike Shedlock _Global Economic Analysis_
Home Loan Delinquencies Double on Prime Loans; Foreclosure Filings Top 300K for 3rd Straight Month

2009-60-30
Karl Denninger _Market Ticker_
Starve the Beast
George Washington's web log: Financial Writer Calls for Boycott of Discretionary Consumer Spending Until Honest Free Market Capitalism is Restored

2009-06-30
Juan Diego Zelaya _Washington Times_
Constitutional over-throw in Honduras opposed by Chavez, Obama, Clinton, Zoellick
"Last week, Mr. Zelaya issued executive orders to the armed forces to carry out the first phase of the constitutional reform project.   The head of the armed forces, knowing that this order was illegal and unconstitutional, said 'No.'   Mr. Zelaya went on national TV and fired general Romeo Vasquez for refusing to carry out the order, but [Honduras's] Supreme Court reinstated him...   This morning, the armed forces restored peace and democracy to our country, backed by all institutions: legislative branch; judicial branch; political parties, including the former president's own party; business bureaus; and most other groups representing society. Their stance sends a clear message: No one, not even the president, is above the law...   Juan Diego Zelaya is general counsel to the mayor of Tegucigalpa..."

2009-06-30
Bob Ellis _Dakota Voice_
Waxman-Markey (HR2454) Cap and Trade Bill: Attack of the Showe Nazis
Junk Science

2009-06-30
_Conference Board_
Consumer Confidence Index Retreated
"Those stating jobs are 'hard to get' increased to 44.8% from 43.9%.   Those saying jobs are 'plentiful' decreased to 4.5% from 5.8%...   Those anticipating more jobs in the months ahead decreased to 17.4% from 19.3%, while those anticipating fewer jobs increased to 27.3% from 25.6%.   The proportion of consumers expecting an increase in their incomes declined to 9.8% from 10.8%."

2009-06-30
Thorsten Polleit _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Inflation: What You See and What You Don't See

2009-06-30
_Heritage Foundation_
What About Legal Immigration Reform?

2009-06-30
Donald J. Boudreaux _Pittsburgh PA Tribune-Review_
Supply, Demand, Price Are Distorted When It Comes to Medical Care

2009-06-30 (5769 Tamuz 08)
R' Binyomin Ginsberg _Jewish World Review_
What makes a great parent?

2009-06-30 (5769 Tamuz 08)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Ideologue in chief

2009-06-30 (5769 Tamuz 08)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Alice in Medical Care (ObummerDoesn'tCare)
Detroit MI News
Detroit MI News
Contra Costa CA Times
 
 

"The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult & worthwhile.   Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen." --- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 1990 _Flow_ pg 3

 
 

2009 June
_Top 500_
top 500 fastest super computers LinPack bench-mark
 

"I don't know whether the word 'honesty' is the best word   It's the search for truth in your work   You must criticize yourself, you must consider everything that may contradict what you think, & you must never hide an error   And the whole atmosphere should be so that everybody is like that." --- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 1996 _Creativity_ pg 168

 

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Proposed Bills 2009

Congressional candidate fund-raising, expenditures, and debt
 

USA Over-Population Clock
World + USA Over-Population Clocks
Jimbo Wales's WikiPedia on World Over-Population
 

"In fact the Greek term for leisure, 'scholea', is the root from which our word 'school' comes, since the idea was that the best use for leisure was to study." --- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 1997 _Finding Flow_ pg 12 (citing J.R. Kelly 1982 _Leisure_)

Movies Coming Soon
 

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