2012 August

2nd month of the 3rd quarter of the 23rd year of the Bush-Clinton-Shrub-Obummer economic depression

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updated: 2021-01-05
 

  "Lean Liberty is better than Fat Slavery." --- John Jay  

 
 
2012 August
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  "In India, for example, it has been estimated that only 10% of the country's working population work in the formal or legally recognized sector." --- Thomas Sowell 2008 _Economic Facts & Fallacies_ pg198 (citing William W. Finan 2007 April _Current History_ "The Indian Way" pg189)  

 
 

 
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Montag Dienstag Mittwoch Donnerstag Freitag Samstag Sonntag
Lunedi Martedi Mercoledi Giovedi Venerdi Sabato Domenica
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captain William Scott's flag for the Republic of Texas.

2012 August

2nd month of the 3rd quarter of the 13th year of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama economic depression


 
 

2012-08-01

2012-08-01
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
the joys (for employers) of indentured servitude
 
So, Vivek Wadhwa and I agree once again.
 
Though many view of him as my polar opposite, he and I do agree (or have agreed) on almost every point in the foreign tech worker debate:
 
1.   H-1Bs tend to be under-paid, and hired with that goal.
 
2.   The under-payment is usually done LEGALLY, using gaping loop-holes in the law.
 
3.   The abuse of the H-1B program pervades the entire industry, NOT just the Indian bodyshops [and it is not just the US bodyshops, and it is not just the off-shorers].   The latter should NOT be scape-goated.
 
4.   There is no tech labor shortage.
 
5.   The older tech workers have a problem getting work in this field -- even if they have completely up-to-date skill sets.
 
6.   The immigrant tech people are not more innovative or more entrepreneurial than the Americans.
 
I could cite some other points of commonality, but the one I will stress in this posting is this one:
 
7.   Employers love the de facto indentured servitude (DFIS) of the H-1Bs, especially for those waiting for green cards.
 
DFIS is one of the key attractions of H-1B for employers in the computer industry.   As I detailed in my my 2003 Univerity of Michigan Journal of Law Reform article (pdf), DFIS enables the employer to hand-cuff the foreign worker, preventing him/her from moving to another firm in the midst of an urgent project.   [I.e. rendering them more pliant.]
 
This is worth tons for many employers, much more important to them than under-payment of the worker.
 
And this [pliantness] makes hiring the foreign worker far more attractive to the employer, compared to hiring a similarly-talented American.
 
We're talking about main-stream Silicon Valley firms here, folks, the Intels [and IBMs and Oracles] of the industry, not just the Infosyses.   The Infosyses are much more overt (and more complete) in their preferential hiring practices, but the Intels [and Oracles and IBMs] are guilty too.
 
I reported in an earlier posting that Vivek mentioned DFIS abuse at the recent Brookings conference, pointing out that employers are "very happy" that the green card sponsoree is trapped.   In his latest column, Vivek adds that these workers "usually make less than what they would if they were allowed to shop around for better jobs", relating in just one thought Points 1, 2, 3 and 7 above.
 
I gave current examples of de facto indentured servitude (DFIS) abuse in my recent posting
 
Well then, where do Vivek and I disagree?   Don't Points 1-7 cover it all?   Interesting question.   Vivek, you answer first. :-)
 
A couple of the reader comments on Vivek's column were fun and interesting to read.   Poking fun at Vivek's put-down of Jared Bernstein for allegedly not "talking to Silicon Valley executives" about their claimed need for foreign workers, one reader invoked the old saying, "Never ask the barber if you need a haircut."   Then an H-1B gave an analysis in favor of the program, to which another reader wrote, "Never ask an H-1B if American needs H-1Bs."
 
More seriously, Donna Conroy of Bright Future Jobs added her own comment.   In contrast to Vivek's statement that the Brookings study data were "conclusive", Conroy reported that BFJ's ad survey correlated highly with the Brookings study -- in a negative way.   BFJ found that the same cities in which Brookings found the highest use of H-1B, there were the most ads with language that in essence stated that the jobs were open only to H-1Bs.
 
Norm
Grant Gross: PC World: hundreds of ads discriminate against US workers
TLNT: Americans Need Not Apply
Beryl Lieff Benderly: AAAS: How to create a talent shortage
Patrick Thibodeau: ComputerWorld/IDG
David North: Center for Immigration Studies
Steven Rosenbush: Wall Street Journal
Bright Future Jobs press

2012-08-01 07:45PDT (10:45EDT) (14:45GMT) (16:45 Jerusalem)
Charlie Osborne _Stupid Propaganda Planet_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Oxytocin increases ability to read others' emotions

2012-08-01
_Cumberland PA Sentinel_
supporters turn out for Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day
Salisbury NC Post
Springfield-Kingstowne-Spring Hill Patch
Quad-City Times
San Francisco CA Chronicle
WCPO Cincinnati
KBTX Bryan/College Station/Brazos county TX
Fox Dallas-Fort Worth TX/Atlanta GA
North Escambia FL
MSFTNBC/WBBH-TV Fort Myers FL
WCYB VA
Gateway Pundit St. Louis MO, Los Colinas TX, Chesterfield MO
Greenville NC
Chattanooga TN Times Free Press
NBC 2 Fort Myers FL
Gainesville FL Sun
Atlanta GA Journal-Constitution
WRDW-TV Augusta GA
abc 5 Cleveland OH
Denver CO Post
Chicago IL Sun-Times
NY Daily News
Twitchy
Fort Wayne IN News-Sentinel
rtv 6 abc Indianapolis IN
Charleston Daily Mail
Indianapolis IN Star
WNWO Toledo/NorthWestern Ohio
Cincinnati OH Enquirer
Des Moines IA Register
KCCI 8 DesMoines IA
Youngtown OH Vindicator
KY Post
Dayton OH Daily News
abc 15 AZ/CNN
KGO Sacramento CA
Times West Virginian
WSAZ Charleston
Montgomery county PA Times Herald
Cumberland PA Sentinel
Manchester Guardian

2012-08-01
Thomas E. Brewton
Obummer, Mussolini, & Hitler

2012-08-01
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
219 missing EB-5 decision records

2012-08-01
Jessica Vaughan _Center for Immigration Studies_
DHS plans deep (possibly illegal) discounts on fees for applications for amnesty under NIGHTMARE program

2012-08-01
Mark J. Perry
supply, demand, suppression of markets in tickets resulted in many empty seats at olympics

2012-08-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 84,450 job ads

Total84,450
UNIXNA
WindozeNA
JavaNA
C/C++/Objective-CNA
body shop35,954
full-time temp52,119
part-time temp1,737

 
graphs

2012-08-01 (5772 Menachem-Ab 13)
R' Dov Fischer _Jewish World Review_
Contrasting cultures
"Tonight will be a most incredible night for Orthodox Jews and, more, for a massive expression of the culture of all the Jewish people.   The single largest gathering in American history in honor of Torah study will take place at the New Jersey Meadowlands ('MetLife Stadium'), home of the New York Giants football team and the New York Jets.   It will be beamed by satellite to local gatherings the world over...   After our studying a page a day of Talmud for the past 7.5 years, the study of the entire Talmud now is wrapping up with the final folios of Tractate Nidah, the last Tractate of the Babylonian Talmud.   To mark the moment, more than 93K seats have been sold out at MetLife Stadium for tonight."

2012-08-01 (5772 Menachem-Ab 13)
Pete Spotts _Jewish World Review_
Are we all extra-terrestrials? DNA parts found in meteorites
"They not only found nucleobases widely found in organisms on Earth, compounds such as adenine and guanine, 2 of the 4 bases found in DNA.   They also found related compounds, which the team dubbed 'nucleo-base analogues', that aren't found on Earth and in effect are new to science.   Over the years, scientists have found amino acids, which are needed to form proteins, with unambiguous space-based origins.   And meteorites have carried the chemicals necessary to make cell walls...   the mix and distribution of the nucleo-bases typically found in ice and soil are far different that those found in the meteorites..."

2012-08-01 (5772 Menachem-Ab 13)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Milton Friedman's centenary
Town Hall
"He was born on 1912 July 31.   But professor Friedman's death at age 94 deprived the nation of one of those rare thinkers who had both genius and common sense...   No one converted Milton Friedman, either in economics or in his views on social policy.   His own research, analysis and experience converted him.   As a professor, he did not attempt to convert students to his political views.   I made no secret of the fact that I was a Marxist when I was a student in professor Friedman's course, but he made no effort to change my views.   He once said that anybody who was easily converted was not worth converting.   I was still a Marxist after taking professor Friedman's class.   Working as an economist in the government converted me.   What Milton Friedman is best known for as an economist was his opposition to Keynesian economics, which had largely swept the economics profession on both sides of the Atlantic, with the notable exception of the University of Chicago, where Friedman was both trained as a student and later taught.   In the heyday of Keynesian economics, many economists believed that inflationary government policies could reduce unemployment, and early empirical data seemed to support that view.   The inference was that the government could make careful trade-offs between inflation and unemployment, and thus 'fine tune' the economy.   Milton Friedman challenged this view with both facts and analysis.   He showed that the relationship between inflation and unemployment held only in the short run, when the inflation was unexpected.   But, after everyone got used to inflation, unemployment could be just as high with high inflation as it had been with low inflation.   When both unemployment and inflation rose at the same time in the 1970s -- 'stagflation', as it was called -- the idea of the government 'fine tuning' the economy faded away.   There are still some die-hard Keynesians today who keep insisting that the government's "stimulus" spending would have worked, if only it was bigger and lasted longer.   This is one of those heads-I-win-and-tails-you-lose arguments.   Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.   Although Milton Friedman became someone regarded as a 'conservative' icon, he considered himself a liberal in the original sense of the word -- someone who believes in the liberty of the individual, free of government intrusions.   Far from trying to conserve things as they are, he wrote a book titled _Tyranny of the Status Quo_.   Milton Friedman proposed radical changes in policies and institution ranging from the public schools to the Federal Reserve.   It is liberals who want to conserve and expand the welfare state.   As a student of professor Friedman back in 1960, I was struck by 2 things -- his tough grading standards and the fact that he had a black secretary.   This was years before affirmative action.   People on the left exhibit blacks as mascots.   But I never heard Milton Friedman say that he had a black secretary, though she was with him for decades.   Both his grading standards and his refusal to try to be politically correct increased my respect for him."
Stephen Moore: WSJ

2012-08-01 (5772 Menachem-Ab 13)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
how times have changed
Town Hall
"Having been born in 1936 has allowed me to witness both societal progress and retrogression.   High on the list of things made better in our society are the great gains in civil liberties and economic opportunities, especially for racial minorities and women.   People who are now deemed poor have a level of material wealth that would have been a pipe dream to yesteryear's poor.   But despite the fact that today's Americans have achieved an unprecedented level of prosperity, we have become spiritually and morally impoverished compared with our ancestors.   Years ago, spending beyond one's means was considered a character defect.   Today not only do people spend beyond their means but also there are companies that advertise on radio and TV to eliminate or reduce your credit card and mortgage debt.   Students saddled with college loans have called for student loan forgiveness.   Yesterday's Americans would have viewed it as morally corrupt and reprehensible to accumulate debt and then seek to avoid paying it.   It's nothing less than theft.   What's worse is there's little condemnation of it by the rest of us.   Earlier this year, as a result of a budget crunch, the Philadelphia School District had to lay off 91 school police officers.   During the 1940s and 1950s, I attended Philadelphia schools in poor neighborhoods.   The only time we saw a policeman in school was during an assembly period when we had to listen to a boring lecture about safety.   Because teacher assaults are tolerated -- 4K over the past 5 years in Philadelphia -- school police are needed.   Prior to the 1960s, few students would have thought of talking back to a teacher, and no one would have cursed, much less assaulted, a teacher.   I couldn't have been more than 8, 9 or 10 years old when one time, on the way home from school, my cousin and I were having a stone fight with some other youngsters.   An elderly black lady walked up to my cousin and me and asked, 'Does your mother know you're out here throwing stones?'   We replied, 'No, ma'am.', praying that the matter rested there.   Today an adult doing the same thing risks being cursed and possibly assaulted.   Fearing retaliation, adults sit in silence as young people use vile language to one another on public conveyances, in school corridors and on the streets.   Yesteryear there was little tolerance for the kinds of crude behavior and language that are accepted today.   To see a man sitting on a bus or trolley car while a woman is standing used to be unthinkable.   Children didn't address adults by their first name.   BTW, over the course of my nearly 45 years of teaching, on several occasions, students have addressed me by my first name.   I have told them that I don't mind their addressing me by my first name but that my first name is Professor.   Much of what's accepted today would have been seen as bizarre and lowdown yesteryear.   Out-of-wedlock childbirth was a disgrace and surely wouldn't have occasioned a baby shower.   Popular TV shows such as 'The Jerry Springer Show' and 'Maury' feature guests who openly discuss despicable acts in their personal lives, often to the applause of the audience.   Shame is going the way of the dinosaur...   a society's first line of defense is not the law but customs, traditions and moral values.   These behavioral norms -- transmitted by example, word of mouth, religious teachings, rules of etiquette and manners -- represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error.   They include important legal thou-shalt-nots -- such as shalt not murder, steal, lie or cheat -- but they also include all those civilities one might call ladylike or gentlemanly behavior.   Police officers and courts can never replace these social restraints on personal conduct.   At best, laws, police and the criminal justice system are a society's last desperate line of defense."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  'In battle, character counts in leaders and soldiers as much as brains.   Stuff like courage, mental and physical toughness, and integrity really count.   yet competence is also important for leaders, because I believe soldiers have every right to expect their leaders to know what they are doing.   Leaders must also share the danger, the pein, and also the pride that the troops feel.   Leaders need to be up front in combat.   They need to be where the soldiers are." --- general Fred Franks (quoted in Tom Clancy & general Fred Franks ii 1997 _Into the Storm_ pg56)  

 
 

2012-08-02

2012-08-02 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (14:30 Jerusalem)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 310,492 in the week ending July 28, a decrease of 30,083 from the previous week.   There were 341,103 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5% during the week ending July 21, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,239,615, a decrease of 97,192 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.9% and the volume was 3,680,729.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending July 14 was 5,964,553, a decrease of 69,672 from the previous week.   Extended benefits were available in ID during the week ending July 14 [note that this list is way shorter than it was just a few weeks ago as eligibilities have been expiring...jgo].   States reported 2,532,828 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending July 14, a decrease of 23,628 from the prior week.   There were 3,184,621 claimants in the comparable week in 2011.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" (the divisor) changes roughly quarterly:
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01;
to 126,579,970 beginning 2012-01-01;
to 127,048,587 beginning 2012-04-07;
to 127,495,952 beginning 2012-07-14, and seasonal adjustment factors were revised.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2012-08-02
Victor Davis Hanson _Town Hall_
100 days can be a long time
"Napoleon, for example, went from ignominious exile at Elba to triumph in Paris to utter defeat at Waterloo.   South Korea was lost and then saved by general Matthew Ridgway in about 100 days of winter in 1950 and early 1951.   In 1948, supposedly doomed incumbent president Harry Truman went from 17 points down in the polls to a victory margin of 4.5 percentage points on Election Day."

2012-08-02
Larry Elder _Town Hall_
tolerance
Demetrius Minor

2012-08-02
Laura Wides-Munoz & Garance Burke _Quad City Times_/_AP_
illegal aliens prove big business for prison, health-care and transportation firms

2012-08-02
Anthony Watts
U of CO at Boulder researchers say CO2 sinks are ramping up

2012-08-02
Anthony Watts
Inhofe exposed another epic blunder by hysterical leftist warmists

2012-08-02
Todd Moore _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Create your own clock app for iPhone or iPad

2012-08-02
"Zombie" _PJ Media_
a typical day in Berkeley CA (gallery)

2012-08-02
Candice Reed _San Diego CA Reader_
Old dog? New tricks.
"For the last 8 months, Jan Browning, 54 of San Diego, searched the Internet, networked diligently, and used all the social networking tools available to find a job.   After 347 applications and 45 interviews she finally landed a well-paying gig as a program director for a health-care organization...   Jan's son Devon, 30, is still looking for a job as an engineer and has been for 2 years...   Those 55+ who were seeking work were jobless an average of 55.6 weeks -- down slightly from May."

2012-08-02
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
supervisor of H-1bs at St. George's county MD school district forced out of job

2012-08-02
James R. Edwards ii _Center for Immigration Studies_
hospitals economically squeezed by burden of illegal aliens
"The real problem, where uninsured illegal aliens are concerned, arises from the political unwillingness of this administration to do anything to discourage illegal immigration, the political unwillingness of Washington to reduce legal immigration to manageable levels, and the weakening of public charge doctrine, which traditionally bars immigrants who can't be self-sufficient."

2012-08-02
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
NIGHTMARE scheme may bring $M to JP Morgan

2012-08-02 (5772 Menachem-Ab 14)
Clifford D. May _Jewish World Review_
After the fall: When Bashar al-Assad's reign ends will another blood-bath begin?
"They should have it within a federal Syria that guarantees minority rights -- to Alawites, Christians, Druze, and other groups.   Al-Qaeda won't like that, Iran and Hezbollah won't like that, and some in the Sunni majority won't like it either.   But those who hope to rebuild Syria as a decent country, independent and at peace within its borders, should readily grasp the benefits."

2012-08-02
"Ladra" _Political Cortadito_
Hialeah boletera arrested -- more dominoes to fall
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "In fact, by 1970 a black HS student in AL or MS had a better opportunity to get an education than a white student in England." --- W. Cleon Skousen 1981, 2010 _The 5K Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World: Principles of Freedom 101_ pg109  

 
 

2012-08-03

2012-08-03
Patrick Poole _PJ Media_
my neighbor, the terrorist organization leader
"Former Ohio resident Saleh Sultan -- whom I exposed -- is now top Hamas leadership...   Back in March, my friend and colleague Erick Stakelbeck of CBN News e-mailed me a link to an article in Tablet Magazine and asked: 'Hey -- isn't that your neighbor with the head of Hamas?'   Sure enough, it was.   My former neighbor Salah Sultan was standing right beside Ismail Haniyeh -- the Hamas 'prime minister' of Gaza -- as Haniyeh left a meeting with Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Cairo (purple shirt).   Stakelbeck knew about my neighbor Sultan because Erick and I had worked together on a video segment highlighting Sultan's activity and residence in my hometown of Hilliard, Ohio, back in 2007.   That was more than a year after I had first written about returning home to Ohio to discover that I had an internationally known Hamas cleric living about a mile from my own house.   Not only that, but Sultan was the religious director at the local Islamic school, Sunrise Academy, which had taken over the former public library building in town.   Sultan was also the resident scholar of the newly built Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Hilliard.   As I later recounted, the Columbus Dispatch attacked me as a racist and a bigot, characterizing me as a Christianist Neo-Nazi.   This after I had identified Sultan's rabidly anti-Jewish remarks, his calls for violent jihad, his open support for Hamas, his ties to Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, and his association with international Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi..."
GBTV (video)
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2012-08-03
Kim Zigfeld _PJ Media_
while Shrub and Obummer play along, soviet thuggery returns to Russia

2012-08-03
Todd Starnes _Fox_
senator Jeff Sessions questions suspension of ICE agent for arrest of repeat-offender illegal alien

2012-08-03
Angela Chen _Chronicle of Higher Education_
student created program to help students find openings in required classes... UCF put him on probation
"The UCF servers handle 15K requests a day...   He plans to appeal his sanctions, which also require him to write two papers and prevent him from holding student office...   According to Mr. Hartman, Central Florida is working on a waitlist feature that would perform the same service as U Could Finish.   Mr. Arnold added that he would be willing to collaborate with the university on developing that feature."

2012-08-03
Patrick Buchanan _Town Hall_
the Chick-Fil-A front in the culture wars

2012-08-03
Jessica Vaughan _Center for Immigration Studies_
MA closed illegal alien driving loop-hole

2012-08-03
Jerry Kammer _Center for Immigration Studies_
National Socialist Radio "On Point" discussing Federal Government Betrayal of American Workers
"As a former reporter, I regard the paucity of journalistic attention to the growth of federal programs that bring in foreign workers for temporary employment as an egregious failure of American journalism...   2 American contractors [bodies shopped] called in with details of the ongoing assault on their ability to earn a decent living...   Eisenbrey said the booming J-1, H-2a, and H-2b programs are just part of the 'alphabet soup' of temporary worker programs available to employers eager to drive down wages by bringing in foreign workers, many of whom regard our minimum wage as big money.   If American employers got their way, Eisenbrey said, the temporary work-force that now numbers hundreds of thousands 'would be probably millions'.   Having recently written a report about the Summer Work Travel component of the J-1 program -- a megamillion dollar jack-pot for cheap labor employers, recruiters, and sponsoring agencies who claim to be pursuing 'cultural exchanges' -- I say 'amen' to that.   Eisenbrey told of employers' success in persuading both Republican and Democratic senators to defeat a proposed Labor Department rule that would have required landscaping companies to pay local prevailing wages to its guest-workers.   Such a wage would eliminate much of the incentive for hiring the foreign workers.   With that rule defeated, and with access to foreign laborers assured by their political friends, employers have driven wages down, Eisenbrey said.   'So you have landscaping companies that pay 8 or 9 dollars an hour when they used to pay $12 an hour and they say, Well, we can't find Americans anymore.'"

2012-08-03
William L. Anderson
debt, depression... and Goldstein... again

2012-08-03
Mark J. Perry
body-shopping quickly recovering from recession -- real employment not so much

2012-08-03
Bob Stokes _Elliott Wave_
Why unemployment lines wil likely grow longer
"The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast.   The 2012 July issue explains why... 'Another indicator, the recruiting intensity index, measures the urgency of hiring on the part of employers.   Economists Steven Davis, R. Jason Faberman and John Haltiwanger developed the measure using advertising expenditures, screening methods, hiring standards and the attractiveness of compensation.   Recruiting intensity reveals a relentless deterioration.   The measure appears to lead the economy, also.'   Soon after the above analysis published, a 2012 July 16 Reuters article reported: 'American companies are scaling back plans to hire workers.'   And for workers who hang on to their jobs, some will lose health benefits.   2012-07-24: Washington DC Times: '9% of companies said they expect to stop offering coverage to their workers in the next 1 to 3 years.'"

2012-08-03 (5772 Menachem-Ab 15)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Obummer's wedge issue
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "[I]ndividuals when left to themselves are, in general, sufficiently provident & will daily better their circumstances." --- Joseph Priestly (quoted in George Rosen 1958 _A History of Public Health_ pg 173)  

 
 

2012-08-04

1730-08-04: John Peter Zenger was acquitted of sedition and established freedom of the press

2012-08-04
Stacy Brown & Debra Schell _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Truck nationals continue at Carlisle

2012-08-04
Mark J. Perry
3D printed exoskeletal "magic arms"
Venture Beat

2012-08-04
Mark J. Perry
USA vs. ND economic activity indices
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "Chapter 5. 1. (It is written) Isaiah i.4: 'Woe unto the sinful nation, unto the people heavy with iniquity [sin == debt], unto the seed of evil-doers, &c.'... HVI, 'woe' which also is a form of the [sacred] name... 2. 7 are the paths (if the Tetragrammaton be written in this way partially complete), IVD, HH, V, H, (where the father & mother are written in full, Microprosopus & his bride are written uncovered.   if here the last & first letters be combined, & the penultimate & 2nd, & therefore thepaths at either extremity, so that they may form the letters) HI & VV (mother & son), then are produced (the 3 middle letters) HH, D (which are the symbols of the queen, heavy with judgments.   But if mother & daughter be combined) HVI & HH, (then) is produced forth VV (or Microprosopus) as well as DV (or the androgyn, who also is a condition of judgments), for occultly Adam is denoted, or the male & female, who are that DV concerning whom it is written (in the place cited above) 'corrupt children'.   3. (When it is said) BRAShITh, BRA, Berashith bera, 'In the beginning created', (the supernal paths are understood.   For) BRAShITh, Berashith, is the speech (1 of the 10 rules of Genesis), but BRA, Bera, is the speech halved.   (But there are here understood) Father & Son, the hidden & the manifest." --- S.L. MacGregor Mathers _The Kabbalah UnVeiled_ pp 95-96  

 
 

2012-08-05

2012-08-05
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Is web logging like teaching in front of an invisible class?

2012-08-05
Anthony Watts
7 minutes of real science and engineering tonight as Mars lander "Curiosity" touches down (with video)
Stupid Propaganda Planet/Ziff Davis/CBS

2012-08-05
Thomas E. Brewton
de Tocqueville warned us in 1833 against collectivist tyranny

2012-08-05
_Washington DC Post_/_AP_
16 Egyptian soldiers killed at Egypt-Gaza/Palestine-Isreal border

2012-08-05
Victor Davis Hanson _PJ Media_
remembering the dead met back in Selma CA
"In the early 1960s, my father, William F. Hanson, a former teacher, farmer, and then administrator at Reedley Junior College, proposed to the local JC school board 'a lecture series'.   The Central Valley farming community was innately conservative.   But nonetheless, in the classically liberal spirit of those pre-VietNam times, the farmers on the board not only funded my dad's proposed lecture series, but encouraged him to invite controversial, and often liberal, voices -- over the objection of the careerist president of the college at that time...   So it followed that, from about age 9 to 15 (e.g., 1962-1968), I listened to every word, at dinner and the next morning's breakfast, from the likes of Ansel Adams (I remember a short, bearded bald man in cowboy hat who railed all evening against James Watt), Pearl Buck (2 strange aides who would not let her out of their sight), Louis Leakey (suffering from terrible dental pain and around the house wearing a blue jump suit), Bernard Lovell (stared out about two feet over our heads when speaking), Rod Serling (refused to answer our constant questions about the Twilight Zone, and instead went on a nonstop invective against Richard Nixon), Mark Van Doren (gracious, polite, and a beautiful speaker of the English language), and about 30 or so others in rural Selma.   My father ran the series himself.   He did so as if he were back in the Army Air Force: systematically with check-lists, and with minute attention to every detail of the visit.   On a Thursday night, he would drive to the Fresno airport, pick up the speaker in his 1959 ladybug Volvo clunker (we had to buy all Swedish: Electrolux, hardtack crackers, etc.) -- full of lecture posters, microphone wires, and box speakers -- and drive them down to Selma, where my mother had dinner and one of our bedrooms ready for the celebrity guest.   At 06:00 the next morning, my father rushed over to Reedley, where he had students waiting to help him set up the gym with chairs, arrange the PA system, and put last-minute posters around town.   Dad was a one-man production company and used 100% of his budget for the speakers' honoraria -- meals, transportation, and lodging all provided by himself, without charge to the district.   My mom (who was a Stanford law graduate and working as an attorney at the new 5th District Appellate Court) drew up the contracts, legal papers, etc., for my dad, again with no charge to the college.   At about noon, she drove down in her 1955 Dodge station wagon from Fresno, picked up the guest at the house (my siblings and I usually got to stay home from school that morning to talk to him/her in the 4-hour interval), and chauffeured the guest over for the early-evening event.   We joined my dad up in the bleachers after school.   After all that work, Bill was never allowed to introduce the speaker: the college president always broke his promise and, at the last moment, hijacked the occasion to gave a 5-minute harangue about his supposedly brilliant effort to 'bring culture to Reedley'.   Remember, this was right before the era of the blockbuster advance or lucrative film deal.   For a bit longer, American and British public figures would often tour the country, in yeomen fashion, doing 30 back-to-back talks per month.   I remember that my father always preferred to host only 3-4 talks per season, rather than the suggested 6-7, in order to pay a top-dollar $1K fee, an astronomical sum in those days.   He figured that with such financial clout he could lure a big name to detour to the out-of-the-way Reedley, between his scheduled lectures in San Francisco and Los Angeles.   And he was often right...   A far better man -- in both the ethical and literary sense -- died this last week, Sir John Keegan.   _The Face of Battle_ is the most beautifully written and imaginative military history of the last 50 years.   For a period in the 1980s and 1990s, about every 2 years a new military history followed from Keegan -- _Six Armies in Normandy_, _The Price of Admiralty_, _The Mask of Command_, _A History of War_, etc., as well as general histories of World War 1 and World War 2, and dozens of other titles too numerous for instant recall... Those were busy years. I would get up in the morning to do farm chores and help with the kids. Then I would drive 30 miles to CSUF, teach, rush home, spray, irrigate, or fix things, and run inside to work on the book until 01:00, drinking a 6-pack of Pepsi to stay awake. By 1985, I was a full-time lecturer (with a soon-to-be family of five now comfortably living on $22K a year) and the book then-titled _The Experience of Battle in Classical Greece_ [later _The Western Way of Warfare_] was finished."

2012-08-05
Aldo Svaldi _Denver CO Post_
men lost more but have been landing more jobs than women since 2007
"Men have snagged about 3 of every 4 of the 2.4M net new jobs created since the summer of 2009, said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement firm based in Chicago...   Since 2009 December, men have gained 474K retailing jobs, while women have lost 49K.   Men have won 190K of the 192K jobs created in transportation and added 123K jobs in finance, even as women lost 65K...   For example, women accounted for 60.4% of public-sector jobs in 2009 June.   Three years later, that concentration had fallen to 58.7%, Challenger said."

2012-08-05
Emily Brill _Times of Trenton NJ_
execs in Mercer county apply for a lot of H-1B visas
"US representative Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) introduced the Defend the American Dream Act in 2007 and sponsored similar bipartisan legislation in 2010, intended to 'comprehensively reform the H-1B visa program'.   As the state economy continued to languish last year, and many qualified workers sat on the side-lines for lack of jobs, Mercer employers imported 1,650 foreign workers to fill jobs in science, technology, engineering and math fields...   The federal government makes some of that money available to communities to qualify local workers for high-tech jobs, but Mercer county was unable to get any of it back.   Twice last year, Mercer's application for an Employment and Training Administration grant to train domestic workers for jobs filled by H-1B workers was rejected.   'Mercer county, along with several of our neighboring counties, has aggressively gone after these competitive dollars but has so far not received funding.', county spokeswoman Julie Willmot said.   In 2011, Mercer and neighboring counties sought funding to help train workers in information technology fields.   The applications noted a [desire for more] software engineers, systems analysts, programmers, and computer system managers and administrators.   At the same time, local workers are struggling to find jobs in such fields -- Central Jersey lost 300 jobs in the information sector last year, according to the state Department of Labor.   Yet the US Citizenship and Immigration Services [USCIS] office approved 81% of New Jersey employers' visa requests, bringing about 38K skilled foreign workers into the state last year, mostly to fill positions in the information sector...   say they can't find workers 'locally'...   Matloff argues that there is no shortage of domestic STEM workers, contrary to what many employers say in defense of their foreign worker hiring programs.   Rather, companies bypass local workers, taking advantage of loop-holes in the H-1B law to hire foreign workers on the cheap, Matloff said...   Both [of Pascrell's] bills died -- the former in committee, the latter on the House floor.   'Several constituents had come forward to tell me stories of H-1B visa abuse right here in New Jersey, and when I investigated further, it seems to be a problem across the country.', Pascrell said."

2012-08-05
Mark J. Perry
record proven reserves of oil and gas
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "A corrupt state & a corrupt church had allowed religion to be marked by abusive power, harsh taxation, & harsher penalties for those who searched for freedom of thought & expression.   With the aim of finding such freedom, the Sinclair family & their European counterparts influenced not only the exploration of the New World, but also the single greatest body of literature to emerge from the medieval world." --- Steven Sora 1999 _The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar: Solving the Oak Island Mystery_ pg 204  

 
 

2012-08-06

2012-08-06
Patrick Gray _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
if you don't equip employees with the skills to succeed you're doing them and your organization a grave disservice

2012-08-06
Christina Salvo _kabc Los Angeles CA_
6 killed at Oak Creek WI Sikh temple
Time
AP follow-up
Bloomberg
AP
CBS
NBC
Washington DC Examiner
Epoch Times
National Socialist Radio Minnesota
Fox
Global Post
Prison Planet/London Guardian
Scotsman
Milwaukee WI Journal Sentinel

2012-08-06
Anthony Watts
unexpected volcanic eruption in New Zealand last night

2012-08-06
Chris Forman _Forbes_
Make your age an asset

2012-08-06
Mary Ann Milbourn _Orange county CA Register_
CGC: 319,946 announced lay-offs year to date, 36,855 in July
Fox/Dow Jones
NASDAQ
UPI
6,156: Financial (26,352 year to date)
4,612: Health Care/Products
4,135: Retail (27,925 ytd)
3,350: Transportation (29,965 ytd)
2,271: Electronics
Computer (35,006 year to date)

2012-08-06
Timothy Prickett Morgan _Register_
blowing sunshine up the skirts of the "IT" industry by looking at a narrow time-frame
"You can't actually figure out what jobs are coming and going each quarter because the BLS doesn't track jobs by type but rather by industry.   But El Reg drills into the IT-related industries, using the raw and not seasonally adjusted data, each month to come up with a proxy for IT job growth or shrinkage.   In the manufacturing sector, companies making computers and electronics added a net 1K new workers in July, to over 1.11M, with those making computers and related peripherals adding 800 people, to reach 167,200.   After slashing workers for years, those making communications gear have been adding employees in recent months, and added 900 workers in July, to 110,200 total workers.   Semiconductor and electronic components makers slashed 2,200 workers, to 387,400 people, and those making electronic instruments shed 100 people, to 403,600.   In what the BLS calls the information sector, which includes all kinds of publishing -- books, periodicals, movies, broadcasting, telecom, [software products] and hosting -- jobs rose by 6,000 to 2.65M workers.   Within this sector, telecom companies added 2,100 workers, to 831,900, and data processing and hosting companies added 600 workers, to 242,700.   Professional and business services [bodyshopping] was the big job creator during the recovery in the United States, and continues to drive jobs.   The sub-sector comprised of companies that are engaged in computer systems design and related services added a very helpful 12,300 workers in July, pushing the pool of workers up to 1.61M.   Those companies peddling management and technical consulting services, which often have an IT component, added 8,800 people in July, to reach 1.15M total workers across the country."

2012-08-06
Angela Chen _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Seelio makes student portfolios accessible by employers
"what distinguishes Seelio from existing ePortfolio sites (such as Foliotek and RCampus) is that companies can also create accounts and browse through student profiles, post jobs, and search for potential employees based on skills or relevant projects."

2012-08-06
Anthony Watts
Disney Research, Zürich, UC San Diego, Universidad de Zaragoza, and Horley, UK figured out "twinned rainbow" optics

2012-08-06
Sam Outcalt
climate change and the tooth faerie
Boulder CO Daily Camera

2012-08-06
Bridget Johnson _PJ Media_
congress-critters leave piles of unfinished business to go on recess... sort of
"In fact, it's not even technically recess right now.   The House...voted 150-265 against adjournment on Thursday evening.   All Democrats voted to stay in session, while 78 Republicans joined them to vote against adjournment.   The senate, however, passed the resolution to adjourn until Sept. 10.   Because the House did not agree to majority-leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) concurrent resolution to adjourn, the Senate will have pro forma sessions in the Hart office building -- as recess repairs are being made to the upper chamber -- with no business conducted over the recess period.   Law-makers from both chambers split town late last week."

2012-08-06
Jonathan Karl _abc_
How Obummer's Hollywood backers have off-shored jobs
"There is no more quintessentially American city than Gotham.   But where were half the Gotham scenes shot? In the United Kingdom and [Red China].   Going overseas may have meant fewer jobs for American workers, but, presumably some tax breaks and fewer union rules...   Harvey Weinstein...Weinstein's long list of movie credits includes many films that, that although set in the United States, were filmed primarily in foreign countries.   [Off-shoring], pure and simple...   There were $13.5G in film and television exports in 2010.   The industry has created jobs in some unlikely places.   According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2010, the movie industry was responsible for 81,119 jobs (and $3.5G in wages) in Georgia; 21,271 jobs in Louisiana and 26,992 jobs in North Carolina."

2012-08-06
Wayne Allyn Root _Blaze_
the Obummer scandal is at Columbia, where he may not have attended classes
"Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia -- and it's a bad one that threatens to bring down his presidency...   Why are the college records, of a 51-year-old president of the United States, so important to keep secret? I think I know the answer.   If anyone should have questions about Obama's record at Columbia University, it's me.   We both graduated (according to Obama) Columbia University, class of 1983.   We were both (according to Obama) Pre-Law and Political Science majors.   And I thought I knew most everyone at Columbia.   I certainly thought I'd heard of all of my fellow Political Science majors.   But not Obama (or as he was known then -- Barry Soetero).   I never met him.   Never saw him.   Never even heard of him.   And none of the class-mates that I knew at Columbia have ever met him, saw him, or heard of him.   But don't take my word for it.   The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that Fox News randomly called 400 of our Columbia class-mates and never found one who had ever met Obama.   Now all of this mystery could be easily and instantly dismissed if Obama released his Columbia transcripts to the media.   But even after serving as president for [3.7] years he refuses to unseal his college records."

2012-08-06
Eugene Robinson _Miami FL Herald_
The emerging UAV culture
"The age of the [UAVs] has arrived.   It's not possible to uninvent these Orwellian devices, but we can -- and must -- restrain their use [and abuse]...   [UAVs] are a subject on which the far left and the far right can agree.   In fact, they do.   Here's quote #1: 'Rules must be put in place to ensure that we can enjoy the benefits of this new technology without bringing us closer to a surveillance society in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded and scrutinized by the authorities.'   Now quote #2: 'Flying over our homes, farms, ranches and businesses and spying on us while we conduct our everyday lives is not an example of protecting our rights.   It is an example of violating them...    When I have friends over for a barbecue, the government drone is not on the invitation list.'   The first quote is from the American Civil Liberties Union.   The second is from an op-ed written by senator Rand Paul, R-KY."

2012-08-06
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
government now calling NIGHTMARE scheme "childhood arrivals program"

2012-08-06
John Miano _Center for Immigration Studies_
IBM: "The Cost Difference Is Too Great for the Business Not to Look for" H-1B Workers
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "...'Luxor', a relatively recent name derived from the Arabic 'L'Ouqsor' (meaning 'the palaces').   Much earlier, during the period of Greek influence in Egypt (from about the 5th century BC) the whole area including the nearby temple at Karnak had been known as Thebai.   Modern Europeans had subsequently corrupted this name to the more familiar 'Thebes'.   In the process, however, they had obscured an intriguing etymology: the word Thebai had in fact been derived from Tapet, the name by which the Luxor/Karnak religous complex had been known in the era of Tutankhamen & Moses.   And Tapet in its turn was merely the feminine form of Apet...   the shape of the Tapet arks had evolved over the passing centuries, gradually ceasing to resemble ships so closely & becoming instead 'more & more like a chest'." --- Graham Hancock 1992 _The Sign & the Seal_ pp 293-294 (citing John Anthony West 1989 _Ancient Egypt_ pg 236; Flavia Anderson 1987 _The Ancient Secret: Fire from the Sun_ pp 113-114; James Bruce 1790 _Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 & 1773_ vol 1 pp 394-395)  

 
 

2012-08-07

2012-08-07
_UPI_
Israel-based firm, Elbit, selling Hermes UAVs in Latin America

2012-08-07
_UPI_
Sierra Nevada Corp. and ITT Exelis said their Vigilant Stare persistent aerial surveillance system to be available next month

2012-08-07
Jerry Kammer _Center for Immigration Studies_
Federal Government Betrayal of American Workers part 2
part 1

2012-08-07
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
pre-war Harper's Ferry in art... and some thoughts

2012-08-07 (5772 Menachem-Ab 19)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Sports versus politics: "market failure" and the Bronx bombers
World Net Daily

2012-08-07
Mark J. Perry
JOLTs
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.   I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks.   They are not government institutions.   They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves & their foreign customers..." --- Lewis McFadden  

 
 

2012-08-08

1902-08-08: Paul A.M. Dirac was born (theorized existence of positrons and magnetic monopoles based on his refinements of Schroedinger's equations)

2012-08-08
Steven A. Camarota _Center for Immigration Studies_
Immigrants in the USA: a profile of America's foreign-born population
press release

2012-08-08 05:33PDT (08:33EDT) (12:33GMT) (14:33 Jerusalem)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
Asurion to hire 500 tech workers
Tennessean
"Nashville-based cell phone insurer Asurion is looking to hire 500 employees for information technology positions as part of an expansion first announced in 2010.   The company announced it is looking for recent college graduates within majors related to computer science, management information systems, engineering, business administration and economics.   The company said it has already recruited students from Middle Tennessee State University, Tennessee State University, Tennessee Technological University and Vanderbilt University [but none from SLU, U of IN, U of KY, Morehead, U of Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, UNC... and certainly none over 35]."

2012-08-08
Anthony Watts
4.1 earth-quake in eastern suburban Los Angeles CA

2012-08-08
Kristin M. Lord & Jacob Stokes _Christian Science Monitor_
DHS plans to recruit 1K cyber-security workers over next 3 years: hired about 260 in 2011

2012-08-08
_World Net Daily_
Fool Me Twice: Obummer's 2nd-term scheme to disarm border patrol
Paramus Post
"The amnesty plan would make it illegal to apprehend [illegal aliens] in the 'premises or in the immediate vicinity of a childcare provider; a school; a legal-service provider; a federal court or state court proceeding; an administrative proceeding; a funeral home; a cemetery; a college, university, or community services agency; a social service agency; a hospital or emergency care center; a health care clinic; a place of worship; a day care center; a head start center; a school bus stop; a recreation center; a mental health facility; and a community center'...   The Center for American [Regress], called the 'idea center' of the Obama White House, highlighted those plans in a 2012 January report, 'Immigration for Innovation: How to Attract the World's Best Talent While Ensuring America Remains the Land of Opportunity for All'.   The center's recommendations include eliminating the cap on the number of the H-1B visas provided to foreigners.   H-1B is the most widely [abused] immigration classification for temporary workers.   Currently, the system is regulated by a congressionally established annual cap set at about 85K H-1B visas [plus unlimited numbers of exemptions] per year [with the result that over 110K H-1B visas are issued through consular offices each year].   The CAP report also states the country isn't giving out enough green cards.   Currently, about 140K employment-based permanent visas, or green cards, are available each year...   USCIS should be designated as a full voter registration agency...   Klein and Elliott explain how they documented Obama's second-term blue-print on amnesty.   The president's first-term signature policies, including the 'stimulus', defense initiatives and Obamacare, were crafted over years by key [leftist] think tanks and activists, usually first promoted in extensive research and policy papers, the authors document."

2012-08-08
Adam Kaplan _Talent_
the ignored talent pool
"Established more reasonable requirements, rather than a 20-point job description, while designing and developing [both formal and] on-the-job training to get the new hire up to speed fast."

2012-08-08
judge Andrew Napolitano _World Net Daily_
"gazillions" have had their privacy violated since 2011-09-11
"Gazillions. That's the number of times the federal government has spied on Americans since 2001/09/11 through the use of [UAVs], legal search warrants, illegal search warrants, federal agent-written search warrants and just plain government spying.   This is according to senator Rand Paul, R-KY, who, when he asked the government to tell him what it was doing to violate our privacy, was given a classified briefing.   The senator -- one of just a few in the U.S. senate who believes that the Constitution means what it says -- was required by federal law to agree not to reveal what spies and bureaucrats told him during the briefing.   The rules for classified briefings of members of Congress on areas of government behavior that the government wants to keep from its employers -- the American people -- are a real catch-22.   Those rules allow representatives and senators to interrogate government officials about government behavior they are afraid to reveal, and they require those officials to answer honestly and completely.   But the rules keep the interrogations secret, and they expressly prohibit members of Congress from telling anyone what they have learned...   The government gave Paul the distinct impression that it was afraid of our exercise of our personal freedoms, and thus it needs to watch us as we do so...   What has become of the Jeffersonian value of the primacy of the individual over the government in a free society?   How have we lost the American value that the government works for us, and we don't work for the government?   What remains of the constitutionally guaranteed right to be left alone?...   when the government scares us into the disuse of freedom, we have only ourselves to blame when Big Brother comes calling."

2012-08-08
Jack Cashill _World Net Daily_
mass killing no one talked about
"'The biggest mass killing this past weekend did not take place in Aurora, Colorado.', I told them.   'It took place in Goliad, Texas.'...   On July 22, less than 48 hours after the Colorado shooting, a Mexican coyote lost control of his Ford F-250 pick-up truck at high speed on Highway 59 outside of Goliad and killed 14 of the 22 Central Americans on board.   Most had been laid out on the truck bed like sardines.   The driver, 22-year-old Ricardo Mendoza-Pineda, died in the crash as well.   As the responders discovered the hard way, he was the only person on the truck with ID, in his case a driver's license from the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.   'This is coming as news to many of your viewers.', I told the show's host.   'This was a criminal act that resulted in 15 deaths.   And no one wants to talk about it because it has no useful political value for the people who determine what's news and what's not.'...   A driver, likely part of a human-trafficking ring, cruelly stuffs 22 illegals into a pick-up truck and kills 14 of them, and the Star blames a tire?   In fact, the media buried the Goliad story because the only people they could conceivably blame for the crash, other than the tire company, were themselves and their political allies...   As Time points out, federal agents have rescued 240 illegals and found the remains of 80 others so far in 2012, and these just in the just in Rio Grande Valley area of Texas.   As with drugs, however, there would be no point in trafficking if there were no demand for the product.   The demand for illegal aliens comes not only from those who knowingly employ them, but also from those who enable the employers...   And when president [Obummer] -- by fiat -- turned illegals into 'dreamers', he gave the traffickers a recruitment tool they can go to the bank on for years to come.   [What a NIGHTMARE!]"

2012-08-08
Robert Ringer _World Net Daily_
fallacy of the "labor theory of value": Karl Marx and our emperor of envy

2012-08-08
Ann Coulter _World Net Daily_
Leftists' secret weapon is liberals who haven't studied
"[Leftists] tell whopping lies, and [too many liberals] can't be bothered to learn history...   In the last few days, we've heard both George Will and Charles Krauthammer, otherwise intelligent people, repeating bogus Democratic talking points about how Joe McCarthy allegedly smeared innocents with false allegations...   the idea that McCarthy threw out unsubstantiated charges and switched numbers, from 57 to 205, were the wild-eyed allegations of McCarthy haters, which, on closer examination, turned out to be completely false...   It was proved false at the time -- not just decades later, when McCarthy was vindicated with a whoop when Soviet archives and cables were revealed to the world...   McCarthy said he had the names of 57 communists or communist sympathizers working in the State Department who needed to be investigated.   Separately, he cited a 1946 letter from former secretary of State James Byrnes to Congress stating that there were 205 known security risks still working there.   His point, misconstrued by Democrats at the time and since, was not to accuse specific individuals, but rather to indict the Democrats for turning a blind eye to ridiculous security risks in important government jobs, even after Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Alger Hiss.   (Sorry, Nation magazine, they're still guilty.)   McCarthy gave his Wheeling, WV, speech 2 weeks after Secretary of State Dean Acheson had defended celebrity communist spy Hiss on 1950 Jan. 25 -- the day of Hiss' criminal conviction for denying under oath that he was a Soviet spy.   Even after Whittaker Chambers had produced documents proving that Hiss was working for the Soviet Union while advising president Roosevelt, the Democrats were still defending a traitor.   Chambers said of Acheson's disgusting defense of Hiss, 'You will look in vain in history for anything comparable to it.'...   After dedicating months of investigation to this crucial question -- with senate investigators actually flying to West Virginia to interview everyone who attended the speech -- it turned out McCarthy was right...   Moreover, contrary to the nonsense about McCarthy not being able to name the 57 specific individuals, the very day he got back to Washington, he gave a 6-hour speech on the senate floor, providing details about the problematic State Department employees, chapter and verse.   He did not 'name names' because that was not his point.   As McCarthy said, some State Department employees with communist associations might be innocent.   His point was: The Democrats were still refusing to take Soviet espionage seriously by investigating these preposterous risks on the government pay-roll.   Far from recklessly smearing people, McCarthy described each employee as a 'case' and cited such evidence as their being identified as Soviet spies in FBI reports, by fellow spies and by the State Department itself.   He reported their connections to known agents, attendance at 'Youth International' meetings in Russia and repeated contacts with known Soviet espionage groups.   These were not baseless charges.   And as we now know, they were absolutely true.   Sensible people knew it at the time, but the disgorging of Soviet archives as well as Soviet cables decrypted by the top-secret Venona project proved beyond a doubt that McCarthy was right about the individuals he named.   None of them should have been allowed anywhere near a government office."

2012-08-08
Erik Rush _World Net Daily_
How the left attempts to dehumanize liberals

2012-08-08
Anthony Watts
NOAA: 2012 July was not a record-breaker

2012-08-08
Thomas E. Brewton
mob rule under the 17th amendment as federal government over-powers states

2012-08-08
_Economic Times of India_
Tata has no problem flooding USA with cheap young pliant Indian labor with flexible ethics
"TCS faced no major visa issues but there were certain delays in visa processing, company chairman Ratan Tata has said.   According to a BSE filing by TCS today, Tata told share-holders at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on June 29 that there were 'no major problems in the issue of visas but there were delays in processing visas which is a part of the new process'...   Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has applied for 5,900 H-1B visas for the US this year, up 1,400 from last year's 4,500 applications."

2012-08-08
Gerald R. Molen & Dinesh d'Souza
Obummer's America 2016: Love him, hate him, you don't know him

2012-08-08
Quin Hillyer _American Spectator_
Perjury on Panthers?: The corrupt Obama-Holder Justice Department has earned another rebuke

2012-08-08
Richard Fernandez _PJ Media_
terrorists attacked Egyptian base near common border with Gaza/Palestine & Israel

2012-08-08 (5772 Menachem-Ab 20)
Scott Peterson _Jewish World Review_
Sudan's struggling government offers to go "100% Islamic"
"After 23 years at the helm in Sudan, president Omar Hassan al-Bashir is sending up a new rallying cry for a '100% Islamic' constitution to shift public attention away from Sudan's crippling problems."

2012-08-08 (5772 Menachem-Ab 20)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
leftist thugs by whatever name
"Why are the horrors of Nazism so well-known and widely condemned but not those of socialism and communism?   What goes untaught -- and possibly is covered up -- is that socialist and communist ideas have produced the greatest evil in mankind's history...   What's not appreciated is that Nazism is a form of socialism.   In fact, the term Nazi stands for the National Socialist German Workers' Party.   The unspeakable acts of Adolf Hitler's Nazis pale in comparison with the horrors committed by the communists in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People's Republic of China.   Between 1917 and 1987, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and their successors murdered and were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 62M of their own people.   Between 1949 and 1987, China's communists, led by Mao Zedong and his successors, murdered and were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 76M Chinese.   The most authoritative tally of history's most murderous regimes is documented on University of Hawaii professor Rudolph J. Rummel's web-site, and in his book _Death by Government_."

2012-08-08 (5772 Menachem-Ab 20)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Harlem then and now
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on the love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.   The opinion advanced in [Thomas Jefferson's] _Notes on Virginia_ is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to its particular customs and manners...   The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities.   In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.   The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular nations, and antipathies against others, it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils." --- Alexander Hamilton 1802-01-12 in response to Jefferson's message to congress (quoted by Peter Brimelow 1996 _Alien Nation_ pg 191 (208 in pdf))  

 
 

2012-08-09

2012-08-09 03:00PDT (06:00EDT) (10:00GMT) (12:00 Jerusalem)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Infosys has another whistle-blower after them
IT World
"The Indian off-shoring [and cross-border bodyshopping] giant Infosys ran a 'full-throated campaign of retaliation' against employees to deter them from co-operating with federal authorities investigating visa fraud, according to a new law-suit.   This allegation is made in court papers by a former Infosys employee, Satya Dev Tripuraneni, who claims he was punished after raising concerns about the company's visa practices.   He later met with a federal agent and filed a whistle-blower complaint with federal authorities.   If Tripuraneni's complaint sounds familiar, it should.   This is the second law-suit filed against Infosys by an employee claiming he was harassed after raising concerns about the company's visa practices.   Jay Palmer, an Infosys employee, filed a law-suit last year alleging harassment, including threats, after he refused to help the company get B-1 visas, a business visitor visa, for work requiring an H-1B work visa...   Tripuraneni's complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in California, makes new allegations...   had been cited for 'exemplary performance'.   But last year, Tripuraneni claims he was asked to bring 'a client into confidence to allow an Infosys resource (an employee) to come to the United States and work on a B-1 visa'."

2012-08-09 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (14:30 Jerusalem)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 317,580 in the week ending August 4, an increase of 4,934 from the previous week.   There were 354,408 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5% during the week ending July 28, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,239,100, a decrease of 7,551 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.8% and the volume was 3,580,433.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending July 21 was 5,750,084, a decrease of 214,367 from the previous week.   Extended benefits were available in ID during the week ending July 21 [note that this list is way shorter than it was just a few weeks ago as eligibilities have been expiring...jgo].   States reported 2,412,938 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending July 21, a decrease of 119,890 from the prior week.   There were 3,158,312 claimants in the comparable week in 2011.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" (the divisor) changes roughly quarterly:
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01;
to 126,579,970 beginning 2012-01-01;
to 127,048,587 beginning 2012-04-07;
to 127,495,952 beginning 2012-07-14, and seasonal adjustment factors were revised.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2012-08-09
Thomas E. Brewton
The Leftist Jihad: The Hundred Year War Against the Constitution

2012-08-09
Andrew C. McCarthy _PJ Media_
US government and the Muslim Brotherhood
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2012-08-09
Anthony Watts
Kalifornia government kraziness creating electricity shortages... again

2012-08-09
Barry Rubin _PJ Media_
Why is Israel more prosperous than are the Palestinians?

2012-08-09
Willis Eschenbach
of coconuts, the sun, and small isolated islands

2012-08-09
Jason Howerton _Blaze_
arrestee claims Fast and Furious was about favoring one drug cartel over others

2012-08-09
Mark J. Perry
ExxonMobil paid over $1T in government extortion since 1999
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "To inspire students and future ministers for the New Side, the Tennants and their allies decided to create a new Presbyterian college in NJ.   It opened its doors in 1747, and eventually moved to the town of Prince Town, or Princeton.   It was suposed to be a revivalist antidote to the 'corruption' of institutions such as Harvard and Yale." --- Arthur Herman 2001 _How the Scots Invented the Modern World_ pg203-  

 
 

2012-08-10

2012-08-10
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Telling the story of the Civil War: the Joseph's Coat approach

2012-08-10
Bob Tisdale
sea surface temperatures around USA nowhere near records

2012-08-10
Mark J. Perry
unique silver dime minted in 1873 auctioned for $1.84M
Fox
San Francisco CA Chronicle

2012-08-10
Douglas A. McIntyre, Ashley C. Allen & Michael B. Sauter _24/7 Wall Street_
USA's worst companies for which to work

2012-08-10
James Ritchie _Cincinnati OH Business Courier_
Tata falling short of pledge to hire 1K US citizens before 2012
"State incentives totaled $19M...   The Business Courier first reported on Tata's troubles in finding 'qualified' workers in 2011 July.   The company reported then that it had hired 450 on its way to 1K.   At the time, TCS signaled it would be 'very difficult' to meet its 2012 deadline...   Amar Naga, director of operations for TCS in Milford, has [disingenuously] said the U.S. supply of [cheap, young, pliant] computer science graduates [with flexible ethics] across the country is inadequate to meet demand."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "The late author Theodore White, who was no conservative, wrote that 'the immigration Act of 1965 changed all previous patterns, and in so doing, probably changed the future of America... [It] was noble, revolutionary -- and probably the most thoughtless of the many acts of the Great Society.'" --- Mark R. Levin 2009 _Liberty and Tyranny_ pg152  

 
 

2012-08-11

2012-08-11
Burton Speakman _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
JobsOhio data draw praise & criticism

2012-08-11
Chip Bok
on Ryan and rights

2012-08-11
John F. McGowan
the mathematics of the PhD glut

2012-08-11
Mark J. Perry
global traded value and exports from USA are at record highs
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "The theory of revolution overlooks the most important aspect of social life -- that what we need is not so much good men as good institutions.   Even the best man may be corrupted by power; but institutions which permit the ruled to exert some effective control over the rulers will force even bad rulers to do what the ruled consider to be in their interests.   Or to put it another way, we should like to have good rulers, but historical experience shows us that we are not likely to get them.   This is why it is of such importance to design institutions which prevent even bad rulers from causing too much damage.   There are only 2 kinds of governmental institutions, those which provide for a change of the government without blood-shed, and those which do not.   But if the government cannot be changed without blod-shed, it cannot, in most cases, be removed at all." --- Karl Raimund Popper 1962 _Conjectures and Refutations_ pg463  

 
 

2012-08-12

2012-08-12
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
On the trail of Stonewall's Winchester photographer

2012-08-12
"Nullius in Verba"
A quick look at temperature anomaly distributions

2012-08-12
Victor Davis Hanson _PJ Media_
our not-so-best and not-so-brightest: from Eliot Spitzer to Elizabeth Warren to Fereed Zakaria
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "[Lyndon Baines Johnson's] victory was made possible in part by the $10K 'lent' him by his father-in-law and by the untold additional thousands given his campaign by oil companies and friendly businessmen.   Great public friend to the [radical leftist] New Deal -- his campaign slogan and his essential tactic in the congressional contest was to cry, 'Roosevelt and Supreme Court Reorganization!' -- Johnson received the lavish moneys he did because he was the great secret friend to powerful business interests, particularly the mighty magnate Charles Marsh and above all the brothers Herman and George Brown.   It was largely through congressman Johnson's extraordinary behind-the-scenes labors in behalf of their firm, Brown and Root, that they were awarded non-competitive government contracts to build dams and naval bases that earned them hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.   The Browns never forgot such favors and handsomely rewarded the politician responsible for them -- so handsomely, in fact, that their violations of the Corrupt Practices Act, in funneling, illegally, hundreds of thousands of dollars to Johnson's campaign to win a seat in the US senate in the special election of 1941, would have put an ignominious end to Johnson's political career but for the providential decision by the national administration to call off an investigation that seemed likely to result in criminal charges.   The Roosevelt [FDR] administration's support of LBJ's senatorial race in 1941 was reward for the brilliant job he had done in revitalizing the moribund [Leftist] Congressional Campaign Committee during the presidential election of 1940.   And FDR loved Johnson for the support he had given to the len to dump John Nance Garner of Texas from the national ticket of 1940.   There-after all government contracts for Texas required Johnson's approval." --- Edward Pessen 1986 _The Log Cabin Myth: The Social Backgrounds of the Presidents_ pg127  

 
 

2012-08-13

2012-08-13
David Skolnick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Congress candidates in Mahoning Valley accuse each other of promoting off-shore out-sourcing

2012-08-13
Burton Speakman _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
National socialist health care perversion/ObummerDoesn'tCare (h/t Herman Cain) will reduce doctor/patient ratio in Mahoning Valley

2012-08-13
Willis Eschenbach
"Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature" project, volcanoes, and climate sensitivity

2012-08-13 07:44PDT (10:44EDT) (14:44GMT) (16:44 Jerusalem)
Michael Kassner _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
People care about their privacy

2012-08-13 10:32PDT (13:32EDT) (17:32GMT) (19:32 Jerusalem)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
abuse of B-1 visas and guest-workers going on trial in Montgomery AL next week

2012-08-13
_Retire by 40_
why I gave up my computer hardware engineering career

2012-08-13
Mark J. Perry
some are pushing for minimum and maximum income laws: should we have minimum and maximum temperature laws?
"When it comes to the weather, what we want most is the most precise measure possible of temperatures, and we get those from accurate thermostats and thermometers, not from artificial, government-mandated minimum or maximum temperature laws.   When it comes to maximizing the efficiency of the labor market, what we want are accurate, truthful and precise measures of worker productivity, and we [would] get those from market wages, not from artificial, government-mandated minimum wage laws."

2012-08-13
Paul Ryan _American Spectator_
Who built America?
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America.   When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.   Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty." --- Thomas Jefferson 1787 (quoted in James Truslow Adams 1936 _The Living Jefferson_ pg103; citing Thomas Jefferson and Paul Leicester Ford 1892 _Writings of Thomas Jefferson_ vol9 pg480)  

 
 

2012-08-14

2012-08-14
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Did Pope's orders go too far... even further than he imagined?

2012-08-14
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
CSU controversy
 
The State of California is broke.   You know that, and you probably also know that the UC [University of California] and CSU [California State University] systems have been trying to raise money by admitting more non-California students (Americans from other states, and foreign students), who pay higher tuition.
 
But CSU's East Bay campus, formerly CSU Hayward, has taken this idea to the next level.   CSUEB, located a few miles south of Oakland, is directing its master's degree programs to admit ONLY non-California students.   Either admit only out-of-state students or admit no one at all, the departments are being told.
 
In addition, it turns out that for computer science, this means mainly international students.   In fact, it had already been the case that the CS grad program had been 90% foreign, and this is my focus here.
 
Nationwide, only about 35% of CS master's degrees are earned by foreign students.   But anecdotal information indicates that the CSUEB CS program is typical among schools of that level.   This jibes with the old NSF study cited by David North, which found that among PhD programs, the lower the ranking, the higher the proportion of international students.
 
This of course flies in the face of the "best and brightest" claims made by the industry lobbyists concerning the H-1Bs hired off U.S. university campuses.   It thus also has implications for the "staple a green card to their diplomas" bills.   I must once again make the disclaimer that every school, regardless of reputational ranking has a few extremely bright students, but nevertheless the average quality of the students at CSUEB is far below that of Stanford, across the bay.   Proponents of the "staple" bills paint a picture of granting green cards to tens of thousands of geniuses, and it just ain't so.
 
I'll have more to say on this, with some national data, in a few days.
 
Norm
Scott Jaschik: Inside Higher Education: One Cal State department refuses to let in out-of-staters over state residents
"a professor of biology and the graduate coordinator for the department, said she was stunned that it was even an option to admit only non-Californians, and that when she consulted with colleagues, many were 'appalled' that this was a choice.   'I just could not go along.', she said...   in a typical spring, the department would admit about 8 graduate students -- typically a mix of Californian and international students -- to its master's program.   She said she values her students from all countries, but that it is 'discriminatory and unfair' to reject students just because they are from California...   'Our mission should be to support the [tax-victims] by supporting the needs of people who live in this state.   We are expected to educate our populace.'   Matt Johnson, chair of mathematics and computer science...his department -- after much consideration -- decided to go along with the plan to admit graduate students in the Spring, excluding Californians.   But he stressed that this was because even under normal circumstances, his department's graduate program in computer science has 90% of its students from outside the United States."

2012-08-14 04:49PDT (07:49EDT) (11:49GMT) (13:49 Jerusalem)
Toni Bowers _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
5 states which may have increase in tech employment

2012-08-14
Patrick Poole _PJ Media_
Pakistani spies in DC
part 2

2012-08-14
Jason Henry McCormick _CBS_
10 most popular vehicles in wealthiest neighborhoods
"TrueCar.com, the 10 most popular vehicles in America's wealthiest zip codes consist of imports, mostly small and midsize cars, with an average retail price of $35,663."

2012-08-14
Tony Brown
Little Ice Age, Central England Temperature, and Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature

2012-08-14
Jeffrey Lord _American Spectator_
Why the leftists are so afraid of Ryan
"Ronald Reagan was and remains the Left's worst nightmare.   Why? Because it was Ronald Reagan who both understood conservative philosophy and was repeatedly turning it into effective policy."

2012-08-14
Todd Wallack _Boston Globe_
Murdoch and Bloomberg back immigration law perversion in Boston session

2012-08-14
Kaushik Basu _BBC_
Indian economy's biggest challenge
"One such second-generation reform that ought to get priority is the control of corruption and bureaucracy.   For ordinary Indians, one of the most distressing features of the Indian economy is corruption.   Rightly so.   Corruption is morally degrading, eats into the fabric of society and hurts economic development.   A government that can credibly promise to deliver on this will gain instant support."

2012-08-14
Mark J. Perry
experiment result reproducibility services
"Last year, Bayer Healthcare reported that its scientists could not reproduce some 75% of published findings in cardiovascular disease, cancer and women's health.   In March, Lee Ellis of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and C. Glenn Begley, the former head of global cancer research at Amgen, reported that when the company's scientists tried to replicate 53 prominent studies in basic cancer biology, hoping to build on them for drug discovery, they were able to confirm the results of only 6."

2012-08-14 (5772 Menachem-Ab 26)
Frank J. Gaffney ii _Jewish World Review_
Security clearance compromise for Islam
"Not only does Ms. Abedin's relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood and involvement in policies favorable to its interests warrant close official scrutiny, there are at least six other individuals with Brotherhood ties whose involvement in Obama administration 'Muslim outreach' or related policymaking also deserve investigation by the inspectors general and by Congress: Rashad Hussain, special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation; Dalia Mogahed, an adviser to president Obama; Mohamed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Department's advisory council; Mohamed Magid, a member of the Homeland Security Department's Countering Violent Extremism Working Group; Louay Safi, until recently the credentialing authority for Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military and now a leader of the Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council; Kifah Mustapha, a Hamas fundraiser and graduate of the FBI's 'Citizens Academy'.   The American people are entitled to know who is shaping the policies that are increasingly empowering, enriching and emboldening the Muslim Brotherhood -- an organization sworn to our destruction."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2012-08-14 (5772 Menachem-Ab 26)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Paul Ryan
St. Augustine FL Record
Omaha NB World Herald
Longview TX News-Journal
"as Congressman Ryan reminded the president, hiding spending is not the same as reducing spending.   If this year's election is going to be decided on the basis of hard facts, the Obama administration is doomed...   This election is a test, not just of the opposing candidates but of the voting public.   If what they want are the hard facts about where the country is, and where it is heading, they cannot vote for more of the same for the next 4 years."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "Moreover, a man of great talents may well be allowed to use them as he himself thinks most meet.   Other men, many of them, could do some things in public life quite as well or better than Jefferson, but no other man in all our history has so contributed to the forming of the American spirit as Jefferson did by his life-long devotion to the principles of freedom, equality of opportunity, and of Liberalism.   He himself felt that the time to strike for these was during the war, not after...   'Let us, too, give this experiment of religious freedom fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws.   It is true we are as yet secured against them by the spirit of the times.   I doubt whether the people of this country would suffer an execution for heresy, or a 3 years' imprisonment for not comprehending the mysteries of the Trinity.   But is the spirit of the people an infallibl, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter.   Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless.   A single zealot may commence persecution, and better men be his victims.   It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united.   From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down-hill.   It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support.   They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded.   They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights.   The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.'...   he did not believe in every people at all times, but only in a people who made themselves worthy of being entrusted with the custody of their own liberty and that of others." --- James Truslow Adams 1936 _The Living Jefferson_ pp127-128 (citing Thomas Jefferson and Paul Leicester Ford 1892 _Writings of Thomas Jefferson_ vol3 pp265f)  

 
 

2012-08-15

2012-08-15
Anthony Watts
NASA seeing high-altitude sprites

2012-08-15
John Hawkins _PJ Media_
5 differences between boys and real men

2012-08-15
Thomas E. Brewton
Obummer's leftist vision of "social" "justice"

2012-08-15
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
"You must choose & choose at once."

2012-08-15 13:38:30PDT (16:38:30EDT) (20:38:30GMT) (22:38:30 Jerusalem)
Linda Zavoral _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Virgin America airlines offering in-flight voter registration

2012-08-15
Neil Munro _Daily Caller_
Obummer admin illegal alien amnesty expanded again to include school drop-outs
"The shift adds roughly 350K low-skill immigrants to the Department of Homeland Security policy, which was initially portrayed as including only 800K people under the age of 31 when it was announced by president Barack Obama in a Rose Garden statement on June 15...   The expanded amnesty is now expected to cover 1.76M people, according to an estimate by the pro-amnesty Migration Policy Institute."

2012-08-15
Patrick Thibodeau _PC Advisor_/_IDG_
Infosys B-1 visa and whistle-blower abuse case delayed by judge for another month

2012-08-15
Amy Levin-Epstein _CBS_
How to tell what a company can afford to pay

2012-08-15
Debra Schell _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
PA voter ID law has been up-held

2012-08-15
Daniel Mandel _American Spectator_
Why the British Mandate failed and helped produce an Arab war on Zionism instead
"[Israel] was then [1917, not so heavily over-populated] populated -- fewer than 700K people at the end of World War One (512K Muslims, 66K Jews and 61K Christians).   It had scant history of local nationalism -- a new, imported concept.   The former Muslim overlords, the Ottomans, had been defeated and evicted."

2012-08-15
John Otis _Global Post_
WM and Chiquita effectively immune to oversight of working conditions

2012-08-15
Terry Jeffrey _Town Hall_
Golden Gate bridge was local private effort
"The people of Marin, San Francisco, Sonoma and Del Norte counties, as well as parts of Napa and Mendocino counties, built the bridge. The Bank of America financed it by buying bonds approved by voters in those counties. And drivers who actually crossed the bridge and paid its toll provided the money to pay off those bonds -- a feat accomplished only 34 years after the bridge was completed. The movement to build the bridge, Louise Nelson Dyble reported in _Paying the Toll: Local Power, Regional Politics and the Golden Gate Bridge_, essentially started at a 1923 meeting convened by Frank P. Doyle, chairman of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce. The movement crystallized when state assemblyman Frank L. Coombs, a native Californian born in 1853, pushed through legislation permitting the creation of a "special district" that Northern California counties could join if they wished for the purpose of building a bridge from San Francisco to Marin. The special district was a corporation separate and apart from state and local governments... This differed sharply from the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, which would be funded by both the state and federal governments."

2012-08-15
Mark J. Perry
another view of ND daily oil production (graph)

2012-08-15
Mark J. Perry
academic conference racket

2012-08-15 (5772 Menachem-Ab 27)
George Friedman _Jewish World Review_
Israeli crisis

2012-08-15 (5772 Menachem-Ab 27)
Victoria Kim _Jewish World Review_
federal judge rejected law-suit over FBI spying on Orange county CA Muslims

2012-08-15 (5772 Menachem-Ab 27)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
educational excellence?
Town Hall
"During the past 5 years, Philadelphia's 268 schools had 30K serious criminal incidents, including assaults -- 4K of which were on teachers -- robberies and rapes.   Prior to recent lay-offs, Philadelphia's school district employed about 500 police officers.   In Chicago last year, 700 young people were gunfire victims, and dozens of them lost their lives.   Similar stories of street and school violence can be told in other large, predominantly black cities, such as Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland and Newark.   If rampant school crime is not eliminated, academic excellence will be unachievable.   If anything, the president's initiative will help undermine school discipline, because it advocates 'promoting a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools'.   That means, for example, if black students are suspended or expelled at greater rates than, say, Asian students, it's a 'disparate use of disciplinary tools'.   Thus, even if blacks are causing a disproportionate part of disciplinary problems, they cannot be disciplined disproportionately.   Whether a student is black, white, orange or polka-dot and whether he's poor or rich, there are some minimum requirements that must be met in order to do well in school.   Someone must make the student do his homework, see to it that he gets a good night's rest, fix a breakfast, make sure he gets to school on time and make sure he respects and obeys his teachers...   Washington, DC, for example, spends $18,667 per student per year, more than any state, but comes in dead last in terms of student achievement.   Paul Laurence Dunbar High School was established in 1870 in Washington, DC, as the nation's first black public high school.   From 1870 to 1955, most of its graduates went off to college, earning degrees from Harvard, Princeton, Williams, Wesleyan and others.   As early as 1899, Dunbar students scored higher on citywide tests than students at any of the district's white schools.   Its attendance and tardiness records were generally better than those of white schools.   During this era of high achievement, there was no school violence.   It wasn't racially integrated.   It didn't have a big budget.   It didn't even have a lunch-room or all those other things that today's education establishment says are necessary for black academic achievement.   Numerous studies show that children raised in stable 2-parent households do far better educationally and otherwise than those raised in single-parent households.   Historically, black families have been relatively stable.   From 1880 to 1960, the proportion of black children raised in 2-parent families held steady at about 70%; in 1925 Harlem, it was 85%.   Today only 33% of black children benefit from 2-parent families.   In 1940, black illegitimacy was 19%; today it's 72%.   Too many young blacks have become virtually useless in an increasingly high-tech economy.   The only bright outlook is the trickle of more and more black parents realizing this..."

2012-08-15 (5772 Menachem-Ab 27)
Michael Stuerzenberger & Anders Denken _Politically InCorrect News_
Islamic wars before the 1st crusade and since 632CE to 2012CE
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "IN every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve.   Every government degenerates when trusted to he rulers of the people alone.   The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositaries.   And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree.   This inded is not all that is necessary, though it be essentially necessary...   The influence over government must be shared among all the people.   If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because the corrupting the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth; and public ones cannot be provided by by levies on the people.   In this case every man would have to pay his own price.   The government of Great Britain has been corrupted, because but 1 man in 10 has a right to vote for members of parliament.   The sellers of the government, therefore, get nine-tenths of their price clear.   It has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right of suffrage to a few of the wealthier of the people; but it would be more effectually restrained by an extension of that right to such numbers as would bid defiance to the means of corruption." --- Thomas Jefferson (quoted in James Truslow Adams 1936 _The Living Jefferson_ pg149; citing Thomas Jefferson and Paul Leicester Ford 1892 _Writings of Thomas Jefferson_ vol3 pp254f)  

 
 

2012-08-16

2012-08-16 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (14:30 Jerusalem)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 315,776 in the week ending August 11, a decrease of 4,443 from the previous week.   There were 346,014 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5% during the week ending August 4, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,172,998, a decrease of 69,887 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.8% and the volume was 3,553,649.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending July 28 was 5,680,545, a decrease of 69,782 from the previous week.   Extended benefits were available in ID during the week ending July 28 [note that this list is way shorter than it was just a few weeks ago as eligibilities have been expiring...jgo].   States reported 2,350,202 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending July 28, a decrease of 62,736 from the prior week.   There were 3,130,608 persons claiming EUC in the comparable week in 2011.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" (the divisor) changes roughly quarterly:
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01;
to 126,579,970 beginning 2012-01-01;
to 127,048,587 beginning 2012-04-07;
to 127,495,952 beginning 2012-07-14, and seasonal adjustment factors were revised.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2012-08-16
Marc Kovac _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Obummer admin challenging extra early-voting days for military

2012-08-16
_Fox_/_AP_
No illfare for illegal aliens in Arizona
KTAR

2012-08-16
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
more on the California State U East Bay admissions controversy
 
The other day I reported here on a bizarre situation at the California State University East Bay, in which master's degree programs were told they could admit only non-California students.   This stems from the California State U/University of California systems' recent attempts to remedy budget woes by admitting more non-California students, who pay higher fees.   But at CSUEB the administration has now taken it even further, ordering that ONLY non-California students be admitted.   My posting is archived.
 
This controversy was the topic this morning on Forum, a radio talk show on a San Francisco NPR station, KQED.   Forum's host, Michael Krazny, is himself a professor of English at CSU's San Francisco campus.   You'll be able to listen to the show at its archive slot.   (Not up yet as I write this.)
 
Guests on the show were Maria Nieto, a CSUEB biology professor who was quoted in the article I reviewed the other day; Mike Uhlenkamp, spokesperson for the California State University chancellor's office; and Mo Qayoumi, president of San Jose State University.
 
Uhlenkamp and Qayoumi, in the words of a caller, "danced around the issue", quite predictable of course -- this is what administrators are good at, and what they are hired to do.   They down-played the admissions policy on grounds of small size.   Uhlenkamp even had the chutzpah to say that the small size meant the admissions policy was not discriminatory (against Californians).   The caller, a lawyer, was outraged by the statement.
 
Though the term "non-Californians" includes both out-of-state Americans and international students, the statements by the administrators made it clear that the latter group is the one being targeted.   Indeed, in what appears to be a Freudian slip, Qayoumi actually used the terms "non-California students" and "international students" as synonymous for a while.
 
Indeed, Qayoumi strongly pushed the H-1B issue several times, saying the foreign students later start businesses in Silicon Valley and thus add to the public good.   He clearly had prepared that as one of his featured talking points, so much so that he didn't notice that his claim was undermined by a statement by Nieto that the foreign students in her department tended to be very weak.
 
I've written about the quality issue here many times.   The foreign students at U.S. schools, on average, are no better than, and by many measures actually weaker than their U.S. citizen and permanent resident peers.   (I've been preparing an article for publication on this for a while, hopefully out soon.)   Yes, of course, there are some geniuses among the foreign students, and we should facilitate their enrollment and eventual immigration, but they are in the small minority.
 
As to Qayoumi's point about entrepreneurship, the real issue is whether the former foreign students in Silicon Valley are more entrepreneurial than Americans on a PER CAPITA [and value-created] basis.   If they aren't, then the displacement of Americans is not producing a net gain in tech businesses.
 
To my knowledge, there is no reliable study on entrepreneurship by the former foreign students.   Most of them boil down to saying "There are a lot of immigrant engineers, so there are a lot of immigrant-engineer businesses", which tells us nothing about a net gain or loss.   The one study on per-capita entrepreneurship rates, that of Jennifer Hunt, doesn't account for the type of business; as I've mentioned, the Saxenian study, for instance, found that 1/3 of the firms started by Chinese-immigrant engineers in Silicon Valley were in the business of "PC wholesaling", involving no engineering, programming, just adding to commodity manufacturing.
 
BTW, this issue of CSUEB admissions has implications for bills in Congress like the STAPLE Act, which would grant automatic green cards to STEM foreign students at U.S. universities.   As various people have pointed out, such proposals would have the effect of creating their own demand, and it's clear that one consequence would be to increase the number of schools that take actions like that of CSUEB.   Given the offer of a free green card, the foreign students would be willing to pay even higher tuition, and the CSUEB's would have even more incentive to freeze out the Americans.
 
Norm
---30---

2012-08-16 10:27PDT (13:27EDT) (17:27GMT) (19:27 Jerusalem)
Bill Detwiler _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
5 ways manufacturers make things difficult to repair

2012-08-16 13:40PDT (16:40EDT) (20:40GMT) (22:40 Jerusalem)
Mark Kaelin _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
5 books every Apple iOS developer should own

2012-08-16
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
foreign student quality, university monetary incentives, etc.
 
In discussing the California State U East Bay admissions scandal this week, I've emphasized the role of the foreign students.   In my first posting, for instance, I noted that fully 90% of the master's students in computer science at CSUEB are international students.   In my posting today, I noted the San Jose State University president Qayoumi's claim of brilliant, innovative foreign students transforming Silicon Valley (I'm paraphrasing) -- and then I pointed out that the [university] president's claim was contradicted by CSU professor Nieto's statement that the [foreign] grad students in her program were weak.
 
(My posting from this morning.)
 
Of course, Qayoumi's assertion came straight from the industry lobbyists' "educational packets" ("industry" including various other vested interests).   University presidents are happy to use these; "ignorance is bliss", especially for university presidents, and especially so for presidents of Silicon Valley institutions.   As I've mentioned before, one can learn a lot through a stroll of the engineering section of the Stanford campus.   Start with the CS/EE building, named William Gates II Hall (guess who), and then cross the street to Hewlett Hall and Packard Hall (HP, if you're having an off day).   Then move down the block to the new Jen-Hsun Huang Center, named after the co-founder of Nvidia, and the list goes on.   I have nothing against any of these firms -- Nvidia is a favorite of mine -- but it's clear that university presidents know which side of their bread is buttered.
 
So do CS department chairs.   Ed Lazowska, former chair of the University of Washington (Washington as in Redmond) CS Dept., has been quite out-spoken in favor of the H-1B program, and coincidentally or not, he does hold the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering there at UW, and sits on the boards of various tech firms.   His department has been treated well by industry too, and did I mention Mary Gates Drive on the eastern edge of campus?   (Good for Bill for honoring his late mother, but still...)
 
Some years ago when I appeared on the PBS Newshour, my "debating opponent" was Randy Katz, then chair of CS at UC Berkeley.   In response to my statement that H-1B displaces older (age 35+) American workers, Katz said older people just can't learn new things, and cited himself: "I've always wanted to learn Swedish, but I know it would be impossible for me at my age [about 50]."   He didn't seem to see any contradiction in the fact that he himself teaches new technologies all the time, and the possibility does suggest itself that his "can't learn Swedish" remark was somehow related to the largesse his department receives from industry.
 
Not only might these academic officials be motivated by the goodies (you know, say buildings) they get from industry, but they benefit hugely from the USA's expansive foreign student program in other direct ways.   Recall my frequent citing of the 1989 NSF PRA position paper that advocated bringing in a lot of foreign students to keep PhD salaries low.   This refers not only to salaries in industry but also graduate student stipends.   In short, universities and the NSF get more research bang for their buck this way.
 
Which makes professor Nieto downright courageous in remarking that her department's grad students are weak.   Usually I hear such things, both at my campus and others, only in whispers.
 
So, how accurate are those whispers?   As I mentioned this morning, I've been writing about this quality issue in general for a while, and more recently have concentrated on this very sub-population -- the former foreign students now working in CS in the U.S.A.   In my recent research, I've found among other things that
 
* the former foreign students who have green cards or have become citizens (thus, in both cases, not exploitable) are earning significantly less than their U.S. native peers,
 
* the former foreign students obtain significantly fewer patents per capita than comparable U.S. natives, and
 
* the former foreign students are significantly less likely to be working in R&D than are the Americans.
 
These last 2 points fly in the face of the industry lobbyists (and university officials') claim that the foreign students are especially innovative, and the first point doesn't point to brilliance either.
 
I also did an analysis for EE, finding that the foreign students were the same as -- i.e. not better than -- the Americans on the first 2 points above, and again that the foreign EEs are less likely than their American peers to be working in R&D.
 
Now, here is news, some analysis I did just today:
 
There is an old NSF study, cited in David North's book, that found that the foreign PhD students in engineering were concentrated in the weaker U.S. schools; the lower the ranking of the university, the higher the proportion of international students.
 
I'd been wanting to do some analysis like this for current data, for CS, but didn't have the data on percentages of foreign students at the various U.S. CS departments.   But last night I suddenly remembered that the 2010 National Research Council ranking study has such data, so I was in business.
 
The NRC study rated the CS programs too, but its methods were quite controversial, being based on imputational rather than reputational data.   So I chose to use the US News & World Report ratings of PhD CS programs, which are based solely on surveys of professors in the field.   (The NRC ratings give similar results, though.)   The USN&WR ratings are on a scale of 1-5, but they only publish those down to 2.0.   Here are my preliminary findings:
 
1.   I asked the question, How good (according to the USN&WR) are the schools at which the foreign students earn their PhDs, compared to the Americans?
 
The result was a mean rating of 3.71 for the American students, versus 3.44 for the foreign students.   Not a gigantic difference, but the American mean is substantially higher, and the result is certainly counter to the "genius foreign students" image purveyed by the industry lobbyists and their allies.
 
2.   I then asked, How do the strongest and weakest CS programs compare in terms of percentages of foreign students?
 
The result was that among the top 10 CS programs, the average percentage of foreign students was 45.7%, while among the botton 10 it was 66.5%.   This is consistent with the old NSF finding that the weaker the school, the higher the percentage of international students -- and again counter to the image put forth by industry lobbyists, the American Immigration Law Association, president Qayoum and especially Silicon Valley congressperson Zoe Lofgren.   The congressperson, one of the most strident promoters of H-1B in Congress, once promoted her H-1B bill with the remark, "You can't have too many geniuses."
 
As I said before, the fact that a student is from a weaker school does not necessarily mean she herself is weak.   And vice versa: The more highly-ranked schools rake in tons of research grant funding, and thus "need the bodies" to spend it on; this means that their admissions standards are not quite as high as their rankings might suggest.
 
Nevertheless, no one would disagree with the point that the average quality of students at the lower-ranked schools IS lower.   Thus the above statistics demonstrate clearly that the average foreign student is of mediocre quality, not what the vested interests would have you believe.
 
Note too the fact that even at the top CS schools, about 45% of the PhD students are foreign.   This is exactly what the 1989 NSF paper forecast (and did not object to) -- discouraged by stagnant wages, the domestic students would avoid doctoral study.
 
It would be great to have corresponding data at the master's degree level, where the difference between the Americans and foreign students would be even more pronounced, I believe.
 
Norm
---30---

2012-08-16
Anthony Watts
effects of weather/temperature siting

2012-08-16
Carla Rivera _Los Angeles CA Times_
plans to admit higher-paying out-of-state and international students while barring California residents criticized
"department leaders on some campuses are saying that rather than turn away Californians, they will not accept any students into their programs...   Chancellor Charles B. Reed told them non-resident under-graduate and graduate students were exempt from the freeze because they pay higher fees..."

2012-08-16
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Paul Ryan is no friend of tech execs... yet
"Ryan hasn't been a leader on tech issues and his campaign donations reflect this.   His top contributors include accounting, financial services firms, insurance and retail, according to campaign donation records kept by OpenSecrets...   Ryan has not played a leading role in the H-1B cap, Green Cards and other tech related immigration issues.   A more recent stance by him on immigration was to oppose the [NIGHTMARE Act], as did Congressional Republicans generally, But that position is seen as a problem for tech.   The tech [execs want] more work visas, especially green cards for advance degree science, technology, engineering and math graduates, the so-called STEM degrees.   But it's going to take compromise, especially with law-makers who support the [NIGHTMARE Act]...   [Tech and university executives] benefit from money spent by the government on research, which includes development of world's [fastest] super-computers.   But the 99-page 2013 budget resolution put out by Ryan's committee doesn't mention the word 'science' once.   The budget resolution calls for continuing funding of 'essential government missions', including 'basic research and development' but it wants to end what is categorized as applied and commercial research.   Mitt Romney's platform describes government's basic research efforts as important to innovation and something he 'will support'..."

2012-08-16
_Space War_
Sinai is a "nest of terrorists"
map from spx daily

2012-08-16
William L. Anderson
Is another bail-out in GM's future?

2012-08-16
Mark J. Perry
polluted by communism, cleaned by capitalism

2012-08-16 (5772 Menachem-Ab 28)
David Suissa _Jewish World Review_
Ryan's courage
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "The drama unfolded almost identically with each new socialist paradise.   First, [leftists] would denounce the short-comings and corruption of the non-communist government under siege by revolutionaries.   Next, they would deny that the rebels were Communists, preferring to believe (or certainly to claim) that their leadership was 'mixed' or a coalition of opposition groups.   Communists, did often make common cause with other opponents of the regime but once in power jettisoned or killed their erstwhile allies...   When the Communist regime, safely in power, began to militarize, close down independent newspapers, and collaborate with the Soviets, [leftists] would lament 'the US hostility that drove the agrarian reformers into the Soviets' arms'." --- Mona Charon 2003 _Useful Idiots: How Leftists Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First_ pg172  

 
 

2012-08-17

2012-08-17
_NASDAQ_
UMich consumer sentiment index rose from 72.3 in late July to 73.6 in early August
Fox
MarketWatch
Salt Lake UT Tribune
St. Louis Fed

2012-08-17
Anthony Watts
USGS learning climate and drought lessons from ancient Egypt

2012-08-17
Matt Ridley
Apocalypse Not
Wired

2012-08-17
Mark Krikorian _National Review_
will GOP platform policies create lots of jobs for illegal aliens and few for US citizens?
"It's called the 'Texas Solution' and is the creation of Texans for Sensible Immigration Policy, a project of the state's construction industry.   The absurdity of it is palpable.   Is construction now a job that Americans in Texas, or Americans willing to move to Texas, won't do? The number of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed is more than triple the entire illegal-alien work-force, and that's not including people who've dropped out of the labor market altogether...   the pre-conditions for the program are unachievable any time soon, suggesting that they're just included as window dressing.   For instance, the first pre-requisite is: 'The U.S. Border must be secured immediately!'   Isn't that nice? The exclamation point is particularly precious.   The GAO reports that only about 7% of the border with Mexico is classified by the Border Patrol as 'controlled' -- I'm all for increasing that to 100%, but are the building contractors who paid to include this amnesty plank in the platform willing to wait for that to happen?   And what about the 30%–40% of the illegal population that didn't jump the border, over-staying a visa instead?   Are the amnesty advocates willing to wait until we have a functional exit-control system in place (which this administration opposes)?...   The third requirement is limiting automatic citizenship at birth to the children of U.S. citizens (apparently not even children born to legal immigrants [people on green cards]).   I'm not really a hawk on this issue (I think it's a symptom of too much...immigration, not a cause), but amending the Constitution would take years (and amendment would be needed, because the Supreme Court ruled more than a century ago that children born to legal immigrants are citizens).   Even if they...included [or explicitly excluded] children born to lawful permanent residents, changing our practices through legislation would take years too, since it would immediately be challenged in court and have to be decided by the Supremes."

2012-08-17
Mark J. Perry
US energy-relatd CO2 emissions down to 1992 levels

2012-08-17
Mark J. Perry
volatility index

2012-08-17 (5772 Menachem-Ab 29)
R' Tzvi Hersh Weinreb _Jewish World Review_
poverty and charity

2012-08-17 (5772 Menachem-Ab 29)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Confessing foreign policy failure is the first step to preventing more disasters
Jerusalem Post
Real Clear Politics
Caroline Glick
"Until China went red [in 1949], the view resonant among [USA] foreign policy specialists was that it was possible for the USA to peacefully co-exist and even be strategic allies with Communists...   On Sunday, Egypt's new president Mohamed Morsy completed Egypt's transformation into an Islamist state.   In the space of one week, Morsy sacked the commanders of the Egyptian military and replaced them with Muslim Brotherhood loyalists, and fired all the editors of the state owned media and replaced them with Muslim Brotherhood loyalists.   He also implemented a policy of intimidation, censorship and closure of independently owned media organizations that dare to publish criticism of him.   Morsy revoked the military's constitutional role in setting the foreign and military policies of Egypt.   But he maintained the junta's court-backed decision to disband Egypt's parliament.   In so doing, Morsy gave himself full control over the writing of Egypt's new constitution.   As former ambassador to Egypt Zvi Mazel wrote Tuesday in the Jerusalem Post, Morsy's moves mean that he 'now holds dictatorial powers surpassing by far those of erstwhile president Hosni Mubarak'.   In other words, Morsy's actions have transformed Egypt from a military dictatorship into an Islamist dictatorship...   Monday al Masri Al Youm quoted Mohamed Gadallah, Morsy's legal advisor saying that Morsy is considering revising the peace accord with Israel.   Gadallah explained that Morsy intends to 'ensure Egypt's full sovereignty and control over every inch of Sinai'.   IOW, Morsy intends to remilitarize the Sinai and so render the Egyptian military a clear and present threat to Israel's security...   Morsy's Islamism, like Mao's Communism is inherently hostile to the USA and its allies and interests in the Middle East."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2012-08-17 (5772 Menachem-Ab 29)
Tom A. Peter _Jewish World Review_
"Infidel Spring" contiuing?: Taliban wearing out its welcome in Afghanistan
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "Shadows & muted hues that set the emotional tone of a scene are often reduced to incongruously cheerful 4-color brightness...   Happile none of these demons can be found within the compilation...   And rising above it all is the Dark Knight himself, grim, incorruptible &, with that cape wrapped around him looking cool as hell." --- Paul Dini 1993 introduction _The Batman Adventures_  

 
 

2012-08-18

2012-08-18
William K. Alcorn _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
extreme desperation: Jerry Springer rallies Obummer campaign team

2012-08-18
Anthony Watts
Steve McIntyre's talk in London – Plus, the UK's tilting at wind-mills may actually increase CO2 emissions over natural gas

2012-08-18
Anthony Watts
Where not to place a weather station, part 93: the hottest weather station in the UK cited by the BBC has some interesting exposure

2012-08-18
Anthony Watts
polarization (with discussion)

2012-08-18
Patrik Jonsson _Christian Science Monitor_
Nebraska joins opposition to Obummer's NIGHTMARE amnesties for illegal aliens
Kenneth Wallis: Examiner
"Echoing governor Jan Brewer, Nebraska governor Dave Heineman (R) said on Saturday that Obama's 'deferred action for childhood arrivals' program [of discretionary non-enforcement of immigration law] does not make successful applicants 'legal citizens', meaning they remain ineligible for state benefits like driver's licenses and other services."
Before It's News
"Let's face it, folks: there's a reason that Jan Brewer and Dave Heineman and Michele Bachmann weren't invited to speak at the GOP Convention, while we're being treated to Chris Christie, John McCain, and Jeb Bush, of all people.   The fact of the matter is, Christie and Bush and Perry and much of the 'pragmatic GOP Establishment' have bought into the demographic tracking and identity politicking of the left...   That the GOP establishment is either ignoring them or actively working against them, is suggestive of where [that faction of the] GOP really stands on limited government and constitutionalism.   And it ain't with us.   It's the ruling 'class' vs. the rest of us, as I've said a million times now.   Party doesn't have much left to do with it."

2012-08-18
Becket Adams _Blaze_
What effect will Gary Johnson have on presidential election results?

2012-08-18
Dwight Lee
income and life-expectancy inequlity
"when I suggest that the government transfer medical expenditures from women to men to reduce life-expectancy inequality...the listener will simply give me a strange look and quickly depart...   When we seriously consider an attempt to use government power to reduce the gender inequality in life expectancy, the problems that we have always faced when government uses its power to reduce income inequality suddenly become crystal clear.   Government transfers to reduce the gender gap in life expectancy would do little more than reduce improvements in both women's and men's life expectancies.   For similar reasons, government transfers have done little more than reduce the income growth of both the rich and the poor.   So government attempts to reduce life-expectancy inequality by transferring medical expenditures would be silly, but no sillier than its attempts to reduce income inequality by transferring money."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "But there used to be a thing called ethics.   And there was a thing called shame.   It doesn't exist anymore, because corruption has become a way of life." --- Robert Redford (quoted in Paul Lucey 1996 _Story Sense_ pg 62)  

 
 

2012-08-19

2012-08-19
Jamison Cocklin _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
business incubator

2012-08-19
Matthew Vadum _Front Page Magazine_
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), smearing non-leftists, raking in big cash
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "It is a society that stresses the value of the family, seeks the rule of law, & trusts in the legal structure of American democracy.   its members believe in the institutions of the market economy; they respect hard work & business, even though they recognize that business is often corrupt." --- Will Wright 1975 _SixGuns & Society_ pg 152  

 
 

2012-08-20

2012-08-20
_IndoLink_
Palmer: Infosys pays less to Indian workers than Americans in the same job
"Jack Palmer, a former employee of Infosys who complained about harassment and discrimination at work-place [says] that Indian workers in his team were paid less than Americans.   The trial related to visa fraud allegations levelled by him was scheduled to start on August 20 in the US court."

2012-08-20
Clair Johnson _Billings MT Gazette_
Marine Corps League places grave-stones for the poor
"The county had been installing about 50 head-stones a year but will increase the number to 100 for next year, Reno said.   Each headstone costs about $215, which includes $165 for the purchase and engraving of the marker and $50 the county pays the league for installation.   The county is in its third year of the partnership with the league.   Setting head-stones for children is the first priority, Reno said.   Annette Cabrera, who works in the county's GIS department and has researched and mapped the cemetery, said the county has records for 882 people buried at Riverside.   There are another 300 to 400 graves for which the county has no identifying information, she said.   The records go back to about the 1930s, she said.   Of the 882 graves, 150 head-stones have been placed by the county and 50 graves have markers placed by family or are veterans who have their own stones, Cabrera said."

2012-08-20
_Chronicle of Higher Education_
What you need to know about massive open on-line courses

2012-08-20
Bryan Preston _PJ Media_
how Hidalgo county TX adjusts crime statistics to make border seem safer than it is: part 1

2012-08-20
Anthony Watts
USA reports 127 record lows and 4 record high temperatures this past week-end

2012-08-20
senator David Vitter _PJ Media_
How Obummer admin delivered a crushing blow to the Gulf Coast
"high-ranking officials in the Department of the Interior and the White House inappropriately manipulated the 30-day experts' report to justify the offshore drilling moratorium -- all in violation of the Information Quality Act and contrary to sound science.   On 2010 June 21, new reports revealed that the scientists in question in fact opposed the moratorium.   They were shocked that their report was doctored to justify it.   They even actively lobbied Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to soften the ban...   The biggest consequence in this case is that major energy exploration and new production in the Gulf of Mexico was basically turned off for more than 6 months.   Many thousands of workers directly involved in that work were laid off.   Many more in oil-field service and related support businesses lost their jobs and livelihoods or were forced to split from their families and seek work overseas.   Eleven massive deep-water rigs left the Gulf of Mexico for re-deployment in Brazil, Africa, even Australia.   Other rigs that were headed to the Gulf turned away and shallow-water rigs were idled.   The economic hit to my state of Louisiana was actually bigger than that of the recent recession."

2012-08-20
Stephanie Overby _CIO_/_IDG_
judge ruled that Infosys did not harass whistle-blower
WTAQ
Don Bauder: San Diego CA Reader
Patrick Thibodeau: ComputerWorld/IDG
"'Without question, the alleged electronic and telephonic threats are deeply troubling.', wrote Thompson.   'Indeed, an argument could be made that such threats against whistle-blowers, in particular, should be illegal.'   But Thompson wrote that 'the issue before the court, however, is not whether Alabama should make these alleged wrongs actionable, but whether they are, in fact, illegal under state law.   This court cannot rewrite state law.'   Consequently, 'this court must conclude that, under current Alabama law, Palmer has no right to recover from Infosys', wrote Thompson."

2012-08-20
Victor Davis Hanson _PJ Media_
When land is history

2012-08-20
Howard Foster _Huffington Post_
Why do we have such excessive immigration when unemployment is so high?

2012-08-20
_World Net Daily_
delegates to Dem convention face "Fool Me Twice" bill-boards

2012-08-20
James R. Edwards ii _Center for Immigration Studies_
Gordon attempted to revise history on skilled immigration
Hillsdale College Imprimis

2012-08-21
William L. Anderson
Krugman the unserious political operative is back

2012-08-20 (5772 Elul 02)
Arnold Ahlert _Jewish World Review_
PC insanity surrounding Nidal Hasan trial
"Hasan refuses to shave a beard he grew beginning in June to express his allegiance to Islamo-fascism...   trying an [apparent] mass murderer in a timely manner, for killing 13 people and wounding another 32...   the Islamic terrorist attack it truly was...   Hasan was shouting 'Allahu Akhbar!' as he executed one person after another...   Now let me tell what this case is about.   It's about delay, delay, delay, until we are past the election in November.   It's about an Obama administration that doesn't want any timely reminders being put in front of an American public about its willingness to view Islamic terrorism through a PC lens so thick that reality becomes the first casualty."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "And furthermore, because of Hollywood's bias toward entertainment only, the stories are corrupted rather than advanced, their hidden wisdom polluted or leached out rather than enhanced or intensified.   As a result they lose most of their power & meaning." --- James Bonnet 1999 _Stealing Fire from the Gods_ pg 34  

 
 

2012-08-21

2012-08-21
_Youngstown OH Vindicator_/_AP_
more religious / Republican / liberal / blue states are more charitable than less religious / Democratic / leftist / red states
Fox
Politico
Jacksonville FL Times Union
Hampton Roads VA Pilot
Christian Science Monitor
Salt Lake UT Tribune
"Residents in Republican-leaning states give more of their money to charity than those in Democrat-leaning states, according to a new study.   The Chronicle of Philanthropy's study released this week found the eight states with residents who gave the highest percentage of their income to charity in 2008 also voted that year for Republican presidential nominee John McCain.   And the seven states in which residents donated the lowest percentage of their income that year voted for president Obama, based on 2008 IRS information.   The 8 top charitable states were Utah, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Idaho, Arkansas and Georgia, as reported first by The Politico.   On the other end of the spectrum were Wisconsin, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire."

2012-08-21
Janice Lloyd _Detroit MI Free Press_/_Gannett_
almost half of doctors feel burned out
Fox
AAAS EurekAlert
Philadelphia PA Inquirer/HealthDay
"Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN) reports nearly 1 in 2 (45.8%) of the nation's doctors already suffer a symptom of burnout...   Physicians were more likely to complain of burnout than other U.S. workers.   When asked about emotional exhaustion, 37.9% of physicians reported signs, compared with 27.8% reported by other workers surveyed.   The researchers compared physicians with a random sample of 3,400 employed people who were not doctors.   Based on a modified version of the original questionnaire, 38% of the doctors had burnout symptoms against 28% of the rest....   The issues examined were emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (treating patients as objects rather than human beings) and low sense of personal accomplishment.   Of 27,276 physicians asked to participate, 7,288 (26.7%) responded.   They had to report only one symptom to be included among those reporting burnout.   The burnout rate is nearly twice as high as in an earlier report by physician Mark Linzer, director of the Hennepin Healthcare System in Minneapolis.   He is not associated with the Mayo study.   He found 26.5% of doctors complain of burnout...   [ObummerDoesn'tCare] is going to put more pressure on the front lines."

2012-08-21
Ben Pershing _Washington DC Post_
senate candidates George Allen & Tim Kaine pitch different messages in different parts of Virginia
"For this city of about 43K residents near the North Carolina border, the challenge is clear: Work is hard to find...   John B. Spirtos, chief executive of the energy-management firm GridPoint...   'To have my tech friends in NoVa and my coal-mining buddies here and my oystermen on the Eastern Shore -- that's the part that's really amazing about Virginia.', Kaine said recently in Floyd, southwest of Roanoke.   'There are different challenges, [but] people want to talk about the same issues: economy, deficits, the budget and working together.'   Stephen Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, said it is normal for large states to have some economic disparities.   'I think what's maybe a little unique to Virginia is that the distribution is so one-sided: It's Northern Virginia [in the shadow of DC] versus the rest of the state.', Fuller said, although he allowed that Hampton Roads 'is not too bad economically'.   At GridPoint, Spirtos urged Kaine to work on allowing more H-1B visas for [cheap young pliant] foreign workers [with flexible ethics], a frequent topic of discussion in Northern Virginia's technology sector."

2012-08-21 03:00PDT (06:00EDT) (10:00GMT) (12:00 Jerusalem)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Whistle-blower Palmer to continue support of DHS probe of Infosys

2012-08-21
Mathew J. Schwartz _Information Week_/_UBM_
survey says: dearth of investment in cyber-security training
"people too often budgeted nothing for training, for either existing personnel or new hires...   'To get America's job engine revving again, companies need to stop pinning so much of the blame on our nation's education system.', Cappelli said.   'They need to drop the idea of finding perfect candidates and look for people who could do the job with a bit of training and practice.'"

2012-08-21 15:22:17PDT (18:22:17EDT) (22:22:17GMT) (2012-08-22 00:22:17 Jerusalem)
Tom Krisher _San Jose CA Mercury News_
US gov't & UMich Ann Arbor conspire on system to eliminate liberty and privacy
"In a few weeks, about 2,800 cars, trucks and buses will start talking to each other on the streets of Ann Arbor, MI...   Wireless devices will allow the vehicles to send signals to each other...   The U.S. Department of Transportation and the University of Michigan are hoping the year-long, $25M project generates data...   Officials say eventually this could lead to the devices going in every car.   About 500 vehicles with the devices are now on the roads...   [Fewer than 33K] people died last year in U.S. traffic crashes, down 1.7% from 2010 [and well down from the over 50K per year of about 50 years ago, despite increases in traffic]...   The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [claims it] has the authority to order the devices placed in all new cars...   Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai/Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen/Audi all are supplying vehicles and taking part in the [evil scheme]...   Auto-makers have been adding safety devices such blind-spot warning detectors that warn a driver if there's a car in an adjoining lane, and radar-activated cruise control that can slow cars down if they're approaching an object too fast...   In February, Ford executive chairman Bill Ford called for just that in a speech to a mobile electronic device conference in Barcelona, Spain.   He said the mobile device industry should join with auto-makers and governments to develop connected car technology..."

2012-08-21
Bryan Preston _PJ Media_
how Hidalgo county TX adjusts crime statistics to make border seem safer than it is: part 2
part 1
"the sheriff's office looks for ways to downgrade the crimes, to change the statistics so that there's credibility, supposed credibility, in proclaiming that particular crimes are down...   the deputy says it's because on Sheriff Treviño's watch, Mexico's drug cartels have moved in and now have real power in Hidalgo county...   'for example, Emmanuel Sanchez, a deputy in the sheriff's office.   He belonged to a cartel on this side of the river that was connected to a cartel on the other side.   And Emmanuel Sanchez provided a lot of money to Lupe's campaign.   Now, there's probably no paperwork because he probably, you know, provided it in cash but he was caught with a million dollars coming back from Florida, and he was caught by Georgia.'...   The federal grants are supposed to encourage local law enforcement to aggressively fight crime.   But in the case of Hidalgo county Texas, according to one deputy, something else is happening.   Real drug cartel violence goes unreported and real spill-over crimes go unsolved, according to the whistle-blowing deputy.   And despite what president Obama says, we really don't know if the border is secure or not.   Not when Hidalgo county pressures its deputies not to find or fight crime."

2012-08-21
Paul Leach _Chattanooga TN Times Free Press_
Cleveland TN cheering $67M + 38 jobs M&M Mars expansion

2012-08-21 (5772 Elul 03)
Ed Koch _Jewish World Review_
State Department and White House have it all wrong: The Russian Orthodox Church is the victim, neither Putin nor "Pussy Riot"
"The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow had been deliberately destroyed by Stalin.   It was rebuilt in 1992...and is one of Moscow's architectural gems and now once again a heavily used by Russian Orthodox church...   [What] if here in the U.S. a black church were invaded and 3 men or women engaged in comparable conduct insulting holy places within the church and the pastor...   One can argue concerning the degree of punishment, whether fines rather than jail time should have been imposed..."

2012-08-21 (5772 Elul 03)
Frank J. Gaffney ii _Jewish World Review_
Hatred's strange bed-fellows

2012-08-21 (5772 Elul 03)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
"issues" or America?
"The America that has flourished for more than 2 centuries is being quietly but steadily dismantled by the Obama administration, during the process of dealing with particular issues...   the much more fundamental undermining of the whole American system of Constitutional government.   The separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial branches of government is at the heart of the Constitution of the United States -- and the Constitution is at the heart of freedom for Americans.   No president of the United States is authorized to repeal parts of legislation passed by congress.   He may veto the whole legislation, but then congress can override his veto if they have enough votes...   every president takes an oath to faithfully execute the laws that have been passed and sustained -- not just the ones he happens to agree with.   When a president can ignore the plain language of duly passed laws, and substitute his own executive orders, then we no longer have 'a government of laws, and not of men' but a president ruling by decree, like the dictator in some banana republic...   The Constitution of the United States cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution...   [ObummerDoesn'tCar] imposes huge costs on some institutions, while the president's arbitrary waivers exempt other institutions from having to pay those same costs.   That is hardly the 'equal protection of the laws', promised by the 14th Amendment."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "By far the most popular of these story professions is the crime fighter.   And perhaps their popularity stems from the fact that these conscious functions are at the cutting edge of the real world's rather desperate struggle against evil...   The crime fighters in our society are at the leading edge of the fight to bring these evils under control, & many of them, unfortunately, are corrupt themselves.   In truth, we are in a life-&-death struggle with the dark side of our nature.   Psychologically, we are all trying to come to terms with these impulses & tendencies in our own psyches." --- James Bonnet 1999 _Stealing Fire from the Gods_ pg 90  

 
 

2012-08-22

2012-08-21 20:48PDT (2012-08-21 23:48EDT) (2012-08-22 03:48GMT) (2012-08-22 05:48 Jerusalem)
Jim Finkle _Reuters_
DHS investigating claims of security flaws in Siemens electrical power control systems

2012-08-22
Anthony Watts
DC circuit court rejected EPA's cross-state pollution rule

2012-08-22 03:15PDT (06:15EDT) (10:15GMT) (12:15 Jerusalem)
Mari Silbey _Stupid Propaganda Planet_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
3 things we still don't know about broad-band in the USA

2012-08-22
Bryan Preston _PJ Media_
murder in Reynosa
how Hidalgo county TX adjusts crime statistics to make border seem safer than it is: part 1
how Hidalgo county TX adjusts crime statistics to make border seem safer than it is: part 2

2012-08-22
Jack Dunphy _PJ Media_
creeping sharia on the PC Tulsa PD

2012-08-22
Colleen Wixon _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
ACT scores: FL average 19.8, USA average 21.1; 23.6 for Asians, 22.4 for whites, 18.9 for Hispanics, 17.0 for blacks
more
Atlanta GA Journal Constitution: GA average 20.7
KSTP: MN average 22.8
WBEZ: IL average 20.9
Augusta SC Chronicle: SC average 19.9
Fox Carolina: NC average 22.0
KCTV: MO average 21.6
Oklahoman: OK average 20.7, KS 21.9, MO 21.6, AR 20.3, LA 20.3, TX 20.8, NM 19.9, CO 20.6, MA 24.1
KSL: UT average 20.7
WCF Courier: IA average 22.1
News-Herald: OH average 21.8
Fox 19 Cincinnati
KECI: MT & NE each average 22.0
Nashville TN City Paper: TN average 19.7
Washington DC Examiner: MS average 18.7
CBS DFW: TX average 20.8
WDRB Louisville: KY average 19.5
Charleston WV Gazette: WV average 20.6
Topeka KS Capital-Journal: KS average 21.9
Dodge City Globe
Janesville WI GazetteXtra: WI average 22.1
KREM: ID average 21.6, WA average 22.9
KOTA TV: SD average 21.8
WFMZ Allentown: PA average 22.4
NewsPlex: VA average 22.4
AL: AL average 20.3
Oregonian: OR average 21.4
New Orleans LA Times-Picayune; LA average 20.8
abc
Fox
"A perfect score is 36.   Typically, fewer than 0.1% of the high school students who take the ACT earn a perfect score.   Accord to ACT, a total of 1.66M graduates in 2012 -- about 52% of U.S. graduating class -- took the ACT, representing a record level of participation."
American College Testing

2012-08-22 12:54:13PDT (15:54:13EDT) (19:54:13GMT) (21:54:13 Jerusalem)
Chris O'Brien _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Gild attempts to use "merit" in hiring
"focused on creating a data-driven system that ranks the work of programmers who share their code in some way on the Web.   'We believe the things companies use to find talent are fundamentally flawed.', said Gild CEO Sheeroy Desai.   'There is enough information on developers out there that if you can be really smart about it, you can discover all sorts of talent.'...   Gild is scanning the web for people who write some variation of 'open source' code, or code they share freely with the world so that others can tinker and improve on it [ah, so they're aiming for people with squishy ethics that have a leftist twist].   Many of these coders post their work to sites like GitHub or discuss programming issues at sites such as Stack Overflow."

2012-08-22
Anthony Watts
selected items from NOAA FOIA release

2012-08-22
Thomas D. Segel
Education and the Texas vote: why leftists support teachers who do not teach

2012-08-22
Mark J. Perry
Governments attack people giving away food and water -- from Philadelphia to PHoenix

2012-08-22
Mark J. Perry
how city regulations killed a dream in Chattanooga TN
"To paraphrase [president Obummer]: 'Look, if you've been unsuccessful, you didn't get there on your own.   If you were unsuccessful at opening or operating a small business, some government official along the line probably contributed to your failure.   There was an over-zealous civil servant somewhere who might have stood in your way with unreasonable regulations that are part of our American system of anti-business red tape that allowed you to not thrive.   [Tax-victims] invested in roads and bridges, but you might have faced city council members who wouldn't allow you to use them.   If you've been forced to close a business -- it's often the case that you didn't do that on your own.   Somebody else made that business closing happen or prevented it from opening in the first place.   You can thank the bureaucratic tyrants of the nanny state.'"

2012-08-22
Mark J. Perry
profiles of stingy leftists: Joe Biden

2012-08-22 (5772 Elul 04)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
Talk v. action: Why Obummer still won't go to Israel

2012-08-22 (5772 Elul 04)
Arnold Ahlert _Jewish World Review_
PC has allowed Muslim "friends" to kill over 100 US soldiers
"In 2012 alone, 32 attacks resulting in 40 deaths have occurred -- topping the 21 attacks that took place last year...   the Pentagon is drawing down another 30K troops this summer, many of the soldiers remaining behind will go from fighting to training and advising their Afghan 'friends'.   Friends who, unbelievable as it sounds, will also be tasked with the fox-guarding-the-henhouse opportunity of providing security at coalition bases, so president Obama can further reduce the size of America's military presence in the nation.   Apparently it hasn't occurred to the perpetrators of this non-sense that such an arrangement makes our troops even more vulnerable to insider attacks...   the war in Afghanistan isn't about...letting the American men and women we put in harm's way achieve the only thing that makes risking one's life worthwhile: victory.   Victory so decisive and so thorough that not only is the enemy's capacity to wage war destroyed, but their will to go on is also broken.   Victory so unambiguous that the bad actors all over the planet will think twice about engaging the most lethal fighting force ever devised...   In a better world, every hack lawyer in the Defense Department, along with the military and civilian officials responsible for formulating this strategy would be handed a helmet, a back-pack, and a gun, whereupon they would be sent to the front lines and forced to implement their handiwork first-hand."

2012-08-22 (5772 Elul 04)
_Jewish World Review_/_Deccan Chronicle_/_Economic Times of India_/_LiveMint_/_Dawn_
another economist: economic growth requires honesty & integrity, which create trust
"For India to grow rich, must its citizens become more honest?   It's a question that preoccupied Kaushik Basu, the [Indian] government's [former] chief economic advisor...   'We talk of good moral values as useful in themselves, but the fact that economic development and economic functioning can...'"

2012-08-22 (5772 Elul 04)
Melissa Healy _Jewish World Review_
music improves mental function for years after practice
"The heightened neural response to sounds in a lab means something in the real world, past research suggests: Previous research has linked the kinds of brain signals seen in those with musical training to heightened auditory perception, better auditory-based communication skills and improved executive function.   The last of these -- executive function -- encompasses such key learning skills as attention, organization, short-term memory and reasoning.   So boosting that in enduring ways could arguably give the kid who took music lessons an academic edge for years after the lessons ended.   The study also suggests that formal musical training was not wasted, even when your budding musician gives up the lessons in favor of, say, basketball, cheerleading or socializing.   It does suggest that starting early in life and quitting late may confer a more lasting mental advantage.   But even 'a little' formal musical training, say the authors, 'goes a long way'."

2012-08-22 (5772 Elul 04)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
"2016" is a powerful movie
"That Third World perspective is Obama's perspective, D'Souza demonstrates in this documentary, as in his book -- and it is a perspective that is very foreign to that of most Americans, which may be why some believe that Obama was born elsewhere D'Souza is convinced that the president was born in Hawaii, as he claims, but argues that not only Obama's time living in Indonesia and his emotionally charged visits to his father's home in Africa, have had a deep and impassioned effect on his thinking."

2012-08-22 (5772 Elul 04)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
educational lunacy
"If I were a Klansman, wanting to sabotage black education, I couldn't find better allies than education establishment liberals and officials in the Obama administration, especially Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who in 2010 March announced that his department was 'going to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement'.   For Duncan, the civil rights issue was that black elementary and high school students are disciplined at a higher rate than whites.   His evidence for discrimination is that blacks are three and a half times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.   Duncan and his Obama administration supporters conveniently ignored school 'racial discrimination' against whites, who are more than 2 times as likely to be suspended as Asians and Pacific Islanders.   Heather Mac Donald reports on all of this in 'Undisciplined', appearing in City Journal (2012 Summer).   She writes that between 2011 September and 2012 February, 25 times more black Chicago students than white students were arrested at school, mostly for battery.   In Chicago schools, black students outnumber whites by four to one...   'The homicide rate among males between the ages of 14 and 17 is nearly ten times higher for blacks than for whites and Hispanics combined.   Such data make no impact on the Obama administration and its orbiting advocates'...   According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nationally during 2007-2008, more than 145K teachers were physically attacked.   6% of big-city schools report verbal abuse of teachers, and 18% report non-verbal disrespect for teachers.   An earlier NCES study found that 18% of the nation's schools accounted for 75% of the reported incidents of violence, and 6.6% accounted for 50%.   So far as serious violence, murder and rapes, 1.9% of schools reported 50% of the incidents.   The preponderance of school violence occurs in big-city schools attended by black students."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "What was then called socialism was really just a kind of socialism: international socialism.   Mussolini was interested in creating a new socialism, a socialism in one state, a national socialism, which had the added benefit of being achievable.   The old Socialist Party stood in the way of this effot, and thus it was 'necessary', Musolini wrote in 'Il Popolo', 'to assassinate the Party in order to save Socialism'.   In another issue he implored.   'Proletarians, come into the street and piazzas with us and cry: ''Sown with the corrupt mercantile policy of the Italian bourgeoisie''...   Long live the war of liberation of the peoples!'" --- Jonah Goldberg _Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning_ pg45 (citing Joshua Muravchik 2002 _Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism_ pg149; Jasper Ridley 1997 _Mussolini: A Biography_ pg71)  

 
 

2012-08-23

2012-08-23 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (14:30 Jerusalem)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 310,121 in the week ending August 18, a decrease of 7,320 from the previous week.   There were 344,870 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5% during the week ending August 11, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,164,819, a decrease of 15,192 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.8% and the volume was 3,557,586.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending August 4 was 5,594,498 , a decrease of 109,812 from the previous week.   Extended benefits were available in ID during the week ending August 4 [note that this list is way shorter than it was just a few weeks ago as eligibilities have been expiring...jgo].   States reported 2,326,635 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending August 4, a decrease of 47,334 from the prior week.   There were 3,086,781 persons claiming EUC in the comparable week in 2011.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" (the divisor) changes roughly quarterly:
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01;
to 126,579,970 beginning 2012-01-01;
to 127,048,587 beginning 2012-04-07;
to 127,495,952 beginning 2012-07-14, and seasonal adjustment factors were revised.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2012-08-23
Anthony Watts
ice skate races can only be held every 11 or 12 years... in line with solar cycles
"unusually cold winters in Central Europe are related to low solar activity -- when sun-spot numbers are minimal.   The freezing of Germany's largest river, the Rhine, is the key...   between 1780 and 1963, the Rhine froze in multiple places 14 different times.   The sheer size of the river means it takes extremely cold temperatures to freeze over making freezing episodes a good proxy for very cold winters in the region, Sirocko said.   Mapping the freezing episodes against the solar activity's 11-year cycle -- a cycle of the sun's varying magnetic strength and thus total radiation output -- Sirocko and his colleagues determined that ten of the fourteen freezes occurred during years around when the sun had minimal sun-spots.   Using statistical methods, the scientists calculated that there is a 99% chance that extremely cold Central European winters and low solar activity are inherently linked...   It wasn't, however, the Rhine that first got Sirocko to thinking about the connection between freezing rivers and sun-spot activity.   In fact, it was a 125-mile ice-skating race he attended over 20 years ago in the Netherlands that sparked the scientist's idea.   'Skaters can only do this race every 10 or 11 years because that's when the rivers [and canals] freeze up.', Sirocko said.   'I thought to myself, There must be a reason for this, and it turns out there is.'"

2012-08-23
Chip Knappenberger
What is "normal" and what is "extreme" change over time

2012-08-23
Anthony Watts
NOAA FOIA contains evidence of egregiously biased reporting

2012-08-23
Shannon Bream _Fox_
10 ICE officials have filed suit against Napolitano over discretionary enforcement/amnesty program
Right Side News
Examiner
"recent directives are forcing them to break the law and ignore their duties when it comes to deporting illegal immigrants...   It challenges recent directives allowing some illegal immigrants -- particularly non-felons and those who came to the U.S.A. as children -- to stay and, in some cases, get 'work permits'...   ICE Director John Morton is also named as a defendant."
"Work authorization is a benefit under federal law that cannot be granted by prosecutorial discretion. (paragraph 74)"

2012-08-23
Quentin Fottrell _MarketWatch_
US citizen college grads unable to land jobs related to their studies
"And while 63% of 'Generation Y' workers -- those age 18 to 29 -- have a bachelor's degree, the majority of the jobs taken by graduates don't require one, according to an online survey of 500K young workers carried out between 2011 July and 2012 July by PayScale.com, a company that collects data on salaries.   Another survey by Rutgers University came to the same conclusion: Half of graduates in the past 5 years say their jobs didn't require a four-year degree and only 20% said their first job was on their career path.   'Our society's most talented people are unable to find a job that gives them a decent income.', says Cliff Zukin, a professor of political science and public policy at Rutgers.   The jobs that once went to recent college graduates are now more often going to older Americans.   Over the past year, workers over 55 accounted for 58% of employment growth, says Dean Baker, a co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, DC.   Why? Employers think older workers are a safer bet and more likely to stay, he says.   Unemployment hovered at 6.2% in July for workers over 55, according to the Labor Department, but was more than double that rate -- 12.7% -- for those ages 18 to 29...   The starting salary for a graduate is $27K, 10% less than 5 years ago, the Rutger's study found."

2012-08-23
Mark J. Perry
net oil imports as percentage of US consumption

2012-08-23
Mark J. Perry
federal government take-over of forest management in 1905 has led to more, bigger, hotter fires

2012-08-23
Mark J. Perry
government thuggery

2012-08-23
_Rasmussen_
69% of US citizens likely to vote think most politicians break the rules for big contributors

2012-08-23
Ilan Kolet _Business Week_
college/university tuition + fees up 1,120%: class sizes down, building up (graph)
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption..." --- Hippocratic Oath  

 
 

2012-08-24

2012-08-24
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
The confectioner Southern Unionist of Harper's Ferry... and hhis Unionist son

2012-08-24 05:02PDT (08:02EDT) (12:02GMT) (14:02 Jerusalem)
Ted Evanoff _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
leftist think-tank says imports from Red China cost 96,300 jobs in mid-south since 2001

2012-08-24
Anthony Clark _Gainesville FL Sun_
Hiring plans for area tech companies get boost from FloridaWorks grants
"Kim Tesch-Vaught, executive director of FloridaWorks, said the funding makes it easier for a company to take on the financial risk of hiring...   The need for information technology jobs is huge, Tesch-Vaught said.   That includes IT jobs within the medical field."

2012-08-24
Mark J. Perry
durable goods orders & shipments and USA, Europe, Red China "performance of manufacturing" index

2012-08-24
Mark J. Perry
car sales

2012-08-24
William L. Anderson
Goldstein and gold
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "You may think that the Constitution is your security -- it is nothing but a piece of paper.   You may think that the statutes are your security -- they are nothing bu words in a book.   You may think that elaborate mechanism of government is your security -- it is nothing at all unless you have sound and uncorrupted public opinion to give life to your Constitution, to give vitality to your statutes, to make efficient your machinery." --- Charles Evans Hughes  

 
 

Saturday

Samstag

Yom Shabbat

Sabato

2012-08-25

2012-08-25
Thomas E. Brewton
Keynesians' & leftists' up-side down view of economics: whence comes the wherewithal for consumers to spend?

2012-08-25
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Missing loyalist claims paper-work

2012-08-25
Mark J. Perry
historical web logs, and transitions
2002-01-05: Arnold Kling

2012-08-25
Mark J. Perry
stock market returns and corporate profits (after government extortion) 2003 to 2012

2012-08-25
Mike Shedlock _Town Hall_
What Bernanke really said
"The Fed has a perfect track record of not being able to predict anything.   Bernanke was wrong about housing, the recession, unemployment rate in the recovery, and he has admitted that he does not understand why the job recovery is weak.   Yet, he is beholden to his own silly forecasts.   Why bother with forecasts? Why not flip coins instead? The results would be far more accurate...   'Banks are involved in a huge carry trade on US treasuries, with the Fed's approval.   The Fed understands low interest rates are a tax on savers and a brutal punishment to those on fixed income.   However, we don't care.   The Fed encourages the carry trade to help bail out banks still in trouble over bad real estate loans, and still hiding other losses off their balance sheets.   We are beholden to the banks and operate our monetary policy for them whenever they get in trouble.'   It would be refreshing to hear the truth for a change."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "But neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.   He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man." --- Samuel Adams (quoted in W. Cleon Skousen 1981, 2010 _The 5K Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World: Principles of Freedom 101_ pg59; citing William V. Wells 1865 _The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams_ vol1 pg22)  

 
 

Sunday

Sonntag

Yom Rishon

Domenica

2012-08-26

2012-08-26
Ed Marcum _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
Gulf & Ohio Railways to design and manufacture new locomotive
"Pete Claussen, chairman and CEO of Gulf & Ohio, said the KLW20B Repower Locomotive is in the testing phase.   It is designed to be a fuel-efficient, low-emission locomotive of about 2,100 hp.   Claussen said there is market niche for locomotives of less than 3Khp that meet stricter Environmental Protection Agency standards.   'There are 27K operating locomotives in the United States and they all fall under EPA regulations...'...   the engine offers fuel savings of up to 30% and will meet Tier I or Tier III emission standards.   It has no pre-start procedure, an automatic shut-down re-start system and modular construction for easy [maintenance] and component exchange.   Gulf & Ohio developed it in conjunction with MTU, a German company that acquired the large engine division of Detroit Diesel...   a combination of three 700 hp standby generators of the type used in hospitals adapted to work in a standard locomotive body and chassis with an MTU Series 4000 engine."

2012-08-26
David M. Hoffer
lies, damned lies, and anoma-lies

2012-08-26
Mary Grabar _PJ Media_
the left at the Republican convention

2012-08-26
Patrice Hill _Washington DC Times_
Tech execs pushing for increase in cheap young pliant foreign labor with flexible ethics

2012-08-26
Mark J. Perry
Marcellus shale gas production

2012-08-26
John F. McGowan
STEM shortages, purple squirrels, leprechauns and other mythological entities
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "(בִּרְבוֹתבִּרְבוֹת צַדִּיקִים, יִשְׂמַח הָעָם; וּבִמְשֹׁל רָשָׁע, יֵאָנַח עָם) When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn." --- Proverbs/Mishlei 29:2 (quoted in W. Cleon Skousen 1981, 2010 _The 5K Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World: Principles of Freedom 101_ pg60)  

 
 

Monday

Montag

Yom Sheini

Lunedi

2012-08-27

2012-08-27
Viv Forbes
"Reach for the stars" has been turning into "retreat to the dark ages"

2012-08-27
Anthony Watts
Texas A&M researchers believe drought has resulted in smallest hypoxic dead zone in Gulf of Mexico in years

2012-08-27
Victor Davis Hanson _PJ Media_
Everything you always wanted to know about the federal government budget

2012-08-27
Mark J. Perry
income: 150 Americans moved up for every 100 who moved down between 1971 and 2011 says Pew

2012-08-27
Kathy Shaidle _PJ Media_
3 things this Canadian doesn't "get" about the USA

2012-08-27
_Rasmussen_
92% do not think congress is doing a good job; 64% rate them as poor
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property...   whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence.   Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeig the power the people had put into their hands...   and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and... provide for their own safety and security." --- John Locke _2nd Essay Concerning Civil Government_ pp75-76 paragraph222 (quoted in W. Cleon Skousen 1981, 2010 _The 5K Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World: Principles of Freedom 101_ pg148)  

 
 

Tuesday

Dienstag

Yom Shlishi

Martedi

2012-08-28

2012-08-28
_Conference Board_
Consumer confidence index at 60.6, lowest since 2011 November
Fox (with bar graph)
Los Angeles CA Times
Tyler Durden: Zero Hedge
PR News Wire/UBM
NBC
US News & World Report
"The Index [is down from 65.4 in July] to 60.6 in August (1985=100).   The Expectations Index decreased from 78.4 to 70.5.   The Present Situation Index, however, was virtually unchanged, from 45.9 a month ago to 45.8...   Those stating jobs are 'plentiful' declined from 7.8% to 7.0%, while those claiming jobs are 'hard to get' edged down from 41.0% to 40.7% ...   Those expecting more jobs in the months ahead decreased from 17.6% to 15.4%, while those anticipating fewer jobs rose from 20.6% to 23.4%.   The proportion of consumers expecting an increase in their incomes, however, improved from 14.2% to 15.7%."

2012-08-28
Anthony Watts
U of Oregon profs promote refrigeration of smoke-stacks to reduce emissions, increase costs 25%

2012-08-28
Anthony Watts & Kelvin Kemm
Wind and solar power + soaring electricity prices = out-sourced off-shore jobs + more coal burning: Meanwhile, eco activists demand "sustainable life-styles"...for other people

2012-08-28 08:06PDT (11:06EDT) (15:06GMT) (16:06 Jerusalem)
Miller _Minnesota Socialist Radio_
Twin Cities one of the top metro areas hiring cheap young pliant foreign labor with flexible ethics

2012-08-28
Mark J. Perry
Michigan economic activity index is highest it has been since 2003

2012-08-28
Mark J. Perry
for $400K you can buy a 6BR stone mansion in Flint MI, or an 863 square foot condo in DC

2012-08-28
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
reflections on the Brawner farm (2nd battle of Manassas)

2012-08-28
Anthony Watts
follow the warmist money

2012-08-28 (5772 Elul 10)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
entitlement tweaks
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "what [government recognition, respect for and enforcement of] property rights provide... is the ability of people to convert physical assets into financial assets, which in turn enables them to create additional wealth, whether individualy or in combination with others.   [Respect for] Property rights enable strangers to co-operate in economic ventures, some of which are beyond the means of any particular individual and must be undertaken by corporations which can mobilize the wealth of thousands or even millions of people, who cannot possibly all know each other.   Moreover, [respect for] property rights provide incentives to monitor their own economic activities more closely than government officials can -- and protects them from the over-reaching caprices or corruption of such officials.   In short, property rights are an integral part of a price-coordinated economy, without which that economy cannot function as efficiently.   This in turn means that its people in general -- not just property owners -- cannot prosper as much as if it did operate more efficiently." --- Thomas Sowell 2004 _Applied Economics_ pp200-201  

 
 

Wednesday

Mittwoch

Yom R'vi'i

Mercoledi

2012-08-29

2012-08-28 18:26PDT (2012-08-28 21:28EDT) (2012-08-29 01:28GMT) (2012-08-29 03:28 Jerusalem)
_Numbers USA_
Why give out more guest-work visas and green cards when recent university grads can't get jobs
"Few politicians understand how jobless and underemployed young Americans must feel to see Washington refuse to reduce immigration numbers during this time of high unemployment.   And it shows how out of touch many of our political 'leaders' are with average American families that they don't realize the insult to young Americans when they hear talk of some kind of desperate need for actually increasing the number of immigrant workers each year."

2012-08-29 10:13PDT (13:13EDT) (17:13GMT) (19:13 Jerusalem)
Ameet Sachdev _Chicago Tribune_
former Motorola software engineer sentenced to 4 years prison for intellectual property theft for espionage for Red Chinese military
"Hanjuan Jin, a naturalized U.S. citizen [and former H-1B guest-worker] who was born in China, worked for Motorola from 1998 to 2007.   Federal authorities stopped her 2007 Feb. 28, during a random search at O'Hare International Airport.   Jin had a one-way ticket to Beijing.   Customs agents discovered $30K in her luggage, as well as more than 1K confidential technical documents -- paper copies and on her computer hard drive."

2012-08-29
_Hockey Schtick_
deep Arctic Ocean from 50K to 11K years ago was warmer than now

2012-08-29
Phyllis Schlafly _Eagle Forum_
good and bad immigration proposals
World Net Daily
Illinois Review
Town Hall
"The 2010-2011 census data found that 43% of immigrants who have been in the United States at least 20 years are receiving welfare benefits.   That figure is nearly twice as high as welfare given to native-born Americans.   Immigrant children account for 1 in 5 public school students, and 1 in 4 public school students speaks a language other than English at home...   Only 2% of native Americans live in overcrowded households, compared to 13% of immigrant households.   Only 7% of adult native Americans have not finished high school, but that's true of 28% of adult immigrants...   Legal and illegal immigration over the last 10 years has caused 80 percent of our total population growth, but it is a big myth that this has increased our economic wealth.   Even after immigrants have been in the United States for 20 years, they are still well behind native Americans in economic well-being.   Highly paid lobbyists are continually pressuring Congress to expand immigration for foreigners to fill science and engineering jobs, using a variety of visas, especially H-1Bs.   Their propaganda often includes labeling these young foreigners 'the best and the brightest'.   The notion that foreigners are better and brighter than Americans is nonsense.   And we have enough unemployed and under-employed engineers to fill vacancies, if there are any...   Our government used to obey a federal law that denied visas to potential immigrants who were unable to support themselves and might become a 'public charge'.   Somehow, that whole concept seems to have disappeared.   Just this month, some Republican Senators wrote to Homeland Security and the State Department asking why they don't consider whether potential immigrants would use some of our nearly 80 federal welfare programs when they evaluate visa applications."

2012-08-29 (5772 Elul 11)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
risky business

2012-08-29 (5772 Elul 11)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Who really pays?
"According to IRS 2007 data, the richest 1% of Americans earned 22% of national personal income but paid 40% of all personal income [extortions].   The top 5% earned 37% and paid 61% of personal income [extortion].   The top 10% earned 48% and paid 71% of all personal income [extortions].   The bottom 50% earned 12% of personal income but paid just 3% of income [extortion] revenues."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "The pattern, as well as magnitude, of foreign economic activity in Russia provides clues to the sources of Russian economic backwardness.   The foreigners specialized in providing what the Russians most lacked -- technical and scientific skills, efficient and honest management and, to a secondary extent, capital.   Russian managers were notorious for ther inefficiency and corruption.   A French observer in 1904 refered to 'the extraordinary waste -- to be polite -- that reigns among Russian administrators'.   Even after trained Russians began to emerge over the years into increasingly responsible positions, foreign firms were careful not to use Russian accountants.   This business corruption mirrored a pervasive corruption in the czarist government, which was by no means stamped out under the Communists or in the post-Soviet era." --- Thomas Sowell 1998 _Conquests and Cultures_ pg212 (citing John P. McKay _Pioneers for Profit_ pp176,187; Richard Pipes _Russia under the Old Regime_ pp282-286; David Prye-Jones 1995 _The Strange Death of the Soviet Empire_ pp29,51-54,108; 1984 January "Armenia", "Chechen-Ingushia" _Soviet Nationality Survey_ pp1,2; 1984 March "Byelorussia" _Soviet Nationality Survey_ pg3; 1984 November "Kirgizia" _Soviet Nationality Survey_ pg4; David Remnick 1997 _Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia_ pp107-109,197-199,255,274; Peter Galuszka 1995-05-29 "And You Think You've Got Tax Problems" _BusinessWeek_ pg50)  

 
 
 

Latest

canonical Dilbert
Dogpile news search on "H-1B"

Thursday

Donnerstag

Yom Chamishi

Giovedi

2012-08-30

2012-08-30 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (14:30 Jerusalem)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 309,923 in the week ending August 25, a decrease of 1,864 from the previous week.   There were 336,761 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.4% during the week ending August 18, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,103,455, a decrease of 65,115 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.8% and the volume was 3,473,182.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending August 11 was 5,532,245, a decrease of 62,253 from the previous week.   Extended benefits were available in ID during the week ending August 11 [note that this list is way shorter than it was just a few weeks ago as eligibilities have been expiring...jgo].   States reported 2,273,317 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending August 11, a decrease of 53,318 from the prior week.   There were 3,118,042 persons claiming EUC in the comparable week in 2011.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" (the divisor) changes roughly quarterly:
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01;
to 126,579,970 beginning 2012-01-01;
to 127,048,587 beginning 2012-04-07;
to 127,495,952 beginning 2012-07-14, and seasonal adjustment factors were revised.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2012-08-30
Anthony Watts
single-dose malaria cure has high potential

2012-08-30
_PJ Media_
Paul Ryan is charming throughout his demolition of the Obummer regime
"After 4 years of getting the runaround, America needs a turnaround"

2012-08-30
Charlie Osborne _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
turrible shortage of qualified network saboteurs
Valarie Honeycutt Spears: Lexington KY Herald-Leader
Steve Ragan: Security Week/Wired Business Media
"Ibrahimshah Shahulhameed was fired last week by the corporation.   In an Aug. 24 complaint, Toyota says that the former programmer sabotaged its computer systems at Toyota Motor Manufacturing.   The Indian contract programmer apparently attacked the system -- crashing it in the process -- and managed to download information that is 'highly confidential'.   The complaint was submitted to the U.S. District Court in Lexington."

2012-08-30
Christina Jewett _KGO San Francisco CA_
hantavirus in Yosemite National Park

2012-08-30
Roy Beck _USA Today_/_Gannett_
No American demographic group would benefit more than Hispanic voters by keeping illegal foreign workers from taking U.S. jobs

2012-08-30
Karl Baker _Seattle WA Times_
Russian starts video-game "money" trading site, sponsors self for H-1B
"Denis Kiselev...from Russia, set up shop in Seattle with the help of a new U.S. immigration policy.   His start-up company, SnapSwap, was able to sponsor his H-1B visa...   SnapSwap will be a place to trade gaming currencies such as those used in the virtual economies of 'World of Warcraft' and other multi-player, on-line video games.   'What we're doing is a trading platform, like the New York Stock Exchange for games.', said Kiselev, founder of SnapSwap.   He aims to facilitate trade in these currencies across servers and national borders...   'If you are self-employed, you can never get a green card.', she said.   A [conspiracy] consisting of U.S. senators Marco Rubio, R-FL; Chris Coons, D-DE; Jerry Moran, R-KS; and Mark Warner, D-VA, are sponsors of the act.   John Miano, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, DC, contends that legislation like Start-up Act 2.0 has not been properly thought out.   'A lot of [the startups] are going to fail.   Then what are you going to do? Throw them out?', he said.   'We'd be better off making the business climate better for people here.'"

2012-08-30
Angela Chen _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Felonious State U B-school instructor abuses Klout scores in grading for marketing class

2012-08-30
Daniel Bortz _US News & World Report_
"attractive" people get paid more
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "'While it is unimaginable to do business in China without paying bribes, to offer one in Japan is the greatest faux pas', as a knowledgeable scholar and world traveler wrote in 1997.   An international survey of [certain kinds of] corruption that same year found the most corrupt countries to be Nigeria, Bolivia, Colombia, Russia, Pakistan, Mexico, Indonesia, India, Venezuela and VietNam -- all countries with serious economic problems, often despite rich natural resources.   Those ranked highest in honesty were mostly Western European and Western European-off-shoot societies, with the addition of Singapore and Israel." --- Thomas Sowell 1998 _Conquests and Cultures_ pp343-344 (citing Angelo M. Codevilla 1997 _The Character of Nations_ pg42; Barbara Crossette dateUnknown "Survey Ranks Nigeria as Most Corrupt Nation" _NY Times_ international section pg3)  

 
 

Friday

Freitag

Yom Shishi

Venerdi

2012-08-31

2012-08-31< br /> Christopher Monckton
an independeent constraint on climate sensitivity

2012-08-31
Anthony Watts
temperature and population density

2012-08-31
Thomas E. Brewton
Bernanke stands ready to launch another round of currency debasement
Jim Grant: Washington DC Post: Fed should return to its golden roots

2012-08-31
_NASDAQ_
UMich consumer sentiment index rose from 72.3 in late July to 73.6 in early August to 74.3 in late August
Shobhana Chandra: Bloomberg/Detroit News
Jeffry Bartash: MarketWatch/Dow Jones
Cristian Science Monitor
UMich
St. Louis Fed

2012-08-31
Jerry Seper & Matthew Cella _Washington Times_
federal government posts signs along I-8 in AZ to tell Americans to avoid the areas due to armed coyotes and smugglers
Joshua Rhett Miller: Fox: federal lands have warnings
Arlington Heights IL Cardinal
Fox: governor slams Obummer admin
James Walsh: News Max
Kinberly Dvorak: Examiner
"deputies are outmanned and outgunned by drug traffickers...   'Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona.', [one sheriff] said...   '70 to 80 miles from the border -- 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States.'   He said he asked the Obama administration for 3K National Guard soldiers to patrol the border, but what he got were 15 signs.   Arizona governor Jan Brewer condemned what she called the federal government's 'continued failure [refusal to try] to secure our international border', saying the lack of security has resulted in important natural recreational areas in her state being declared too dangerous to visit."
 
Proposed Bills 2012
 
 

  "Even despotic laws, as under Genghis Khan or in the Ottoman Empire, have fostered economic prosperity when these laws have been dependable, rather than capricious or corrupt.   One of the hallmarks of many Third World countries, especially those with otherwise favorable economic prospects in terms of natural resources or other favorable geographic factors, has been ineffective, capricious, or corrupt law enforcement.   Nigeria, for example, has oil and better navigable waterways than most of sub-Saharan Africa, but has repeatedly been ranked among the world's most corrupt nations, if not the most corrupt.   The same geographical fragmentation of sub-Saharan Africa which more directly handicapped Africa's economic development [by making transportation expensive] has also done so indirectly by making the establishment of law and order over wide areas difficult to achieve...   'If you are really looking for societies characterized by unrestrained greed and weak government, sub-Saharan Africa is the place to find them...   The ''governments'' of these countries are corrupt businesses, more akin to the Mafia than to public services.'" --- Thomas Sowell 2008 _Economic Facts & Fallacies_ pg200 (quoting John Kay 2004 _Culture and Prosperity: The Truth About Markets - Why Some Nations Are Rich but Most Remain Poor_ pp283-284)  

 
 

2012 Summer
Joseph V. Kennedy _The New Atlantis: Journal of Technology & Society_
sources and uses of science funding




 
Proposed Bills 2012


Congressional candidate fund-raising, expenditures, and debt
 

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

  "What is far more common is to find poverty-stricken countries that are among the most corrupt in the world -- for example, Nigeria, Haiti, Bangladesh, and many othes.   It is not just that the political leaders are corrupt.   The level of mutual trust among the people at large has been found to be far lower in such countries than in more afluent nations.   Where poor countries contain entrepreneurial minorities who are capable of creating wealth, those minorities are often resented and restricted by discriminatory laws and policies.   In some cases, such wealth-producing minorities have been forced out of the country by hostility and outright violence, or even officially expelled, as Indians and Pakistanis were expelled from Uganda in the 1970s -- after which the Ugandan economy collapsed." --- Thomas Sowell 2008 _Economic Facts & Fallacies_ pg214 (citing Wlliam Easterly 2006 _The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good_ pp79-80)  

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