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updated: 2018-06-20
 

"Mean peak life-time creativity was significantly higher in the index group than in the controls, with the highest levels of creativity being not in the manic-depressives but in the cyclo-thymes & in the normal relatives of people with mood disorders.   In interpreting the findings, Richards & her colleagues suggest that some of the normal relatives in question may have been hyper-thymic, or otherwise mildly affected with mood problems at the soft end of the bi-polar spectrum.   Not normalcy alone, but normalcy in the relatives of bi-polar patients, predicted greater creativity." --- Melvin Konner "Art of Darkness" _Why the Reckless Survive_

 
 

2007 August

U	M	T	W	R	F	S
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5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

 
 

"A standard which would forbid the reception of evidence if obtained by other than nice ethical conduct by gov't officials would make society suffer & give criminals greater immunity than has been known heretofore.   In the absence of controlling legislation by Congress, those who realize the difficulties in bringing offenders to justice may well deem it wise that the exclusion of evidence should be confined to cases where rights under the Constitution would be violated by admitting it." --- William Howard Taft in Olmstead v. US

 
 
 

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

2007-08-01

2007-08-01
Francis X. Gilpin _Montgomery Advertiser_
state agencies resisting release of records on OTJ injury fund and guest-workers
"McCooey ruled last year that the same agency also must release records of a federal pro gram that allows foreigners to enter the country as so-called guest workers.   The foreigners fill temporary jobs for which employers claim they cannot find Americans willing or trained to do.   But Frank D. Marsh, the department's general counsel, has appealed McCooey's order in the guest-worker case to the Alabama Supreme Court, and promised to do the same with the worker-comp suit unless McCooey reverses her July 10 order.   The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is seeking the guest-worker records made identical requests of labor agen cies in 9 Southeastern states.   Only Alabama has refused to hand over guest-worker records, although the center had to sue to obtain Mississippi's records.   [Marsh] said Alabama keeps employment records secret so businesses don't lose workers to industry rivals that gain access to state wage data.   'Employers trust the department.', said Marsh.   'If we let this out, there could be unfair competition.'   The guest-worker records are supposed to include evidence required by federal law showing that employers attempted to recruit American workers at fair wages before hiring foreigners."

2007-08-01
_Arizona Daily Star_
Sweep of gang members in southern California
"arresting 43 reputed gang members and associates in a huge sweep aimed at taking down violent offenders...   Tuesday's operation followed a 6-month investigation and focused on a neighborhood near Long Beach known locally as 'Ghost Town'.   Authorities were looking for at least 25 leaders of a street gang called the East Side Pain, said police lieutenant Ruben Delatorre...   According to FBI statistics, there are some 30K street gangs in the U.S. with about 800K members.   In Los Angeles and Chicago, more than half of the combined 1K or so homicides reported in 2004 were blamed on gangs.   Los Angeles saw a 15% increase in gang-related crimes in 2006 at the same time general crime declined citywide."

2007-08-01
Todd Seavey _National Review_
Ron Paul is the Fusion Candidate
"John Derbyshire is wrong to resist the Ron Paul Temptation.   Embrace it.   Embrace it: conservatives, libertarians, pro-lifers…Right-minded Americans, all.   Sure, Paul, currently hovering in the single digits in polls, looks at first glance like a textbook case of a fringe candidate.   And that's unfortunate, because he ought instead to be our next president -- and would be if he made it to the general election, since in a one-on-one match-up with likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he could fare remarkably well.   That means Paul's greatest obstacle is the Republican primary process.   Since he wants to do virtually everything conservatives have long dreamed of with the office of the presidency, what's stalling his chances is a herd-like desire to vote for the candidate who already seems likely to win the primaries.   Democrats won't keep him from the White House; it would be tragic, then, if Republicans stopped him themselves."

2007-08-01
Tom Fitton _GOP USA_
Corrupt judge rules against Hazleton's crack-down on illegal aliens
"Judicial Watch believes Judge Munley is wrong on this issue.   In March, Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the City of Hazleton.   Here, in a nutshell, was our argument: 'The City of Hazleton has found it both reasonable and necessary for the public health and welfare to exercise its police power by enacting [these ordinances]...   The subject matter regulated -- the employment and harboring of persons not entitled to lawful residence in the United States, let alone to work here -- is certainly within the main-stream of [the City of Hazleton's] police power...'...   To most Americans, this would seem a completely logical response to the federal government's failure to secure the borders.   In fact, according to a recent Zogby poll commissioned by Judicial Watch, 72% of likely voters believe local law enforcement officers should help enforce federal immigration laws, including 40% of Hispanics and 55% of self-described political 'liberals'...   So, what is the purpose of this summit, the third since the [SPP] was announced in 2005?   The State Department claims the purpose is to 'develop common approaches to transnational security threats and to expand economic productivity by stream-lining trade among the countries'.   Critics, however, maintain the true purpose is to develop and implement policies that would ultimately erase the borders between all 3 nations and form a North American Union, much like the European Union...   last week, Judicial Watch filed a notice with Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez that we plan to seek access to meetings and records of the North American Competitiveness Council during the Quebec summit...   Currently, there 5 appellate court nominees -- 3 waiting to fill vacancies declared 'judicial emergencies' -- and 14 district court nominees who are stalled in the Judiciary Committee, some for more than a year.   (Four other nominees were just announced.)"

2007-08-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 96,548 job ads

2007-08-01
Phyllis Schlafly _Eagle Forum_
The Globalists' Plan to Give Away US Patents
"In extraordinary Senate-House coordination, the 2 Judiciary committees in the same week voted out a bill (S1145 and HR1908) which, if it becomes law, will spell the end of America's world leadership in innovation.   Called the Patent Reform Act, it is a direct attack on the unique, successful American patent system created by the U.S. Constitution.   Prior to 1999, the U.S. Patent Office was required to keep secret the contents of a patent application until a patent was granted, and to return the application in secret to the inventor if a patent was not granted.   That protected the legal rights of the inventor, who could then go back to the drawing board to perfect his invention and try again.   A mischievous congressional 'reform' in 1999 authorized the U.S. Patent Office to shift to the Japanese and European practice of publishing patent applications 18 months after filing whether or not a decision is yet made on granting a patent.   Congress allowed a patent application, under certain conditions, to be exempt from the publication requirement, but the default procedure is to publish.   The 2007 Patent bill would delete this exemption and require publication of all patent applications 18 months after filing even though a decision has not yet been made on granting a patent.   By 2006, the U.S. Patent Office had placed 1.271M patent applications on the internet, giving access to anyone anywhere in the world.   This foolish practice created a gold mine for [Red China] to steal U.S. innovations and get to market quickly."

2007-08-01
Douglas MacKinnon _TownHall_
Illegal aliens have declared war on the USA
"Town by town, city by city, county by county, these illegal aliens and the far left lawyers that are eagerly facilitating their law-suits, plan to chip away at the sovereignty of the United States.   And as they do, many of our elected officials and leading 'news' organizations, are cheer-leading them on from the side-lines."

2007-08-01
Jasmynne Sloan _Creston News Advertiser_
Tancredo on illegal immigration (with video)
"'When I first came to Congress, the issue of immigration reform was what really motivated me...', he said.   'I still believe it's the most serious domestic policy issue we face as a nation.'   Tancredo said illegal immigration is causing lost jobs for Americans, wage depression, stress on school systems, higher medical costs, higher expenses for the nation's prison systems, increased gang activity and increased drug use, specifically methamphetamine...   Tancredo said damage to U.S. culture comes from immigrants today who aren't assimilating the way past immigrants have.   He said he's frustrated by the changes taking place across the nation, such as Spanish-language editions of newspapers like the Ottumwa Courier, Muslim foot baths at colleges like University of Michigan and a prayer room at the Denver, CO, airport for Muslim cab drivers...   'They come one way because we have something better.   Because this life, created by Western civilization on Judeo-Christian principles offers something better.   Individual freedom.'...   When asked specifically about his stance on rural issues, Tancredo pointed out that he'd voted against the recent farm bill because the subsidies are 'skewing the market, and they're terrible for both the farmers and the [tax-victims].   I believe the development of alternative fuels, bio-fuels included, is imperative so we stop our reliance on petroleum products, especially from countries where they want to kill us.', he said.   'But then markets take over.   Government should not.   Rural America will be much better off without the government.'"

2007-08-01
Shobhana Chandra _Bloomberg_
July lay-off announcements up 15% from same month last year
CNN/Money
MarketWatch
"Announced job cuts rose to 42,897 last month, from a 6-year low of 37,178 in 2006 July, Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said today.   So far in 2007, corporations have announced plans to lay off 436,396 workers, down 8% from 473,636 this time last year.   The number of planned job cuts decreased 23% last month from 55,726 in June, the report said.   Job cuts in the financial industry last month were the fewest since September, plunging 78% to reach 2,181, from the prior month's 9,800.   The financial sector continues to lead job cuts for the year, with 67,006 year-to-date, compared with 31,680 in 2006.   The transportation industry announced the greatest number of job cuts last month, 9,722, followed by electronics companies with 7,100.   Cost-cutting, business closings and slowing demand were the top three reasons cited for the July announcements.   Texas led all states with 13,224 announced firings, the report said.   In all of 2006, Challenger tallied 839,822 job reductions.   In May for instance, a total of 1.3M workers were discharged from their jobs involuntarily in mass lay-offs from large firms, representing about 0.9% of total employment, according to the latest available data from the Labor Department.   By comparison, 2.8M people quit their jobs voluntarily in May."

2007-08-01 04:51PDT (07:51EDT) (11:51GMT)
Ann d'Innocenzio & Natasha T. Metzler _AP_/_Yahoo!_
Fisher-Price is recalling nearly 1M toys made in Red China using lead paint
CNN
"Toy-maker Fisher-Price is recalling 83 types of toys — including the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters — because their paint contains excessive amounts of lead.   The worldwide recall being announced Thursday involves 967K plastic preschool toys made by a Chinese vendor and sold in the United States between May and August.   It is the latest in a wave of recalls that has heightened global concern about the safety of [Red Chinese-made] products.   The recall is the first for Fisher-Price Inc. and parent company Mattel Inc. involving lead paint.   It is the largest for Mattel since 1998 when Fisher-Price had to yank about 10M Power Wheels from toy stores...   The recall is particularly alarming since Mattel, known for its strict quality controls, is considered a role model in the toy industry for how it operates in [Red China]...   The recall follows another high-profile move from toy maker RC2 Corp., which in June voluntarily recalled 1.5M wooden railroad toys and set parts from its Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line.   The company said that the surface paint on certain toys and parts made in [Red China] between 2005 January and 2006 April contain lead, affecting 26 components and 23 retailers...   ."

2007-08-01 15:00PDT (18:00EDT) (22:00GMT)
Lou Dobbs & Bill Tucker _CNN_
Federal Legislation Affecting Science and Technology
Lou Dobbs:: Still ahead here, Congress says it has a new plan to keep jobs in the United States -- presumably for American citizens. We'll have that report.
And are this country's liberal elites destroying America?
The author of _Foundations of Betrayal: How The Liberal Super Rich Undermine America_ joins me.   We'll have a discussion how the liberal elites do that and a few thoughts, also, about conservative elites do that.   And I'll have a few thoughts, also, for Mr. Kent about those conservative elites, as well...
Lou Dobbs:: Congress appears to be on the verge of passing legislation that would raise funding for mathematics and science education.   Supporters say that funding would keep the United States competitive within the global marketplace and American jobs from being shipped over-seas.
Bill Tucker reports now on what this new legislation could mean for American students and workers.
Bill Tucker: Members of the House and Senate believe America needs to be more competitive.   A bill that they believe will do that is likely to pass Congress before the week's end.
The reason?
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN): Well, the need is to keep our jobs.   I mean if we really want to think of the way to keep our jobs from going to [Red China] and India and other countries over-seas, we need to keep our brain power advantage.
Bill Tucker: The Competitiveness Bill would nearly double the funding for the National Science Foundation and authorize $43G for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, research and education programs at the federal level for the next 3 years.   It creates grant programs for low and middle income students.   And while putting more money into education and national research labs is welcome, critics point out 2 problems.
First, the problem is a presumed lack of kids with degrees in the field.
Vivek Wadhwa, former cross-border bodyshopper and assistant professor at Duke University: And the problem isn't the supply, it's the demand.   That we have enough engineers and scientists.   The problem is that the salaries aren't there.
Bill Tucker:: And that's the second problem.   The salaries don't reflect a shortage and the bill doesn't fix the underlying fundamental policy problem, where it's cheaper for companies to out-source the jobs over-seas.
In February of last year, the head of the Federal Reserve testified...
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Board chair: Simply producing more engineers and scientists may not be the answer because the labor market for those workers will simply reflect lower wages or, perhaps, greater unemployment for those -- for those workers.
Alan Tonelson of the US Business and Industry Council: If you don't have the jobs here because the industries aren't here, because they have been sent over-seas by our out-sourcing-focused trade policies, it doesn't matter how highly skilled our workers are.   They'll still be unemployed.
Bill Tucker:: Not a single organization or leader who represents American workers was a part of the process of forming this legislation.
Bill Tucker:: Now, there's no question this bill will create jobs at research institutions and on university campuses.   The bigger question is will corporations react by investing more in its U.S. work-forces instead of doing as IBM is doing, for example, Lou, and that is out-sourcing its work to India?
Lou Dobbs:: IBM and hundreds of other corporations.
Bill Tucker:: As well.   Right.   Exactly.
Lou Dobbs:: You know, it -- I love to see the enthusiasm for this legislation based on it'll make it -- it'll America more competitive.   It will -- we will have a better educated work-force.
What happened in this country to the idea of education for its own sake, with the millions and millions of brilliant students, bright people we have in this country, who don't have an opportunity to go to school?
Why not make certain that those students who have an aptitude and a talent, a gift in mathematics and science, are guaranteed their education by the federal government, whether it be through state programs, grants for state programs, whatever?
The idea of this government reinforcing -- for the sake of just educating our people, not because of global competitiveness or all of this nonsense.   And to listen to Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, I mean that's scurrilous and disgusting, the words that he uttered there.
Bill Tucker:: But he does make a point.   You can -- you've got to create jobs for these people so that when they come out -- the Vacaduar (ph), for example, says 40% of the engineers at Duke end up not going into engineering because the salaries aren't there when they graduate.   They go into investment banking.
Lou Dobbs:: The salaries aren't there because of public policy...
Bill Tucker:: Right.
Lou Dobbs:: ...and business corporate practice that is devastating.   I wish I would have written a book about that in 2004.
(LAUGHTER)
Lou Dobbs:: All right, Bill Tucker, thank you very much.   Bill Tucker:: Sure.
Lou Dobbs:: I'm joined now by the chairman of the House Committee On Science and Technology, Congressman Bart Gordon.
Congressman Gordon joining us tonight from Capitol Hill.
Gordon, good to have you with us, Congressman.
Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), House committee on science & technology:Thank you, Lou.
Lou Dobbs:: The idea that this government would get behind a program to incentivize, to support science and mathematics, engineering, is exciting.
What -- what -- how do you respond to the claim, though, that even this legislation would not be supportive of American jobs and higher pay in the private market-place of jobs, which is where most folks live?
Bart Gordon: Well, I think it's a misunderstanding to think that this bill is only for producing a few great scientists or engineers.   It's much broader than that.
If you look at the problem that we in this country, there are about 7G people in the world, half of which make less than $2 a day.   We can't compete and we don't want to compete on that level, which means that we've got to be making 50 widgets for every one widget they're making in [Red China].   We've got to be innovating and developing the widget maker and manufacturing that widget maker here.
So whether you are a high school graduate, whether you are a junior college graduate or a college graduate, no matter what it is, you're going to have to work at a higher skill level.   You're going to have to have a better proficiency in math and science so that we can be more efficient and more productive.   And that's what we're trying to do, in addition to investing in research, so that we are in the lead in those areas.
Lou Dobbs:: The National Academy has issued a report in 2005 that two thirds of all fourth and eighth graders in this country are testing below the proficient level in mathematics.
Will your legislation move to that level of education?
Bart Gordon: Absolutely.   It's K to 12.   And the problem, Lou, is, it's not the our kids aren't smart.   But when you look at scores around the world, only Cypress and South Africa have lower math and science scores than our kids. [But only Singapore kids have higher scores than ours.]
Lou Dobbs:: Yes.
Bart Gordon: The reason is that -- and, again, we have good teachers, but our teachers aren't proficient in the material.
Lou Dobbs:: Oh, Congressman, if I may interrupt you.
Bart Gordon: Yes?
Lou Dobbs:: Look, we've got some wonderful teachers.   But we've -- we've got to acknowledge some realities.   We -- we have teachers who don't even -- who have not -- that's not their main -- the subjects they're teaching wasn't their major.
Bart Gordon: Well, that's the reality...
Lou Dobbs:: You know...
Bart Gordon: That's what I'm talking about.
Lou Dobbs:: Yes.
Bart Gordon: Right now, there's something like 67% of the middle school math teachers don't have a certificate or a major in that area.   87% of the science teachers.   And we're going to do something about that.
We're going to do 2 things.   One, we're going to bring those teachers in for the summer, provide them stipends to get their certification, A.P. Courses and whatever might be necessary.   We're going to set up a scholarship program for those students that want to go into math, science and education, and agree to teach for 5 years.
So it's really focused on getting the teachers up to teach and inspire.
Lou Dobbs:: Right.
Well, I'm inspired that we're -- we have you thinking about this and your colleagues, to move it forward.   It's certainly something the country needs -- a focus, an incentive and inspiration for our young people and to make certain that every kid in this country, irrespective of his or her economic or social circumstance, can get an education, certainly in mathematics, engineering and science.
Bart Gordon: And if we don't...
Lou Dobbs:: So my hat is off to you.
Bart Gordon: If we don't do that, I'm very afraid that my daughter and this next generation could be the first generations of Americans that inherit a national standard of living less than their parents.
Lou Dobbs:: Well, you know, as you were saying, it isn't that our students are dumb.   But, man, have we got some dumb people leading this country to get us in this kind of mess.   And I'm talking about -- I'm not talking about simply politicians.   I'm talking about the business leaders who talk out of one side of their mouth about education and then do nothing to improve the opportunities for education for all Americans.
We thank you for doing so.
Gordon HR2272
Reid S761

2007-08-01 (5767 Menachem-Av 17)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Defeatism defeated?
"Having waited for years, why could he not wait until September for the report by the general who is actually on the ground in Iraq every day?   Why was it necessary for politicians in Washington to declare the troop surge a failure from 8K miles away?   The most obvious answer is that Senator Reid feared that the surge would turn out not to be a failure -- and the Democrats had bet everything, including their chances in the 2008 elections, on an American defeat in Iraq...   Another revealing sign is that the solid front of the main-stream media in filtering out any positive news from Iraq and focussing only on American casualties -- in the name of 'honoring the troops' -- is now starting to show cracks."

2007-08-01 (5767 Menachem-Av 17)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Economic Thinking
"Which choice, sticking with the chosen topic or choosing another, will more readily lead to successful completion...   We can change the future, but we cannot change the past, though we can learn from it...   The only costs relevant to decision-making are what economists call marginal or incremental cost; that's the change in costs as a result of doing something.   That cost should be compared to the expected benefit...   The idea of weighing the costs of doing something against its benefits are part and parcel of intelligent decision-making.   If we only look to benefits, we'll do darn near anything because everything has some kind of benefit."
 

2007-08-02

2007-08-02 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 255,679 in the week ending July 28, a decrease of 43,069 from the previous week.   There were 259,974 initial claims in the comparable week in 2006.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.9% during the week ending July 21, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,454,584, a decrease of 134,211 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.8% and the volume was 2,358,926.   Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending July 14."
graphs

2007-08-02 12:00PDT (15:00EDT) (19:00GMT)
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee _EE Times_/_CMP_
Some in congress pushing for more tech education programs
Information Week
Information Week 2
"Earlier this week, joint-committee leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate reached an agreement on a version of the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science, or the Competes Act (HR2272).   The bill could go up for a vote in the House and Senate before the August recess begins this weekend."
Gordon HR2272
Reid S761

2007-08-02
Ron Paul _Lew Rockwell_
Comprehensive Health Care Act
"Unfortunately, most health care 'reform' proposals either make marginal changes or exacerbate the problem.   This is because they fail to address the root of the problem with health care, which is that government polices encourage excessive reliance on third-party payers.   The excessive reliance on third-party payers removes all incentive from individual patients to concern themselves with health care costs.   Laws and policies promoting Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) resulted from a desperate attempt to control spiraling costs.   However, instead of promoting an efficient health care system, HMOs further took control over health care away from the individual patient and physician.   Furthermore, the predominance of third-party payers means there is effectively no market for individual health insurance polices, thus those whose employers cannot offer them health benefits must either pay exorbitant fees for health insurance or do without health insurance.   Since most health care providers cater to those with health insurance, it is very difficult for the uninsured to find health care that meets their needs at an affordable price.   The result is many of the uninsured turn to government-funded health care systems, or use their local emergency room as their primary care physician.   The result of this is declining health for the uninsured and increased burden on tax-payer-financed health care system.   Returning control over health care to the individual is the key to true health care reform."

2008-01-02
Nadeem Walayat _Market Oracle_
USA transfer of sovereignty to "sovereign wealth funds"
"The SWF's have been stepping in of late with tens of billions in financing and investments into the cash starved US banking and finance sector with financial institutions such as Citicorp selling off large chunks every other week to funds such as that to the Abu Dhabi SWF at 4.9% of the company for $7.5G on a fixed yield of 11%, the terms are far more favourable than offered to domestic investors.   Most recent speculation is that Rio Tinto maybe inline for a chinese SWF bid of as much as $150G...

The Multi-pronged strategy towards the transfer of sovereignty -
1. Transfer of manufacturing base eastwards
2. Transfer of service sector industries eastward
3. Securing control of energy and mineral resources
4. Theft of new technologies through state sponsored espionage
5. Investment in prime western companies in the West via SWF's
6. Transfer of western commercial and financial expertise eastward.

2007-08-03

2007-08-03 02:49PDT (05:49EDT) (09:49GMT)
Jia Lynn Yang _CNN_/_Money_/_Fortune_
India body shop sets up call center in Reno, OH to give better service to Expedia customers

2007-08-03 08:51PDT (11:51EDT) (15:51GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
ISM services index dropped from 60.7% in June to 55.8% in July: Employment index fell from 55.0% in June to 51.7% in July

2007-08-03
Patrick O'Conner _Politico_
US House erupted in chaos over bungled vote tally over benefits to illegal aliens
"Details remain fuzzy, but numerous Republicans argued afterward that they had secured a 215-213 win on their motion to bar undocumented immigrants from receiving any federal funds apportioned in the agricultural spending bill for employment or rental assistance.   Democrats, however, argued the measure was deadlocked at 214-214 and failed, members and aides on both sides of the aisle said afterward."

2007-08-03
Mitch Ratcliffe _Ziff Davis_
"Social Network" Problems
"for the most part, social network providers only want to keep their members on the inside of their walled gardens.   Social activity doesn't exist in narrow parameters, and no one wants to do more to manage their relationships, despite the assertion by Ning cofounder Gina Bianchini that people will want to have to have identities for different [millions of] social networks.   Making socializing into work isn't how you make it popular.   Managing isn't what makes life fun.   Moreover, making socializing into an activity that enriches others doesn't add to the attraction of social networks...   The whole approach to friending, which typically grants carte blanche access to a person's information or to a Facebook application provider, treats personal data as though it was the least valuable feature of the social environment.   Instead, it is the most precious thing, something that we struggle to share selectively throughout our lives.   Simple categories of access to personal information, suggested by social network providers, such as 'friend', 'family' and 'colleague', will not suffice, either, because we don't have uniform relationships with our friends, family members or coworkers.   Here's the rule of social success: Our personal data shouldn't become someone else's asset.   Instead, we need to be able to turn it into value for ourselves."
Privacy organizations

2007-08-03
Nicole Gaouette _Los Angeles Times_
Rule change on checking permission to work in USA expected
"In the coming days, the Department of Homeland Security is expected to issue a rule outlining how businesses must respond when they receive notice that there are discrepancies in a worker's tax records.   Many businesses simply ignore such notices now.   Under the new rules, employees would have a limited time to contact the Social Security Administration to correct the information, or face termination.   The rule would transfer more responsibility for enforcement to companies — part of a Homeland Security effort to break through the complacency that some officials say the corporate world has about illegal workers."

2007-08-03
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
Displacement of American Workers Continues
"Total employment fell by 30K, or by 0.02%.   Hispanic employment rose by 140K, or by 0.7%.   Non-Hispanic employment fell by 170,000, or by 0.1%...   July's Hispanic job pop pushed VDARE.COM's American Worker Displacement Index (VDAWDI) up to the record 122.0 first reached in April.   In June VDAWDI was 121.0...   All the lines start at 100.0 in 2001 January...   Month to month anomalies cannot obscure the big picture: From 2001 January through 2007 July Hispanic employment rose 4.213M, or by 26.1%, while non-Hispanic employment rose 4.121M, a 3.4% gain."

2007-08-03
_numen notes_
"You Americans are too honest"
"A few months ago there were 90 of us contract programmers and analysts here in one room, and now there are only 10, and we will all soon be gone.   The guest-workers from India are all calling around looking for new jobs.   My friend Slim was helping 'Rajiv', the guy who sits in the row in front of us, when Raj got a call from a recruiter, and Raj was claiming all sorts of skill-sets that Slim knew he couldn't do.   So Slim asked Raj, 'Why are you telling them that?'.   And Raj said, 'You Americans are too honest.   We lie to get the job, and when we get there, we help each other out.   And if none of us there know how to do it, then we just move on to the next job.'   When I got to this gig, 90 of us came here in the course of a few weeks, and only two of us were Americans.   Now, of the few who are left, most are Americans, because we didn't lie about what we could do.   But the 'Powers That Be' had to try to hire at least 2 guest-workers who couldn't do the job before they would break down and hire an American who could.   And that's how the game works."

2007-08-03
Lily Hsueh _Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco_
Trends in Bay Area IT Employment

2007-08-03
_ICE_
Owner of Tarrasco Steel arrested in ICE probe for hiring illegal alien workers at critical infrastructure construction sites
Michael Newsom: Sun Herald/Free Republic
"Jose S. Gonzalez, 32, was arrested without incident Thursday morning at his office in Greenville, Mississippi.   Gonzalez was involved as a sub-contractor providing steel 're-bar' and installation services to major highway bridge construction projects.   On 2007 March 29, ICE agents conducted coordinated work-site enforcement actions at the Greenville-Arkansas Highway 82 bridge in Greenville, MS; the Huey P. Long bridge in New Orleans, LA; the US 90 bridge in Biloxi, MS; the I-40 seismic retro-fit in Memphis, TN, and the LA-1 bridge in Leeville, LA.   These structures are part of our nation's critical infrastructure and are closely scrutinized when it comes to security matters.   The investigation also revealed that the employees did not have proper welding certifications."

2007-08-03
Christian E. Weller & Amanda Logan _American Progress_
Ignoring the need to invest in USA at our peril
"After reaching 12.6% of gross domestic product in 2000, business investment fell to 9.7% in 2004 March, its lowest level since 1992 September.   Business investment then rebounded, reaching a level of 10.7% of GDP in the third quarter of 2006, before declining to 10.5% in the first quarter of 2007."

2007-08-03

DJIA	13,181.91
S&P 500	1,433.06
NASDAQ	2,511.25
10-year US T-Bond	4.70%
crude oil	75.48
gold	684.40
silver	13.158
platinum	1,298.00
palladium	367.05
copper	0.2174375
natural gas	6.09/MBTU
unleadedgasoline	NYMEX no longer trading
reformulatedgasoline	$2.029/gal
heatingoil	$2.034/gal

I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts and FT Interactive.
 
 

2007-08-04
 

2007-08-05

2007-08-05
Geoff Oldfather _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
Landlord evicts business tenant to make room for Spanish-speakers
"Tom McKenna is a long-time Stuart businessman who speaks only English.   He says that's why he's being kicked out of the storefront on South Dixie Highway where he has run Seacoast Water Care for 7 years...   On July 5 -- the day after Independence Day -- McKenna received a letter from landlord Ivan Munroe telling him to consider another location.   Munroe said in his letter he wants to have 'quality tenants serving the Spanish need in the area'.   'I guess I don't serve the ''Spanish need'', whatever that means.', McKenna said.   'I have plenty of Spanish-speaking workers come in here to buy water for their landscaping crews.', he said.   'And people in the neighborhood use the vending machines out front to fill their water bottles for their homes.'...   Directly south of McKenna's store, across Southeast Ellendale Street, is a Texaco gas station where men, most of whom speak primarily Spanish, gather to wait for someone to hire them for day labor.   The population of the Golden Gate neighborhood east of McKenna's store also has become mostly Spanish-speaking.   To McKenna, that's irrelevant, as it should be.   A customer is a customer is a customer...   Apparently the signs for Seacoast Water Care don't fit in.   They're in English.   Munroe pretty much admitted that's one of the reasons he wants McKenna to move...   Munroe is a private business owner, and he can do anything he wants with his property including fulfill his 'vision'.   But there's a double standard, and I don't think Munroe is a villain as much as he's the symptom of a bigger societal ill: Try telling a minority business owner to leave so you can bring in a quality tenant to serve the need of the English-speaking population."

2007-08-05
Steve Sailer _V Dare_
On Genealogy, Kinship, and Race
"According to Harpending's genetic math, on average, people are as closely related to other members of their sub-racial 'ethnic' group (e.g., Japanese or Italian) versus the rest of the world as they are related to their grand-children or nephews and nieces versus the rest of their ethnic group."

2007-08-05
Drew DeSilver _Seattle Times_
New jobs being created pay less
"most of the new jobs created in the current expansion don't pay all that well, and fewer high-wage jobs have been generated than during the late-1990s boom...   Of the 240K jobs created in Washington between 2002 and 2006, almost 70% were in fields where the average weekly pay was less than $832 a week (or $43,264 a year).   That's the income calculated as a 'living wage' in Washington for a family of 2 adults and 2 children, according to Penn State's Poverty in America project.   Several of the fastest-growing job categories -- in retail, hospitality, agriculture and social services -- were at the lower end of the wage scale.   For instance, more than 26K administrative and support jobs have been created, with an average weekly wage of $605 -- about $31,500 a year.   General retailers added almost 9,900 jobs, paying on average $460.53 a week, or less than $24K a year.   Bars and restaurants generated more than 20K jobs, paying an average of about $280 a week, or $14,550 a year, though those workers rely on tips for much of their pay.   The current recovery has so far generated far fewer high-paying jobs than the last [alleged] boom, which ran roughly from 1995 to 2000.   During those heady dot-com years, businesses statewide created more than 99K jobs paying more than $50K a year -- 30.6% of all new jobs -- primarily in Internet, telecommunications and other high-technology fields.   But between 2002 and 2006, just 57K jobs paying above $50K were created in Washington -- 23.7% of the total.   Many high-paying industries -- notably telecommunications, electronics manufacturing and air transportation -- have continued shedding jobs during the current recovery.   Statewide, those three sectors combined to lose more than 11K jobs, with an average weekly wage of $1,275.59, between 2002 and 2006...   Boeing, which employed 104K Washingtonians at the peak of the last cycle in 1998 June, reported just 71,781 Washington workers at the end of July -- despite the big buildup for the new 787 Dreamliner jet.   The leaner pay-roll is a consequence of the company's aggressive stream-lining of its production processes and out-sourcing of much work previously done in-house.   Out-sourcing has acted to hold down wage levels as well as job counts, said Marilyn Watkins, policy director of the labor-backed Economic Opportunity Institute in Seattle...   The Employment Security Department's April survey of job vacancies found that, of the 87,447 openings reported statewide, 46% paid less than $10 an hour; another 26% paid between $10 and $15 an hour.   Though registered nurses, with a median hourly wage of $23.55, were most in demand, the next highest-demand jobs were cashiers, farm-workers and retail sales-people -- all offering a median wage of $8 an hour."

2007-08-05
_Animate Matters_
Citizens and Aliens part 1: what the US constitution has to say
 

2007-08-06

2007-08-06
Ron Hira _American Prospect_
How guest-work visa programs promote and facilitate out-sourcing and off-shoring
alternate link
"A lobbying coalition of the technology industry and universities is seeking a massive increase in the annual quota of H-1B visas...   The carefully orchestrated public relations blitz included support from editorial boards of major newspapers and well placed news articles...   A number of presidential candidates have taken the bait by publicly supporting an H-1B increase.   The deep pocketed technology industry has made it clear to them it wants something in return for being an ATM to the candidates...   But in reality, the H-1B program has been thoroughly corrupted.   Rather than providing firms with workers who posses unique skills, the program is dominated by low wage workers with ordinary rank-and-file skills.   And rather than preventing work from going over-seas, the program is speeding it up.   Off-shore out-sourcing firms rely on the H-1B and related L-1 programs for 3 principal reasons.   First, it facilitates their knowledge-transfer operations, where they rotate in foreign workers in to learn U.S. workers' jobs.   In fact, U.S. workers are often 'transferring knowledge' under duress.   Second, the H-1B and L-1 programs provide them an inexpensive, on-site presence that enables them to coordinate off-shore functions.   Many functions that are done remotely still require a significant amount of physical presence at the customer site.   For example, according to its own financial reporting, Infosys' on-site workers, almost all of whom are foreign guest-workers, directly accounted for 49.2% of its revenue in its most recent quarter.   Third, the H-1B and L-1 programs allows the U.S. operations to serve as a training ground for foreign workers who then rotate back to their home country to do the work more effectively than they could have without such training in the United States.   A recent BusinessWeek story described Wipro's use of the H-1B program this way: 'Wipro has more than 4K employees in the United States, and roughly 2,500 are on H-1B visas.   About 1K new temporary workers come to the country each year, while 1K rotate back to India, with improved skills to serve clients.'   The abuse of the program is the result of 3 loop-holes...   companies do not have to demonstrate a shortage exists for U.S. workers and can even force a U.S. worker to train his or her foreign replacement.   The U.S. Department of Labor's 2006 Strategic Plan puts it bluntly, 'H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker.'...   The H-1B program's primary safeguard for U.S. as well as H-1B workers is the requirement that an H-1B worker be paid the prevailing wage.   In theory the prevailing wage should be at least the market wage -- the wage paid to an American worker with the same skills -- but in practice the regulation is chock full of loop-holes allowing employers to pay below market wages.   How do we know this?   Employers say so.   The Government Accountability Office conducted interviews of H-1B employers and reported that, 'Some employers said that they hired H-1B workers in part because these workers would often accept lower salaries than similarly qualified U.S. workers; however, these employers said they never paid H-1B workers less than the required [prevailing] wage.'   And examples of approved H-1B applications show how big the cost savings can be.   In 2006, the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) rubber-stamped applications by HCL America, a major off-shore out-sourcing firm, to import 75 computer software engineers at annual salary of $24,710.   That's a 70% discount on the median wage rate for those occupations...   The median wage for new H-1Bs computing professionals is even lower than the salary an entry-level bachelor's degree graduate would command.   So, half of the 52,352 H-1B computing professionals admitted in FY2005 earned less than entry-level wages.   And even at the 75th percentile, new H-1B computing professionals earned just $60K.   A recent study by John Miano found that 56% of the H-1B applications for computing jobs were for the lowest skill level, 'Level 1'.   The DoL defines such jobs as 'internships' or 'workers in training'...   deficient oversight, permeates nearly all aspects of the H-1B program.   This leads to a program with pages of regulations that are essentially ineffective and toothless.   The DoL's own Office of Inspector General has described the labor certification process, the primary means of 'safeguarding the labor market', as simply a 'rubber stamp' of the employer's application.   The process is completely automated, with no person reviewing applications, and the employer is not required to submit any supporting documentation.   Based on its examination of the process, the GAO concluded that, 'as the [H-1B] program currently operates, the goals of preventing abuse of the program and providing efficient services to employers and workers are not being achieved.   Limited by the law, Labor's review of the [labor certification process] is perfunctory and adds little assurance that labor conditions employers attest to actually exist.'...   Cheap labor explains why the H-1B program is over-subscribed and it also explains why the technology industry has fought to expand government intervention to keep wages low.   A sizable share of the U.S. high-tech work-force understands this logic, and justifiably views the H-1B program as a threat and a scam.   That's the real danger to U.S. competitiveness...   7 of the top 10 H-1B employers are off-shore out-sourcing firms -- firms that hire almost no Americans.   Those 7 firms gobbled up nearly 20K visas in 2006 alone.   And each of those 20K positions is used to lever 4 to 5 more workers over-seas.   Many American politicians act oblivious to what is obvious to India's Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath, who recently dubbed the H-1B the 'out-sourcing visa'.   The Indian government views the H-1B as a trade issue, not an immigration one.   As such they view any restriction on the movement of people in the form of wage requirements or caps as a non-tariff barrier to trade.   Their comparative advantage is low cost labor...   By giving the industry a steady diet of cheap labor, there is no reason for companies to expand the domestic talent pool they draw from and invest in American workers to fill these jobs.   And it also gives the companies ample opportunities to replace older workers with younger ones, fueling age discrimination...   A more sensible set of solutions would be 2-fold.   First, significantly increase investments in U.S. students and under-employed workers so they can fill these job openings.   Second, let the market work.   If technology workers are as scarce as companies claim, then wages would be bid up and talented workers would choose engineering instead of more lucrative and safe fields in finance, medicine or law."

2007-08-06 07:23PDT (10:23EDT) (14:23GMT)
_WAVY_/_AP_
CEO turn-over was down in July
"88 CEOs headed for the exits last month.   According to global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, that's a drop of 16% from June and the fewest in 16 months.   The July figure is the lowest of the year and the first time in 2007 that monthly CEO changes totaled fewer than 100."

2007-08-06
Kim Berry _Business Week_
Skilled Workers Deserve True Visa Reform
"The [Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion] legislation that died in the senate was no friend to American workers.   One proposal for a new Z visa would have bestowed millions of U.S. construction, service, and manufacturing jobs to illegal immigrants without first offering these jobs to Americans.   The [RILP] also would have opened the flood-gates for employer-sponsored tech workers on temporary work visas, known as H-1Bs, and green cards...   in 2006 about one-third of green cards went to hourly workers with a median wage under $18 per hour, including thousands of low-skill workers earning $6 to $10 per hour.   Green-card holders with salaries above $120K tend to be managers, attorneys, and medical professionals rather than tech workers.   Only a small fraction of the 140K green cards go to workers engaged in technical innovations or are related to America's global competitiveness -- and even in those rare instances, American workers are generally available for the jobs.   By law, the Labor Secretary may approve green cards only when no qualified Americans are available.   But as a notorious video from a seminar by law firm Cohen & Grigsby revealed this summer, some immigration attorneys try to stack the deck to disqualify every American applicant (see BusinessWeek, 2007/06/21, 'Out-Sourcing: How to Skirt the Law')...   most H-1B applications are at Level One, which is the median of the bottom 25% of American workers.   The result is a 'prevailing wage' $10K to $20K below what average Americans earn.   Tata Consultancy Services Vice-President Phiroz Vandrevala explained how bringing foreign workers into the U.S. on H-1B and L-1 visas gives them a competitive advantage.   'Our wage per employee is 20% to 25% less than U.S. wages for a similar employee.'   These workers then return to India, taking U.S. jobs and technology with them.   If Congress intended to drive U.S. employers off-shore, then the L-1 visa was a success.   By setting up shop in low-wage countries—rather than hiring Americans—employers can rotate in an unlimited number of foreign workers to their U.S. facilities for up to one year while still paying them their foreign wage, which can be $20K or less.   TCS alone has thousands of L-1 workers in the U.S. and has broken ground on a 5K-person facility in Guadalajara, Mexico, which allows them to be closer to U.S. clients and to be in the same time zone. IBM, Intel, M$, and Oracle all rotate in hundreds of L-1 workers as well."
class action against Tata

2007-08-06
Ericka Andersen _Human Events_
Presidential candidates show strength and optimism

2007-08-06 10:00PDT (13:00EDT) (17:00GMT)
David Losey _Conservative Voice_
_In Mortal Danger_ by Tom Tancredo

2007-08-06 14:17:05PDT (17:17:05EDT) (21:17:05GMT)
Angela de Welles _News Zap_
Conflicting opinions surround illegal immigration
"A trio of legislative bills signed into law by governor Janet Napolitano early last month represents the starting point for dealing with the issue of illegal immigration in Arizona, according to some...   House Bill 2779, which of the three bills has created the most debate, imposes penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.   Those sanctions could include the loss of a business license...   The first offense of HB2779 would cause the suspension of a business license for 10 days, while a second offense would cause the business to shut down permanently...   District 22 House representative Eddie Farnsworth (R-Gilbert) said there is a system in place for immigrants to become citizens or legal residents and he does not buy the arguments against the bill, which he says just puts 'teeth' into a law that is already on the books.   'It's been against the law for 20 years.', he said.   'It is illegal for people to hire illegals.'   He supported the bill and said the intent is to take away the motivation for people to cross illegally into Arizona, which he says hurts the state's health care and school systems.   The law allows the state to enforce what has been federal law since the late 1980s, he said."

2007-08-06 15:06:54PDT (18:06:54EDT) (22:06:54GMT)
Pamela Manson _Salt Lake Tribune_
Driver of illegal aliens who were killed pleads guilty
"The driver of a crowded pickup carrying undocumented immigrants that over-turned in June near Hurricane, killing 2 of the passengers, pleaded guilty today to a felony charge.   Eswin Enrique Aquino-Lopez entered a guilty plea to transporting illegal aliens resulting in death, which in his case carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.   The maximum punishment for the offense can be death, but prosecutors decided against seeking that penalty.   Aquino-Lopez, 23, a Guatemalan citizen, is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 5 by U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell.   The truck over-turned on June 7 about 20 miles east of Hurricane on State Road 59, according to the Utah Highway Patrol.   Two Guatemalans who were among eight passengers died.   They have been identified by the Guatemala Consulate as Senayda Solis Monzon, 37, of Retalhuleu, and Pedro Antonio Coycoy, 26, of La Libertad."

2007-08-06
Retha Colclasure _KFYR_
Illegal aliens arested in Morton county ND
"Morton county deputies arrested 2 men who were in the country illegally early yesterday morning.   Sheriff Dave Shipman says they responded to a call about a possible drunk driver north on Highway 1806.   When deputies pulled the car over, they found an intoxicated woman driving and 2 men with her.   Through an interpreter, they told a deputy that they were working for a paving company but didn`t know which one."

2007-08-06
Mladen Rudman _NW Florida Daily News_
John Lollar pre-files to run for Okaloosa county sheriff: Vows to crack down on illegal immigration

2007-08-06
_UPI_
Quarter of work-force have new job regrets
Chicago Sun-Times
Christian Science Monitor
"it's natural to have second thoughts in the first month or 2 of any new job, said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, based in Chicago.   Depending on the severity of the regret, Challenger suggested meeting with a supervisor to discuss the situation or leaving before the regret begins affecting job performance, Challenger told the Chicago Sun-Times.   The 4 reasons people leave a new job are: the position is different from what the job seeker perceived, the new employee does not get along with his or her supervisor, the new employee does not mesh well with co-workers, and the employee is not getting the results expected by either the employee or employer.   Don't compromise 'must haves'.   At any time in the interviewing process, if job seekers think they cannot be themselves, they should immediately rule out the prospective employer.   It will never get better, it can only get worse."

2007-08-06
Barbara Anderson _Web Commentary_
North American Union to get firmed up in secrecy at meeting in Canada

2007-08-06 15:30PDT (18:30EDT) (22:30GMT)
Claudia Parsons _Yahoo!_/_Reuters_
State governments tackle illegal immigration
"state legislatures are passing a growing number of local laws on immigration, according to a report released on Monday.   The National Conference of State Legislatures said state lawmakers had introduced roughly 2.5 times more bills related to immigration in 2007 than in 2006.   So far this year, 170 bills have been enacted in 41 states, up from 84 in 2006...   The report by the NCSL said that by July 2, 1,404 pieces of legislation related to immigration had been introduced among the 50 state legislatures.   The 170 that were enacted covered a range of areas from access to health care and education to eligibility for public benefits and voting rights...   Of the laws enacted, 26 dealt with employment, for example requiring employers to verify workers' status.   11 states, including Texas and Montana, passed legislation cracking down on human trafficking, including by imposing stiffer sentences."

2007-08-06 04:00PDT (07:00EDT) (11:00GMT)
Declan McCullagh _CNET_
Ron Paul: The Internet's favorite candidate

2007-08-06 (5767 Menachem-Av 23)
Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Anti-aristocracy: Understanding the Torah's obligation to tithe
 

2007-08-07

2007-08-07 09:08PDT (12:08EDT) (16:08GMT)
Jonathan Tasini _Huffington Post_
Major unions are ready to make endorsements for candidates... but will they?
"International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers: this is not a large union but it is one of the fastest growing, percentage-wise.   The union's leadership is furious at Clinton for her support for expanding the H-1B visa quotas -- which IFPTE believes costs their members jobs by increasing the number of foreign engineers.   I suspect they would endorse Edwards, if anyone."

2007-08-07
_Human Events_
interview with Ron Paul
"I am not a predictor [of polls].   All I know is I do what I've always done and present the case for freedom and usually there's a receptive audience, whether it was in the campaign that I've run in the past or in this campaign...   my policy is very conservative, very traditional, it's very American, it's very constitutional—it's very Republican.   I think it's the Republicans that have really gone astray, politically...
 
[We've rewarded] people who get weapons.   I mean, what do we do with India?   We give them nuclear technology, and they have a weapon -- they don't follow the NPT.   How about Pakistan? They've over-thrown an elected government.   They have a military dictatorship.   They're harboring Osama bin Laden.   We finance them.   We send them foreign aid.   So, I would say that we reward people with weapons.   Korea showed their might and set off a rinky-dink nuclear weapon, and we're over there begging and pleading and giving them money.   So, I say remove the incentive for doing this, and that is talk to these people...
 
To me, if you over-throw a regime it's an act of war, and it back-fires on us.   It has never served us well over the last 100 years.   It's sort of like what we did with 1953 by installing the Shah.   We worked with the regime, we worked the British then, and we're still suffering the consequences...   There is always some militant-violent-jihadist looking to rally that faction, but they have to have incentives.   The incentive is when we impose our will on them and we get involved in their internal politics.   Besides, it contradicts everything the Founders theorized, and there's no constitutional authority for us to march around the world under-mining different governments...   [I] believe in the Constitution, we don't have that authority.   I believe the Founders were right, and I believe that Jefferson was absolutely right that by staying out of entangling alliances -- which... no UN, no NATO -- which serve the interests of this country right now.   We have no respect for our national sovereignty.   This is why we don't even defend our borders, because we're moving onto a North American union.   So I would say you have to have concern about our national sovereignty and not meld us into these NATO alliances and agreements, that...
 
I voted for the authority to go after those individuals responsible, which was al Qaeda...   And I voted for the money -- probably the only 2 authorities and money that I voted for.   Because it was a direct attack on us and we were pretty confident who did it because they were bragging about it...
 
I think our policies toward Israel are setting the stage for the destruction of Israel, because Israel has sold out their national sovereignty to us...   When Israel attacked the nuclear site in Iraq in the early 1980s, you can go back and find out that I was one of the very few that defended Israel, because they were condemned at that time...   Israel has 300 nuclear weapons and they can take care of themselves.   Matter of fact, in the Persian War, if Israel and maybe some friendly Arab allies who didn't want to see Saddam Hussein spread, I think they could've taken care of Saddam Hussein back in the early 1990s instead of that stuff that we got into now for 17 years.   So I would treat Israel like all friends and treat them respectfully, and friends, and trade with them...
 
we either declare war by the Congress or we don't...   you can't amend the Constitution through treaty...   [Would you project power anywhere in the world?   The United States -- in terms of navy...]   On our borders...   nobody would touch us.   No, I think our influence, our real power is to be... through influence and by setting good examples, set a modern standard for liberty, great prosperity, trade with people, talk with people and be willing to be strong so nobody messes with us.   And, the world would be better off -- we would be better off, and I think the world would be better off.   There will be thugs around and there will be civil wars.   They've been fighting over there for a thousand years...   It's not going to end soon; it's going to end with a bankruptcy.   If we can't get anywhere closer on dealing with the Constitution, and Jefferson, and the old Right, and the Republican position...   We've got to think about it by dollars.   How in the heavens are you going to pay for it?...
 
We don't need it [the Unpatriotic Act] because it's so dangerous: it means national ID cards, it means everything else.   It means a total sacrifice of the Fourth Amendment, the First Amendment, the whole works -- we've just given them away...   They can watch everything that you do, your e-mails.   They can go into your house.   They can go into your financial records, your medical records.   Everything is gone...
 
Before 9/11 and before the Patriot Act we were spending $40G a year on national intelligence, and there was a lot of intelligence.   And buried in that intelligence was the explanation of everything these guys planned and that is well known now.   And there was one CIA or FBI agent that reported something like 70 times -- dozens and dozens of times -- but we have were pilots down here training to fly airplanes but not land them.   Totally ignored.   So it's bureaucracy, it's not a lack of power in the government or a lack of money.   It's so big.   So what did we do?   We created more bureaucracy, undermined more liberties, and spent more money...   It's sort of like gun control.   You know, people with guns commit violent crimes, so the Liberal wants to say, 'let's register the guns of all law abiding citizens'.   What we're doing here is registering all Americans and all this regulation and invasion of our privacy and national ID cards won't do much to find this dozen or so who can probably get around the law or avoid it or participate in it.   So what we're doing is very self-destructive.   All you have to do is go to the airport.   You can't even carry tooth-paste...you know, a tube of tooth-paste on there, because you might be a terrorist.   I mean we've gone nuts, on what we're doing, doing destruction on ourselves...
 
[at this last Supreme Court term, are you happy with the Alito, Roberts picks?]   Well, I would say half the time I am.   But I would admit right now that I probably haven't studied every ruling well enough to make a complete decision on that...   But I believe in civil liberties and I believe in strict interpretation of the Constitution.   But where would they be on the deceleration of war and the 4th amendment?   I'd worry about it...
 
Well I guess we could have a Justice Department.   I guess we could have a State Department, and I guess we could have a Defense Department, and maybe 1 or 2 others more but not many more than that.   I mean… We need to think about a Republican form of government.   I believe in a republic -- little 'R' republic -- and we don't need a Department of Education and a Department of Energy.   We used to win elections on that but not any more.   We doubled the size of all those programs...
 
Well, a President can't do it, Congress has to do it.   But you can probably run them in a different manner.   I mean the Justice Department certainly can be modified.   We don't have to send out the federal police to arrest people smoking marijuana.   Education, I'm sure there's plenty of things that we could do.   But ultimately, it's not the Congress, it's the prevailing will of the people.   But mainly it is about foreign policy...   My idea on this is that you can't turn a switch.   I don't like the Federal Reserve, but I don't have a program where you turn the switch off, because that wouldn't work.   But we ought to legalize freedom, we ought to legalize the Constitution.   Gold and silver ought to be, you know, legal tender.   You can have parallel currencies.   No taxes on gold and silver.   So there is always a parallel program.   On Medicare or Social Security, let the people get out of [them] if they want out, especially the younger generation.   If they don't want Social Security, they ought to be allowed to opt out.   Then the question is, how do you pay for it?   The only way you can pay for it is stop spending this trillion dollars that we're spending over-seas.   Therefore you can finance [socialist insecurity] because it's not all been spent.   If you don't want to have the bankruptcy to come and have everyone out on the streets, what you have to do is cut some place, cut some deficit...
 
So you legalize competition in medicine.   Make sure the medical savings accounts got - Make sure the federal government never interferes with home-schooling and private schooling...
 
The Security and Prosperity Partnership… came out of NAFTA, there have been agreements signed.   Congress is totally ignorant of the whole thing, although there‘s been funds there to study the production of this highway...   The NAFTA Superhighway.   And uh... They're talking about the 'Amero' as a currency.   It's the early stages...   He [the president] is certainly in support it.   That's why he doesn't support us on immigration.   Because he really doesn't care about the borders, he cares about this [North American Union].   Some people theorize that the United Nations is a move towards one world government.   Well, we don't have one world government, but we ought to be concerned about it, because that...   Whether it's the United Nations, the WTO, the IMF or the World Bank, more and more power gravitates to these organizations.   Just as NAFTA does...
 
In my viewpoint, the Constitution has been sold long ago and that the Congress has probably been more responsible than anybody else.   So I don't think there is much left of the Constitution...
 
The message I have is the message of liberty, the message of the Constitution, and believe me, there is a receptive ear to it.   They are sick and tired of this war, they are sick and tired of policing the world, and they are sick and tired of the debt.   They are sick and tired of the entitlements.   $50T, $60T, $70T dollars we can't even imagine, that these young people are obligated to...   Believe me, they are listening out there and they are very upset and they're very annoyed, and they're upset with Republicans and Democrats.   And there is a revolt against the establishment...   the national debt was still going up [in 2001] because we were borrowing from the trust fund so that the national debt was still going up..."
 

2007-08-06 22:07PDT (2007-08-07 01:07EDT) (2007-08-07 05:07GMT)
Deb Nicklay _Globe Gazette_
Ron Paul believes country's freedom and prosperity are threatened

2007-08-07
Ron Brown _Canton Repository_
Ron Paul is the only candidate for president with a long history of standing for freedom

2007-08-07
Craig Crawford _Congressional Quarterly_
Presidential Race Could Use a Course Correction

2007-08-07
Mike Whitney _Atlantic Free Press_
Judgement Week on Wall Street
"We are now beginning to feel the first tremors from the massive credit expansion which began 6 years ago at the Federal Reserve [to counter the continuing Clinton-Bush depression].   The trillions of dollars which were pumped into the global economy via low interest rates and increased money supply have raised the nominal value of equities, but at great cost.   Now, stocks will fall sharply and businesses will fail as volatility increases and liquidity dries up.   Stagnant wages and a declining dollar have thrust the country into a deflationary cycle which has -- up to this point -- been concealed by Greenspan's 'cheap money' policy.   Those days are over.   Economic fundamentals are taking hold.   The market swings will get deeper and more violent as the Fed's massive credit bubble continues to unwind.   Trillions of dollars of market value will vanish over-night.   The stock market will go into a long-term swoon.   Ludwig von Mises summed it up like this: 'There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion.   The question is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.'   (Thanks to the Daily Reckoning)...   The dollar is falling, employment and manufacturing are weakening, new car sales are off for the seventh straight month, consumer spending is down to a paltry 1.3%, and oil is hitting new highs every day as it marches inexorably towards a $100 per barrel...   Apart from the 2 million-plus foreclosures, and the 80 or so mortgage lenders who have filed for bankruptcy; a growing number of investment firms are feeling the pinch from the turmoil in real estate.   Bear Stearns; Basis Capital Funds Management, Absolute Capital, IKB Deutsche Industrial Bank AG, Commerzbank AG, Sowood Capital Management, C-Bass, UBS-AG, Caliber Global Investment and Nomura Holdings Inc. are all either going under or have taken a major hit from the troubles in sub-prime...   Leveraged Buy Outs (LBOs) have been a dependable source of market liquidity.   But, not any more.   In the last quarter, there was $57G in LBOs.   In the first month of this quarter that amount dropped to less than $2G...   Representative Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate who supports abolishing the Federal Reserve."

2007-08-07
_Charleston Daily Mail_
Vents
"Ron Paul believes in limited federal government and limited taxes.   He even wants to end the income tax.   Can you imagine taking home your whole pay-check?"

2007-08-07 08:50PDT (11:50EDT) (15:50GMT)
Marianne Williamson _Huffington Post_
Truth Be Told

2007-08-07
Jacob Adelman _AP_/_San Diego Union-Tribune_
US citizen mistakenly deported
"He was jailed on a misdemeanor trespassing violation and then deported to Mexico on May 11, according to authorities, after he allegedly told immigration and sheriff's officials that he was an illegal immigrant."

2007-08-07
Brent Whiting _Arizona Republic_
Over 40 illegal aliens found in west Phoenix drop-house

2007-08-07
Joe Tacopino _Pop Matters_
Boys on the Bus #11
"his common sense approach is refreshing and more importantly he exposes the other candidates weaknesses.   The rest of the GOP field is entangled with special interests and institutions like the religious right and the military industrial complex.   What Ron Paul gives us is a good dose of honesty."

2007-08-07
_National Review_
Is 2008 the New 1964?

2007-08-07
_iGaming Business_
US On-Line Act gets endorsement from presidential candidate

2007-08-07
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee _Information Week_/TechWeb_/_CMP_
Wipro is expanding US operations through $600M acquisition of Infocrossing
alternate link
Wipro median salaries by city

2007-08-07
"Hamous" _Lone Star Times_
Looking for Pork and Shrimp in the Constitution

2007-08-07
Kathryn Fiegen _Iowa City Press-Citizen_
Candidate stresses hands-off philosophy
"'We just need to follow what we have.', he told the Press-Citizen's editorial board Monday, alluding to his belief that the country should govern itself in accordance with the U.S. Constitution...   Paul said his support has been growing, mostly on the Internet, and he thinks he just is joining something that existed, his candidacy.   'I've sort of joined a campaign, rather than creating one to join.', he said."

2007-08-07
_Raw Story_/_AFP_
The bullet and the ballot: US gun owners eye election choices

2007-08-07
_Free Market News_
ABC & CNN should explain botched debate poll and comment board deletions
"CNN 'mislaid' commentary favorable to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and ABC has apparently done so in the past as well.   But it would seem, from reader reaction to a previous FMNN article 'ABC Reset Republican Debate Tally After Ron Paul Win?' that ABC is at it again -- and pervasively...   But now that reader reactions have updated the story, it seems as if the tinkering with poll results and with the commentary board itself was pervasive.   ABC is one of the biggest media franchises in America, and such franchises present themselves as deadly serious about maintaining and building trust with viewers...   if it wants to maintain the credibility of such, it ought to explain what is going on with its fluctuating poll numbers and even with the removal of commentary on its boards."

2007-08-07
Maggie O'Brien _Des Moines Register_
Ron Paul says he's a traditional conservative Republican
"The 200-plus Council Bluffs supporters comprised mostly college students and young families.   At age 71, Paul is the oldest candidate in the race for the White House...   Paul said he doesn't feel safe from terrorism because of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and that the terrorist attacks of 2001 Sept. 11 could have been prevented had pilots been allowed to carry weapons -- a personal and Constitutional right.   'I think the Second Amendment would have prevented 9/11.', he said.   Paul, a former obstetrician-gynecologist who opposes abortion, is a strong advocate for rights spelled out in the Constitution.   He refuses to vote for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution."

2007-08-07
Jackson Baker _Memphis Flyer_
The Ron Paul Revolution, Memphis-Style

2007-08-07
_KTIV_
Ron Paul says young voters are key to presidential race
"'The number one obligation of anyone representing us in Washington is to obey their oath of office and to obey the constitution.', explains Paul.   At a campaign event in Lawton, Iowa, Texas Congressman Ron Paul speaks passionately about his views on abortion, tax reform, and education.   A strict constitutionalist, Paul doesn't agree with any laws or programs that weren't authorized by our founding fathers.   'I won't go to war without a declaration.   If the constitution says money should be gold and silver, then money should be gold and silver.', says Paul.   At almost 72, Paul's the oldest presidential candidate in the race, but young people are the reason he's running for the White House."

2007-08-07
_DiGiTAL50_
Hitwise launched Election 2008 Data Center
Web Pro News
Information Week/CMP
Data Center

2007-08-07
_Animate Matters_
Citizens and Aliens part 2: Quotes from the founding fathers

2007-08-07 (5767 Menachem-Av 23)
Estee Rieder _Jewish World Review_
What's in a name: Origins of surnames (nachnamen)

2007-08-07 (5767 Menachem-Av 23)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
A bridge too far gone
"It is not just the people but the incentives that are responsible for the neglect of infrastructure, while tax money is lavished on all sorts of less urgent projects...   the same incentives will remain when new leaders take over...   The real problem is that the political incentives are to spend the [tax-victims'] money on things that will enhance politicians' chances of getting re-elected.   There may be enough money available to maintain bridges and other infrastructure but that same money can have a bigger political pay-off if spent building something new instead of maintaining and repairing existing structures...   But there are no ribbon-cutting ceremonies when bridges are being repaired or pot-holes are being filled in.   These latter activities may be more valuable than a community center or a golf course, but they are not nearly as photogenic...   A company that has to get the money to build and maintain bridges or other infrastructure through the voluntary actions of people in the financial markets, instead of being able to extract money from the [tax-victims], is going to find financiers a lot more finicky about what is being done with their money.   People who are putting their own money on the line are going to want to have their own experts taking a look under the bridges they finance, to see where there are rust, cracks or crumbling supports.   When people know that the law-suits that are sure to follow after a bridge collapses are going to drain millions of dollars of their own money -- not the [tax-victims'] money -- that keeps the mind focussed."
 

2007-08-08

2007-08-07 18:11:19PDT (2007-08-07 21:11:19EDT) (2007-08-08 01:11:19GMT)
_Pasadena Star News_
Border death stirs debate
"dozens of posts pouring onto web sites honoring America's border patrol agents, messages left in tribute to Eric Cabral, 31, who died while on duty over the weekend from heat-related causes.   Cabral, an Azusa Pacific University graduate, obtained his master of science degree in physical education in 2003 from the local Christian college.   Not only did he study the human body, he put his education into practice -- he was in superb physical shape.   The Associated Press reported his physical stamina impressed his superiors at the Border Patrol Academy in New Mexico, where Cabral graduated in 2006.   The ironies don't stop there.   While we often hear of suspected illegal immigrants dying during a tortuous journey through the desert and mountains between Mexico and the U.S., Cabral is the first border patrol agent to die from extreme weather.   The news reports don't say enough about Border Patrol agents who work in the same heat and humidity that can define the 1,952-mile border 6 months or more out of the year.   Some say the combination of 95-degree heat and high humidity conspired against Cabral while chasing suspected illegal immigrants near Jacumba, a small village 60 miles east of San Diego.   When he didn't rendezvous with his partner, a search was launched.   His body was found with a head gash, a canteen that still had water in it next to him."

2007-08-08
Jerry Seper _Washington Times_
Border Patrol agent charged with 2nd degree murder as result of fatality in scuffle with 6 illegal aliens
"Mr. Corbett, 39, initially was charged with first-degree and second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide in the death of Mr. Dominguez-Rivera, 22, of Puebla, Mexico -- killed during what the Border Patrol said was a scuffle between the agent and as many as 6 illegal aliens attempting to cross into the United States.   The shooting occurred on the border about 100 miles southeast of Tucson, AZ, along a popular alien- and drug-smuggling corridor.   Mr. Corbett told colleagues he feared for his life and used deadly force to keep the man from throwing a large rock at him.   But the Arizona chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 11K of the agency's non-supervisory agents, said the Mexican Consulate in Douglas, AZ, tainted the investigation by interviewing some of the 6 witnesses to the shooting before U.S. investigators.   Agent Brandon Judd, vice president of Local 2544, called the charges part of a nationwide pattern of politically motivated prosecutions against Border Patrol agents.   He said the matching testimony of 3 of the witnesses had more to do with their blood ties and influence from the Mexican Consulate than what happened."

2007-08-08 00:12:46PDT (03:12:46EDT) (07:12:46GMT)
Mark P. Couch _Denver Post_
Colorado governor Bill Ritter orders review to ensure conscientious enforcement of state's immigration laws
"Colorado governor Bill Ritter ordered his administration to review how the state is handling its get-tough immigration laws in the wake of disclosures that most laws haven't been rigorously enforced...   'I am not aware of any government agency under governor Ritter's control that is taking these illegal immigration laws seriously.', [senator David Schultheis (R-Colorado Springs)] said."

2007-08-08
T.J. Schick _Morning Call_
Internet is changing the way politicians campaign

2007-08-08
Ralph Z. Hallow _Washington Times_
Republicans pan Specter's immigration proposal

2007-08-08
Jay Walters _Pittsburgh Tribune-Review_
Ron Paul's message is inspiring
"After attending Friday's rally in Marshall for presidential candidate U.S. representative Ron Paul, R-Texas, with approximately 1K others, I eagerly awaited reading about the event in Saturday's Trib.   I must say that I was very disappointed to find no mention of it in the paper...   Unfortunately it is this attitude on the part of the media, the major political parties and the public that has gotten our country into the mess it is in today.   It seems as if repeating the 'talking points' of the major parties has become more prevalent than actually discussing and debating the issues.   I found Dr. Paul's message to be so inspiring that I shall change my party affiliation so that I may vote for him in the next primary election."

2007-08-08
Linda Schrock Taylor _Lew Rockwell_
Let the Tower of Power Fall
"Only one, representative Ron Paul, spoke courageously, with conviction, of the rightness of the Constitution; the wrongness of the State tower as it now lords over the land; of the harm done by misuse of power; of the rightness of returning power to the People.   We need Ron Paul to guide us as we disassemble the misshapen and misbegotten structure; to reveal the essence that was, and will again be, The United Individual States of America."

2007-08-08
Louie Gilot _El Paso Times_
Stalled van on bridge, filled with 5,769 pounds of marijuana led to charges against customs officer
"CBP officer Margaret Crispin, 32, has been charged with conspiracy to import a controlled substance for allegedly allowing loads of marijuana to pass through her bridge lanes unchecked for the past 4 years.   If convicted, she faces 10 years to life in prison.   Tuesday, she was denied bond by U.S. District Judge Richard P. Mesa after prosecutors and their witness, Byers, said Crispin owned property and had family in Juárez, making her a flight risk...   Byers mentioned at least three drug smugglers who are expected to testify against Crispin.   One of them was identified as Samuel Baltazar, who said he smuggled 5 to 6 loads through Crispin's lane in a year's time in 2003 and 2004, according to Byers' testimony.   Baltazar also allegedly took part in a meeting of a drug-trafficking organization in which Crispin suggested they build fake speaker boxes to conceal the drugs...   Crispin's indictment, partially unsealed last Tuesday, shows there are 7 indicted conspirators, but only one of them whose name was disclosed.   He is Roberto Carlos Murguia Ramirez, nicknamed 'Philly'...   Tuesday in court, Byers said ICE agents spent months watching Crispin's behavior at work on the Paso del Norte Bridge.   He said she communicated with look-outs on the bridge through her cell phone."

2007-08-08
George Chidi & Mary Lou Pickel _Atlanta Journal-Constitution_
Gwinnett county ordinance would limit occupancy of homes
"Commissioner Bert Nasuti asked county staffers to investigate revising an existing ordinance that says up to 8 people can live in a household.   He said the current ordinance is hard to enforce...   Last year, Roswell limited the number of unrelated residents who can live in the same house.   Many counties and cities have called Cobb county recently to ask for a copy of its new housing ordinance, which commissioners say is easier to enforce than an old regulation.   Cobb's new ordinance uses square footage to limit the number of adults who can live in a home.   It limits occupancy to at least 390 square feet of 'total building square footage' for each adult and for each car parked over-night.   The rule also limits the number of people living in a home to 1 family or 2 or fewer unrelated adults and their children and/or grand-children.   Family is defined as parents, children, grand-parents, grand-children, brothers and sisters...   Gwinnett's current rules require 75 square feet of sleeping space for the first resident of a house and 50 square feet for each additional resident.   Gwinnett began restricting homes to 8 residents in 2005 September, regardless of whether the occupants are related."

2007-08-08
Liza Mitchell _Culpeper county Star Exponent_
Culpeper county supervisors unanimously designated English as the official language, offer to work with other localities to address problems with illegal aliens
Fredericksburg Free-Lance - Star
Newport News Daily Press
"Without a single comment, the board unanimously approved a resolution declaring English to be the county's official language.   Moments later, they resolved, again without discussion or dissent, to join other counties in seeking the General Assembly's help in grappling with problems caused by undocumented immigrants."

2007-08-08 15:13PDT (18:13EDT) (22:13GMT)
Alicia A. Caldwell _AP_/_San Francisco Chronicle_
Maintaining the border fence is a non-stop job
"Every day, Eddie Lujan and fellow members of his Border Patrol welding team go out and fix holes cut in a 12-mile border fence the night before by illegal immigrants sneaking across from Mexico...   Congress has authorized [only] $1.2G for about 700 miles of fencing, including about 330 miles of a so-called virtual fence -- a network of cameras, high-tech sensors, radar and other technology.   The remaining 370 miles, primarily in more urban areas, are expected to have an actual, 2-layer fence.   Salvador Zamora, assistant Border Patrol agent in charge of the El Paso station, said no amount of vigilance -- including constantly wandering patrol agents, pole-mounted cameras trained on the border and underground sensors -- is going to prevent someone from taking a pair of bolt cutters to the fence...   Lujan's crew, consisting of 2 Border Patrol agents and 2 National Guard engineers, then goes out and repairs them, patching perhaps 15 to 20 holes a day...   And for every cut, Lujan said, 3 to 5 people are probably making their way across the levee road, into a nearby canal and onto a highway, eventually reaching a neighborhood..."

2007-08-08
Sara A. Carter _Washington Times_
Terrorists are teaming with drug cartels
"Islamic extremists embedded in the United States -- posing as Hispanic nationals -- are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report...   The 2005 report outlines an ongoing scheme in which multiple Middle Eastern drug-trafficking and terrorist cells operating in the U.S.A. fund terror networks over-seas, aided by established Mexican cartels with highly sophisticated trafficking routes.   These terrorist groups, or sleeper cells, include people who speak Arabic, Spanish and Hebrew and, for the most part, arouse no suspicion in their communities...   According to a Department of Homeland Security intelligence report obtained by The Times, nearly every part of the Border Patrol's national strategy is failing.   'Al Qaeda has been trying to smuggle terrorists and terrorist weapons illegally into the United States.', the 2006 document states.   'This organization has also tried to enter the U.S.A. by taking advantage of its most vulnerable border areas.   The seek to smuggle OTMs [other than Mexicans] from Middle Eastern countries into the U.S.A.'   Peter Brown, terrorism and security consultant, stated that the 'biggest element' to the DEA report is the ease with which terrorist cells have taken on new identities...   Lending credence to Mr. Brown's concern, an El Paso, Texas, law-enforcement report documents the influx of 'approximately 20 Arab persons a week utilizing the Travis county Court in Austin to change their names and driver's licenses from Arabic to Hispanic surnames'.   Under the current drug-intelligence collection, analysis and reporting posture, the DEA runs the risk of failing to detect or report the entry of terrorists, weapons of mass destruction or portable conventional weapons into the United States, according to the DEA document.   Many times, smugglers don't know what they are transporting."

2007-08-08
Randall Burns _V Dare_
Does H-1B Expansion Mean Gender Bias?

2007-08-08 (5767 Menachem-Av 24)
Daniel Pipes _Jewish World Review_
Countries threatened with extinction

2007-08-08 (5767 Menachem-Av 24)
John Stossel _Jewish World Review_
Let Wisconsin experiment with socialized medicine: Their suffering will be for the greater good
"We need laboratories of failure to demonstrate what socialism is like.   All we have now is Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, the U.S. Post Office, and state motor-vehicle departments."

2007-08-08 (5767 Menachem-Av 24)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Sub-prime politicians
"As of 2002, fewer than 10% of the new mortgages in the United States were of this type.   But, by 2006, 31% of all new mortgages were of this 'creative' or risky type.   In the San Francisco Bay Area, 66% of the new mortgages were of this type.   Why this difference in times and places?   Because housing prices were sky-rocketing in some places and times, so that people of modest incomes had to go out on a limb to buy a house, if they expected to buy a house at all.   But why were housing prices going up so fast, in the first place?   A number of studies of communities across the United States and in countries overseas turned up the same conclusion: Government restrictions on building...   In places that resisted this political rhetoric, home prices remained reasonable, despite rising incomes and population growth.   Construction costs were seldom a major factor, for there was relatively little construction in places with severe building restrictions and sky-rocketing home prices."

2007-08-08
Lincoln Kahn _V Dare_
Prominent Illegal Aliens
"Victor Toro, who has spent the last 2 decades promoting the [privileges] of illegal aliens in the Bronx, New York, was arrested on July 6th...   In the early 1970s Toro was one of the three founders of a Chilean political party called the MIR, or the Movement of the Revolutionary Left.   Yes, Toro was an avowed Communist and fervent admirer of Fidel Castro who sought the overthrow of his country's elected democratic government.   He stood even further out on the left than Salvador Allende.   Toro was forced into exile when Augusto Pinochet came to power in a coup, restored order and rebuilt the economy.   In the years that followed, Toro claims, he drifted about Europe.   At some point, though, he wound up living in Cuba.   It was there, in 1980, that his daughter was born.   But, like so many extremists, it seems that Toro was in favor of the revolution in principle but eager to enjoy the fruits of capitalism in practice.   So he moved to the U.S. and set up a storefront organization promoting radical agitation in the Bronx.   His presence in the Bronx, of course, not only violated U.S. immigration laws, but was also almost certainly a violation of the McCarran-Walter Act, which barred political undesirables from entering the country.   (McCarran-Walter was repealed by the Immigration Act Of 1990, after Toro settled in the USA.)"

2007-08-08 (5767 Menachem-Av 24)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Sub-prime politicians

2007-08-08
Bret Hayworth _Sioux City Journal_
Ron Paul preaches non-intervention and less government
 

2007-08-09

2007-08-09 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 270,634 in the week ending Aug. 4, an increase of 13,320 from the previous week.   There were 275,430 initial claims in the comparable week in 2006.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.9% during the week ending July 28, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,454,282, an increase of 5,281 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.8% and the volume was 2,366,848.   Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending July 21."
graphs

2007-08-09 02:25PDT (05:25EDT) (09:25GMT)
Jim Kouri _Conservative Voice_
Illegal Alien Gang Violence Has Been Increasing

2007-08-09
Jason Pulliam _Des Moines Register_
Ron Paul condemns loss of civil liberties

2007-08-09
Jerry Seper _Washington Times_
National Guard troops are being pulled from the border
"The reductions, which began July 1 and will be completed by Sept. 1, will result in a cut of Guard troops in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas from 6K to 3K -- half of that promised by Mr. Bush in 2006.   In Arizona, the nation's most popular alien- and drug-smuggling corridor, the number of troops will be cut from 2,400 to 1,200.   Mr. Bush ordered the National Guard troops' deployment while the Border Patrol recruited, hired, trained and assigned 6K new agents, a recruitment goal the agency expected to reach by the end of 2008.   The White House did not return a call yesterday for comment, but officials at Homeland Security told reporters the Guard troops being withdrawn have been assigned to administrative support or maintenance work and are being replaced...   Members of New Mexico's congressional delegation also have asked Mr. Bush not to cut the number of National Guard troops stationed along that state's border with Mexico...   From Oct. 1 through June 30, Border Patrol agents apprehended 682,468 illegal aliens, compared with 894,496 during the same period last year.   While arrests declined, at the same time the amount of drugs seized on the border increased, with Border Patrol agents seizing more than 1.47M pounds of marijuana (a 27% increase) and 9,514 pounds of cocaine (a 22% increase)...   The National Guard troops were assigned to build additional roads and fences, add cameras and sensors, conduct aerial reconnaissance and provide medical aid and communications support.   They also performed administrative duties, gathered intelligence from border cameras for agents to act upon, assisted at highway checkpoints and served on entry-identification teams."

2007-08-09
_KSDK_
Missouri state legislator Nathan Cooper pled guilty to visa fraud
"Cooper, who represents the Cape Girardeau area, is also an immigration lawyer.   He took advantage of a temporary visa program to help clients in the trucking business.   The program, called H2B, allows companies who need seasonal workers, and can't find enough locally, to get temporary work visas so they can hire workers who are not U.S. citizens.   Prosecutors say the trucking company didn't need seasonal workers, but Cooper ignored the law and convinced a [federal] government agency to issue the visas anyway.   Cooper took in $50K in legal fees over a 2 year period from clients in the trucking industry to obtain the illicit visas...   Cooper, 33, pleaded guilty to one felony count of visa fraud and one felony count of making a false statement to the Department of Labor.   The maximum sentence would be 15 years in prison and fines up to $500K."

2007-08-09
Russ Flanagan _New Jersey Express-Times_
Pennsylvania judge calls for immigration laws that allow more local participation to deal with illegal aliens
"A Pennsylvania Superior Court judge ripped the federal government's enforcement of immigration laws Wednesday, saying they allow too many illegal aliens to slip through the cracks.   Speaking before the local Kiwanis Club, judge Correale F. Stevens said there have been several instances in which local police have arrested illegal immigrants only to be told by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement to set them free.   Stevens said ICE often doesn't prosecute illegal immigrants for small crimes such as parking tickets, traffic violations or low-level misdemeanors...   Stevens called for passage of federal legislation that would allow local and state police to arrest illegal immigrants without federal approval.   It also would allow district attorneys to prosecute them and county judges to hold deportation hearings, he said."

2007-08-09
Brad Bumsted _Pittsburgh Tribune-Review_
Next battleground on illegals: State aid

2007-08-09
John W. Lillpop _Huntington News_
San Francisco: Home to king and queen of corruption

2007-08-09
Dan Moran _Lake County News Sun_
Waukegan mayor on immigration issues
"Mayor Richard Hyde said he has an understanding of why immigrants will come to the U.S.A. without permission.   'I've been to Mexico 3 times, (and) I have never seen slums like that in my life.', he said, speaking about neighborhoods he encountered when venturing away from tourist centers.   He added that poor communities that he's visited in [Red China], Japan and Appalachia are worse than what he's seen in Mexico...   But while expressing compassion for those affected by the economic conditions south of the border, Hyde said he still [thinks] it is wrong to come to the U.S.A. without going through the system..."

2007-08-09
_Arizona Daily Star_
50 illegal aliens in tractor-trailer
"Federal agents at an inland immigration check-point found 50 illegal immigrants locked inside a tractor trailer, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday...   All were being processed for deportation."

2007-08-09
Will Bigham _Ontario Daily Bulletin_
David Dreier is hopeful for immigration law reform
"Dreier said he opposed any effort to offer citizenship or federal welfare benefits to illegal immigrants because he feared such a bill would offer incentives for immigrants to enter the country illegally in the future...   Since Ramos and Compean were jailed in January, an increasing number of politicians have called for their respective 11- and 12-year sentences to be commuted.   Dreier believes the men should be pardoned and has expressed his feelings to President Bush, but opposes recent efforts in Congress to force a pardon."

2007-08-09
Jacques Billeaud _AP_/_Arizona Daily Star_
Maricopa county sheriff Joe Arpaio vowed to arrest illegal aliens from visiting prisoners
"In addition to arresting more than 600 people under the state's immigrant-smuggling law, Arpaio had 120 deputies and jail officers specially trained in enforcing federal immigration law.   He also has set up a hot line for people to report information about illegal immigrants...   Arpaio said his officers don't racially profile people and that deputies have treated the 1K tips received since July 20 with great care.   The hot line has led to eight arrests."

2007-08-09
James Conmy _Hazleton Standard Speaker_
Police arrest illegal alien accused of murder
"An illegal immigrant accused of fatally stabbing a 44-year-old father of 2 in New York City last week was nabbed in West Hazleton early Wednesday morning.   The arrest marks the seventh time this year someone wanted for murder in a big city or different state was arrested in Luzerne county.   Three uniformed Pennsylvania state troopers and several New York City detectives took Mejia Cinto into custody at a Roosevelt Street home without incident, said Luzerne county Assistant District Attorney Tim Doherty.   The 19-year-old, who emigrated from Mexico, is charged with stabbing Anthony Senisi, the brother of a New York City police officer, once in the chest on Aug. 4."

2007-08-09
Sara A. Carter _Washington Times_
Hearing sought on terrorists entering USA via Mexico

2007-08-09
Douglas M. Bloomfield _New Jersey Jewish News_
The Republican field and the Jewish vote

2007-08-09
Rick Klein & Jennifer Parker _abc_
Fun and fire-arms at the Ames straw poll

2007-08-09
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
Red China's Nuclear Option

2007-08-09
Suzanne Gamboa _AP_/_Philadelphia Inquirer_
Federal government pledges to step up enforcement of immigration laws
Orangeburg Times & Democrat
Politico
National Review
composite: "An outline of the announcement, obtained by The Associated Press from a congressional aide, said the administration plans to expand the list of international gangs whose members are automatically denied admission to the U.S., reduce processing times for immigrant background checks and install by the end of the year an exit system so the departure of foreigners from the country can be recorded at airports and sea-ports.   In addition, employers will face possible criminal sanctions if they don't fire employees unable to clear up problems with their [Socialist Insecurity numbers, SINs].   Also, the Homeland Security Department will ask states to voluntarily share their driver's license photos and records with the agency for use in an employment verification system.   The sharing is meant to help employers detect fraudulent licenses, according to the summary...   Some members have kept up efforts to tighten the border.   Last month, the Senate added $3G to a Homeland Security bill to be used for U.S.-Mexico border security.   The Department of Labor will reform the H-2A agriculture worker program so farmers can readily hire legal temporary workers, while protecting their rights.   The Department of Labor will issue regulations stream-lining the H-2B program for non-agricultural seasonal workers.   The Department of Homeland Security will extend, from 1 year to 3, the length of the NAFTA-created TN visa for professional workers from Canada and Mexico, removing the administrative hassle of annual renewals for these talented workers.   The Office of Citizenship will unveil in September a revised naturalization test that emphasizes fundamentals of American democracy, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.   The Office of Citizenship will introduce a web-based electronic training program and convene eight regional training conferences for volunteers and adult educators who lead immigrants through the naturalization process.   The Department of Education will develop a free, web-based model to help immigrants learn English."

2007-08-09 (5767 Menachem-Av 25)
Libby Lazewnik _Jewish World Review_
Shock Treatment
 

2007-08-10

2007-08-10
Heather Whipps _Live Science_/_Yahoo!_
8K year old settlement found on the floor of English Channel
"The site, just off the Isle of Wight, dates back 8K years, not long before melting glaciers filled in the Channel and likely drove the settlement's last occupants north to higher ground...   'With under-water sites, all the trappings of a society are going to remain, not just the stone.', Momber said.   The trade-off is an environment that can carry away the precious remains at any time—a real concern at the Isle of Wight settlement."

2007-08-10
Warner Todd Huston _Thomas Brewton_
Immigration

2007-08-10
Diane Alden _News Max_
Yet another way the Clintons sold out America
"In 2004, 2 powerful members of the U.S. senate instituted something called the India Caucus.   New York senator Hillary Clinton and Texas senator John Cornyn put together an alliance giving special status to foreign interests including what appears to be sale of U.S. visas (student and work) in exchange for favors, campaign contributions, and God only knows what else...   Hillary accepted $60K in contributions from employees of Cisco System; Clinton's Presidential Exploratory Committee took $39,450 from Cisco employees during the first quarter of 2007.   Cisco employees have also donated $18,900 to Clinton's Senate committee between 1999 and 2006.   Bill Clinton received $300K from Cisco for 2 speeches, $150K on 2006/05/18 and 2006/08/17 (Hillary Clinton 2006 Financial Disclosure Report; 3,4)...   During fiscal year 2006 an official count of 43,167 H-1B visas were granted to Indians...   In total, 358,734 temporary visas were issued to Indians in U.S. fiscal year 2006..."

2007-08-10
Don Lee _Civil Engineering News_
H-1B Battle
The proposal to allow [science, technology, engineering, and math] (STEM) degree holders to proceed directly to a green card appears to be a direct end run around the H-1B limits.   These people still will work for less just to get that all important 'job offer'.   The reason tech companies cannot get enough engineers is because they do not pay salaries commensurate with the intelligence and effort required for an engineering degree.   Since the number of people capable of obtaining an engineering degree is limited by intelligence and drive, employers can ensure an adequate supply only by paying salaries high enough to attract a larger percentage of these people.   The [American Council of Engineering Companies] obviously supports [the STEM proposal] because they are employers and have a vested interest in keeping salaries as low as possible.   This was true 40 years ago when the aerospace was using [foreign workers] and is still true today.   The threat from foreign workers is real at both the top and bottom of the job-skill spectrum."

2007-08-10
Kareem Fahim, Andrew Jacobs, John Eligon, David Kocieniewski, Serge F. Kovaleski & Jonathan Miller _NY Times_
Illegal alien pled not guilty of Newark murders
"A third suspect, identified as a teen-ager, has been arrested in the execution-style slayings of 3 students here Saturday night, the authorities said.   The 2 others charged so far are a 28-year-old construction worker and a 15 year old.   The construction worker, Jose Carranza, is an illegal immigrant from Peru who now also faces an order of detention against him by federal authorities, his lawyer and judicial officials said today.   Mr. Carranza pleaded not guilty to the murder and other charges at an arraignment this morning...   Mr. Carranza, who lives in Orange, had been out on $150K bail pending trial on 2 separate indictments: sexual assault on a young girl in his care over 4 years when she was 5 to 9; and aggravated assault stemming from a bar fight last year.   He turned himself in to Mayor Booker personally Thursday, about 12 hours after a 15-year-old, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, was arrested on the same charges...   Mr. Carranza faces 3 murder charges, 1 charge of attempted murder and robbery...   'Our work is only just starting.', said Garry F. McCarthy, the city's police director.   'We only got 40% of them.'"

2007-08-10
Rabbi Y. Reuven Rubin _Rhythm of the Heart_
Stress

2007-08-10 05:59PDT (08:59EDT) (12:59GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
US import prices were 1.5% higher in July
BLS data
"Prices of imports from [Red China] rose 0.4% in July -- the largest monthly increase since the index was first published in 2003 December.   Prices of [Red Chinese] imports were up 0.9% from a year earlier."

2007-08-10
Jewel Gopwani _Detroit Free Press_
Auto experts warn suppliers of risks of rushing to off-shore
"'I think there is a tendency that I must go global because everyone else is going global.', said Kim Korth, president of Grand Rapids-based consulting firm IRN Inc.   'Chasing dollar and low-value costs around the world really isn't in a company's best interests.'...   For more complex components such as instrument panels, where intellectual property could be at risk, and a supplier could erode their savings with shipping costs, Hill said it would be better for a supplier to stay in its own market."

2007-08-10 08:35PDT (11:35EDT) (15:35GMT)
Simon Kennedy & Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Central banks injecting billions to money supplies
"The European Central Bank said it had provided 61G euros ($84G) to banks in a 3-day tender offer, and the U.S. Federal Reserve carried out 2 three-day repurchase agreements totalling $35G.   In Asia, the Bank of Japan supplied 1T yen ($8.48G) after a rise in the over-night call rate.   And The Reserve Bank of Australia added A$4.95G ($4.17G).   The Fed said it will provide reserves 'as necessary' to promote trading in the federal funds market at rates close to 5.25%, the base rate.   Other central banks made similar pledges about being willing to lend more.   The over-night rates at which banks lend money to each other rose again Friday, with the dollar-denominated rate hitting 5.96% from 5.86% the previous day, according to data from the British Bankers' Association.   The loans by the ECB follow the roughly 95G euros it handed out in its biggest-ever cash injection Thursday, in the aftermath of over-night interest rates spiking.   Unlike on Thursday, however, the ECB's latest loans didn't match all the demands made.   It received 62 bids for a total of just over 110G euros, the central bank said.   The weighted average allotment rate was 4.08%, it added...   Banc of [India] Securities analyst Kamal Sharma said..."

2007-08-10 08:44PDT (11:44EDT) (15:44GMT)
John C. Dvorak _MarketWatch_
Counterfeiting has long been more than a mere annoyance

2007-08-10 11:21PDT (14:21EDT) (18:21GMT)
Mike Boyer & Cliff Peale _Cincinnati Enquirer_
Indian bodyshop eyes Cincinnati periphery
WKRC
"The information technology unit of India's largest industrial conglomerate is interested in creating a corporate office employing 1K in either Butler county or Clermont county.   Tata Consultancy Services, part of the Tata Group consisting of nearly 100 companies with $22G in revenues, assisted by the Cincinnati USA Partnership and the Ohio Department of Development, has been looking at sites in the region for a few months.   It has narrowed its search to sites in Butler county's West Chester twp or Clermont county's Miami twp, according to local real estate sources.   Governor Ted Strickland met with local officials a couple weeks ago to brief them on the project, which would include transferring 300 jobs here and creating 700 new jobs [for Indians].   A spokesman for the governor's office and Tata didn't immediately return calls for comment.   Greg Jolivette, president of the Butler county Commission, confirmed this morning that the county is competing to win a major new economic development project from an international company, but declined to identify it...   One source said Tata was looking for about 150K square-feet of space in an office-campus setting, not in a single building.   One of the sites believed under consideration is adjacent to the Streets of West Chester retail center off Union Centre Boulevard across Interstate 75 from the under-construction Ikea store [in West Chester twp Butler county, N of Sharonville and NE of Springdale].   In Miami twp [Clermont county], the Ridgewood Corporate Center off I-275 also is thought to be a site under consideration.   'One of their criteria was for a high visibility site and we think West Chester lends itself to that.', said an official who declined to be identified.   It has more than 94K IT consultants in 47 countries and generated $4.3G in revenues in its last fiscal year."
class action against Tata

2007-08-10

DJIA	13,239.54
S&P 500	1,453.64
NASDAQ	2,544.89
10-year US T-Bond	4.78%
crude oil	71.47
gold	681.60
silver	12.870
platinum	1,279.30
palladium	358.20
copper	0.20996875
natural gas	$6.820/MBTU
unleadedgasoline	NYMEX no longer trading
reformulatedgasoline	$1.9548/gal
heatingoil	$1.9712/gal

I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts and FT Interactive.
 
 

2007-08-11

2007-08-11
Ron Paul _YouTube_
speech in Iowa
 

2007-08-12

2007-08-12
Thomas Beaumont & Jennifer Jacobs _Des Moines Register_
Iowa Straw Poll
Los Angeles Times
Town Hall
Rapid City Journal
Daily Iowan
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
Campaigns & Elections

Mitt Romney	4,516	31.6%
Mike Huckabee	2,587	18.1%
Sam Brownback	2,192	15.3%
Tom Tancredo	1.960	13.7%
Ron Paul	1,305	9.1%
Tommy Thompson	1,039	7.3%
Fred Thompson	203	1.4%
Rudy Giuliani	183	1.3%
Duncan Hunter	174	1.2%
John McCain	101	0.7%
John Cox	41	0.3%

2007-08-12 16:14PDT (19:14EDT) (23:14GMT)
_WOI_/_AP_
Wife of presidential candidate Ron Paul has pace-maker installed
Benton Crier
Michigan Live
Centre Daily
Dallas Morning News
Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Chronicle
Fort Worth/Tarrant county Star-Telegram
Houston Chronicle
"The wife of GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul had surgery this (Sunday) morning to install a pace-maker.   A statement from Paul's campaign says that the surgery on Carol Paul was a success and that she is expected to make a full recovery.   Carol Paul went into the hospital yesterday after suffering from an irregular heartbeat.   Her husband, who was due to participate in a high profile Republican straw poll in Ames, was delayed in arriving at the event because he was at his wife's side."

2007-08-12
Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar _American Chronicle_
Indian executives are on a take-over binge in USA, VietNam, Canada, Germany & the UK
Monsters & Critics

2007-08-12
David Schwab _Tinley Park Daily Southland_
Impact of immigration "crack-down" is unclear

2007-08-12
R. Kent Nowviskie _American Chronicle_
Iowa straw poll

2007-08-12
Karen Kwiatkowski _Free-Market News Network_
Do Politicians Find the US Constitution Scary?
Huffington Post

2007-08-12
Ian Brockwell _American Chronicle_
Ron Paul: He's got it all
 

2007-08-13

2007-08-13
Naazneen Karmali & Ryan Derousseau _Forbes_
India's Richest
"This year, for the first time in 2 decades of wealth tracking, we counted more Indian than Japanese billionaires in our annual ranking of the world's wealthiest people.   India produced 36 people with 10-figure fortunes, worth a total of $191G, versus Japan's 24, who are worth a total of $64G.   Three Indians even made it to the list of the top 20 of the world's richest.   Only the U.S.A. had more billionaires in the top global ranks.   It was a vastly different story in 1987 when we began tracking fortunes around the world.   That year the only Indian to make the cut was the Birla family, with a net worth of close to $2G...   India's [off-shore] out-sourcing boom created early tech tycoons Azim Premji of Wipro and Shiv Nadar of the HCL Group, who joined the billionaire ranks in 1999 and 2000, respectively.   Over the years, several other Indians have also created fortunes in the information technology and telecom sectors.   They include Infosys Technologies co-founders N.R. Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and S. Gopalakrishnan.   India's first self-made telecom billionaire, Sunil Mittal of Bharti, made the grade in 2004 after listing his flagship company...   Almost all billionaires are looking to expand outside India.   Aditya Birla Group's Hindalco Industries paid $6G to buy Canadian aluminum giant Novelis earlier this year.   Tata Steel, part of the Tata Group, in which Pallonji Mistry is the largest share-holder, forked over $13G for Corus..."
class action against Tata

2007-08-13 07:45PDT (10:45EDT) (14:45GMT)
Ruth David _Forbes_
Nuclear Electricity Accord Does NOT Preclude Nuclear Weapons Testing
"The agreement, which needs to be ratified by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, will clear the path for foreign companies to enter into contracts in a large, energy-starved market.   India's nuclear capacity is expected to more than double to 40GW by 2025, in a market estimated at $40G, said an official at the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation.   Firms like General Electric, Westinghouse and BWX Technologies have sent officials on visits to scout the market.   Businesses like Reliance and the Tata family have also expressed interest in the nuclear market.   About half the estimated $40G investment is expected to come from domestic companies.   In the U.S.A., legislators have opposed the deal because of India's ties to Iran and the fact that it will allow New Delhi to reprocess nuclear fuels and conduct its nuclear program without interference.   But the bill is likely eventually to make it through Congress, senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, told the media in New Delhi Sunday.   'In the end, it will be accepted and endorsed by strong majority in both houses of Congress because it is so clearly in the interests of the United States.', he said."
class action against Tata

2007-08-13
Andy Sher _Chattanooga Times_
Education costs up for illegal immigrants
The number of Tennessee students enrolled in programs for children with limited English skills, regarded as a 'rough' measure of the impact of illegal immigration on schools, has more than doubled since 2000, according to a new report.   The state Comptroller's Office of Research and Education Accountability estimates that the number of students in English Language Learner programs increased by 152% from 10,616 to 26,707 from 2000 to 2006...   Still, the percentage of English Language Learner students went from slightly under 1% of all students to about 3% by 2006, according to the report.   Students enrolled in ELL programs comprised 43% of the overall state student growth of 39,291 over the same 6-year period, the report says."

2007-08-13
Devidutta Tripathy _Reuters_/_Edmonton Journal_
Nortel wants an increasing portion of its revenues to come from India and Asia
"Michael Pangia, president of Nortel's Asian operations, said the company aims to raise the region's share of revenues to 20%-25% in the next 2 to 3 years from 15% now.   Of that total, India accounts for about 3% to 4% of revenue and the share is constantly rising, Zafirovski said...   Nortel, which has nearly 1K employees in India, has [off-shhore] out-sourcing partnerships with Indian [bodyshops] including Wipro, Infosys and Tata Consultancy."
class action against Tata

2007-08-13
Wilson P. Dizard _GCN_
DHS unveiled more upgrades to idiotic, privacy violating data-bases

2007-08-13
Fred Thompson
Sanctuary Cities

2007-08-13
Donald A. Collins _V Dare_
Stress Cracks Due to Over-Population
"the bridge, built in the 1960s, had been expected to serve 60K cars and trucks a day, but that at the time of the collapse it was serving 120K a day.   Hmm, another reason to worry about our immigration-driven population growth.   Watch how quickly that [reprehensible immigration law perversion bill] gets reintroduced and very likely, unless the screams again work, gets passed.   When it does, we are on the road to a 500M population by 2050, 1G by 2100."

2007-08-13
Mark Krikorian _National Review_
The White House thinks it's calling America's bluff

2007-08-13
Mark Andrew Dwyer
Federal 'Supremacy' or Usurpation?
When I learned the details behind sentencing 2 Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, to 10+ years in federal prison for doing their job of enforcing the American border, I thought I saw the height of unconstitutional absurdity, paramount to everything I had ever seen in judicial matters.   Not anymore.   Last month's injunction by a federal judge James M. Munley against the city of Hazelton's Illegal Immigration Relief Act surpassed my wildest imagination of what could the limit of judicial nonsense be, and made my jaw drop...   Judge Munley's favorite 'supremacy' clause that he interprets as a valid excuse for the federal government to usurp any power within its 'zone of interest' has been substantially restricted by the 10th Amendment.   In particular, the U.S. Congress is not allowed to pass any laws in matters that the Constitution does not specifically authorizes it to, because the State and the people have the sole authority in all such matters.   For instance, the only power regarding regulation of matters related to immigration that the Constitution grants to Congress (without prohibiting it to States) is the one mentioned in the naturalization clause (Article I Section 8) that authorizes it 'to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization' -- a far cry from sweeping powers covering all issues related to illegal immigration.   Therefore, there is no constitutional basis to assert that the federal government's acts, when they pertain to immigration issues other than naturalization and national defense, are automatically 'supreme' to the acts of States and the people (for instance, to the acts of city of Hazelton).   Quite to the contrary, the 10th Amendment creates presumption of supremacy of the latter acts over the former ones, the undisputable fact that judge Munley conveniently omits."

2007-08-13 (5767 Menachem-Av 29)
Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Retraction of agreements
"The sages of the Talmud extrapolated from this freedom principle that a hired worker is allowed to quit any time he or she wants, without a penalty.   G-d says of His people, 'They are My servants, whom I took out from the land of Egypt; they may not be sold like chattel slaves' (Leviticus 25:38).   The Talmud explains: My servants, and not servants to servants (that is, to other human beings).   It follows that even after a person agrees to take a job, or even if he or she has already begun working, the worker can change his or her mind and decide to leave the job for some other pursuit.   However, this permission has legal, ethical and practical reservations.   One important legal reservation is that this does not apply when the retraction would involve a loss on the part of the employer, when the employer has reasonably relied on the employee's promise.   It's easy to find a band for a wedding, so if a few weeks beforehand the band decides they can't make it they are within their rights to retract.   But it's almost impossible to find a suitable band on very short notice, so it's not permissible to call up the same day and announce you've decided to skip the gig.   Many early authorities suggest out that since the entire reason for the leniency allowing retraction is human freedom, a person may not retract merely because someone else offers more money...   If you really believe that the new job will offer you significantly better opportunities in the long term, then you are within your rights to offer your regrets to the first employer.   The new job is similar to the unexpected change of circumstances we discussed by other kinds of agreements.   But if the benefit is limited to a quick buck, you should carefully consider if this benefit outweighs your commitment to the first employer and your reputation for reliability."

2007-08-13
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_
Department of Labor actively involved in scam to avoid hiring US citizens that was disclosed in Cohen & Grigsby seminar
V Dare
Several people in places like Detroit, Michigan got suspicious that employment ads in local newspapers requested that their resumes should be sent to a location in Dallas, Texas -- on Pearl Street.   They got even more suspicious when none of the applicants got replies.
The job ads are sometimes posted on the Department of Labor Job Bank and sometimes in newspapers for private companies.   NOTE: America's Job Bank (AJB) is changing names to America's Job Exchange (AJE).
For several months there were discussions on Dice.com and Indeed.com about this mysterious Dallas address and finally some of the posters figured it all out.   More importantly they cracked the CODE.   Continue reading to find out more about the CODE...
The first question you might be asking is what is at Pearl Street in Dallas Texas? The answer: Dept. of Labor ETA, an office that processes Labor Certifications.
U.S. Department of Labor
Employment and Training Administration
700 North Pearl St., Suite 400N
Dallas, Texas 75201
Phone: (214) 237-9111
Fax: (214) 237-9135
Now that you know what is at Pearl Street your next question might be why resumes are sent there?   Allow me to answer that!
One thing that all of the suspicious job ads have in common is that there is a job code at the end of the ad.   There is an excellent blog that details the entire story.   Use this link to go to Carrie's blog.
These ads are run on web sites and newspapers to comply with the Labor Certification Process for Green Cards to "prove" that there are no Americans that are qualified and/or willing to take the job (labor certification isn't needed for H-1B visas since employers don't have to prove anything to hire them).   I have spent countless newsletters explaining how this scam works so I won't go into detail here.
The DoL assumes that immigration attorneys who do these case reviews are "officers of the Court" who are honest and have integrity.   (See my article Immigration Lawyer Indictments Expose H-1B Fraud)   It's all done on an honor system.   Employers who reject resumes from qualified Americans are rarely challenged about why they did so.   And even if they are questioned, they are almost never stopped from doing so...
Here are instructions on how to crack the job code in the ads.
1) The first thing to do is to find some job ads with job codes.   Several of them are provided below.   The job code is usually near the end of the job description.
2) All of these ads have a job code near the end of the description.   The first ad posted by Haliburton has a job code of "D-05221-95808".   Be sure to put "D-" in front of the number if the ad doesn't include it.
3) Once you have the code go to this page to see the status of the Labor Certification.
4) Plug in the labor code and then click search -- most of the time you can copy and paste.   Be sure to have the code formatted as required or you won't get any results.
5) In the case of Haliburton the results are as follows:
ETA Case Number: D-05193-13293
Processing Type: TR
Status: IN PROCESS
The status is rather obvious -- in this case it means the labor certification for a visa is "in process".   If you are curious about the processing type the best place to learn more is here, at the Programmers Guild.
CONCLUSION: These job ads are a complete sham but it's very important to understand that running ads like this in order to reject qualified Americans is LEGAL.   The DoL has no authority to stop this practice because of the loop-holes in the law; therefore complaining about fraud will do no good until the laws are changed.   That's because [though it is a fraud, it is completely legal fraud]!
Sure, you can mail in a resume for one of those job ads but if you are a U.S. citizen you will be rejected.   Actually you will be rejected whoever you are unless you are the alien who the employer has already chosen to hire.   That's because the certification process is rigged against American workers.   Usually the foreign worker is already on the pay-roll with an H-1B visa (that's almost always the case if the processing type is RIR).   Either way the processing type doesn't matter because he employer has no intention of hiring an American.   Running an ad is a mere formality to satisfy the loop-holes in the law.
I included several ads below [in my article].   By searching Google you will find no shortage of them, and you can bet that there are similar ads for the other ETA offices in the U.S.A.   If you see an ad with a job code it's a sham.   The types of jobs listed below run the gamut -- you will see various programming jobs and even a diesel mechanic.   The most disappointing is a page run by the IEEE (requires log-in).   Of course it's no secret that the IEEE supports unlimited instant green cards but what the heck are they doing running ads like that!?
Have fun with this by doing lots of searches, and be sure to document what you find by saving the web page.   By the time you send me a link the page could be wiped off the internet.   I may do follow-up news-letters if the sleuths on this list find out more.
Rob Sanchez archive index on V Dare
 

2007-08-14

2007-08-14
Melinda Liu & Sudip Mazumdar _M$NBC_/_NewSpeak_
The Mythical Million
"Earlier this year, students would show up for class each day at the Jalpaiguri Engineering College in West Bengal -- and find no teachers.   The Department of Electronics, Computer Science and Information Technology had just 1 full-time teacher (it's supposed to have 20).   Finally, in May, the students -- who faced impending exams despite having had no instruction -- went into the streets to protest...   'Out of the huge number of engineering and science graduates that India produces, only 25% to 30% can be regarded as suitable.', says Kiran Karnik, head of NASSCOM...   Professor Mao Shoulong of Renmin University.   Experts also complain that Chinese schools emphasize rote memorization, which often 'detracts from the quality of education', says Mao, who believe China's system fails to teach practical applications or to instill creativity.   'That's why students in the United States might not have good marks in class but can produce effective missile technology, while students in China enjoy good marks in class but might not be able to make sufficiently good missiles.', he says...   Adding to India's problems is a conspicuous lack of vision amongst the bureaucracy and corruption at every level.   'All this has affected the quality of our technical education.', says Sikdar.   One result: despite the large number of new graduates India rolls out each year, it only produces about 50 Ph.D.s in computer science, about the same number as an average public university in the United States."

2007-08-14
Jerry Seper & Stephen Dinan _Washington Times_
Border Patrol asking agents to volunteer to help build border fence
"The U.S. Border Patrol is asking for volunteers among its agents to help build fences on the U.S.-Mexico border, even as President Bush is withdrawing half the National Guard troops he sent there last year to build fences.   A memo circulated last week to Border Patrol sector chiefs said fence-building efforts on the Southwest border were going to fall short of Mr. Bush's goal of finishing 70 miles in fiscal 2007, which ends Sept. 30, 'so the Border Patrol is now going back into the fence-building business'...   [It] called on the chiefs to provide lists of agents who 'can and have built fences in the past', adding that the agency was looking for welders, equipment operators and 'anyone else with construction experience'...   Rich Pierce, executive vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents the agency's 11,000 non-supervisory agents, said that while the Bush administration 'on one hand is trying to convince the American public it is serious about immigration enforcement', it has failed to provide the needed funding and man-power.   'Meanwhile, the other hand reduces the National Guard by 50%, whose job to build the border fence has hardly started.', he said.   'Now the Border Patrol agents who were meant to replace the National Guard are pulled from border enforcement and tasked with building the fence.   'The president's game of pretending to enforce our border continues.', he said.   'He has never been serious about this issue at all.'"

2007-08-14 02:28PDT (05:28EDT) (09:28GMT)
Irwin Kellner _MarketWatch_
Seizing up of credit markets is equivalent to raising rates
"By refusing to come to the rescue of the financial markets with a big drop in interest rates, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke may think he is punishing only those fat cats on Wall Street who lost the bets they made on arcane financial instruments in the name of garnering the highest yields possible.   What he may not realize is that he is also punishing people on the other end of the spectrum -- those subprime borrowers who were able to buy a home several years ago only because interest rates were low and lenders were eager to lend.   As we all know by now, the low-interest environment created by the Fed in the wake of the bursting of the stock, tech and dot-com bubbles of the late 1990s led to a wave of home buying by people who otherwise could not afford one."

2007-08-14
_Pine Bluff Commercial_
NW Arkansas police to participate in immigration law training
Four northwest Arkansas police agencies head to Boston next week to receive federal training on enforcing immigration laws...   Census estimates show Arkansas has more than 141K Hispanic residents, many living in the northwest corner of the state.   Recent studies concluded about half of the state's immigrant population lives in the United States illegally."

2007-08-14
_Arizona Daily Star_
Illegal aliens' bones found
"This was at least the fourth body recovered in August by the Border Patrol.   The agency recovered 154 bodies of illegal border crossers in the Tucson Sector from Oct. 1 through July 31, compared with 150 at the same time in 2006 and 186 at the same time in 2005."

2007-08-14
Sara A. Carter _Washington Times_
US government knew of ties between drug cartels & terrorists in 2001

2007-08-14 07:12PDT (10:12EDT) (14:12GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
PPI up 0.6% in July: Core up 0.1%
BLS PPI data
graph

2007-08-14
_News Tribune_
Former Tacoma pastor Dong Wan Park sentenced to 3.5 years in prison, 3 years of supervised release & $540K in fines for visa fraud
"A former Tacoma pastor has been sentenced to 31/2 years in prison for committing immigration fraud and fleeing the country to avoid sentencing last year.   According to trial testimony, Dong Wan Park, 53, took tens of thousands of dollars from Korean nationals to file fraudulent work visas for them.   At trial, witnesses said Park falsified ordination documents for several individuals and claimed the Korean nationals were coming to work for him as associate pastors at the Hope Korean Church in Tacoma.   Trial documents reveal none of the visa applicants was actually employed by Park."

2007-08-14
_KUTV_
Jim Matheson sayd Utah needs more ICE officers
"Utah representative Jim Matheson says there aren't enough Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff to handle the workload in southwestern Utah.   In a letter sent to the secretary of Homeland Security, Matheson asked that ICE staffing be increased for that part of the state.   He says there are only 4 agents working a 7-county area that is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country."

2007-08-14 10:02PDT (13:02EDT) (17:02GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
US trade deficit decreased by 1.7% to %58.1G in June
"Exports increased 1.5% to $134.5G. Imports increased as well, albeit by a slim 0.5% to $192.7G, also a monthly record."

2007-08-14
Jeremy Jojola _KOB_
Albuquerque increases sanctuary for illegal aliens
"Effective immediately, Albuquerque police officers who find illegal immigrants will no longer contact either federal immigration agents or the border patrol.   The new guidelines come six years after the Albuquerque City Council passed a resolution saying that no city resources will be used to go after illegal immigrants."

2007-08-14
Paul Kiernan _AP_/_Arizona Republic_
Mexican government has offered to pay health-care costs of Mexicans in the USA
"Nevada governor Jim Gibbons said Monday that the Mexican government has offered to pay health-care costs of Mexican nationals residing in Nevada.   Mexicans would be eligible for the program regardless of their legal status in the United States and would participate by registering with the Mexican Consulate in Las Vegas, Gibbons said during a conference call following a meeting with Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordoba.   'The cost that is normally borne by [tax-victims] in Nevada for the health-care costs would be shared by the Mexican government for these individuals,' he said."

2007-08-14
Robert Swift _Hazleton Standard Speaker_
Todd Eachus wants to crack down on illegal labor
A new federal crackdown on illegal aliens and their employers is drawing support from a northeastern Pennsylvania Democrat.   Hoping to halt illegal immigration into Pennsylvania, state representative Todd Eachus, D-116, has a package of bills in the hopper that would penalize companies that knowingly use illegal labor.   The measures would require employers to repay public money if they use illegal immigrants on [tax-victim]-funded projects and give state officials authority to yank the professional licenses of businesses that knowingly hire illegal workers."

2007-08-14
_Hindustan Times_
Our wage per employee is 20%-25% less than US wages for a similar employee
 
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) vice president Phiroz Vandrevala even admitted that his company enjoys a competitive advantage because of its extensive use of foreign workers in the United States on H-1B and L-1 visas, according to the study by IEEE-USA, a unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
 
"Our wage per employee is 20%-25% less than US wages for a similar employee.", Vandrevala said.
 
"Typically, for a TCS employee with 5 years experience, the annual cost to the company is $60K-$70K, while a local American employee might cost $80K-$100K."
 
IEEE-USA president Ralph W. Wyndrum, Jr. said proposals now before Congress to raise the H-1B visa cap should be scrapped until significant work-force protections for US and H-1B employees are instituted.
 
"Not paying market wages to H-1B holders is unfair to both foreign and domestic high-tech workers.", Wyndrum said.
 
"H-1B employees are being taken advantage of, and some US workers' salaries are likely suppressed by the influx of thousands of additional job competitors.   The wage problem is one symptom of how deeply flawed the H-1B program is."...
 
Despite the law's intent, [Ronil Hira of the Rochester Institute of Technology] enumerated a few ways companies circumvent the law's prevailing wage requirements when hiring H-1B workers:
 
* By selecting a survey source with the lowest salaries;
* By misclassifying an experienced worker as entry level;
* By giving the person a lower-paying job title than one reflective of the work to be performed;
* By citing wages for a low-cost area of the country, then sending an employee to a higher-cost area...
 
"It's a self-policing system that is never actually checked.", Hira said.   "The law itself is written in a way to invite [abuse].   It should be no surprise that firms take advantage of the loop-holes."
class action against Tata
 

2007-08-14 13:45PDT (16:45EDT) (20:45GMT)
Nichola Groom & Brad Dorfman _Yahoo!_/_Reuters_
WM agrees to $3.9M in back pay + $198,900 fine
"In 2005, WM voluntarily notified the labor commissioner that errors in its payroll processes had led to underpayment of overtime and other wages.   It pledged to correct the problem and pay affected workers all they owed...   The payment errors affected all of WM's California workers from 2002 February 1 through 2007 January 19."

2007-08-14
Paul Mulshine _Newark Star Ledger_
Morristown mayor Cresitello is right on illegal immigration
"'If, after the aggravated assault, he had been deported, then those kids would be alive today,' said Cresitello when I spoke to him yesterday.   He got that right.   And he was also right in highlighting the threat from MS-13, a gang that began in California among Salvadoran immigrants.   One of the juve niles charged in the Newark slay ings is from Morristown and reportedly has ties to an offshoot of MS-13.   So these days Cresitello is looking like a prophet.   Meanwhile, his critics are at a loss, most prominently U.S. attorney Christopher Christie.   In something of a master piece of bad timing, Christie was quoted in the Morris Daily Record lambasting the mayor's views on immigration on the same day that the first reports of the mass slayings hit the news.   Christie attacked the mayor for saying that some of the counter-demonstrators at the Morristown rally were Marxists -- which they indeed were -- and also for saying that the federal government isn't doing enough to enforce immigration laws...   If this is the best, I'd hate to see the worst.   There are [8M to 24M] people in this country illegally. The feds ignore the problem, leaving small-town mayors like Cresitello to sort out the mess."

2007-08-14
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee _Information Week_/_CMP_
Indian Body Shops Likely to Continue Acquiring US Firms
CIO web log
"Following on the heels of Wipro's plan to buy U.S.-based IT [body shop] Infocrossing for $600M, don't be too surprised to see other Indian [bodyshops] making mega-deals for American companies in the near future.   This is according to an official at Nasscom, an organization representing the Indian IT and software industry.   'Indian companies are sitting on a lot of cash, $500M to $1G.', said Ameet Nivsarkar, VP of research at Nasscom in an interview.   Plus, 'the valuation of Indian IT companies is high' compared with U.S. companies right now.   'This is the right time to do these large deals.', he said.   While big, the Wipro-Infocrossing deal isn't even the largest cross-border out-sourcing acquisition this year.   In June, Caritor -- an application developer based in California, but whose 3,900 employees are predominately in India and whose founder is Indian -- acquired U.S. IT [body shop] Keane in an $854M deal backed by Citigroup Venture Capital.   'It's definitely possible' that there will be more of these bigger deals, Nivsarkar said.   Among the drivers for these deals is the United States' cap on H-1B visas, which isn't likely to be raised from the current ceiling of 65K any time soon.   (An additional 20K visas are exempt from that cap for foreign students who receive advanced degrees from U.S. [colleges and universities].)"
Tata median salaries by city
Wipro median salaries by city
Infosys median salaries by city

2007-08-14 (5767 Menachem-Av 30)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Tragic implications: tax rates are not tax revenues
"This administration is not the first one in which a reduction in tax rates has been followed by an increase in tax revenues.   The same thing happened during the Reagan administration, the Kennedy administration and the Coolidge administration.   Tax rates and tax revenues have moved in opposite directions many times, not only at the federal level, but also at state and local levels, as well as in foreign countries."
 

2007-08-15

2007-08-15
Thomas Brewton _View from 1776_
MacroEconomics and Market Melt-Down
"The 1920-21 recession was as severe as the start of the Depression in 1929-30.   With little government interference, the 1920-21 recession was ended in less than a year via the historical processes of lowering wage rates and materials prices until businesses could again produce goods at a profit.   It is to be noted that there were many thousands of different adjustments of prices and wages, varying from industry to industry and from company to company."

2007-08-15
Jon Gambrell _AP_/_NorthWest Arkansas Morning News_
John Boozman says Hispanic illegal aliens are overwhelming Arkansas police
"Third District U.S. representative John Boozman said Hispanic immigrants coming to Northwest Arkansas overwhelm police and courts with false identities, leaving warrants unserved and cases unprosecuted...   'Now, does that make them criminal in the sense of being violent crimes and stuff like that?   No, they're up here playing the system as best they can to feed their families back home or their families here.', Boozman said.   'There's no difference in these people if they have a green card or if they don't as far as the person's work ethic and stuff like that... but there is a limit of how much the country can absorb.'   Boozman's district is in Northwest Arkansas, home to poultry plants and other jobs attracting immigrants from Mexico and Latin America.   Census estimates show Arkansas has more than 141K Hispanic residents, as recent studies conclude about half of the state's immigrant population lives in the United States illegally...   In Rogers, which absorbed many of the state's Hispanic immigrants, officers have seen dramatic increases in the number of tickets issued for drivers not having licenses.   Police Chief Steve Helms said of 1,443 tickets issued last year, 1,224 went to Hispanic drivers, as whites accounted for 193 and blacks received 17."

2007-08-15 07:11PDT (10:11EDT) (14:11GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
CPI up 0.1%: Core up 0.2% in July
BLS CPI data
graphs

2007-08-15
Debbie Schlussel
USCIS corruption near the top
"Several USCIS sources say that Detroit's top USCIS official, Carol A. Jenifer, was caught taking bribes in exchange for immigration benefits (visas and citizenship).   Despite that, she was allowed to remain in the job for at least four years thereafter.   She retired in January with a huge party and lots of hoopla.   This is how Citizenship and Immigration Services chief Emilio T. Gonzales rewards his top employees for betraying America..."

2007-08-15
Robert Block _Wall Street Journal_
USA to expand use of spy satellites to watch the USA
Washington Post

2007-08-15
Michael Miller _Press of Atlantic City_
Asselta & Donohue talk tough on illegals
Cape May Court House -- Republicans in the 1st Legislative District called for immigration reforms Tuesday after the execution-style shootings that killed three college students earlier this month in Newark.   Senator Nicholas Asselta, R-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, and his Republican running mate, Assembly candidate Michael Donohue, said the Aug. 4 shootings -- allegedly by a gang that included an undocumented Peruvian -- illustrate the pressing need to stiffen immigration enforcement.   They propose that New Jersey require companies to pledge in writing that they employ only documented workers before accepting their bids and penalize those that do otherwise by making them ineligible to bid on future state contracts.   County prosecutors should check the immigration status of every suspect taken into police custody, the Republicans said.   Likewise, the federal government should pay the public costs of defending illegal immigrants accused of crimes in New Jersey, they said.   Asselta and Donohue also said public benefits should be granted only to documented workers who can prove legal residence or citizenship.   And they said English should be declared America's national language."

2007-08-15
Michelle Malkin _National Review_
Sanctuary Nation or Sovereign Nation?

2007-08-15 09:50PDT (12:50EDT) (16:50GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
US industrial production was up 0.3% in July: Capacity utilization at 81.9%
Federal Reserve Board data release

2007-08-15
_Expatica_/_AP_
German police arrest man accused of recruiting terrorists in Pakistan

2007-08-15 (5767 Elul 01)
Andrea Simantov _Jewish World Review_
To raise a man

2007-08-15 (5767 Elul 01)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Deadly environmentalists

2007-08-15
William L. Anderson _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Roads, Bridges, and Socialist "Capital"
Index of articles on mises.org
 
 

2007-08-16

2007-08-16 03:33PDT (06:33EDT) (10:33GMT)
_Jacksonville Florida Times-Union_
Making Progress
"Jacksonville has long been plagued with under-employment.   Jobs have generally been available, but they often don't pay much.   The effort to raise per capita income is related to that issue."

2007-08-16 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 265,472 in the week ending Aug. 11, a decrease of 5,037 from the previous week.   There were 256,259 initial claims in the comparable week in 2006.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.9% during the week ending Aug. 4, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,425,565, a decrease of 19,997 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.8% and the volume was 2,348,543.   Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending July 28."
graphs

2007-08-16
Stephen Dinan _Washington Times_
Mel Martinez hits 2008 candidates for their tough stance against illegal aliens

2007-08-16
Joe Murray _Ontario Daily Bulletin_
Duncan Hunter Pledges To Build Border Fence In 6 Months

2007-08-16
Fred Thompson
Border Security

2007-08-16
Beth Barrett & Brent Hopkins _Long Beach Press Telegram_
Amgen to cut at least 2,200 jobs
"Beleaguered Ventura county bio-tech giant Amgen announced a sweeping restructuring Wednesday involving at least 2,200 job cuts, including lay-offs, and down-sizing at its sprawling Thousand Oaks campus...   Across the bio-tech industry, employers have been slashing positions all year.   Pfizer scythed its work-force in January, cutting 10K employees.   Last month, Johnson & Johnson followed with a 4,800 job cut announcement -- about 4% of its work-force.   Several weeks ago, British drug-maker AstraZeneca added another 7,600 lay-offs, about a tenth of its employees."

2007-08-16
Ernesto Londo _Washington Post_
Demand for Interpreters In Area Courts on Rise

2007-08-16
_AP_/_Oregon Live_
Suspect in Oregon killing disclosed he was not citizen last year
Less than 9 months before he allegedly killed a 15-year-old girl by stepping on her throat until she stopped breathing, Alejandro Rivera Gamboa pleaded guilty to drunken driving and disclosed that he was not a U.S. citizen.   Rivera Gamboa, 24, signed a plea agreement that read, in part: 'I understand that if I am not a citizen of the United States, a criminal conviction could cause me to be deported, denied United States citizenship, or refused the right to re-enter the United States.'"

2007-08-16
_Los Angeles Times_
Stranded illegal aliens headed through Mexico to USA were deported by Mexican government
Mexican immigration authorities deported some of the thousands of U.S.-bound Central American migrants who were stranded near the border with Guatemala after an American-run railroad closed.   Some were camped along rail lines waiting for trains that will never come.   Others tried to walk hundreds of miles to the next working line and some turned themselves in to authorities.   For decades migrants have hopped freight cars on the Chiapas-Mayab railway, but in late July, the Connecticut-based Genesee & Wyoming Inc. withdrew from a 30-year concession to operate the line."

2007-08-16
Steve Doyle _Huntsville Times_
Madison county commissioner mo Brooks urges contractors to pledge not to hire illegal aliens

2007-08-16
Robert Wilson _Knoxville News_
Louisville apartment managers ask illegal aliens to leave

2007-08-16
_WCAX_/_AP_
11 illegal aliens from Red China arrested entering into USA across Canadian border
Federal prosecutors say 11 [Red Chinese] citizens were arrested trying to cross the Canadian border at a remote spot in northern New York over the weekend.   Border patrol agents and State Police encountered the group on Sunday night near Chateaugay in Franklin county at midnight about a mile south of the border."

2007-08-16
Brady McConbs _Arizona Daily Star_
7 illegal aliens, caught in flash flood of tunnel, were rescued
"Seven illegal border crossers swept away by rushing flood-waters inside a Nogales tunnel Tuesday night were rescued by Border Patrol officers and firefighters.   Three Border Patrol agents opened a man-hole at Morley Avenue and East Street about 20:00 and crawled through a smaller tunnel to reach the larger Morley Avenue tunnel, said Sean King, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman.   They found a 35-year-old woman from Puebla, Mexico, clinging to a piece of rebar as the swift-moving flood-waters rushed past, he said.   They had her tie a rope around her waist and then pulled her across the water and helped her out of the tunnel, King said.   She was taken to Carondelet Holy Cross Hospital in Nogales and survived.   At about the same time farther south near the Dennis DeConcini port of entry, firefighters with the Nogales Fire Department entered the tunnel through a staircase and helped rescue 6 people, said Juan Pablo Guzman, a city of Nogales spokesman.   Members of the group ranged from 10 to 20 years old."

2007-08-16
_Boston Herald_/_AP_
Nazi living in Massachusetts ordered deported: Involved in Warsaw ghetto killings An immigration judge has ordered the deportation of a 92-year-old retired factory worker from Sutton because of his role in the Nazi destruction of the Warsaw Jewish ghetto in 1943, federal prosecutors said Thursday.   Immigration judge Wayne R. Iskra ordered on Tuesday that Vladas Zajanckauskas be removed to his native Lithuania because he was in a notorious Nazi unit that took part in the brutal killing of the ghetto in Poland, assistant attorney general Alice S. Fisher for the Criminal Division said.   Zajanckauskas lawyer, Thomas Butters, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.   The deportation order comes more than 2 years after a federal judge in Boston revoked Zajanckauskas U.S. citizenship, ruling he lied when he denied involvement in the murders.   Zajanckauskas denied he was in Warsaw at the time and said his involvement with the Nazis was limited to working the bar at one of their camps in Poland."

2007-08-16
Nick Corcodilos _InfoWorld_
Stuff I worry about: PAAAYYY!
"The New York Times recently reported that the higher-education monopoly in the U.S.A. has also adopted 'PAAAYYY!' as its new policy when educating engineers and business students.     (Sorry, I can't link you to that article.   The NYT wants you to PAAAYYY! for its archive.   You can get a synopsis and editorial commentary in Electronic Engineering Times -- for free.)   According to the NY Times, at certain public institutions of learning you'll pay regular tuition if you're getting an English degree.   If you want a degree in engineering, you'll pay a surcharge.   So, the cost of a technical degree goes up; the number of students willing to pay for it will go down; the effective yield of technologists will drop; and companies will [say they] need more H-1B visas to make up the difference.   (Did I get that right?)...   If companies are so hungry for tech hires, why aren't they subsidizing engineering degrees?...   when you see repeated failures of logic and common sense -- the H-1B program, out-sourcing, discouragement of technical degrees -- you know something is wrong."

2007-08-16
_Manchester Union Leader_
Tech-North summit and job fair September 9
"The summit includes a high-tech job fair and business expo and morning and afternoon breaking-out sessions covering links between higher education and the high-tech economy, entrepreneurship, intellectual property and investment capital.   A self-directed barcamp will run throughout the day.   In the evening, Manchester Young Professionals Network and the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce will co-host a reception."

2007-08-16
governor Edward G. Rendell _PR News Wire_
Pennsylvania's economy continues to out-perform the rest of the USA
"Governor Edward G. Rendell said today that Pennsylvania's unemployment rate (from the Current Population Survey, a.k.a. household survey) of 4.3% in July marked the 45th month of the past 55 months that the commonwealth's unemployment rate has been at or below the nation's rate, and the sixth consecutive month that the state's unemployment rate has been below the national average.   The Governor also noted that Pennsylvania's job count (from the establishment survey, a.k.a. Current Employment Statistics) remained strong in July, coming in at 5,796,300 jobs -- an increase of 43,800 from a year ago.   Since 2003 January, the state has seen a net gain of 168,100 new jobs...   Job growth in July was concentrated among 3 of the services providing industries' sectors: education & health services (up by 3,800), trade transportation & utilities (up by 2,200), and professional & business services (up by 200)."

2007-08-16 10:43PDT (13:43EDT) (17:43GMT)<,br /> Elena Todorova _123 Jump_
European stocks fell 3% today

2007-08-16
Russell Goldman _abc_
US firms support Big Brother in Red China
NY Sun
Telegraph
"Amid the gleaming sky-scrapers and towering cranes of [Red China's] second largest port city, the citizens of Shenzhen will soon look up to see 20K security cameras looking down on them.   Images of the city's 12.4M citizens will be fed into computers powered by technology provided by a U.S.-financed company that will allow police to recognize faces and track criminals.   But critics warn that the cameras and software, combined with a planned electronic identity card, will allow police to track the movements of political and religious dissidents.   Furthermore, some contend that companies providing such technology could be in violation of an American law that bans U.S. companies from selling security equipment to [Red China]."
links to privacy organizations

2007-08-16
Michael Cutler _Family Security Matters_
Our continued vulnerability as terrorists and drug cartels collaborate

2007-08-16
Stephen Ohlemacher _AP_/_Washington Post_
Census bureau of Commerce department wants DHS to be non-feasant (fail to do their jobs) in 2010

2007-08-16
Alfonso A. Castillo _News Day_
Judge sentenced drunken driver to 3.5 to 10 years
"Alejandro Xuya-Sian did more than shred the skin on his victim's body -- he shredded his victim's dignity, making him feel 'too embarrassed' by his appearance to face the drunken driver who nearly dragged him to his death, a judge said as he sentenced Xuya-Sian to 3 years and 4 months to 10 years in prison.   'You didn't just injure him physically.   You shattered his life.', Suffolk County Judge James Hudson told Xuya-Sian before he imposed his sentence.   Hudson said Xuya-Sian treated his victim with less regard than he should 'an injured animal'."

2007-08-16
John MacCormack _San Antonio Express News_
Advocates for excessive immigration continue to conspire
"Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT)...   Senator John Cornyn, R-San Antonio, and representative Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, both appeared as invited speakers at the round-table session held at the University of the Incarnate Word.   Among the diverse parties at the table were representatives of the Texas Farm Bureau, the Texas Vegetable Association, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Association of Manufacturers...   Yzaguirre, former president of the National Council of La Raza...   And within 2 years, he predicted, tens of millions of dollars will have been raised to fund a broad media campaign driving the argument home to middle America.   For John Trasvia, president of MALDEF, there is no time to waste...   Tamar Jacoby, representing the conservative Manhattan Institute, found plenty of common ground Thursday among the various liberal groups."

2007-08-16
_AP_/_L.C. Sun_
Border Patrol uniform gets first makeover since the 1950s
Leather belts with brass buckles are out; nylon belts with quick-release plastic buckles are in.   Slacks are out; lightweight cargo pants are in.   Shiny badges and nameplates are out; cloth patches are in...   The new uniform -- in the works for 3 years at a cost of $7.5M to outfit 14K agents -- is designed to be 'more operational, more tactical', Garrett said."

2007-08-16
O. Kay Henderson _Radio Iowa_
Steve Lukan and Clel Baudler ask Iowa governor to make sure criminal illegal aliens are deported

2007-08-16
_Richmond Times Dispatch_
Illegal immigrants cost Chesterfield $2.09M

2007-08-16
_Houston Chronicle_/_AP_
National Guardsman Jose Rodrigo Torres, 26, admitted in U.S. District Court to conspiring with others to transport illegal immigrants
Torres was 1 of 3 Guardsmen accused of helping undocumented immigrants pass a check-point on Interstate 35. The other 2 Guardsmen, sergeant Julio Cesar Pacheco and sergeant Clarence Hodge jr, have pleaded not guilty."

2007-08-16
_KTAR News_
You Don't Speak for Me supports Sheriff Joe Arpaio

2007-08-16
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee _TechWeb_/_Dark Reading_/_CMP_
Executive IT recruiting is slowing down
Information Week
"The tech industry had nearly 14% fewer executive searches in the second quarter of this year, compared with the first quarter.   In general, executive search activity is an economic growth indictor and a barometer of hiring trends, said the AESC report, which analyzes activity of about 1,200 executive search consultants in 42 countries...   In the first quarter of 2007, executive recruitment activity in the tech industry grew 19% from the fourth quarter of 2006, according to AESC...   The busiest sectors for executive recruitment were non-profits, which were up nearly 7%, followed by the industrial sector, which was up 3.6%.   Also on the rise were life sciences and health care, which grew 2.6%; financial services, which was up 2.5%; and professional services, which inched up 1.6%.   In terms of global regions, North America and Europe both saw executive recruitment activity dip 3.1% in the second quarter.   However, both of those regions had seen 15% spikes in the first quarter.   The most activity for the quarter occurred in the Asia-Pacific region, which increased 8.1%, followed by the Central-South America region, which rose 5.1%."

2007-08-16
_eWorldWire_
Libertarian Party of Illinios Convention scheduled for October 12-14 in Rockford
"When affiliates of the Libertarian Party of Illinois gather at their annual Convention October 12 through 14, they will have an opportunity to evaluate Libertarian presidential candidates in a wide-ranging debate of national issues.   Candidates Barry Hess, Steve Kubby, Alden Link, George Phillies, and Christine Smith are scheduled to appear and gather support in their bid for the 2008 Libertarian Party presidential nomination.   While Rasmussen polls show the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats or Republicans dropping steadily, the Libertarian party is reporting an 18% membership increase since January."

2007-08-16
_EE Times Asia_
How companies entice engineers to stay
"An EE Times survey of semiconductor suppliers found varying engineer turn-over rates, from a high of 12% a year at Actel Corp. to less than 1% at Renesas Technology Corp. Analog Devices Inc.'s rate was close to the survey's 7% average, reported as 7.5% the past few years when the market was growing, up from 3% or 4% the previous few years...   If an employer does right by an engineer through the first 2 or 3 years of employment, the chances of long-term retention increase, said Joe Javorski, director of worldwide staffing for Analog Devices.   'This includes all of those things that contribute to workers' wanting to stay.', he said: good communication, good compensation, good leadership, good products and good strategic vision."
 

2007-08-17

2007-08-17
Beth Hannan Rimmels _Comic Sutra_
Remembering Elvis and "Elvis Shrugged"

2007-08-17
Heather Greenfield _National Journal_
Corrupt Tech Executives Still Pushing to Worsen Flood of Guest-Workers
"Small and medium-sized technology companies have been meeting with members of Congress in their home districts this week to emphasize that they [want] more visas for highly skilled workers this year -- or more companies will move jobs to other countries.   AeA chief Bill Archey, whose tech association helped arrange visits with members of Congress in 7 districts, said the group is having small and medium-sized companies do the talking because the [alleged] shortage of H-1Bs disproportionately affects them.   Archey said a visa delay is a serious problem when a small business is depending on them for one of its 30 jobs.   'Members of Congress know what the big guys think.', Archey said.   But he said appeals from smaller companies in their own districts are likely to carry more weight.   Archey said he hopes the visits help [distract congress-critters from the fact] that American scientists and engineers are available and companies want the visas so they can pay foreign workers less.   He said the message from companies will be, 'You're forcing us to go off-shore not because of the cheapness of the labor but because the labor has the right skills [despite the fact that the advanced degree visas are the last used up, and despite the fact that over 80% of H-1B visas are for those in the lowest skill levels].'   A measure in the immigration bill that stalled in the Senate this summer would have nearly doubled the [over 85K] H-1B visas currently available each fiscal year to businesses.   But several tech lobbyists speaking on background said a comprehensive bill is unlikely this year after the senate failed to win enough votes to limit debate.   'The issue is not dead for us and is affecting our companies significantly.', AeA lobbyist John Palafoutas said.   'It can't wait for 2 years.' So far there is not a stand-alone bill in Congress to boost the number of H-1B visas.   An aide for representative Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said he may introduce one in September.   During a late-night session last month, senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, tried to amend an education bill, HR2669, to increase H-1B visas, but his amendment was rebuffed on a procedural vote.   Oregon Republican Gordon Smith, who chairs the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force, said in a statement that more H-1Bs is still a top priority and task force members will look for other opportunities to move the proposal.   The issue also is a top priority for the Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.   They sent a letter to senators this month that notes how they helped lobby for measures to increase the mathematics, science and engineering skills of American workers.   President Bush signed legislation this month to authorize funds to improve math and science education.   The letter said that while the impact of that takes effect, however, more visas are [wanted] to address the [phony allegations of] skilled-worker shortages.   'These shortages and inefficient processes often force some of our members to move certain operations to other countries so that they are able to recruit the workers they [want].', the groups stated."

2007-08-17 08:14:22PDT (11:14:22EDT) (15:14:22GMT)
Kevin Smith _Pasadena Star News_
Los Angeles county added 11K jobs in July: Information industry lost 1,200 jobs
"Los Angeles County added 11K new jobs last month, and the region's unemployment rate dipped to 4.8% compared with 4.9% in June, the state Employment Development Department reported.   Year-over-year non-farm employment in the county grew by 39,900 jobs, although the region's jobless rate was slightly lower at 4.6% in July of 2006.   The sector that saw the biggest annual employment gain was education and health services, which added 14,600 new jobs.   Health care and social assistance added 9,600 positions, while educational services boosted its work force by 5K, according to the EDD.   The county's leisure and hospitality sector added 7,800 jobs over the year.   Museums, historical sites and similar institutions added 500 more jobs, an 11.6% increase.   Motion picture and sound recording -- which typically have shown healthy gains in recent EDD reports -- suffered a 0.8% loss in jobs this time around...   Three industries posted year-over-year jobs losses: manufacturing lost 5,600 jobs, construction was down 2,900 jobs and information shed 1,200 jobs."

2007-08-17 08:42PDT (11:42EDT) (15:42GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index fell from 90.4 in July to 83.3 in early August

2007-08-17
Lee Ellis _Michigan News_
Trade Apprentices -- Illegal Aliens or Capable Americans

2007-08-17
_Arizona Daily Star_/_AP_
Mexican migration officials charged with human smuggling
"police on Monday seized 5 luxury vehicles, 7 firearms... migration documents, U.S. visas, passports and other illegal documents, authorities said in a news release.   The goods have an estimated value of $850K.   The 2 suspects, identified as Oscar Manuel Navarrete Orozco and Maria America Maldonado, worked for the National Immigration Institute in the state of Guanajuato, 200 miles northeast of Mexico City.   They face charges of organized crime, trafficking of undocumented persons and running operations with illegally obtained resources."

2007-08-17
_Washington Times_
Mel Martinez shows bitter mean-spiritedness

2007-08-17
Maura Dolan _Los Angeles Times_
Man mistaken for illegal alien felon can sue the state
"Perez-Torres is not Mexican.   He is Guatemalan.   He came to the U.S. in 1988 and was a legal resident and factory worker, his lawyer said.   State prison records also revealed that Perez-Torres was 4 inches shorter and 40 pounds lighter than the man authorities thought they had captured...   It was not until Perez-Torres' wife retained a lawyer that the parole agent asked for a finger-print comparison, the court said.   The comparison revealed the mistake, and the state dropped its case against Perez-Torres.   But the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to release him for 5 more days."

2007-08-17
Lisa Friedman _Pasadena Star News_
DHS cannot enforce 90-day rule for resolution of non-matching Socialist Insecurity Numbers
"But Homeland Security officials acknowledged this week that because of a privacy provision in the IRS code, immigration officials will actually have no way of knowing which employers have received 'no-match' letters, which have complied and which have not."

2007-08-17
Juan Carlos Llorca & Julie Watson _Arizona Republic_
Guatemala raids adoption center
Guatemala... sent more than 4K babies to U.S. homes last year...   The U.S. has pushed for a crack-down in an industry that has placed more than 25K Guatemalan children in U.S. homes since 1990, so many that every 100th baby born in Guatemala grows up as an adopted American.   [So, why aren't they adopting babies born in the USA?]"

2007-08-17
Dan Genz & William C. Flook _Washington DC Examiner_
Prince William county chair urges Fairfax to get tough on illegal immigration

2007-08-17
Kate Nash _Albuquerque Tribune_
City councilor Brad Winter to introduce a bill that would have police notify immigration officials of suspects or people in custody if police believe they are illegal aliens

2007-08-17
Justin Fenton _Baltimore Sun_
Anne Arundel county will drop contractors who use illegal workers

2007-08-17
Tal Abbady _Florida Sun Sentinel_
Venezuelans in South Florida lament Hugo Chavez's plans

2007-08-17
Jessica L. deVault _Go Up-State_
Jim deMint is questioned about illegal immigration
"Attendee Karl Kelly was pleased with DeMint's talking points.   'The point that he's going to continue to fight this illegal immigration thing and not allow Congress to steamroll us makes me think that Congress is beginning to listen to the people.', Kelly said.   Some constituents weren't as pleased with DeMint's response to their questions.   Melissa Kozikowski stood with her husband, Bogdan, when she asked the senator how he could say he supports legal immigration while people like her husband -- an immigrant from Poland -- have a difficult time becoming naturalized."

2007-08-17
Steve H. Hanke _Cato Institute_
Labor Dumping
"30% of Mexico's labor force is working in the U.S., and in 2006 they sent home $23G, 12% of Mexico's exports."

2007-08-17
Amanda Fung _Crain's Work-Force Management_
NY employers avoid hiring US workers, again
"After it became clear that he wasn't going to find them in New York, he opened a satellite office in Toronto, which has a wealth of untapped tech talent.   It is also just a 90-minute plane ride away, he says...   New York has enjoyed steady growth in tech jobs since mid-2003, and the sector is still [sickly].   As of June, there were [only] 44K computer system design jobs in the city, 3,600 of which were added in just the first half of this year.   Employment is up 12% compared with last year and is approaching 47K, the peak number of tech jobs before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000."

2007-08-17

DJIA	13,079.08
S&P 500	1,445.94
NASDAQ	2,505.03
10-year US T-Bond	4.67%
crude oil	71.98
gold	666.80
silver	11.80
platinum	1,231.60
palladium	329.75
copper	0.19665625
natural gas	7.01/MBTU
unleadedgasoline	NYMEX no longer trading
reformulatedgasoline	$2.0388/gal
heatingoil	$2.0173/gal

I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts and FT Interactive.
 
 

2007-08-18

2007-08-18
Jeff Ostrowski _Palm Beach Post_
St. Lucie county jobless numbers up
"Unemployment rose to 6.6% from 5.6% in June, giving St. Lucie the dubious distinction of having the state's second-highest rate, trailing only Hendry county's 9.9%. Indian River county also had 6.6% unemployment. Slower construction activity... Martin county saw a more modest rise in unemployment. Its jobless rate jumped to 4.7% from 4.1% in June, the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation said. Palm Beach county's jobless rate also jumped to 4.7% from 4.1%. For St. Lucie county, last month's increase was tame compared with the bad old days of the early 1990s, when summer-time unemployment topped 20%. But Skiles said consumers and workers are suffering... He hopes the $100M that local and state officials spent to lure the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies to Port St. Lucie will pay dividends by expanding the county's job market... Bob Stevenson, a gas station owner and former chairman of the Workforce Development Board of the Treasure Coast, agreed that the region needs a more diverse economy. Stevenson has been surprised by the number of qualified-but-jobless workers applying for positions at his gas station west of Stuart, and he, too, says the disappearance of well-paid construction jobs is putting a crimp on how much people can spend... The housing slump is hurting the entire state. Florida's seasonally adjusted unemployment was 3.9% in July, still below the national average of 4.6% but up from 3.5% in June... Statewide, the construction industry lost 17,900 jobs during the past year, shrinking to 621K positions in July. In Palm Beach county, the construction industry shed 1,200 jobs in that period."

2007-08-18 05:01PDT (08:01EDT) (12:01GMT)
_CBS 2 Chicago_
DMH Ingredients sueing Changzhou Kelong Chemical for metal shavings in aspartame
"Libertyville-based DMH Ingredients has filed a federal lawsuit against Changzhou Kelong Chemical Co. Ltd., saying DMH found metal shavings in 11,200 kilos of aspartame artificial sweetener the [Red Chinese] company shipped in 2005.   DMH seeks more than $174K from the [Red Chinese] company to cover costs DMH had to pay Wisconsin-based Sturm Foods, where the metal shavings were discovered, the suit says."

2007-08-18
_UPI_
Skilled-worker green card applications inundating federal government
"The Citizenship and Immigration Services estimates it had received about 300K applications since July 1 under a special period set aside for highly skilled immigrants seeking green cards.   The New York Times said Saturday the usual number of applications for an entire year is 140K.   The rush began after the U.S. State Department announced this Summer it would make visas available for additional doctors, nurses and other professionals with advanced degrees."

2007-08-17 (5767 Elul 03)
Rebbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo _Jewish World Review_
Introduction to the Divine: A Jewish view of all religions & emotion
 

2007-08-19

2007-08-18 19:30PDT (2007-08-18 22:30EDT) (2007-08-19 02:30GMT)
Bill O'Reilly _Bowling Green Daily News_
We have to crack down on cities that are aiding illegal aliens
"New Haven officials have violated Federal Statute 1373a, and if Attorney General Gonzales still has an office, he should prosecute them...   The president could urge Congress to cut off federal funding to New Haven and every other municipality that violates federal immigration law..."

2007-08-19 01:52:56PDT (04:52:56EDT) (08:52:56GMT)
Frank Russell _San Jose Mercury News_
Sili Valley job markets stable
"state Employment Development Department.   It's typical in July that beautiful Santa Clara and San Benito counties lose jobs...   That sent the unemployment rate up to 5.0%, compared with 4.8% in June and 4.8% a year ago.   The total number of jobs, though, came in at 919,300, up 2% from 2006 July.   Year over year, the valley had solid job gains in professional and business services [bodyshopping], education and health, and those always popular food and drinking establishments."

2007-08-19
_India Daily_
How close is US economy to a major recession?
"The unemployment picture shows full under-employment.   That means it is difficult to get a decent paying job while there are plenty of low paying jobs."

2007-08-19
Keriann Lynch _Billings Gazette_
Compensation of employees in Wyoming and Montana are finally catching up with inflation

2007-08-19
_Midland Reporter-Telegram_
Charles Koch of Koch Industries explains _The Science of Success_

2007-08-19
_Pittsburgh Tribune-Review_
Continue the crack-down on illegal aliens
"If widespread economic hardship comes, then we will know how thoroughly American business has been complicit in generating a demand for foreign workers willing to jump our borders...   Congress will be under greater pressure to 'reform' immigration laws with an eye toward relieving the 'labor shortage'.   And what a shortage it might be.   'Undocumented' immigrants may account for 70% of the labor force in the agriculture industry.   Possibly 75% of illegals with jobs are using phony [Socialist Insecurity numbers, SINs]."

2007-08-19
George E. Sexton _Billings Gazette_
Congress-critters are accountable for violations of the constitution
"Millions of veterans over the past 24 decades, did not stand in harm's way to permit a socialistic form of government to entrench itself in America's formerly respectful Houses of government.   After each election, we send representatives to Washington, DC to act on behalf of the people -- not to turn their backs on the wisdom and labors of our forefathers by aiding and abetting illegal aliens.   In reading the Constitution (the supreme law of the land), you will discover that there are no provisions for government to allocate one single dollar of tax money for charitable purposes, yet our present administration has deliberately disregarded the rules governing their activities and thumbed their noses at those who pay the bills.   Therefore, those guilty of this horrendous deed of misconduct must be held accountable.   A clean sweep of both houses is a necessity.   A new crew on the 'Ship of State' will aid in bringing it back on the course recommended by our forefathers because the 'clean sweep' would be a warning to those who replace the present discreditable crew that they must follow the constitutional rules of law and that they work for us, 'we, the people'.   We still carry a 'big stick' at the voting booth."

2007-08-19
Karen Arnold _Star Times_
High levels of formaldehyde found in childrens' clothing from Red China
"However, international research supported by the World Health Organisation shows exposure to formaldehyde in concentrations of 20 parts per million (ppm) can cause eye, skin and nasal irritations, respiratory problems, asthma and cancer.   The European Union limits formaldehyde residues in children's clothes to a maximum of 30ppm.   The chemical is used to give a permanent press effect to clothes.   Consumers are advised to wash and air all clothes before they are worn for the first time.   Target producer Simon Roy said a variety of new clothes were tested, including a girl's top, school shorts, a Spiderman T-shirt, and pyjamas.   Adult clothing was also tested.   Roy said the results were so astounding the AgriQuality scientists thought they had made a mistake.   'Our results were shocking, ranging from 230ppm to 18ppk.   This is almost unbelieveable.   Some of the clothes Target tested have a reading 900 times the level that actually causes harm.'...   Four children's garments were tested for their ph level, which measures acidity or alkalinity.   Levels outside 4 to 7.5 on the scale can damage skin.   Two items, a pair of pants and a girl's top, had pH levels above 7.5.   Roy said garments made in New Zealand with imported [Red Chinese] fabrics also contained chemicals such as harmful dyes that did not wash out or wear off the way formaldehyde did.   That included clothes from top-end designer labels.   Buying Kiwi-made or expensive brands was no safety net for consumers, he said.   Europe had banned 22 aromatic amine dyes which were known carcinogens.   But Target investigations showed 10% of clothes tested in [Red China] contained them and, once again, New Zealand had no regulations about what it accepted into the country."

2007-08-19
Jacqueline Ruhl _Coshocton Tribune_
Clintons' and Bushes' policies would be ruinous for the USA
"instead of supporting American workers, [Hillary] promises amnesty for illegal aliens and all the trimmings on the tree when she is elected.   And she and Senator Obama recently labeled those who don't support amnesty 'racist'.   Never mind that her position is in direct opposition to the views of the majority of citizens she aspires to lead: Americans concerned about overpopulation and its effects on our entitlement programs, schools and environment.   She is corporate America's doll; bought with corporate funding.   And never mind the consequences of adopting millions of uneducated and unskilled souls who will never rise from their situation to claim the American dream, forever destined to be slaves to greedy businesses who want them for their cheap labor.   Hillary, Bill, and the Bushies approve of NAFTA and apparently the job losses it causes American workers.   They are members of the so-called Trilateral Commission, a group of elites who have been cooking-up the Security and Prosperity Partnership and North American Union since 1973.   They will soon claim their pot of gold at the end of their rainbow.   And they don't believe it's any of your business.   On Aug. 20-21, leaders of Canada, Mexico and the U.S.A. will meet in Montebelle, Canada, with corporate interests from all 3 nations and [Red China] to discuss the final stages in erasing our borders, dissolving this nation, building a NAFTA Super Highway and replacing the American dollar with the Amero; NAU officials determining the exchange rate, of course.   Our infrastructure is crumbling.   $2.5M in U.S. tax money, appropriated the U.S. Department of Transportation for our highways, was instead used to plan the NAFTA Highway.   [Red China] is building a super seaport in Mexico and needs this highway to circumvent our ports manned by unionized stevedores, to transport its tainted food and wares into this nation and Canada.   Meanwhile, Bush says he'll veto any congressional effort to make [Red China] clean up its act."

2007-08-19
Mark Steyn _Orange County Register_
Speaking of Sanctuary, Where's Ours?

2007-08-19
Anjali Athavaley _Arizona Daily Star_
Many finding it hard to take long vacations
Seattle Times
"A full 35% of employed U.S. adults aren't taking all the vacation days they get for the year, inching up from 33% last year, according to Expedia.com's annual Vacation Deprivation survey.   Only 14% plan to take a full 2-week vacation this year, down from 16% last year."
 

2007-08-20

2007-08-20
Kent Hoover & Lauren d'Avolio _Michigan Live_
More conscientious enforcement against illegal aliens and their employers has executives, lobbyists and their media squealing like stuck pigs
"Hundreds of thousands of [illegal aliens] will lose their jobs as a result of the federal government's crack-down on companies that employ illegal immigrants, business lobbyists predict...   'It's a disaster for us.', said Craig Silvertooth, a lobbyist for the National Roofing Contractors Association...   Raleigh Roussell, president of QUOIN, the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of The Associated General Contractors of America, said he believes the new measures could have a major impact on the construction industry...   Now the stronger policy with hefty fines is likely to push construction employers to fire people who have 'no-match' Social Security cards [which have not been resolved after 90 days]...   Matthew Mabel, president of Surrender Inc., a Dallas-based management and consulting firm, said Dallas' restaurant industry is less than enthusiastic about the federal government expecting it to be responsible for immigration law...   Brooke Dieterlen, executive director of the Hotel Association of Greater Dallas, said the new rule would vet hotel workers who have something to hide.   There's no expense to hoteliers, she said, since the government will be doing background checks.   'It will impact us, not hugely.', Dieterlen said.   'It won't be damaging for us.'...   The first step employers who receive "no match" letters should take, according to the regulation, is to make sure there wasn't a clerical error, such as a mistyped name or number.   The next step is to check the accuracy of the information with the employee, and then, if necessary, ask him or her to contact the Social Security Administration to resolve the discrepancy.   If the discrepancy is not resolved within 90 days, the employer must terminate the employee or risk being held liable for violating immigration laws...   Employers who do the wrong thing have plenty to fear: the Department of Homeland Security plans to increase civil fines against employers for immigration violations and will seek criminal charges against the worst offenders.   It already has made 742 arrests for work-place violations this year, up from only 24 in 1999 [an indicator to many of years of unwilling enforcement].   The new regulation combined with the stiffer penalties will lead to widespread lay-offs and discrimination against Hispanic workers, business lobbyists predict...   'When illegal aliens and their employers become convinced that we are determined to enforce our laws consistently, fewer people will come illegally, and many who are here will leave on their own.', said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform...   'This may simply be cover for the White House to bring back their amnesty push next year.', said representative Tom Tancredo, R-CO, an opponent of the administration's immigration bill and a candidate for president in 2008.   'I hope time will prove me wrong.'"

2007-08-20
_Washington Times_
Reinforcing the law
"Last Tuesday, for example, Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold, a Republican, issued an executive order requiring all local contractors sign an affidavit affirming that they won't hire illegal aliens. Contracts with businesses found in breach of the policy will be cancelled.   Technically, this just reiterates what is already federal law and doesn't require contractors to provide employee citizenship status.   The companies will only be liable if Immigration and Customs Enforcement catches on, and based on precedent, faith in that agency's abilities to catch on to very much is misplaced...   Steve Levy, county executive in Suffolk County, New York, ordered a similar affidavit in September."

2007-08-20
Cyrus Mehta _Immigration Today_
Conversation with an illegal alien (due to over-stay): Spinning and wriggling and squirming to avoid responsibility for his error

2007-08-20
Ephraim Schwartz _InfoWorld_/_IDG_
India and Red China are beginning to get some competition from near-shoring, but no relief is in sight for US citizen workers

2007-08-20
Martha Zoller _Human Events_
Illegal Immigration, Crime and Campaign 2008
"100K murders committed in America since 2001-09-11."

2007-08-20
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
Looking for illegal aliens? Follow the money

2007-08-20
_AP_/_Billings Gazette_
Max Baucus has proposed free college tuition for science and math majors
Reason hit and run discussion
"Senator Max Baucus wants free college tuition for math and science majors as part of a $25G education incentives package that also includes help for rural teachers and more money for pre-kindergarten programs... &nbnsp; he hopes to introduce his Education Competitiveness Act in the coming months...   The first provision calls for providing a full scholarship to any high school graduate majoring in math, engineering, science or technology.   The scholarship would apply to any university, but students must work or teach in a related field for at least 4 years after graduation to qualify, Baucus said.   Another provision would create 25K merit-based scholarships for teaching students in those fields, with a similar caveat that they must teach in that subject for at least 4 years...   A national report released earlier this year found states spent at least $3.3G last year on pre-kindergarten in 2006 -- up from $2.8G in 2005.   Nearly 1M children, or 20% of the country's 4-year-olds, were in state pre-kindergarten in 2006 -- a 17% increase over the previous year, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research at New Jersey's Rutgers University...   The final provision of Baucus' proposed legislation would combine the Hope Scholarship and Life-Time Learning credits into one higher education tax credit of as much as $2K per student."

2007-08-20 04:00PDT (07:00EST) (12:00GMT)
Declan McCullagh _CNET_
E-voting predicament: Not-so-secret ballots

2007-08-20 (5767 Elul 06)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Buffet Etiquette: "good reason to assume" is not really good enough

2007-08-20 (5767 Elul 06)
Dion Nissenbaum _Jewish World Review_
Hamas TV's child star says she would like to be a doctor... or a martyr
 

2007-08-21

2007-08-20 18:20PDT (2007-08-20 21:20EDT) (2007-08-21 01:20GMT)
_Yahoo!_/_AP_
Capital One to cut 1,900 jobs, close mortgage banking business
"Capital One said it will shut down GreenPoint Mortgage and eliminate most of the jobs by the end of year.   The McLean, VA-based company will close 31 GreenPoint locations in 19 states and 'cease residential mortgage origination' effective immediately but said it will honor commitments to customers with locked rates who have loans already in the pipe-line...   Once a stand-alone credit card company, Capital One has moved in the past 2 years to acquire traditional banks as part of an effort to diversify.   In acquired GreenPoint in December as a part of a $13.2G purchase of North Fork Bancorp, which operates banks in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut."

2007-08-20 23:00PDT (2007-08-21 02:00EDT) (2007-08-21 06:00GMT)
Max Showalter _Lafayette Journal & Courier_
NW Indiana unemployment rate down in July
"The unemployment rate for Tippecanoe county, which has been bouncing between 3.7% and 4.8% this year, stood in the middle -- at 4.1% in July.   A report from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development shows the county's labor force shrunk by 426, to 79,758 in July.   The number of people who were employed declined by 259, to 76,761, while the number of unemployed individuals dropped by 167, to 3,256.   The report also shows that most surrounding counties also experienced a lower jobless rate last month when compared to June.   The lone exception is Newton County, which saw unemployment increase from 4.7% to 4.9% during the 2-month period.   Last month, Intec, a manufacturer of automotive components, announced plans to close its plant in the Newton County town of Morocco by the end of the year.   Shifting production to company facilities in Palatine, IL, Mexico and [Red China] will eliminate 160 jobs...   Indiana's unemployment rate dropped from 4.7% in June to 4.6% in July -- lowest among the 6-state Midwest region."

2007-08-21
Ben Feller _AP_/_News & Observer_
Shrub meets with Harper and Calderon
"Bush came to this resort town on the Ottawa River to strengthen his ties with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.   They were poised to announce at least one wrinkle, an effort to clarify border security plans in emergencies.   Yet for all the gestures of unity, there were differences that were handled much more gingerly, spanning from Arctic waterways to passport policies to the war in Afghanistan...   Security and trade issues dominated talks among the North American leaders.   Their goal is to make their borders safer without impeding their trade-and-tourism relationship.   Yet even their security partnership has stirred fears in Canada and the U.S.A. that more North American integration will derail national sovereignty.   About 2K demonstrators descended on the Montebello in protest; police used tear gas to push back several dozen."

2007-08-21
Jesse Walker _Reason_
Populism: Genuine and Phony

2007-08-21
_Chicago Tribune_
Anchor Baby

2007-08-21
Jack Ganssle _EE Times Asia_/_CMP_
Unending H-1B Saga: Where's the clean, clear data?

2007-08-21 14:24PDT (17:24EDT) (21:24GMT)
Moira Herbst _Business Week_
There are plenty of US citizens to fill jobs
WHIO
News 4 Jax
News Factor
CIO Today
"David Rosenberg [an] economist at Merrill Lynch... is one of a number of economists who say the concerns about too few workers are vastly over-blown.   Rosenberg recently studied the issue and put out a report entitled 'Is There a Labor Shortage?' If employers are having trouble filling jobs, 'perhaps they're not looking hard enough', he says.   The issue may not be the number of workers, but rather the level of pay.   Economists like Rosenberg argue that in a market economy, there's really no such thing as a true shortage.   If you want more of something, you can pay more and have it.   When employers say that there's a worker shortage, what they really mean is they can't get enough workers at the price they want to pay, the argument goes.   'While it makes for nice cocktail conversation, the data aren't saying there is an acute labor shortage in this country.', Rosenberg says...   Even as the unemployment rate has declined in recent years, millions of Americans have left the workforce and stopped looking for jobs.   The government's Bureau of Labor Statistics has a dedicated category for 'discouraged' workers who believe no positions are available to them.   If the percentage of Americans participating in the work-force were the same now as it was in 2000, the number officially counted as unemployed would be 9.1M, rather than 7.1M.   The unemployment rate would be 5.8%, instead of 4.6%...   The wages of 80% of the U.S. work-force -- made up of non-supervisory workers -- have been stagnating since the late-1990s boom ended.   On Aug. 20, the government released data that showed the average household income increased 4.1% in 2005, to $55,238.   But that's still below the average household income in 2000...   'Employers are very quick to raise the specter of a labor shortage, but often it's another way of saying they can't find the workers they want at the price they're paying.', says Jared Bernstein, senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.   'They are unwilling to meet the price signal the market is sending, so they seek help in the form of a spigot like immigration.'...   'We don't believe that there is a labor shortage.', says Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild.   'There is perhaps a shortage of people willing to work at the salary being offered because those rates are now being set by visa programs like H-1B.   But you'll attract the best and brightest [U.S. workers] if the price is right.'..."

2007-08-21
Ericka Andersen _Human Events_
CASA de Maryland teaching how to avoid la Migre

2007-08-21
Wesley Pruden _Washington Times_
The 3 amigos erasing borders
"The Mexican government, eager to export penniless Mexicans, is the most enthusiastic about the partnership and the billions of expected yankee dollars.   Just 2 days after his election in 2000, Vicente Fox talked of his vision of a North American common market, a customs union, a common tariff, joint monetary policy and the 'free flow of labor' across borders.   It's difficult to imagine what Mr. Fox calls a 'free flow' of labor if what we've had for decades hasn't satisfied him."

2007-08-21 (5767 Elul 07)
John Dorschner _Jewish World Review_
Many Changes

2007-08-21 (5767 Elul 07)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The left has long had a vested interest in poverty and social malaise
"Progress in general seems to hold little interest for people who call themselves 'progressives'...   When the poor stop being poor, they lose the attention of the left.   What actions on the part of the poor, or what changes in the economy, have led to drastic reductions in poverty seldom arouse much curiosity, much less celebration.   This is not a new development in our times.   Back in the 19th century, when Karl Marx presented his vision of the impoverished working class rising to attack and destroy capitalism, he was disappointed when the workers grew less revolutionary over time, as their standards of living improved."
 

2007-08-22

2007-08-22
_Clarion Ledger_
More recalls of Red Chinese toys
Reuters
"The Consumer Product Safety Commission today announced 4 recalls of Chinese-manufactured children's jewelry and toys containing the toxic metal lead, including 250K SpongeBob SquarePants address books and journals.   The federal agency formally announced the recall of 66K toy tops and 4,700 toy pails by Schylling Associates Inc., a Massachusetts toy-maker, for containing lead in the handles.   The number of toys recalled is nearly 20K more than the 51K tops Schylling announced it would recall 2 weeks ago.   The company announced the earlier recall after tests performed on a Thomas and Friends spinning top at the request of the Chicago Tribune showed a lead level 40 times higher than the legal limit.   The Schylling toys covered by the recall are tops and pails painted with Thomas & Friends, Curious George or a circus scene.   The tops were sold for about $13 and the pails for about $6 between 2001 July and 2002 July...   Toby N.Y.C. of New York recalled 14K Toby & Me jewelry sets that variously include a necklace, bracelet, earrings and a ring.   The sets sold for about $8 from 2006 August until May.   Buy-Rite Designs Inc. of Freehold, NJ, recalled 7,900 children's Divine Inspiration charm bracelets that have silver-colored charms, including angels, crosses, hearts, and clear and pink beads that hang from a silver-colored chain.   The bracelets sold for $1 at Dollar stores and other retail stores from 2004 March until this month, the commission said."

2007-08-22 09:17PDT (12:17EDT) (16:17GMT)
David Sirota _Huffington Post_
White House says statistical spread of wealth distribution curve "is not a very interesting story"
"Just consider the bait-and-switch quality to all this.   We are told that when there is a short supply of a good or service that is in demand, the market dictates that the price for that good or service rises (as just one example, we hear this justification all the time when it comes to the supply of oil and the price of gas).   This results in higher profits for the corporations producing the good or service.   But we are simultaneously told that if there is a short supply of labor that is in demand, the market should not raise the price (a.k.a. wages) for that labor (which would, of course, lessen the wealth disparity in America).   No, instead we are told that we should rig the labor market by flooding it with a supply of workers who will exist under a legal framework that makes them more easily exploitable than other workers (i.e. they can't form unions to demand better wages/working conditions without fearing their employer will deport them)."

2007-08-22
_Family Security Matters_
Illegal Aliens' Impact on American Jobs part 1
"illegal immigration distorts the law of supply and demand in a capitalistic society.   In fact, regarding wages, it is hypocritical to want to raise the minimum wage on one hand while the other hand wink at illegal immigrants working at far below prevailing wages.   The victim, then, is the American worker and [tax-victim]."

2007-08-22
Christopher Orlet _American Spectator_
Anchor Babies
"Estimates on the number of anchor babies in the U.S. range from 3.1M to 4.9M, and unless Congress acts those numbers will continue to rise.   Representatives should begin by revisiting Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states: 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.'   Michelle Malkin notes the phrase 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' was intended to be exclusionary (especially toward American Indians) and certainly was not intended to include children born to tourists and temporary workers."

2007-08-22
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster _Op Ed News_
Ron Paul Revolution: The Road to Freedom

2007-08-22
_Creative Loafing_
Living La Vida Loop-Hole
"Because the deportations are triggered by bond proceedings and occur before conviction, many illegal alien criminals are being deported from the country without being tried on the criminal charges that led to their arrests or serving time for their crimes."

2007-08-22
Chris Boutet _National Post_
Unions accuse police of inciting violence at North American summit
CTV
Star
video

2007-08-22
"Simon" _Product Reviews_
Ron Paul to celebrate birth-day with BBQ bash

2007-08-22
_Free-Market News Network_
Is Ron Paul campaign enjoying an August funding surge?

2007-08-22
Victoria Hardy _American Chronicle_
Ron Paul brings hope

2007-08-22
Jim Baxter _View from 1776_
Peace Through Strength
"Every September, I recall that it is more than half a century (62 years) since I landed at Nagasaki with the 2nd Marine Division in the original occupation of Japan following World War II.   This time every year, I have watched and listened to the light-hearted peaceniks and their light-headed symbolism-without-substance of ringing bells, flying pigeons, floating candles, and sonorous chanting and I recall again that 'Peace is not a cause -- it is an effect.'   In July, 1945, my fellow 8th RCT Marines [I was a BARman] and I returned to Saipan following the successful conclusion of the Battle of Okinawa.   We were issued new equipment and replacements joined each outfit in preparation for our coming amphibious assault on the home islands of Japan.   B-29 bombing had leveled the major cities of Japan, including Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Yokosuka, and Tokyo.   We were informed we would land 3 Marine divisions and 6 Army divisions, perhaps abreast, with large reserves following us in.   It was estimated that it would cost half a million casualties to subdue the Japanese homeland.   In August, the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima but the Japanese government refused to surrender.   Three days later a second A-bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki.   The Imperial Japanese government finally surrendered..."

2007-08-22
Thomas Brewton _View from 1776_
New Light on Immigration

2007-08-22 13:26PDT (16:26EDT) (20:26GMT)
Steve Lohr _NY Times_
High-Tech Immigration Challenge
"Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at the Harvard Law School and executive-in-residence at Duke University, said today that the H-1B program is 'wonderful for technology companies and employers.   They have a captive' [pool of labor].   The H-1B, he explained, allows the sponsoring company to control employees, and often under-pay them, as critics of the visa program contend.   Instead, Mr. Wadhwa said the United States should simply grant skilled immigrant workers permanent residence visas, so-called green cards.   The new report says that more than 1 million skilled workers -- scientists, engineers, doctors and researchers -- are competing for 120K permanent residence visas each year.   The surging back-log, the study adds, is starting to fuel a 'reverse brain drain' as skilled workers return to their home country.   Mr. Wadhwa is an Indian immigrant, who came to the United States in 1980, got his green card within 18 months and went on to found his own [cross-border bodyshopping] company and become an American citizen.   Today [after decades of extremely excessive guest-work visas], he estimates, the wait for a green card would 6 to 10 years, and the worker is tied to the same employer all that time.   The 3-study series also found that 1 in 4 engineering and technology companies founded between 1995 and 2005 had an immigrant founder.   Foreign nationals residing in the United States were named as inventors or co-inventors in 26% of international patent applications filed in America last year.   That compares with 8% in 1998."

2007-08-22 13:45PDT (16:45EDT) (20:45GMT)
_AP_/_Forbes_
American Council on International Personnel spent $140K to lobby in first half of 2007
"The group lobbied on issues related to the employment of foreign nationals, immigrant visas, and employer sanctions, according to the form posted online Aug. 9 by the Senate's public records office.   The group's members include Intel Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.   Besides Congress, the council lobbied the departments of Commerce, Labor, Homeland Security and State, and the Social Security Administration."

2007-08-22
Natasha Lomis _Ziff Davis_/_Silicon.com_
Survey finds increasing disgust with off-shoring
"A third of respondents to the survey agree or strongly agree with the statement 'I feel that off-shoring is a threat to my current job' -- a very slight increase on last year's result, when 32% feared that their job could be sent abroad.   At the same time, the number of people who don't view off-shoring as a threat dropped to 41%, from 44% last year.   The proportion who aren't sure whether offshoring is a threat stands at 23% -- a rise of 6 percentage points on 2004's figure...   However, according to The Work Foundation report, Indian workers don't see things that way.   'Indian business insiders [who have personally benefitted from off-shoring and in-sourcing] see future off-shore out-sourcing as an advantage for Europe, enabling it to focus on the thinking part of the job, providing opportunities for better jobs and knowledge work in Europe.', the report said.   When it comes to specific job roles, rank-and-file IT workers have the biggest fears about offshoring.   More than two-fifths [>20%] of software and web developers responding to the Skills Survey agree or strongly agree that off-shoring is a threat to them, while two-fifths [20%] of IT pros feel the same way.   This compares with less than a third of CIOs [<33%], and just over a third [>33%;] of board-level executives and IT managers...   63% of survey respondents agree or strongly agree that IT jobs that involve business skills [B-school bozos] are less likely to be out-sourced off-shore than jobs involving only technical skills."

2007-08-22
_Mainichi Daily News_/_M$N_
China Airlines painted over name and logo on plane wreckage

2007-08-22 (5767 Elul 08)
Rod Dreher _Jewish World Review_
The Decalogue, dangerous? Advice for a society that cringes at commandments

2007-08-22 (5767 Elul 08)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
Between Courage and Despair

2007-08-22 (5767 Elul 08)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Leftist views, black victims
"So here's the question: Should black people accept government's dereliction of its first basic function, that of providing protection?   My answer is no.   One of our basic rights is the right to defend oneself against predators.   If the government can't or won't protect people, people have a right to protect themselves...   Black men should set up neighborhood patrols, armed if necessary, and if politicians and police don't like it, they should do their jobs.   No one should have to live in daily fear for their lives and safety."
 

2007-08-23

2007-08-23 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 255,116 in the week ending Aug. 18, a decrease of 11,563 from the previous week.   There were 252,357 initial claims in the comparable week in 2006.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.9% during the week ending Aug. 11, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,419,866, an increase of 7,750 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.8% and the volume was 2,326,364.   Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending Aug. 4."
graphs

2007-08-23 07:07PDT (10:07EDT) (14:07GMT)
_News Max_
Red China protests reciprocity
"Most galling, the ministry said, was a recent U.S. policy shift that reversed 23 years of U.S. trade policy by treating [Red China], which is classified as a non-market economy, in the same way other U.S. trading partners are treated in disputes involving government subsidies.   U.S. companies always have been allowed to file anti-dumping cases, seeking penalty tariffs on the grounds that the [Red Chinese] products were being sold in the United States below cost.   But since March, they also have been able to seek penalty tariffs, known as countervailing duties, on the basis of improper government subsidies -- everything from favorable loans from state-owned [Red Chinese] banks to direct government support.   Since November, the U.S. has launched antidumping investigations against 5 types of [Red Chinese] imports -- glossy paper, pipes and tubes, welded steel pipes, laminated woven sacks and off-the-road tires...   He said the 5 investigations affected 500 Chinese enterprises and $860M in exports...   U.S. rules announced in June are meant to deny China's military access to technology that might aid its modernization.   The rules impose new end-use controls on goods including lasers, telecommunications equipment and navigation systems..."

2007-08-23
John Stossel _abc_
Give me a break: Cheap in America: Who gives and who doesn't
"This Friday on '20/20' at 22:00 EDT, we look again at charity. 'Cheap in America: Who Gives and Who Doesn't' investigates just that.   225M Americans give away money, which means that 75M don't.   So, what determines your likelihood of giving? Do liberals give more than conservatives?   Do religious people give mostly to their own churches?   Do the rich give more than the middle-class and the middle-class more than the poor?   The answers are surprising.   There are many myths about giving.   One is that liberals give more.   Another is that rich people give more.   Actually, they do in total dollars -- 50% of charitable gifts come from the richest seven percent of the population.   But what's surprising is that as a percentage of their income, the working poor give significantly more: 4.6% vs. just 3.1% for people with incomes above $100K.   The contributions of the working poor made me wonder about the charitable behavior of the rich.   If the working poor give away more, are the richest Americans, well...cheap?   I'll ask some of the Forbes 400 billionaires about that.   Their reasons for giving, and not giving, are very different…and sometimes funny.   Ted Turner, who gives generously to charity, is still worth $1.9G, according to the Forbes 400 List.   Turner tells me he can't donate more 'and still keep enough [to] make sure that my grand-children make it, [and] can get through college'.   When I suggest that $1.9G should be enough, Turner answers, 'It's not enough...   I was worth $10G, about 4, 5 years ago, at the very height.   And I lost 8 of it.   So, you know, the other 2 could evaporate over-night...the banks can close.   They're not safe either, just like the United States government, behind social security.'   Dan Duncan, who is worth $7.5G, is on BusinessWeek's list of the most generous philanthropists.   Still, he has only given away 2% of his net worth, which I suggest to him sounds 'cheap'.   Duncan answers, 'If that was all that I ever wanted to give away, I would agree 100%, [but] if you're one of the gifted people that can actually make more money, people receiving it are better off if you keep it to get a lot more later on.'   This excuse may sound self-serving, but it is actually very solid reasoning.   If you are skilled at building companies, your talents may be wasted if you devote yourself to charity.   I'll back that up in the special.   Eli Broad, who is worth $5.8G, and has given away almost $2G, 33% of his net worth, said he has so much money that he can't yet give it away effectively.   'Who do you give it to?   You could write checks.   Everyone will take your money.', he tells me.   'And I know people in decades gone by giving away a lot of money and you look back a decade later and say what happened to it?   Did it make a difference?'   We'll also report on the joy of giving.   There is science that documents something called the helpers' high.   In fact, new science said that giving more can actually improve your health.   So, unless you are an entrepreneur creating vast new enterprises, please give.   The helpers' high is one more reason for you to think about giving away more of your money, or time, to others."

2007-08-23 10:45PDT (13:45EDT) (17:45GMT)
William L. Watts _MarketWatch_
CBO federal deficit forecast trimmed to $158G because of increased revenues
"The deficit totaled $248G in fiscal 2006."

2007-08-23
Michael Doyle _Fresno Bee_
Dianne Feinstein pushing for yet another guest-work visa with amnesty for illegal aliens
"It would offer legal residency, and eventually U.S. citizenship, to 1.5M illegal immigrants now working in agriculture."

2007-08-23
Suzanne Gamboa _AP_/_Florida Sun-Sentinel_
Plan to re-check green-card holders and update their records is seen as a round-up
Houston Chronicle

2007-08-23
Michael Manekin _San Mateo county Times_
Enforce immigration laws
"Standing on the parched grass of his front lawn, Bush points to the house on his left.   'I've got Muslim neighbors from Fiji who I dearly love, and (those in) the house next door are from Mexico.', Bush says, pointing now to the house on his right and a tight cluster of tall yellow stalks.   'See that corn there?   It must be 12 feet tall.' Bush doesn't mind these crops in his suburban neighborhood; he loves the sound of the wind blowing through the green husks.   And he says he likes Mexican culture.   His wife, Socorro, was raised in Mexico, and she regularly cooks him enchiladas and chiles rellenos.   But he hates that his neighborhood has been sliding down-hill.   At least, that's the way he sees it.   The crime, he says, is high; the test scores at the local schools, he says, are low; and neighborhood homes, once proud, have turned 'Third World' shabby, he says, or are otherwise barely visible, hidden behind thick wrought-iron gates popular among Latino immigrants.   Bush blames the influx of people from across the border, and he says hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people in Redwood City agree."

2007-08-23
_Family Security Matters_
Illegal Aliens' Impact on American Jobs part 2
"In any case, illegal aliens are not just picking strawberries and cleaning toilets any more.   It wasn't that long ago that being a dry-waller, brick-layer, house framer, painter, carpet layer, plumber, or electrician was a decently compensated, middle class trade.   Now it is increasingly becoming the work for illegal aliens at far less than the free market rate.   While illegal alien workers are only a small portion of many of those job categories, their willingness to work at dramatically lower rates artificially drags down the compensation for all workers."

2007-08-23
Stephen Dinan _Washington Times_
Government among biggest employer of aliens with "non-work Socialist Insecurity Numbers
"According to the 2006 audit by the [Social Insecurity] inspector general, 17 of the 100 worst employers using employees with non-work numbers were government agencies: 7 federal agencies, 7 state agencies and 3 local governments.   That means the government knows who those employees are, but usually does not go after them."

2007-08-23
Chris Strohm _Government Executive_/_National Journal_
DHS to broaden sharing of US-VISIT data
"The data-base, called the arrival-and-departure information system, contains information collected at U.S. ports of entry and departure on all foreigners who enter, travel within or leave the United States.   It was created in 2003 as part of the US-VISIT foreigner-tracking program and does not contain information on U.S. citizens...   The official said the department expects intelligence agencies to contact it more often for information on foreigners that are under investigation.   The data-base could provide critical information during investigations, especially concerning whether a foreign subject is inside the United States, the official said."

2007-08-23
Nick Corcodilos _InfoWorld_
I, Programmer: Rules-based software development

2007-08-23
Derek Lowe _In the Pipe-Line_
Science Jobs That Don't Exist

2007-08-23 (5767 Elul 09)
Jeff Jacoby _Jewish World Review_
Armenian genocide
 

2007-08-24

2007-08-24
_Fort Worth/Tarrant county Star-Telegram_
US citizens for hire

2007-08-24 01:00PDT (04:00EDT) (08:00GMT)
Matthew Malinowski _AP_/_Yahoo!_
US government gives away scholarships to Latin American students while saddling US students with loan debt
"While in Chile, she confirmed the creation of 100 annual scholarships for students who want to complete their doctorate studies in the United States, as well as future programs aimed at furthering education exchange between the 2 countries...   The Chile program stipulates that participants return to Chile and work for at least 2 years after receiving their PhDs.   Aside from covering the costs of doctorate studies, the scholarship will also pay for predeparture English language training...   According to US embassy figures, the number of shorter-term J1 student visas (for exchange visitors participating in a program approved by the State Department) issued to Chileans has risen in recent years.   However, only 1K longer-term F1 student visas were issued [to Chileans] in 2006, as compared to 1,286 in 2001.   [Over 660K total student visas were issued.]"

2007-08-24 08:59PDT (11:59EDT) (15:59GMT)
_News Max_/_Reuters_
Job Market May Have a Bleak Christmas
"Unemployment is likely to rise to 5.1% by the second half of 2008, up from 4.6% now, Global Insight predicted.   Real gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the economy, will likely drop below an annual rate of 2% in the fourth quarter of 2007 and remain in the 1% to 2% range until the third quarter of 2008."

2007-08-24
Bill Turque _Washington Post_
Boards of Fairfax & Prince William counties at odds over how to cope with illegal aliens

2007-08-24
Natasha Altamirano _Washington Times_
VA task-force eyeing uniform laws on illegal aliens: NJ AG ordered police to check immigration status of arrestees

2007-08-24
Maria Glod &emp; Michael Alison Chandler _Washington Post_
Northern Virginia counties inundated by students with limited English skills

2007-08-24
Seth McLaughlin _Washington Times_
VA state legislator proposed to cut off state funding for illegal alien sanctuary cities and counties

2007-08-24
_AP_/_Wilmington Star_
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) proposes more funding for sheriffs & police for enforcing immigration laws

2007-08-24
Michael Kiefer _Arizona Republic_
Joe Arpaio has moderated policy intended to bar illegal aliens from visiting in-mates

2007-08-24 10:31PDT (13:31EDT) (17:31GMT)
Zachary Hubbard _Johnstown Tribune-Democrat_
Is Red China preparing for open military attack on USA?
"As the United States was engaged in returning the Panama Canal Zone to Panama, [Red China] was busy establishing a beachhead there.   Through land deals with Panama, the [Red Chinese] have gained control of both ends of this critical waterway, today controlling port facilities in Balboa, the canal's only Pacific port, and a major Atlantic port in Cristobol.   The agreements allow [Red China] to run them for the next half-century...   The Pentagon reported in 2007 May that [Red Chinese-made] armor-piercing missiles fell into the hands of anti-American militants in Iraq...   The Iranians, who have nuclear ambitions of their own, depend upon [Red Chinese] and North Korean technology to keep their nuclear missile delivery program moving forward.   The Iranians also have purchased sophisticated [Red Chinese] cruise anti-ship missiles that can be employed to interdict the free flow of oil from the Persian Gulf...   In 2002 January, the Congressional Research Service published a report titled '[Red China]: Possible Missile Technology Transfer from U.S. Satellite Export Policy'.   The report chronicles how in 1996, after a series of NASA satellite launch failures, the Clinton administration moved export control of commercial satellite technology from the State Department to the Department of Commerce.   [Red China] subsequently launched numerous American satellites into orbit...   A subsequent congressional investigation produced the classified Cox Report in 1998 December, indicating that indeed [Red China's] military capabilities had benefited from U.S. exports for the past 20 years, including the launching of American communications satellites...   Is [Red China] already at war with America?"

2007-08-24
Jeffrey Gold _Philadelphia Inquirer_/_AP_
Technologies 500 Holdings ordered to pay $500K in back wages to guest-workers and pay $162,750 in fines
NY News Day
North Jersey
Asbury Park Press
Home News Tribune
"A central New Jersey software company was ordered to pay $537,189 in back wages to computer programmers it hired under a visa program that allows high-tech workers to come to the United States, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday.   In addition, Technologies500 Holdings and its president were fined $162,750 for violations of the H-1B visa program.   It was not immediately clear, however, that the 36 workers and government would be able to collect.   The company may no longer be operating, and its president has been deported.   The Labor Department said that Technologies500, which had been known as Cybersoftec.com, of Iselin, and its president, Narendra V. Mandalapa, failed to pay required wages to the workers from 2004 January through 2005 November...   In a separate criminal case, Mandalapa, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of immigration fraud in 2006 June.   He was sentenced in January to 20 months in federal prison and fined $25K.   He was released in April because of credit for time served since his arrest.   Mandalapa was then deported to India, where he was born and is a citizen, said one of his lawyers in the criminal case, Eric R. Breslin.   Breslin said federal agents seized cash and cars, which were later forfeited by Mandalapa."

2007-08-24
Dennis Murashko, Brian T. Fox, Robert Badal & Paul Bloustein _Wall Street Journal_
Don't Under-Sell US Tech Workers When It Comes to Competition
"reward thinking rather than guess-work and rote memorization.   Creativity will follow...   Any graduate of a liberal-arts program in the last 30 years knows full well that the overwhelming majority of liberal-arts educators view capitalism as an evil; globalism as a plutocratic conspiracy; and the pursuit of business success as perverse, selfish and base.   Whatever you learn in your four years studying history, literature, political science or art, it is certain not to be how to apply a liberal-arts education to productive work in business.   The notion that students come out of college more able to "question authority" is also laughable.   If anything, the ideological monolith that is humanities education attempts to teach students to obey the authority of the professor, accept what they're told without question, and to appreciate the consequences of falling out of line, which can include being called racist, sexist -- even fascist...   Our success, however, lies in playing to our strengths, which are and have always been creativity, versatility, imagination, restlessness, energy, ambition, and problem-solving prowess.   From the view of colleges, the critical strengths needed are instilled and nurtured by a broad curriculum that focuses not only on math and science, but also on skills in reading, interpreting, writing, speaking, and thinking clearly and critically.   In short, these strengths are the result of a liberal-arts based education.   Real innovation arises from minds that can see where technical expertise needs to be applied in order to find creative new solutions.   And markets are captured by those who understand the power of words and have the ability to craft clear and effective communication...   the sky will not fall just because President Bush signed into law the America Competes Act, an education bill that increases funding for science, technology, engineering and math.   The idea that creativity in a scientific field requires a background liberally salted with expertise in world history, art, music or medieval French poetry finds support only in the faculty lounge of the Humanities building."

2007-08-24
Julie A. Hedlund & Robert D. Atkinson _Industry Week_
Rise of the New Mercantilists

2007-08-24
Sam Roberts _NY Times_
ICE won't have moratorium on arrests of illegal aliens and their employers during the 2010 census
Las Vegas Review-Journal

2007-08-24
_Finanz Nachrichten_/_AP_
M$ hired yet another lobbyist for visa issues
CNN/Money
interactive investor
Forbes
"M$ Corp. hired SC Partners LLC to lobby the federal government on immigration matters, according to a disclosure form...   M$ has previously said that about one-third of its 46K U.S.A.-based employees have work visas or are legal permanent residents with green cards."

Payments to Charles Shipp & Assoc by M$
2002	$125K
2003	$125K
2004	$130K
2005	$160K
2006	$60K
2007	$40K

2007-08-24
Chuck Baldwin _V Dare_
We don't need a Christian president. We need an American president

2007-08-24
_Truth News_
Red China got Internet firms to conspire against free speech
"At least 20 leading blog service providers in [Red China], including U.S.-based Internet giants Yahoo and M$, have signed an agreement that will help the government censor and identify bloggers.   The agreement, which was unveiled by the Internet Society of [Red China] (which is under [Red China's] Ministry of Information Industry) this week, 'encourages' blog service providers to list contact information and register users under their real names before letting them post blogs."

2007-08-24
_Wilkes Barre Times Leader_
Hazleton filed appeal
"Attorney Harry G. Mahoney filed notice of the city's appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.   The notice, filed in federal court in Scranton, states the city is appealing judge James Munley's July 26 ruling that invalidated the ordinances, as well as several of the judge's earlier rulings that permitted several defendants in the case to proceed anonymously."

2007-08-24
Daniel C. Vock _StateLine_
Tighter driver licensing rules are netting illegal aliens

2007-08-24
Jeff Nash _Financial Week_
300 companies get letters from SEC asking for more details on executive compensation

2007-08-24
_Napa Valley Register_
The issue is the impact of illegal aliens on the USA

2007-08-24 15:43PDT (18:43EDT) (22:43GMT)
_AP_/_Forbes_
SanDisk executives take raises despite earlier declaration that they'd take a cut

2007-08-24 (5767 Elul 10)
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski _Jewish World Review_
What the Bible understood about addicts

2007-08-24 (5767 Elul 10)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Rise of the fantasists
"the fantasists ignored completely Osama bin Laden's declarations that his goal is to conquer the world in the name of Islam.   They disregarded the political and cultural milieus marked by inexhaustible envy towards the West and the US that gave rise to al Qaida and its sister organizations.   Rather than acknowledge the reality of real war with real enemies, both camps of fantasists argued that instead of slaying these twin dragons, the US should appease them by serving them Israel for lunch.   These voices were relegated to the margins of public debate until the lead up to the 2004 presidential elections.   Ahead of those elections, backed by George Soros's financial muscle, the fantasists had an enormous impact of the debate in the Democratic Party.   Politicians who until then had supported the war generally and in Iraq particularly clamored to decry it.   This week, 2 leftist institutions -- the Center for American [Regress] and Foreign Policy magazine -- published a survey of conservative, moderate, and liberal foreign policy experts.   The results of the survey show clearly that while still a minority, the fantasists are far from marginal today."

2007-08-24

DJIA	13,378.87
S&P 500	1,479.37
NASDAQ	2,576.69
10-year US T-Bond	4.63%
crude oil	$71.09/barrel
gold	$677.50/ounce
silver	$13.158/ounce
platinum	$1,247.00/ounce
palladium	$336.50/ounce
copper	$0.20859375/ounce
natural gas	$5.523/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.9814/gal
heatingoil	$1.9972/gal

I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts and FT Interactive.
 
 

2007-08-25

2007-08-25 05:26PDT (08:26EDT) (12:26GMT)
Matt Gouras _AP_/_Yahoo!_
Help-Wanted Ads for Low Pay Go Unanswered in West
Fox
Sun-Sentinel
Helena Independent Record
"John Francis, who owns the McDonald's in Sidney, MT, said he tried advertising in the local newspaper and even offered up to $10 an hour to compete with higher-paying oil field jobs.   Yet the only calls were from other business owners upset they would have to raise wages, too.   Of course, Francis' current employees also wanted a pay hike...   A local paper in Jackson, WY, has page after page of help wanted ads...   For years, the resort has imported dozens of workers from Eastern Europe who often come as much for the summer recreation opportunity as the money.   This year, however, that wasn't enough and so for the first time the resort also sent recruiters to a high school job fair, said spokeswoman Greer Terry.   It only helped a little...   Established baby boomers, including retirees, have been moving into Montana for the mountain views and recreation, bringing with them money for new homes that fuel construction job growth, said Swanson.   Along the way, younger people have moved away searching for bigger pay-checks as the state's wages still lag behind other areas and are slowly increasing overall.   Now, the aging work force is unable to expand to meet the demands of the job market, Swanson said.   He said the problem is compounded by the fact that employers, accustomed to paying relatively low wages, have been slow to increase salaries.   Montana wages have historically been among the lowest in the country, and still rank near the bottom.   The silver lining for workers is that wages are now growing at the third-fastest rate among U.S. states.   Now, workers with more options in some places are unwilling to take $12-an-hour jobs...   In Helena, the pool of applicants has been shrinking even for jobs on the police force.   For professional jobs, such as department managers, the city is considering hiring slightly underqualified people that can be trained on the job...   Utah workers saw a 5.4% average wage increase in 2006, Knold said."

2007-08-25
Jenna Russell _Boston Globe_
Illegal aliens and poor immigrants work for the wealthy on Nantucket

2007-08-25
_Houston Chronicle_/_AP_
ICE found 58 illegal aliens in one south Texas home

2007-08-25
Aaron Nelsen _Brownsville Herald_
Many cross border from Mexico to schools in Texas
"Some are U.S. citizens, others [are illegal aliens], but they all hold fast to the belief that their future is brighter on this side of the river.   To attend a Brownsville public school, students must provide district officials with a birth certificate, immunization records, a [Socialist Insecurity number, SIN], transcripts from previous schools and a document showing proof of residence, such as a utility or mortgage statement.   However, access to a public education, regardless of legal status, is protected by the Supreme Court decision, Plyler v. Doe.   As long as a student can show he or she lives inside district boundaries that school district cannot deny them an education.   'As long as they reside within the Brownsville Independent School District students have the right to (attend) school here.', said Silvia Perez, administrator for admissions and attendance at Brownsville ISD.   'We investigate all alleged cases of students living in Matamoros and not Brownsville and if in fact they aren't living in Brownsville we withdraw them because residency is the one requirement we do have.' The school district has no method for tracking the number of students who actually live outside the district, according to Perez, as 'that is not part of the dialogue school officials have with them'."

2007-08-25
Anne Davies _The Age_
USA-Australia negotiating deal to let thousands of Australian students spend their "gap year" working to drive down compensation and opportunity for US students in the USA
"High school students will be able to spend their gap year working in the United States before returning to Australia for university under a proposed new visa deal...   'I don't know what you call it when people take a year off in Australia, but the idea is these young people would take temporary jobs in the US before they went to college.', the official said.   'We've been exploring the idea in the lead-up to the visit and we will have something to say about it in Sydney.'   About 34K Australians aged 17 to 24 take a gap year after high school before moving on to further study or a career."

2007-08-25
Richard Marosi _Los Angeles Times_
Federal government still dragging their heels on construction of border fence
"Nearly a year after Congress passed legislation calling for the construction of 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, about 15 miles have been built, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Some Republicans and anti-illegal immigration groups have recently criticized the lack of progress, but Homeland Security, which had committed to putting up 70 miles of fencing by Sept. 30, said the project was back on track after being slowed by environmental, hiring and design issues. Workers are scheduled to break ground next week on a seven-mile stretch southwest of Tucson. Work on the remainder of a 37-mile barrier near Yuma, AZ, will also continue. Representative Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), a long-time fence supporter, said in a letter to President Bush last week: 'This lack of progress is unacceptable, especially when adequate funding is available to earnestly proceed with fence construction.'... The act calls for fencing in 5 areas along the 1,952-mile border. The longest stretch -- from east of Calexico, CA, to Douglas, AZ -- would be about 300 miles long. Other large segments would be built along the Rio Grande in Texas. There are about 90 miles of fence, most of it in California."

2007-08-25 13:04:54PDT (16:04:54EDT) (20:04:54GMT)
Alessandra Stanley _Denver Post_/_NY Times_
Lauren Jones
"She showed glimmers of steelier stuff on her second day, but mostly her performance didn't glow so much as grate.   In an open letter to viewers on Tuesday she bemoaned the loss of American jobs to out-sourcing over-seas.   'That's just not right, y'all.', she said.   'Self-preservation begins at home.'"
 

2007-08-26

2007-08-26
Bob Stallman _Des Moines Register_
Recognize that House farm bill already contains reform
"By better balancing support programs between all types of crops, the bill further encourages farmers to plant for the market, not for the benefit of government programs.   This is critical at a time when meeting changing demand for farm products for various uses such as biofuels will depend on farmer flexibility.   The bill lowers the income-cap eligibility for payments from $2.5M to $500K -- an 80% reduction -- for individual farmers.   Other components of the legislation translate into a 30% decrease in payment limitations on farmers and ranchers.   No other constituency who is affected by the farm bill is facing such a cut, making this kind of real reform hard to deny.   Unlike other proposals that try to graduate farmers from the program once they reach a certain level, the House bill is a truer reflection of real farm policy.   The farm bill is meant to support ag production on a per-unit basis to offset impacts of closed markets overseas, as well as variability in weather and domestic markets, of which farmers have no control.   Farm policy is not meant to be a social program."

2007-08-26
Robert LaHue _Sutter county Appeal-Democrat_
Tax-Victims Association butting heads with county government over increased government pensions
related article

2007-08-26
Jeff Burlew & Julian Pecquet _Tallahassee Demagogue_
City and county officials' pay surging while budget cuts loom
"The salaries for the top 10 highest paid county officials have increased between 32% and 82% since the 2002 fiscal year.   At the city level, the salaries increased between 11% and 35%...   County administrator Parwez Alam's salary went from $148,432 to $222,722, an increase of 50% or 8.5% a year on average.   County attorney Herb Thiele's salary went from $158,370 to $209,199, an increase of 32% or 5.7% a year on average...   State workers [a high percentage of the county population] are getting $1K bonuses this year instead of raises...   City manager Anita Favors Thompson's salary went from $142,917 to $191,859, an increase of about 34.3% or 6% a year on average.   City attorney Jim English's salary went from $124,571 to $159,682, an increase of about 28% or about 5% a year on average.   Over the same time period, rank-and-file county workers got annual raises between 3% and 5%, though some got less depending on their performance.   At the city, non-unionized employees -- including top managers -- were eligible for a maximum raise of 26% or 4.7% a year on average over the same period.   The county has 6.7 employees per 1K residents, which is the lowest of seven like-sized counties, including Alachua and Escambia.   The city has 16.9 employees per 1K residents.   Alam said attracting and keeping the best employees is a priority...   The city and county are proposing employee raises of 2.7% for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.   At the city, only workers who excel could get that much.   At the county, commissioners could approve different raises for Alam and Thiele based on job evaluations.   The 2.7% raises are the smallest in 10 years because of state property-tax reform, which requires local governments to roll back tax rates and cut budgets.   The county's proposed budget includes $1.8M to support the third and final year of salary improvements for Sheriff's Office workers...   Meanwhile, the top 10 salaries of state-agency employees who work in Tallahassee remained flat over the past 5 years, going from an average of $181,529 in 2002 to $183,537 in 2007.   That doesn't include employees at universities, community colleges, the lottery and state courts.   The highest paid is University System Chancellor Mark Rosenberg, who makes $231,750.   In 2002, the highest paid was Labor Secretary James Horne, who made $230,625.   Governor Charlie Crist makes $132,932.   In the private sector, the average annual wage in Leon County went up 17.42% between 2001 and 2006, a 3.26% increase a year on average, according to a recent Workforce Plus study.   But top executives can get much more than rank-and-file workers, said Kimberly Moore, Chief Executive Officer of Workforce Plus.   'You'll see a huge difference with CEOs, because (their raise) depends on their board of directors.', she said.   'What you're looking at is trying to stay competitive to keep those folks there.'   Last year, both Alam and Thiele were given 8% raises.   On top of that, they were given the choice of taking an additional 6% pay raise or a 7% bonus.   Alam took the raise, while Thiele took a bonus of $13,554...   Favors Thompson's contract lets her resign while staying eligible for 6 months of severance pay if she gets a pay cut bigger than across-the-board reductions for all workers.   Other county officials have seen big pay increases, too.   Long's salary went from $75,000 to $136,820.   Rosenzweig's salary went from $77,575 to $129,732.   Alam said some of the top officials have job duties that would be assigned to 2 or more people in other counties.   Some citizens don't think the raises are too much.   Robert Meinhardt, former merchandising director for Eckerd, said good workers in the private sector can get raises of 10% and more...   Dominic M. Calabro, president and CEO of Florida TaxWatch, said excessive pay for top local-government officials is a problem in Leon county and across the state."

2007-08-26
E. Scott Reckard _Chicago Tribune_
Bank of India/Countrywide Financial is a marriage made in crisis
"An accord announced late Wednesday, in which [Bank of India] agreed to invest $2G for a potential 16% stake in Countrywide, was a vote of confidence in the home-loan company.   It also could lead to closer operational ties between the 2 financial institutions...   One barrier would be structuring any checking deal to please regulators, because regulators bar any bank from holding more than 10% of all U.S. deposits...   Mozilo, who got Countrywide started in 1969 with a $75K loan from Bank of America [now Bank of India], has maintained business relations with the bank ever since."

2007-08-26
_Chicago Daily Herald_
Illinois state budget is a bust for the suburbs
"If you are looking for a job that pays well and offers nice salary increases without the expectation of competence, consider being a governor or law-maker in Illinois.   We might not begrudge governor Rod Blagojevich increasing his pay to $171K -- a nearly 12% increase -- or law-makers having their base pay climb to $65,353 from $57,619 -- if these pay hikes were, in any comprehensible way, deserved.   Perhaps a just reward for extraordinary work to put the state in a stronger position."

2007-08-26
Lisa Eckelbecker _Ocala Telegram & Gazette_
Tough times for parents from cheap, poisonous, dangerous imports
"In all of these cases, the toys were manufactured in [Red China], according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.   U.S. regulations allow paint used on toys to contain limited amounts of lead.   Over certain levels, however, lead can settle in the brain and nerves of young children and cause disabilities...   If a child is indifferent to a toy, parents can quietly remove it from the child's toy box when the child is not present, said Kerri W. Augusto, a Becker College professor of psychology in the department of teacher education and family studies.   But if a child is attached to a toy, it may be necessary to tell the child the toy is unsafe because it is broken, said Dr. Augusto, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology.   Parents must take the toys away, even if it upsets the child, she said...   The United States has few inspectors checking imports at the border, said Dr. Rangan, who has a doctorate in environmental science.   And, she says, production quality can be tough to enforce when so much work is contracted out to multiple entities...   'You have these degrees of out-sourcing going on.', Dr. Rangan said.   'Once you do that, control over your quality becomes very difficult.'"

2007-08-26
Elizabeth Cohen _Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin_
Be very afraid of the dangerous toys

2007-08-26
_Hindustan Times_
HT job fair drew over 20K in 2 days
"The event, organised by Hindustan Times and sponsored by Convergys together with 24 Seven, brought together companies from different sectors..."
WikiPedia: Convergys is a privacy-violation firm derived from the Cincinnati Bell local government-enforced monopoly and its privacy-violation arm, Cincinnati Bell Information Systems, together with MATRIXX/AT&T Solutions Customer Care/AT&T Transtech, DigitalThink, Intervoice, Datacom call center operations, Stream Global Services; with subsidiary operations including Infinys Rating and Billing (IRB), Dynamic Decisioning Solution (DDS), ICOMS, Customer Management Solutions

2007-08-26
_NY Times_/_AP_
Lax border security remains glaringly evident at San Ysidro

2007-08-26 11:50PDT (14:50EDT) (18:50GMT)
Matthew Rosenberg _AP_/_Yahoo!_
Doubts grow over USA-India nuclear energy deal
"The United States gave India nearly everything it wanted in a landmark nuclear energy deal, but that may not be enough for a vocal chorus of Indian critics...   But for the communists, their ultimate objection appears simply to be the United States."

2007-08-26
Douglas Freeman _Knoxville News_
Globalist agenda hidden in plain sight
"In 2005 May, a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations, the ruling oligarchy of the United States, published a document titled 'Building a North American Community'.   Page XVII of the document's foreword states, 'The Task Force's central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter.'   One of the staged goals is 'a seamless North American market, adopting a North American approach to regulation, increasing labor mobility'. (page 20)   Two months prior to the publication of the task force document, Bush and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts announced the formation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America, promoting the task force's recommendations in vague, bureaucratic language."

2007-08-26 13:16PDT (16:16EDT) (20:16GMT)
Karin Zeitvogel _AFP_/_Yahoo!_
US families adopt over-seas
"International adoptions by US families have more than tripled since 1992, when 6,472 children were brought into the United States, according to data compiled by the State Department.   Of just over 20K international adoptions by US families last year, 4K were from Guatemala, which was ranked second behind [Red China]...   LG was told to expect to pay around $20K (14K euros) to adopt a child from Ukraine.   'I haven't gone through my papers to work out the final cost, but it was more than that.', said LG.   AS and her husband, from Minnesota paid $25K over nearly 2 years after they set their sights on adopting a girl from Ukraine."

2007-08-26
_Daytona Beach News-Journal_
Cheap goods come at a high cost: Toxic imports

2007-08-26
Jane Spencer _Charleston Post & Courier_/_Wall Street Journal_
Red China's water contaminated by textile boom

2007-08-26
Sher Zieve _Web Commentary_
Mexican Government Declares USA Cannot Deport Mexican Illegal Aliens from USA

2007-08-26
Noel Atkinson _Indianapolis Star_
Biotech had roots in electronics
"It appears the reasoning behind the callous omission of the word 'electronics' is that economic development officials and politicians do not want to acknowledge the shameful loss of more than 400 electronics design and manufacturing companies and 97K jobs over the last 30 years.   About 75% of these high-technology electronics companies moved to other states and not over-seas...   Indiana was a world leader of the electronics industry in the 1960s and 1970s.   I was involved in the electronic design of state-of-the-art air traffic control equipment, advanced military communications products, the Bearcat Scanner radio and VCR, plus many other technology breakthroughs here in Indiana that all went to other states.   Since then, I have watched this great Indiana industry fade into near-oblivion.   When electronics employment in Indiana reached 130K during this era, we did not have a brain drain.   We had higher SAT scores and graduation rates, and our income per capita was considerably above the national average.   Not anymore."

2007-08-26
Mike Hughlett _Chicago Tribune_
No revival of R&D in Illinois
"But while high-end corporate research and development employment rose 16% from 2001 through 2006 nationally, it fell almost 28% in Illinois, according to a Tribune analysis of federal employment data.   The state, which 5 years ago ranked second only to California in corporate R&D jobs, had dropped to seventh in 2006.   The culprit appears partly to be a down-turn in traditional telecommunications research, particularly at Lucent Technologies' suburban Chicago labs, which shed about 7K jobs earlier in the decade.   The shuttering of drug-maker G.D. Searle & Co.'s Skokie labs in 2003 hit hard, too, erasing over 1K more R&D jobs...   In Illinois, employees in physical, engineering and biological research labs made $112K a year on average last year, federal data show...   Corporate-funded research in the United States dipped after the 2001 recession, but it remains at historically high levels.   In fact, it grew at a 7% to 8% clip annually in 2006 and 2005, up from 3% growth in the 2 preceding years, according to Battelle, a non-profit science and technology group that tracks research trends...   Overall, private-sector employment in 'physical, engineering and biological research' rose 16% nationally from 2001 to 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics...   Employment in software publishing in 2006 was still 10% less than it was 5 years earlier...   Illinois employment in physical, engineering and biological science fell from 37,107 in 2001 to 26,390 in 2004, according to BLS data...   Illinois' R&D job market improved a bit in 2005 and 2006, with employment rising 2%, according to BLS data..."

2007-08-26
Alfred Tella _Washington Times_
Getting the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee, verbatim
"The year 2001 started with a telephone conference of FOMC members on January 3.   The federal funds target rate had been set at 6.5% since the previous May, a rate Fed policymakers judged consistent with economic conditions at the time.   But by the beginning of 2001, there were signs economic growth was slowing.   In their conference call, FOMC members agreed with then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan that the federal funds rate should be immediately lowered 50 basis points to 6%.   The chairman then instructed committee members on how they should deal with questions from the press, no-nonsense remarks not mentioned in the 2001 minutes of the meeting:   'The best position to take is to say ''no comment'' or ''I regret that I cannot answer your question'' or something equivalent...   Frankly, I don't have a clue at this particular stage regarding exactly how we will come out at the next meeting.   In the meantime, I hope we will try to maintain a high degree of reticence with the press -- not a lack of friendliness, but a lack of information, if I may put it that way...   Years ago presumptions about what the Fed would or would not do didn't have that much effect on the marketplace.   Now we just whisper or open our mouths or smile or something and the markets go berserk.'   In his speeches, the chairman was a champion of Fed openness.   Was he being inconsistent?   Perhaps.   But even so, were his hush-hush admonitions in the best interests of the economy?   Given the risks at the time, probably, although there seems little justification to keep transcripts of FOMC meetings under wraps for five long years."
 

2007-08-27

2007-08-27
_Morris county NJ Daily Record_
Marsh Consulting Services to pay guest-workers $130,678 in back pay
"from 2004 April through 2007 January, the workers were not paid the required wage rate when Marsh Consulting Services lost its M&M Mars contract [in Hackettstown]"

2007-08-27
Nick Miroff _Washington Post_
Illegal aliens with high profiles in Prince William county VA

2007-08-27
_Yuma Sun_
Border Patrol rescued 10 illegal aliens

2007-08-27
Tyche Hendricks _San Francisco Chronicle_
Where government is conscientious illegal aliens leave or work under-ground
"'You'll see it become much more difficult for illegal immigrants to get main-stream jobs.', said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which advocates reduced immigration, both legal and illegal.   'There's no question we'd have a significant level of self-deportation if the illegal immigrants came to expect that enforcement was here to stay.'...   In the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, ICE made [only] 745 criminal arrests and 3,561 administrative arrests of employers and employees, 8 times as many as in all of 2002."

2007-08-27
Phred Dvorak _Wall Street Journal_
Firms get creative to dodge visa restrictions and avoid hiring US citizens
"Janet Reardon wants to hire a senior engineer for her company's Los Angeles office -- but first she has to send him to Canada [to enter the USA through the TN visa program]...   Google Inc., [which artificially sets it's hiring requirements several levels what are needed for the position for which they are hiring] which filed more than 300 H-1B applications this year, says it will send 70 new hires who didn't get visas to over-seas offices until it can try again next year [when it can probably get them into the USA on unlimited L-1 visas]...   Critics of H-1B visas say employers use them to replace well-paid U.S. workers with cheaper foreigners.   Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, says big information-technology out-sourcing firms, such as Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Wipro Ltd. of India, gobble up a disproportionate number of them, applying for thousands of visas to hire low-level technical workers for their U.S. offices.   The practice contributes to the visa shortage and displaces Americans, Mr. Hira says.   Mr. Hira, an electrical engineer by training, urges better policing of rules requiring H-1B workers be paid market wages, and an added condition that companies be required to first look for U.S. workers...   Jeff Lande, senior vice president at the Information Technology Association of America, says the companies already follow H-1B rules that mandate that companies pay prevailing wages [but failed to admit that legal 'prevailing wages' are far below market wages and benefits]."
Tata median salaries by city
Wipro median salaries by city
Infosys median salaries by city

2007-08-27
Ron Paul _Truth News_
Aging Infrastructure

2007-08-27
Erik Eckholm _NY Times_
Colonias

2007-08-27
_Orange County Register_
Mexicans carrying out kidnappings for ransom in the USA

2007-08-27
Mark Cromer _Washington Times_
California Travesty

2007-08-27
Chuck Norris _World Net Daily_
There's No Place Like Home for Illegal Aliens and Terrorists

2007-08-27 (5767 Elul 13)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
CNN's Christiane Amanpour crossed the line

2007-08-27 (5767 Elul 13)
Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Sweet Vengeance: Don't Gloat
"Even when we are commanded to punish wrongdoers, we do not view it as a privilege but rather as a regrettable, necessary evil.   Certainly when misfortune comes by chance our primary sentiment should be dismay at the suffering of a fellow human being."

2007-08-27
_India Post_
More evidence of excessive US visas
"WatchIndia aims at capturing the Indian expatriate community in North America, which unofficially amounts to 4M and is growing fast; the 350K Indians working in the US on H-1B visas; and over 80K Indian students who come to the US colleges every year..."
 

2007-08-28

2007-08-28 09:59PDT (12:59EDT) (16:59GMT)
_WRAL Local Tech Wire_
EarthLink to cut 900 jobs -- half of its employees
CNET/Ziff Davis
Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Cox
The Street
"The maturation of the Internet was sapping the profitable dial-up business.   The consolidation of the big phone companies -- like AT&T's purchase of BellSouth -- had fortified a key kind of competitor, threatening to crush EarthLink between the phone companies and the cable giants.   EarthLink offices in Orlando, FL, Knoxville, TN, Harrisburg, PA, and San Francisco will be closed, the company said.   It also will cut workers at offices in Atlanta, where the company is based, and in Pasadena, CA."

2007-08-28 11:46PDT (14:46EDT) (18:46GMT)
_News4Jax_
National average SAT scores fell 4 points with increased participation: Texas and Michigan did a little better
Ocala Star Banner
Tucson Citizen
Detroit News
Corpus Christi Caller Times
Florida Times-Union
Los Angeles Times (tables and graphs)
"the College Board... says average math and reading scores fell 4 points for the high school class of 2007 to their lowest mark since 1999.   This year's declines follow a 7-point drop last year for the first class to take a lengthened and redesigned SAT.   It includes higher-level math questions, and eliminated analogies.   Last spring's seniors scored on average 502 out of a possible 800 points on the critical reading section of the country's most popular college entrance exam, down from 503 for the class of 2006.   Math scores fell 3 points from 518 to 515.   Scores also fell 3 points on the writing section, which is still in an experimental stage, from 497 to 494.
The overall number taking the SAT rose only slightly from last year, to about 1.5M or 48% of HS graduates.   But the College Board was eager to emphasize the exam's growth beyond its traditional base of students who have been groomed their whole lives to prepare for college.   24% of test-takers had a first language other than English, up from 17% a decade ago.   35% of this year's SAT-takers would be the first in their families to attend college.   Some cities such as Pittsburgh are encouraging more students who aren't on the traditional college ladder to take the exam.   In New York, 89% of students took the exam, up from 88% last year.   Maine now requires all students to take the SAT.   The percentage of test-takers there rose from 73% to 100%, but that caused math and reading scores to fall a combined 71 points, by far the largest decline of any state.
The number of black students taking the SAT rose 6%, and the number of test-takers calling themselves 'Other Hispanic, Latino or Latin American' (a group that does not include Puerto Ricans or Mexican Americans) rose 27%.   About 24% of test-takers did not have English as their sole first language, compared with 17% a decade ago.   Combining all 3 test segments, Asians and Asian Americans scored 1,605, on average; whites, 1,579; Mexicans and Mexican Americans, 1,371; and African Americans, 1,287.   Nationwide, males continue to do a bit better than females in critical reading (males averaged 504 and females 502) and significantly better in math (533 to 499).   However, the 2-year-old essay section has become a show-case for females, who averaged 500 compared with 489 for males.
Combined reading and math scores for blacks slipped one point to 862, scores in the category 'Mexican or Mexican American' rose 2 points to 921 and scores for Asians rose 4 points to 1092.   Increasing numbers of disadvantaged students are taking Advanced Placement courses.   African-American students were up 36% and Hispanic students were up 40% in one year.
In math: Arizona students scored 526 compared to 515 nationally.   Last year Arizona students scored 528.   In critical reading: Arizona's mean score was 519, compared to 502 nationally.   Last year's score for the state: 521.   In writing: Arizona kids scored 502, compared to 494 nationally.   The state's 2006 score was 507.   State schools superintendent Tom Horne cited a 19% increase in students taking SAT over the past 5 years, which he credited to an emphasis on academic rigor.
The average cumulative score for the 9,700 Michigan test takers was 1700 this year -- a slight drop from 1706 last year but still way above the national average of 1511.   Experts caution that comparisons are tough to make because less than 10% of Michigan students opt to take the SAT and those who do tend to come from wealthy families, graduate at the top of their class and have parents with college degrees.   The ACT is now required in Michigan and 122K students took that test.   The average 2007 scores were 568 for reading; 579 for math and 553 for writing, which became a test requirement in 2005.   Last year the scores were 568, 583 and 555, respectively.   Figures released earlier this month on the rival ACT exam showed a slight increase -- from 21.1 last year to 21.2, on a scale of 1 to 36 -- for the class of 2007.   Of the 8,145 of the 2006 Michigan public high schools seniors who took the SAT -- representing about 8% of the total class -- 85% went on to college and of those, 3 out of 4 chose to stay in state for higher education.   About 102K students graduated in 2005 in Michigan.   Nationally, 81% of the SAT test takers in 2006 have since enrolled in college and 79% chose in-state schools.   About 65% of the Michigan test takers came from families with incomes above $70K; 79% of their parents have at least a bachelor's degree; and almost 50% of test takers are in the top 10th of their class.   Nationally 49% of the test takers come from families making at least $70K; 56% have parents with a bachelor's degree or higher and 32% in the top 10th in the class.
Florida's reading score improved by one point to 497 while its math score dropped one point to 496.   Only 2 states and the District of Columbia had worse math scores while 7 states and the District of Columbia were lower in reading.   65% of Florida students took the SAT, the same participation rate as last year.   Florida's fourth graders ranked 27th among states in reading and 22nd in math and the state's eighth graders were 41st in reading and 35th in math in the latest NAEP rankings from 2005.
In California, the 195,406 test-takers averaged a 499 score in critical reading and 516 in math, each down 2 points from the year before; essay writing was 498, down 3 points.   Each segment of the SAT is scored on a scale of 200 to 800 points; a perfect test score would be 2,400, which was achieved by 269 students nationwide this year.
Students typically fare about 30 points better when they take the exam again.
The SAT is still bigger, but the ACT is growing faster.   About 1.3M students took the ACT, a 7% increase from the class of 2006, compared with the 2% increase for the SAT.   Figures released earlier this month on the rival ACT exam showed a slight increase -- from 21.1 last year to 21.2, on a scale of 1 to 36 -- for the class of 2007.   Florida's ACT score dropped 0.4 point to 19.9 this year to rank 48th nationally."
 

2007-08-28
Jonathan Richards _Times of London_
Yahoo! claims they did not assist Red Chinese in abuse of dissidents
CNET/Ziff Davis
BBC
ComputerWorld/IDG
edited composite: "Yahoo on Monday filed a motion to dismiss a law-suit brought by 2 Chinese journalists who alleged that the Internet company and its subsidiaries willingly handed over information about their on-line writing to the People's Republic of China.   The company was responding to a law-suit filed in April by the wife of Wang Xiaoning, a writer with a Yahoo! e-mail account who was [sentenced to] 10 years [in jail] in 2003 after he was found guilty by a [Red Chinese] court of 'incitement to subvert state power'.   The suit charged Yahoo and its Hong Kong subsidiary with allegedly divulging information about their online activity and pro-democracy writing to Chinese authorities, an act that ultimately caused their arrest and prosecution, according to the filing.   Yahoo! was referred to 10 times in the [Red Chinese] court's verdict, and the company has acknowledged handing over information -- including to the content of e-mails sent by Mr. Wang -- when requested to do so.   Another of the dissidents involved in the case, Shi Tao, was convicted in 2005 of divulging 'state secrets' after he posted on-line a [Red Chinese] Government order forbidding media organisations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising.   Yahoo! said, 'Every sovereign nation has a right to regulate speech within its borders.'...   Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, which is representing the dissidents, told the New York Times: 'It is not the [Red Chinese] Government that is the defendant here.   It is Yahoo!, for their part in this process.   They gave the pieces of information that allowed [Red China] to take these actions.'   Several internet companies, including Google, M$ and Cisco, have been criticised for blocking politically sensitive content from their sites in Red China."

2007-08-28
Sara A. Carter _Washington Times_
Border Patrol sector chief, Carlos X. Carrillo, back-tracks
Michigan News
"A Border Patrol chief yesterday apologized for saying the agency's mission is stopping terrorists, not illegal aliens or drug smugglers, a stance that outraged congressional law-makers...   'As long as the resources are made available to the people who can make it happen, we will certainly do everything we can to ensure that a zero tolerance policy is brought forward.   But to initiate a program like this, without the funding, would not be wise.'...   Chief Carrillo said that Laredo needs funding to hire more prosecutors and U.S. marshals, and more jail-bed space before his agency can adopt the strict zero-tolerance policy.   Operation Streamline II, mainly implemented in the Del Rio sector, is a policy in which illegal aliens face prosecution if they cross the border and can receive a maximum penalty of 180 days in jail for the violation.   The Del Rio sector noted a 38% drop in the apprehension of illegal aliens in 2006 and a 52% reduction in 2007, Mr. Culberson said...   Tancredo said he wondered how the chief could tell the difference between an illegal alien and a terrorist...   'It goes all the way to Chief David Aguilar and the whole management culture at DHS.'...   Chief Carrillo emphasized that Laredo Border Patrol agents have not given up on their mission to arrest illegal aliens or apprehend narcotics smugglers.   He said agents in his sector have made 52K arrests of illegal aliens and have confiscated more than 62 tons in illegal narcotics this year alone."

2007-08-28
Shaun Waterman _Washington Times_/_UPI_
"Secure" driver licenses in Arizona

2007-08-28
_Local 12 News_
ICE and Butler county sheriff raided Fairfield chicken plant, arrested 160 suspected illegal aliens & employers
Washington Times
Cincinnati Enquirer

2007-08-28
Bario Gomez _Chattanoogan_
Judge came down on accused illegal alien arsonist
"Judge Moon told him, 'It is undesirables like you who create many unjustifiable problems and prejudices upon the good people who enter this country legally in chasing a dream for a better life for themselves and their families.   Mr. Gomez, you nor any other citizen from a foreign land has a right to enter this country; you simply have a privilege to enter this country through the proper legal channels.   You are a domestic terrorist who is an imminent threat to the safety of our people and their property.   You are also a supreme flight risk from justice.   It is with duty, comfort and ease that I increase your bond significantly in an appropriate amount to insure your appearance in further proceedings and to insure the safety of this community.'   The bond was raised from $30K to $1M.   According to Arson Investigator James Whitmire, Gomez checked into the hotel with his girl-friend.   Testimony by Whitmire and management officials indicated that Gomez placed a toaster filled with matches in a microwave oven in his room intending a massive 'delayed burn'."

2007-08-28
_WAVY_/_AP_
Rural police lack knowledge of immigrant gangs

2007-08-28
Lisa Friedman _Los Angeles Daily Breeze_
Lobbyists continue to cash in on nation's struggle over immigration: They've been hired to influence Congress to the tune of about $8M since 2004
San Bernardino county Sun
Ontario Daily Bulletin
Long Beach Press-Telegram
San Gabriel VAlley Tribune
Whittier Daily News
"The number of firms wanting help from former Capitol Hill and White House insiders has nearly doubled in the same time, and spending has soared to $2.5M for the first 6 months of this year...   The rise in immigration lobbying might come as little surprise, since [executives] typically hire influence-peddlers whenever Congress turns its attention to policies that impact [their personal] bottom lines...   According to lobbying records compiled by Congressional Quarterly, 57 companies and trade organizations hired outside lobbyists to work primarily on immigration issues last year -- up from 38 in 2005 and just 16 in 2004.   So far this year, 27 companies and coalitions have signed new contracts with lobbying firms, while dozens of others continue to retain DC consultants."

2007-08-28
_San Diego Union-Tribune_
Court to examine dispute over day labor in Vista
"Attorney Sharma Hammond of the Immigration Reform Law Institute in Washington, DC, filed a cross-complaint on behalf of Mike Spencer, who alleges city officials and employers are actively resisting compliance with federal laws requiring employers to verify that potential employees are legally eligible to work in the United States."

2007-08-28 07:50PDT (10:50EDT) (14:50GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index Dropped Back to 105 in August
"Those saying jobs are 'hard to get' rose to 19.7% from 18.7% in July."
graphs

2007-08-28 08:04PDT (11:04EDT) (15:04GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Durable goods orders were up 5.9% in July
census bureau data

2007-08-28
_Border Reporter_
Border Patrol Not Manned or Equipped to Stop Invasion

2007-08-28
Ryan McCarthy _Inc_
How Mike Broderick founded TurningPoint after the beginning of the Clinton-Bush economic depression
"'Our recruiting costs are virtually nil.   Youngstown is a somewhat depressed rust belt economy, with a lot of underemployment.   There are a lot of folks working jobs that aren't up to their potential.   This company would be much more expensive to operate in a place like Silicon Valley or Chicago or a major market.   Our average employee age is 26.   Our attrition rates are virtually unheard of, consistently less than 5% annually.'"

2007-08-28
Rick Tonyan _DeLand-Deltona Beacon_
Howard Moxham in the running but not necessarily on the ballot
"If he raises $9,912, Moxham can at least get on the ballot in Florida.   That's how much the state charges to put on the ballot the names of presidential candidates affiliated with minor parties that don't have national conventions.   Moxham is running under the banner of the Sovereign American Party, which he formed because he dislikes and distrusts both the Democratic and Republican parties.   The Sovereign American Party is officially registered with the state Division of Elections.   It had $50 in its war chest during the filing period that ended June 30...   Still, he doesn't believe any of the other candidates -- except Ron Paul, a Republican whom Moxham would like to recruit as a vice president -- are worthy of the job.   'Do you really want to give these people nuclear weapons?', Moxham asked, after ticking off the names of Democratic and Republican presidential candidates during a recent press conference.   If Moxham doesn't raise the $9,912, he could still get on this state's ballot by collecting petition signatures from 104,338 registered voters.   He would have to submit the signatures to the state by 2008 July 15, for verification.   But, Moxham said he probably will register as a write-in candidate, which means his name won't be on the ballot, but will have a blank space provided for him on it.   In Florida, all write-in candidates have to do is file an oath with the Division of Elections between 08:00 July 1 and noon, 2008 July 8, and, by Aug. 29, submit a list of names and addresses of 27 electors."

2007-08-28
Nick Corcodilos _InfoWorld_/_
Monster Racket
"Pam Dixon, Executive Director of the World Privacy Forum, has issued yet another Consumer Alert.   Big surprise: Monster.com's data base has been compromised, probably by those bastions of information security, recruiters.   'Job seekers who have posted resumes at Monster.com may have had their personal information stolen by cyber-thieves who broke into Monster.com data-bases.   The breach may have come through recruiters' accounts that had been compromised by hackers.'   I've said it again and again, and I'll say it yet again: Monster.com is bad for you whether you're a job hunter or an employer.   Any big job board is bad for you.   These boards sell, rent, and trade people's personal information to unknown parties who perform unnatural acts with it.   Any employer who plays along is complicit.   It's time for Congress to conduct hearings on these huge, unregulated data bases of personal information.   While Monster delivers only about 2% of hires to companies that use it, its earnings continue to grow dramatically -- 30% projected for next year.   The company's product works about as well as a huckster handing out flyers on a street corner, yet HR departments will spend more than $1.3G on it in 2007.   (Hey, I guess it at least makes a good place to post those legally-required job notices before a company gets an H-1B sticker to slap on that next hire.)   Are boards of directors aware their HR departments are spending precious dollars on a scam of this magnitude -- and putting entire professional communities at risk?   Recruiters who use it are promoting unsafe practices.   Job hunters who post their resumes are danged fools.   What a racket."

2007-08-28 (5767 Elul 14)
Hillel C. Neuer _Jewish World Review_
Challenging the UN's darker side
"The lead-up to Durban in 2001 was hijacked by the 57-strong Organization of the Islamic Conference.   A 2001 February preparatory meeting for Asian nations was held in Tehran.   (Israelis were a priori excluded.)   The preparatory committee adopted a text singling out Israel for 'ethnic cleansing' and of a 'new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity'.   Durban's final declaration, after international interventions, toned down the language, but went on to single out Israel.   The US delegation walked out.   Far worse, though, were the parallel proceedings held by the nongovernmental organizations.   One widely distributed flyer showed a photograph of Hitler and the question, 'What if I had won?'   The answer: 'There would be NO Israel.'   Goebbels-like caricatures of Jews circulated freely."

2007-08-28 (5767 Elul 14)
Amy H. Lederman _Jewish World Review_
Is your spiritual portfolio in balance?
 

2007-08-29

2007-08-28 19:04PDT (2007-08-28 22:04EDT) (2007-08-29 02:04GMT)
Moira Herbst _Business Week_
Alleged Shortage of Nurses

2007-08-28 20:15PDT (2007-08-28 23:15EDT) (2007-08-29 03:15GMT)
Diane Stafford _Kansas City Star_
14th annual executive pay study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy (with graph)
Money/CNN
"The 20 highest-earning managers of private equity firms and hedge funds had an average income of $657.5M last year.   To compare: That was 22,255 times the annual pay of the average American worker.   The top 20 CEOs of U.S. companies made an average of $36.4M in 2006. That's 204 times that of the 20 highest paid U.S. military generals, and 38 times that of the 20 highest-paid non-profit leaders.   They also made 3 times more than the top 20 CEOs of European companies who had booked higher sales numbers than their U.S. counterparts.
The average CEO of a large U.S. company made roughly $10.8M last year, or 364 times that of U.S. full-time and part-time workers, down from 411 times in 2005 and well-below the record high of 525 times recorded in 2000.   If you just consider the average compensation (wages plus benefits) of full-time year-round workers in non-managerial jobs -- roughly $40K -- CEO pay is more like 270 times bigger than the average Joe's.   That's still a far cry from days gone by.   In 1989, for instance, U.S. CEOs of large companies earned 71 times more than the average worker.   The IPS/UFE report also compared U.S. CEO pay to that of leaders in other fields and other countries.   Overall, CEOs of large U.S. corporations earn in one day as much as the average U.S. worker earns in a year, the report said, citing a survey of 386 of the Fortune 500 companies.   Those big-company CEOs also enjoyed perks -- such as corporate jet use, country club memberships and company-paid personal taxes -- worth an average of $438,342 last year.   In comparison, America's lowest-paid workers this year received an increase in the national minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour ($29,544 per year).   The pay ratio numbers don't include the value of the many perks CEOs receive, which averaged $438,342, according to the report.   Nor do they include the pension benefits CEOs receive.
Last year, there were more than 1K corporate buy-outs, with hedge funds accounting for between one-third and two-thirds of daily global turn-over in financial markets, according to the International Trade Union Confederation.   'Unlike companies that are publicly traded on Wall Street, private equity and hedge funds are not required to report executive compensation to the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.', the report said.   For example, Bain Capital's buy-out of KB Toys led to cutting about one-third of the KB Toys work force, or 4K jobs.   CEO pay can look like chump change next to private equity and hedge fund managers' pay -- an average of $657.5M in 2006 -- more than 16K times what the average full-time worker makes, and roughly 61 times that of the average CEO."

2007-08-29
Sara A. Carter _Washington Times_
1K ICE employees reassigned from internal enforcement to customs
"Immigration and Customs Enforcement criminal investigators will no longer be involved in immigration work site enforcement or conduct checks for illegal alien prisoners.   Almost 1K ICE Office of Investigations agents will be reassigned exclusively to customs investigations, reducing the man-power involved in detention and removal of illegal aliens to 4K nationwide, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times and interviews with ICE union representatives...   The Washington Times has obtained an internal August memorandum written by ICE Office of Investigations Director Marcy Forman and Director John P. Torres, with Detention and Removal Operations (DRO), listing the new protocols for the agency...   Before the August memo, roughly 5K federal agents were assigned to the task of detecting, detaining and deporting millions of foreign nationals."

2007-08-29
Ronald F. Maxwell _Loudoun Times_
Too Many Immigrants and Illegal Aliens Sow Seeds of Separatism and Strive

2007-08-29
_World Net Daily_
100 illegal aliens are leaving Arizona each day due to stepped up identification checks
"A new Arizona state law to require employers to verify the immigration status of employees is being blamed -- and credited -- for chasing illegal aliens out of the state.   It's the second such development in just the last week: WND reported earlier how a new Oklahoma law requiring the deportation of arrested illegal aliens was prompting an exodus from that state...   'This is exactly what it is supposed to do.   (Illegal aliens) have no business being here, none.', said state representative Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, an architect of the law to sanction employers...   Companies found in violation of the ban on knowingly hiring unauthorized workers face a 10-day business license suspension on the first offense.   A second offense could mean they would be ordered to shut down permanently."

2007-08-29
Luie Gilot _El Paso Times_
Slightly more conscientious ID checks at El Paso port increased waiting times: Border Trade Alliance squeals
"The stretched-out lines at El Paso's international bridges are partly due to a new policy in which customs officers check U.S. citizens' driver's licenses and enter information into a computer manually, a leading border trade group reported...   'They said that they were doing 60%, 80% and in some places 100% inspections of driver's licenses on U.S. citizens.   They said it came from Washington, DC, and that they were told to delay traffic.', O'Connell said.   'We don't know if it is a political message, forcing people to see how (bad) it could be.'...   [A statement from El Paso DHS officials said] 'While some may consider border waits and thorough inspections inconvenient, they do generate numerous drug seizures, immigration violations, fugitive apprehensions, agricultural intercepts and other attempts to violate the laws CBP enforces and which cannot be ignored.   CBP cannot sacrifice security for speed.'...   CBP statistics showed car traffic is decreasing at the bridges.   In July, 1,178,864 cars went through the ports of entry at El Paso, Santa Teresa and Fabens, or an average 38,027 cars per day.   In July last year, there were 1,342,247 cars or an average of 43,298 cars per day.   The decrease of 163,383 cars has been partly counter-balanced by an increase of 145,874 pedestrians in the same time period, suggesting border crossers have given up on long car lines and crossed on foot, especially at the Paso del Norte Bridge."

2007-08-29
Tim McGlone _Hampton Roads Virginian Pilot_
10% of VA jail in-mates may be illegal aliens
Natasha Altamirano: Washington Times
"More than 21K of the 215,769 individuals housed in local jails could not prove U.S. citizenship, according to the study.   Another 368 were in the state prison system.   The 13,735 illegal aliens in jail committed 27,148 offenses in fiscal 2007, according to the report.   The study counted inmates who entered correctional facilities for the fiscal year that ended June 30.   There were 3,064 illegal aliens in prison from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2007.   Officials estimate 250K to 300K illegal immigrants live in the state.   State senator Kenneth Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, task force co-chairman, said ICE has received about 9K jail inquiries [about new prisoners] so far this year.   Most of the in-mates in Virginia's jails were in for alcohol-related offenses, including driving under the influence and being drunk in public.   Other driving offenses, such as driving without a license and reckless driving, were the second most-common cause for incarceration.   Of the 215,769 inmates in jail in fiscal 2007, 13,735 -- or 6% -- were found to be 'proxy illegal immigrants', which crime commission senior methodologist Christina Barnes called 'the most conservative estimate'. Of the 129,876 inmates in state prisons from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2007, 3,064 -- or 2% -- were found to be 'proxy illegal immigrants'."

2007-08-29
Emily S. Achenbaum _Charlotte Observer_
US representative Sue Myrick and Mecklenburg county sheriff Jim Pendergraph called for determining citizenship of new prisoners

2007-08-29
Randall Higgins & Perla Trevizo _Chattanooga Times Free Press_
People in Cleveland, TN concerned about influx of illegal aliens

2007-08-29
Krissah Williams _Washington Post_
Body shop MicroManos checks work permits
"At first, MicroManos had a hard time attracting customers.   'We found that some employers don't care about legal status.', Tochisako said.   'They are paying workers under the table.'...   Last year, MicroManos placed 3,200 workers with local companies, including Marriott and Aramark, as dishwashers, janitors, movers and low-level construction workers."

2007-08-29
_Arizona Daily Star_/_AP_
25 of 29 illegal aliens arrested at Smithfield pork plant in Raleigh, NC had stolen identities

2007-08-29
Brian R. Ballou & Maria Sacchetti _Boston Globe_
Raids in Chelsea, Somerville & East Boston target illegal alien gangsters

2007-08-29
Elisa A. Glushefski _Potomac News_
2 illegal aliens charged with battery

2007-08-29
Kathleen McGrory _Miami Herald_
Illegal aliens under deportation orders begin college at Miami University

2007-08-29
Michael Kraft _Charlotte Conservative News_
Ron Paul and social issues: summary
interview with Ron Paul (summary with link to mp3 audio)

2007-08-29
Neil Reynolds _Globe & Mail_
US protectioniss, "free" traders, free traders
"You simply can't know, from the current presidential campaign, whether Americans are getting set to elect a Franklin Delano Roosevelt (low tariffs, high taxes), a Ronald Reagan (low tariffs, low taxes) or a Herbert Hoover (high tariffs, high taxes)...   Representative Ron Paul (Texas) has voted against free trade with Chile, Singapore and Oman; has voted for withdrawal from the WTO; and has described NAFTA as a plan 'to erase the border between the U.S.A. and Mexico'.   Representative Tom Tancredo (Colorado) has opposed every U.S. trade agreement and calls the Central American trade deal 'a thinly disguised immigration accord'.   Representative Duncan Hunter (California) opposed trade agreements with Chile and Singapore.   He voted against NAFTA and against the Central American trade agreement, calling them 'junk'.   Former governor Mike Huckabee (Arkansas) supported a trade agreement with Mexico.   In this campaign, though, he champions 'fair trade', the euphemism that screams protectionism."

2007-08-29
R.P. Adamson _Greeley Tribune_
One Statesman vs. Total Government
"There is, however, a statesman running for president who has served several terms in the U.S. House of Representatives: Dr. Ron Paul from the 14th Congressional District of Texas.   Although a Republican, he is a true statesman with a long and distinguished voting record justifying the title of statesman.   Of course, the U.S. electorate is too far gone to consider a true constitutionalist for president.   The reason is that for such a consideration to transpire it would require our apathetic and ignorant electorate to do a little research (reading) in order to over-come the controlled media's relentless bias toward the Democrat and Republican front-runners -- something that ain't gonna happen.   What is more, even if Paul were miraculously elected president -- outside of endless vetoes, which Congress would endlessly over-ride, and the bully pulpit -- there is little he could actually do to right things.   Indeed, the power of the purse resides in Congress, as does the power to impeach, which would surely happen to such a president.   The truism 'follow the money' applies perfectly to the Constitution's directive that all revenue bills originate in the House of Representatives.   Herein lies the source of corruption and the ease in which the puppet masters can manipulate the typical politician, who is in fact a power seeker.   Thus, Lord Acton's astute observation that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely applies perfectly to the U.S government in general and the House of Representatives in particular.   For as the Bible reads: 'For the love of money is the root of all evil.'   And finally, I'll come to the point of this rambling discourse: The major political parties' front-running candidates for president are all promoters and supporters of total government.   And total government, whenever it rears its ugly head, is man's ultimate manifestation of evil."

2007-08-29
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Helping the down and out shouldn't be coerced by government
"a group of thugs known as the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), an international bureaucracy headquartered in Paris and comprised of 30 industrial nations, mostly in Western Europe, the Pacific Rim and North America.   One of its reports concluded that low-tax nations are bad for the world economy and identified 35 jurisdictions that are guilty of 'harmful tax competition'.   In the OECD's view, harmful tax competition is when a nation has taxes so low that saving and investment are lured away from high-taxed OECD countries.   The black-list of countries they've identified as tax havens, having strong financial privacy laws, low taxes or zero taxes on certain activities, includes Panama, the Bahamas, Liberia, Liechtenstein, the Marshall Islands and Monaco.   The OECD demands these nations, as well as off-shore financial centers in the Caribbean and the Pacific, in effect surrender their fiscal sovereignty and act as deputy tax collectors for nations like France and Germany.   This would be a dream for politicians and bad news for the world's [tax-victims]; fortunately the hard work of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity has stymied the OECD's proposed tax cartel...   I share Pope Benedict's desire to assist our fellow man in need.   But I believe that reaching into one's own pocket to do so is praiseworthy and laudable.   Reaching into another's pocket to assist one's fellow man in need is despicable and worthy of condemnation."

2007-08-29
Jim Untershine _Mens News Daily_
Aaron Russo managed to wake up America: 1943-02-14 to 2007-08-24
 

2007-08-30

2007-08-30
_Spartin Internet Consulting_/_PR Web_
2008 Presidential Election Internet Performance Index
weekly SIPP index
"Currently maintaining the top 3 positions are Barack Obama, 20.75%, Hillary Clinton, 11.60% and Ron Paul with 11.58%.   The largest gainer this week was Rudy Giuliani, up 0.42%, and the largest decliner was Barack Obama, down 0.54%...   The index gauges the level of support and how well each candidate is connecting with individuals across the Internet."
competing Wonkosphere ratings

2007-08-30
Chuck Baldwin _American Chronicle_
Ron Paul is the only choice
alternate link
Lew Rockwell
"conservative Republicans have only one choice for President in 2008: Congressman Ron Paul of Texas.   Unlike the GOP front-runners, Paul is the real deal...   On the whole, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo are head and shoulders above the aforementioned 'top tier' candidates, especially on the very important illegal immigration issue.   They are also opposed to so-called 'free trade' agreements, and they are both pro-Second Amendment.   This is a plus.   Hunter supports pre-emptive war, however, and he voted for both the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act, which disqualifies him for President, in my judgment.   I confess to liking Tom Tancredo.   He strikes me as an honest man and was a bull-dog in fighting Bush's amnesty for illegal aliens proposal.   However, he also voted for the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act.   Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback are strong on the life issue, but they are dismal on immigration and Big Brother issues.   All that said, it is Ron Paul alone who contains the 'whole package'.   He has a 20-year record as a conservative congressman that is virtually unblemished.   Unlike the vast majority of congressmen and senators in Washington, DC, Paul consistently honors his oath of office to support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.   That, all by itself, should be worth a conservative's support.   In fact, Ron Paul has voted against so many unconstitutional bills offered by both Democrats and Republicans that he is known on Capitol Hill as 'Dr. No'.   This moniker comes from both his 'no' votes and the fact that Paul is a former medical doctor, an OB/GYN physician who has delivered more than 4K babies.   If one wants a true photograph of how a congressman or senator votes on conservative, constitutional issues, the best place to look is the Freedom Index in the New American Magazine.   Ron Paul almost always ranks as the most conservative congressman from either chamber or either party.   His current ranking is 100%, which is a score that few congressmen or senators, except Ron Paul, ever achieve.   And Paul does it routinely...   Face it: the big money interests, the Chamber of Commerce crowd, the international bankers and GOP hierarchy will never support Dr. Paul.   He is too honest, too ethical, too constitutional, and too independent for their liking.   Therefore, the only chance Ron Paul has of winning the Republican nomination is for every Christian, every conservative, and every constitutionalist within the GOP to get behind him."

2007-08-30 02:06PDT (05:06EDT) (09:06GMT)
_Seattle Times_/_AP_
Mortgage industry lay-offs soaring
Columbus OH Dispatch
CNN
composite: "The mortgage industry has slashed nearly 25K jobs so far in August, and the potential labor impact of the mortgage crisis has added to Wall Street's recent worries about the economy.   According to labor consulting and out-placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, there have been 42,381 lay-offs in the mortgage industry so far this year, with 58% of them coming this month.   About 95,750 workers in the financial industry have lost their jobs this year, with nearly one-third of the cuts occurring last month alone, compared to 50,473 in 2005 and 50,327 in 2006.   Some mortgage lenders closed offices and even entire divisions in the wake of a growing crisis surrounding subprime loans.   About 20K construction workers also have joined the ranks of the unemployed, according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., as demand for new homes has fallen."

2007-08-30
"Mogambo Guru" _Daily Reckoning_
Economic System Getting Flushed
"Total Fed Credit, which had just previously (the week before) shot up by an astounding $17G, this week DECREASED by $16G!...   foreign central banks got rid of a chunk ($18G) of United States and agency debt held in their accounts at the Fed last week...   Fed chief Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson going crawling to the office of Senator Christopher Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.   They were there (I assume) to let him know that the jig was up now that the despicable banks and the despicable Congress (except for Ron Paul) have destroyed us."

2007-08-30
Megan Feldman _Dallas Observer_
Flood of guest-workers may be turning as many give up on wait for green cards; Hallelujah!

2007-08-30 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 264,038 in the week ending Aug. 25, an increase of 6,572 from the previous week.   There were 251,275 initial claims in the comparable week in 2006.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.8% during the week ending Aug. 18, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,375,170, a decrease of 39,533 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.7% and the volume was 2,268,911.   Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending Aug. 11."
graphs

2007-08-30 06:57PDT (09:57EDT) (13:57GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
GDP inceased at 4% annualized rate in 2007Q2
"On the inflation front, the Fed got some good news in the GDP report, with core consumer prices revised down to a 1.3% annual growth rate during the quarter from 1.4%, the slowest pace in four years and well within the Fed's unofficial target zone of 1% to 2%.   Core prices have risen 2% in the past year.   Head-line inflation, however, surged 4.2% during the quarter, led by higher energy costs.   The report contained the first word on corporate profits for the second quarter.   Before-tax profits increased $98.3G, or 6.4%, after rising $16.5G, or 1.1%, in the first quarter.   In the past year, corporate profits are up 4.5%..."

2007-08-30
_CNN_
Iraqi chemical weapons (a kind of WMD) found in UN office in NYC
Yahoo!/AP
"U.N. archivists for UNMOVIC, the U.N. chemical weapons agency, unexpectedly turned up samples of material from an Iraqi chemical weapons plant in old files on Friday, U.N. officials said...   Phosgene is an industrial chemical used to make plastics and pesticides, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.   At room temperature, it is a poisonous gas, but can be stored and shipped under cooling and pressure.   Phosgene was used extensively during World War I as a choking agent and caused a majority of the war's gas deaths, according to the CDC...   The material was taken from al-Muthanna chemical weapons plant north of Baghdad.   The samples are sealed and have been there since 1996.   A team of hazardous materials experts from the FBI and New York City police removed the substance from the office on Manhattan's east side, about a block north of U.N. headquarters, in 3 steel containers.   The containers were flown to a military facility in Aberdeen, MD, for disposal, U.N. officials said."

2007-08-30
_PHX News_
ICE arrested 58 suspected Mexican gangsters
abc

2007-08-30
Amy Worden _Philadelphia Inquirer_
PA & NJ legislators join those of other states in trying to deal with flood of illegal aliens in the face of federal inaction
"The Department of Public Welfare, which maintains all applicants for most state benefits already must prove residency and citizenship, said the state paid $14 million to provide emergency health care for illegal immigrants in 2005.   School officials are barred from asking a student's citizenship status, so no cost or population estimates are available.The only service provided to undocumented immigrants in New Jersey is the treatment of pregnant women at a cost of $3.8M annually, said a spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services.   Additional health care may be provided through the state's $750M charity care allocation, but the recipient's immigration status is not recorded, officials said.   There are between 125,000 and 175,000 illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania compared with between 350K to 425K in New Jersey, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.   Since January, 1,404 bills related to immigrants and immigration have been introduced among the 50 state legislatures -- almost 3 times the number introduced in 2006, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.   In that same period, 170 bills became law in 41 states, about triple the number enacted in 2006."

2007-08-30 12:30PDT (15:30EDT) (19:40GMT)
_CNN_
M$ paid $580K in first half of 2007 to just one of its lobbying firms
Hemscott
ForEx TV
"M$ Corp. paid Paul Hastings Janofsky and Walker $580K in the first half of 2007 to lobby the federal government, according to a disclosure fom...   Redmond, WA-based M$ is part of a coalition of tech companies and other groups lobbying the federal government to raise the number of H-1B visas, which allow companies to hire skilled foreign professionals for up to 6 years [more with extensions].   The cap is currently set at [over 85K]...   Opponents have said raising the visa cap would lower wages [more severely, reduce employment prospects for the USA's hundreds of thousands of capable but unemployed and under-employed science & tech workers] and discourage American youngsters from pursuing tech careers.   M$ has previously said that about one-third of its 46K U.S.-based employees have work visas or are legal permanent residents with green cards."

2007-08-30
Thomas Sowell _Post-Journal_
Saving Lives Means Making Trade-Offs
Detroit News
Jewish World Review
"Trade-offs are inescapable in every aspect of life but anyone who talks about trade-offs when life is at stake is likely to be denounced as someone lacking in compassion, if not cruel.   Squeamishness is too often confused with humanity, but the consequence of squeamishness can be needless suffering and needless deaths.   Many a cold-blooded murderer has had his life spared because people squeamish about executions imagine that it is more moral or humane to lock him up for life -- or until he escapes or is pardoned someday when an even more squeamish governor is elected.   Additional people murdered by convicted murderers are part of the grim price paid for that squeamishness."

2007-08-30
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
Effect of Hispanics in New Orleans
"Yes, unemployment rates are lower in New Orleans today than before Katrina.   But so is native employment.   Between 2005 July 1 and 2006 July 1 (the latest available Census data) the population of Orleans Parish fell by a stunning 228,782, or by 50.6%.   Non-Hispanic Blacks took the biggest hit, their population dropping by 174,461, or 57% in those 12 months.   The non-Hispanic white population declined by 36%.   Even Hispanics bailed out (so to speak), their numbers declining by 37.1%...   First, immigrants tend to gravitate to cities where wages and employment are high and growing.   If so, then comparing changes in native unemployment rates and wage rates in high-immigration areas with other areas would understate immigration's true impact.   Secondly -- and perhaps more relevant to New Orleans -- natives respond to the influx of low-wage immigrants by moving to other cities.   Most New Orleans blacks moved to Houston, Atlanta, Birmingham, and other southeastern destinations.   Are they better off in their new locales than they would be had they remained in New Orleans?   Probably not.   How many are deterred from coming back by the presence of low-wage Hispanic workers?   Probably many.   With labor so mobile, the negative correlation between immigration and native well-being must be judged in a national frame-work.   Harvard's George Borjas has measured the negative slope. ['Increasing the Supply of Labor Through Immigration Measuring the Impact on Native-born Workers' Center for Immigration Studies 2004 May]   His conclusion: wages fall by 3% to 4% for each 10% increase in the share of immigrants."

2007-08-30
Peggy Decker _V Dare_
Florida #1 in food-borne illness: California #2
Orlando Sentinel related story
"Florida, with 29,729 restaurants, had 77 separate out-breaks of food-borne illness affecting 300 people during 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available.   California, with 58,426 restaurants, ranked second with 62 out-breaks, and Ohio was third with 38, followed by Michigan with 35 and New York with 31...   Chirag H. Bhatt, Healthinspections.com's food-safety director, said managers need to focus more on food safety...   Nationwide, fish and seafood, including oysters and shrimp, were tied with ethnic buffets, serving items such as spring rolls and tacos, as the most common cause of food-borne illness, followed by lettuce-based salads...   Hammond of the state's Health Department said the area's dense population, large tourist industry and increasing number of restaurants could all be a cause for South Florida's increase in cases."

2007-08-30
John W. Slagle _Michigan News_
Mexican Constitution and Immigration Laws

2007-08-30
Alister Doyle _Reuters_
Red China says 1-child policy protects environment

2007-08-30
Sarah Reynolds _Yuma Sun_
Shots fired at construction security along border
"A security officer from Pinkerton Government Services notified Border Patrol agents that he heard 12-15 shots at about 09:45 while he and 2 other guards were near the U.S.-Mexico border about 30 miles south of Wellton, keeping watch over equipment being used to build the fence."

2007-08-30 16:00PDT (19:00EDT) (23:00GMT)
Sonja Carberry _Yahoo!_/_Investor's Business Daily_
Handle Talent with Care
"'I see all of these kids who wouldn't be given an opportunity (by) most of my upper-echelon clients.', Klein said.   'Here's the talent hiding in plain sight.   You don't need an H-1B visa.'"

2007-08-30
Stephen Lendman _Baltimore Chronicle_
The War on Working Americans: Part 1
"In a globalized world, the law of supply and demand is in play with lots more workers around everywhere than enough jobs for them.   It keeps corporate costs low and profits high and growing with Business Week (BW) magazine reporting in its April 9 issue 'the share of (US) national income going to corporate profits (compared to labor) is hovering around a 50 year high'.   BW then quoted Harvard economist Richard Freeman's research paper saying only 'a global pandemic that kills millions of people' could cause a labor shortage and elevate worker bargaining power.   There's little in sight, and the result is a huge reserve army of un-employed or under-employed working people creating an inevitable race to the bottom in a corporatized market-place.   It harms workers everywhere, including in developed nations.   They're out-sourcing good jobs abroad to lower wage countries and pressuring workers to do more for less because they've got little bargaining power to fight back."

2007-08-30 14:31PDT (17:31EDT) (21:31GMT)
_Miami Examiner_/_PR News Wire_
US DoL gave $1.9M grant to establish National Technical Assistance Center for disabled

2007-08-30 15:00PDT (18:00EDT) (22:00GMT)
Lou Dobbs & Christine Romans & Bill Tucker _CNN_
massive lay-offs of US tech workers continue as executives whine of shortage of cheap foreign tech workers
video
Christine Romans: Business elites again demanding Washington increase the number of workers they can hire from overseas.   Middle-class Americans are being asked to pay the price for these campaigns to bring in cheaper foreign labor into the country.
New protests today over a Bush administration plan to allow Mexican truckers open access to America's highways.   There are concerns over the safety of Mexican trucks and questions of national security.
And a new crack-down on employers that hire illegal aliens workers.   The plan has sparked protests from open borders advocates and business groups...
Christine Romans: Congress isn't even back in Washington yet, but big business is already lobbying.
As Bill Tucker reports, corporate America is pushing for more H- 1B visas, so it can import even more cheap foreign labor, all at the expense of middle-class workers.
Bill Tucker: At the end of July, Sun Microsystems announced it will fire an unspecified number of workers by the end of the year.   Intel this month began firing 1,000 workers in New Mexico.   Earlier this week, EarthLink announced it will fire 900 workers.
But at the same time, some high-tech executives renewed their call this week for more foreign workers on H-1B visas, which are guest worker visas for temporary workers with specialized skills.   Workers groups are up in arms.
Dave Cohen, AFL-CIO: A lot of us thought the immigration effort died a month or 2 months ago when Congress went out.   High-tech moguls, the high-tech billionaires have not given up.   People who are concerned about their employment, their wages, their children's futures need to be heard by Congress next week.   Happy Labor Day.
Bill Tucker: Bill Gates made his position very clear when he testified to Congress earlier this year and was asked if there should be any limits on the H-1B program.
Bill Gates: I don't think there should be any limit.
Bill Tucker: On its web site, Sun states -- quote -- "Overly restrictive caps on temporary visas such as the H-1B pose a serious and ongoing obstacle for high-tech companies battling to stay competitive."
What M$ and other companies would be happy to see is a doubling of the size of the program, as had been proposed under the now failed comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
Lobbyists for the tech companies, joined with groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will renew that push when Congress goes back into session.   That's an impressive and a well-funded effort.
Loosely organized worker groups say they are over-matched.
Kim Berry, Programmers Guild: They can dump $1 million or $10 million, hire a lobbying firm and go hit all of the senators back in Washington.   We can't do that.
Bill Tucker: The official cap on the H-1B program is 65K with an additional 20K exception from the cap.
One of the most basic lures of the H-1B program?   Cost.   In the technology field, the median wage paid to an H-1B worker is $12K a year less than the wage of an American worker, Christine, in the same job and in the same location.   So, we're not doing apples to oranges.
Christine Romans: So, let me get it straight.   You know, as long as these CEOs want -- you pointed out that there have been some job layoffs in the high-tech world.   So, as long as these CEOs want to try to find an American worker first, then fine, right?   When they prove there is not an American who can do the job, then they can go over-seas.
Bill Tucker: And you have just stepped right into the biggest myth of this program, Christine, which is it doesn't -- it's not a requirement.   All you have to say is you want to hire this H-1B worker.   There's no requirement that you have gone out and...
Christine Romans: This H-1B worker at $12K, on average, less than what the American worker costs.
Bill Tucker: Right.   So, I can't imagine why they would want to do that.
Christine Romans: I can't imagine either, Bill.   All right, thanks, Bill Tucker.
Well, that brings us to the subject of tonight's poll.   Do you believe American companies are telling the truth when they claim there's a lack of qualified talent in the U.S. for the high-tech industry, yes or no?   Cast your votes at LouDobbs.com.   We will bring you the results later in the broadcast...
Christine Romans: The federal government tonight is confirming what most of you already know first-hand.   This spring and summer was terrible for air travelers.   And aviation experts say airline delays are expected to extend into the fall.   Nearly a quarter of all flights were delayed the first 6 months of this year.
The federal government is cracking down on employers who hire illegal aliens.   Beginning next week, employers will receive letters warning them to make sure workers have valid Social Security numbers.
As Jeanne Meserve reports, several pro-amnesty groups are vowing to fight the new measure.
Jeanne Meserve: Christine, a coalition of labor and immigrants' rights groups accuses the Department of Homeland Security of trying to hijack the Social Security system for improper immigration enforcement and is going to court to try to stop it.
For years, the Social Security Administration has sent out what are called no-match letters, telling employers when a worker's name and Social Security number do not match government records.  
The letters are often ignored, but, starting next week, enclosed with them, a letter from the Department of Homeland Security, which says, in part, "If you elect to disregard the notice and if it is determined that some employees were not authorized to work, the Department of Homeland Security could determine that you have violated the law by knowingly to continuing to employ unauthorized persons.   This could lead to civil and criminal actions."
Employers have 90 days to clear up discrepancies.   If they can't, they have to fire the employees or face possible charges.   The first letters go out next week.   By mid-November, 140K will be sent.   The groups filing the law-suit say [Socialist Insecurity] data-bases are notoriously incomplete and inaccurate and that the new rules will cause massive discrimination against anyone who looks or sounds foreign.
But DHS says jobs are the magnet that draws illegal immigrants across the border.   A spokesman says the case has no merit and will be fought vigorously.

2007-08-30
David Bond _Gold Seek_/_Silver Valley Mining Journal_
Aaron Russo, R.I.P.
 

2007-08-31

2007-08-30 22:25PDT (2007-08-31 01:25EDT) (2007-08-31 05:25GMT)
Wayne Slater _Dallas Morning News_
Texas GOP split between major donors and grass-roots
"Texas donors have contributed more than $7M to the 3 front-running White House hopefuls -- Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain -- 10 times the state total raised by the rest of the GOP field combined.   But the top tier has failed to catch fire among many social conservatives in the Republican base who say the second-tier candidates better reflect their values, especially vigorous opposition to abortion, gay marriage and illegal immigration...   Thousands of Republicans converge on Fort Worth this weekend for a presidential straw poll that underscores the split between business interests that bankroll the party and socially conservative voters who form the party's base, a divide that is reflected in issues such as immigration.   In a conference call to Texas party activists Tuesday, longtime conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum touted California representative Duncan Hunter, who trails in money and the polls but has staked out a hard line against illegal immigration and gay rights...   Mr. Hunter has raised only $58,925 from Texas donors, a fraction of the millions that have gone to the front-runners.   Mr. Paul has done better in his home state, with nearly $336K through the first half of the year.   But both are far behind the GOP front-runners...   When it comes to issues, immigration best illustrates the division between economic and social conservatives in the party's base.   Many business groups, hungry to fill low-wage jobs, support a program to allow foreign guest workers and create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here.   Many social conservatives... say they want to secure the border first, preferably with a fence or wall, and denounce the guest worker idea as amnesty."

2007-08-31
Adrian L. Arp _AG Weekly_
Taxes and wolves need to go
"Unfair trade has resulted in the loss of 3.2M manufacturing jobs since 2000 as U.S. companies move production and jobs over-seas and caused our trade deficit to escalate to $763.6G in 2006.   The Border Tax Equity Act (HR2600) will correct inequities that currently disadvantage U.S. producers to a cost of $379G a year!   The Value Added Tax (VAT) averaging 15.7% is used by 94% of foreign countries to cheat the U.S.   First, foreign companies are subsidized through a tax rebate that export to the U.S.   Secondly, U.S. exporters are subject to double taxation.   They pay direct U.S. taxes and are VAT taxed to get products and services admitted into foreign countries.   The Canadian Gray Wolf was never native to Idaho and was dumped on us illegally and should be exterminated!...   Congress should pass HR2600, stop funding The Wildlands Project, and pass HR1146, sponsored by presidential candidate Representative Ron Paul, to get out of the United Nations!"

2007-08-31 04:41PDT (07:41EDT) (11:41GMT)
Patricia Kitchen _NY News Day
It's the season for lay-offs
"That's according to 13 years of lay-off data kept by Chicago-based out-placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.   Yes, cuts in the coming months have traditionally surged by an average of 32% over the slowest job cut period -- from May to August.   And this year, the mortgage meltdown and its ripple effects could 'ignite a job cutting spree', said John Challenger, chief executive, in a news release...   according to the Challenger data, January to April is the second heaviest lay-off period, with an average of 74,765 pink slips a month -- down slightly from the September to December monthly average high of 79,962."

2007-08-31 07:07PDT (10:07EDT) (14:07GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index changed from 90.4 in July 83.3 in early August to 83.4 in late August

2007-08-31
Jack Kenny _New Hampshire Business Review_
NY executives whine "shortage" in the face of a talent glut
"The good news, says Fred Kocher, president of the New Hampshire High Technology Council, is that the tech sector of the economy, while comprising just 7% of New Hampshire's work-force, is producing one-third of the state’s gross domestic product...   'One of my clients is GT Solar of Merrimack.', says Kocher, who works as a consultant in the high-tech industry.   'And 50% of their new hires have been 47 years of age or older.'...   recent passage of a research and development tax credit in New Hampshire, which grants up to a $50K credit for R&D, to be applied against either the business profits or the business enterprise tax."
The New Hampshire College & University Council

2007-08-31
David Davis _Cleveland TN Daily Banner_
Illegal aliens are not immigrants

2007-08-31
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
Plenty of Workers (and Machines) For This Year's Grape Harvest

2007-08-31
_Louisville Courier-Journal_
SEC asks executives to more precisely and completely report their compensation
"Stepping up its campaign to shed light on the mysteries of executive pay, the Securities and Exchange Commission has sent letters to nearly 300 U.S. companies critiquing disclosures in this year's proxy statements and demanding more information. The SEC's requests could set up a confrontation over details sought by the agency that companies say are competitive and should remain secret."

2007-08-31
_Florida Sun Sentinel_
Federal sweep captured 195 illegal aliens in Florida

2007-08-31
Brady McCombs _Arizona Daily Star_
Border Patrol agent may face trial
"On Jan. 12, Nicholas Corbett, 39, shot and killed Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera, 22, of Puebla, Mexico, about 150 yards north of the border, between Bisbee and Douglas.   The shooting happened while Corbett was trying to detain Dominguez Rivera and his brothers and sister-in-law who had entered the country illegally."

2007-08-31
Michelle Mittelstadt _Houston Chronicle_
US Chamber of Communists, "Essential Worker Coalition", ACLU, AFL-CIO oppose defense of US borders against invaders

2007-08-31
_Arizona Daily Star_
Illegal alien advocates launch another propaganda campaign

2007-08-31
Bruce Ballengee _Austin American Statesman_
Refusing to hire highly-skilled Americans has been hurting many businesses
"The U.S. tech industry is adding jobs.   AeA's most recent Cyberstates report showed that, according to official U.S. Government data, the industry added a net 250K jobs over the course of 2005 and 2006.   [Between 2000 June and 2007 June 12,800 production jobs in software publishing have been lost, from 2006 June to 2007 June 3,900 have been added, according to BLS data.]"

2007-08-31
Noelle Phillips _The State_
Influx of Hispanics into SC linked to falling pay
"S.C. median annual wages, adjusted for inflation, dropped 3.1% to $28,039 between 2000 and 2005 when the state experienced rapid growth in its Hispanic population.   Pay in construction, the dominant field for Hispanics, slipped 5% for all S.C. workers during what was a record housing boom.   Hispanic construction wages fell by more than twice that...   Hispanic construction employment between 2000 and 2005 nearly doubled, while wages dropped 12.1% for those workers.   Hispanic construction workers were paid $10,600 a year less than the state average when adjusted for inflation, the USC survey found.   At the same time, black employment in construction dropped 23.7%, while their wages fell 2.4% and were $4,700 under the state norm.   White construction employment grew 4.3%.   Despite a 9.6% wage slip, whites earned nearly $1,100 more than the state average.   In animal slaughtering, Hispanic employment grew 12.6%, while earnings dropped by 18.9%.   By 2005, black employment in slaughterhouses dropped 43.4%, although pay increased.   Hispanic food processing workers earned an annual median wage of $12,582, the USC survey found.   That's about $2K above the federal poverty level for an individual.   Landscaping was the third-fastest growing employment sector for Hispanic workers between 2000 and 2005, with employment growing 66.7%.   This was the industry with the biggest wage hit -- down 14.2% for Hispanics and 16.5% for all workers.   Also examined was Hispanics' impact on the state's education and health systems and social services.   Lacy said 3.7% of South Carolina's nearly 700K public school students are Hispanic and 2% of the entire student population is enrolled in English language classes.   In health care, 74% of Hispanics did not have health insurance, though they reported they rarely visited doctors or hospitals."

2007-08-31
Jerry Krammer _San Diego Union-Tribune_
Immigration expected to ad 105M to already excessive US population by 2060
Long Beach Press-Telegram
US State Department
UPI
Student Operated Press
Cybercast News Service
Center for Immigration Studies report

2007-08-31
Rabbi Daniel Travis _Torah.org_
Educational Tools

2007-08-31
Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld _Torah.org_
Love work
"Shemaya said: Love work, despise high position, and do not become too close to the authorities...   We should not view work as a necessary evil, something we must suffer through in order to make ends meet.   Work should ideally give ours lives meaning and ourselves individuality.   It affords us a sense of productivity -- that we are making a difference in the world -- and therefore it gives us our sense of existence... our focus should be on productivity. The term used by our mishna for work -- 'melacha' -- is the same the Torah uses to describe the types of labor forbidden on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10). The connotation is thus work which produces and brings about a positive change in the world (such as planting, cooking, building, weaving). We should measure ourselves not according to our bottom line or how many people we manage, but according to our output: how productive are we as human beings... Human beings are most satisfied when they are productive... One who finds his job fulfilling will return from work energized. He will then be able to spend a part of his remaining time engaged in religious pursuits such as study and prayer... Lastly, work fosters an egalitarian attitude. We are all doing our part and making a difference to mankind. If we are each producing up to our capacity, we are all truly equal. And no one is above this very simple definition of equality. The Talmud writes: 'One should flay carcasses in the marketplace and earn a living. He should not say ''I am a priest, I am a great man and such work is beneath me.''' (Pesachim 113a)... King Solomon said it best: 'Whatever you do, do it with strength.' (Ecclesiastes 9:10)... Of course, a manager who organizes and orchestrates others' talents, creating team-work and harmony within an organization is certainly producing himself, in very significant fashion... Fame and public attention are hardly things we should wish for... 'In a place where there are no men, endeavor to be a man.' (2:6)"

2007-08-31 (5767 Elul 17)
Rabbi Berel Wein _Jewish World Review_
On harvesting success

2007-08-31

DJIA	13,357.74
S&P 500	1,473.99
NASDAQ	2,596.36
10-year US T-Bond	4.54%
crude oil	$74.04/barrel
gold	$681.90/ounce
silver	$12.063/ounce
platinum	$1,271.60/ounce
palladium	$337.75/ounce
copper	$0.2131875/ounce
natural gas	$5.468/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$2.0519/gallon
heatingoil	$2.0574/gallon

I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts and FT Interactive.
 
 

2007 Summer
Mark Krikorian _Center for Immigration Studies_
More Immigrants Mean Fewer Jobs for Blacks
"'Every hour sees the black man elbowed out of employment by some newly arrived emigrant, whose hunger and whose color are thought to give him a better title to the place.'   No, this quote isn't from today's debate over immigration -- it was written by Frederick Douglass in 1853.   Mass immigration has always been detrimental to the job prospects of black Americans.   Of course, there are other considerations in establishing immigration policy -- whether certain family members should be given special immigration rights, for instance, or how many refugees to take.   But you can't argue with a straight face that the admission of large numbers of foreign workers doesn't harm blacks economically...   The immigrant population, legal and illegal, is now at a record high of some 37M, growing at a rate of more than a million a year.   What's more, immigrants account for nearly half of workers with less than a high school education..."

2007 August
Steven A. Camarota _Center for Immigration Studies_
Immigration will add 100M or more to US population by 2060

2007 August
_Ethics Score-Board_
Lawrence Lebowitz and the Pittzburgh Law Firm of Cohen & Grigsby
the latest on the list
 

Proposed Bills 2007

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