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updated: 2015-12-29
 

"'The distance of an A+ [high] school from the nearest community college may be one of the most significant factors in the post-secondary enrollment rates of high school graduates of the A+ Schools Program' (A.M. Barbis 2003 _The impact of the Missouri A+ schools program on high school graduation rates and post-secondary enrollment rates_ Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Missouri, Columbia pg70). " --- Leslie M. Galbreath 2007-05-11 "Tracking Public-Post-Secondary Enrollment Patterns of Missouri A+ Program-Eligible Graduates"

 
 

2009 October

U	M	T	W	R	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

 

"In general, investments in education are responsible for 15% to 20% of an economy's growth (Leslie & Brinkman, 1988).   Work-force productivity increases 1.2% 'for each one-percentage point increase in the share of a state's high school graduates who [have] college degrees' (Paulsen, 2001b, p. 100).   There are clear relationships between public investments in education and work-force productivity.   Much of this workforce productivity is external to the individual college graduate.   Rather, an individual college graduate's increased productivity engenders increased productivity of co-workers (Paulsen, 2001b). " --- Leslie M. Galbreath 2007-05-11 "Tracking Public-Post-Secondary Enrollment Patterns of Missouri A+ Program-Eligible Graduates"

 
 
 

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

2009-10-01

2009-10-01
_CocoaHeads_
CocoaHeads is an international Macintosh OS X programmer's group.   Meetings are free and open to the public.   We specialize in Cocoa, but everything Mac programming related is welcome.

Australia	Sydney	Thursday	2009 October 1	18:30
Canada	Ottawa/Gatineau	Thursday	2009 October 8	19:00
Canada	Toronto	Tuesday	2009 October 13	18:30
Canada	Victoria	Thursday	2009 October 8	19:00
Denmark	Aarhus	Tuesday	2009 October 13	19:00
Denmark	Copenhagen	Tuesday	2009 October 13	19:00
Germany	Berlin	Thursday	2009 October 15	19:00
Germany	Stuttgart	Tuesday	2009 October 6	19:00
Sweden	Malmö	Tuesday	2009 October 13	19:00
Switzerland	Zürich	Thursday	2009 October 8	19:00
USA	Ann Arbor	Thursday	2009 October 8	19:00
USA	Boulder	Tuesday	2009 October 13	19:00
USA	Colorado Springs	Thursday	2009 October 8	19:00
USA	Columbia	Tuesday	2009 October 13	19:00
USA	Dallas	Wednesday	2009 October 7	19:00
USA	Fayetteville	Thursday	2009 October 8	18:00
USA	Lake Forest	Wednesday	2009 October 14	19:00
USA	New York	Thursday	2009 October 8	18:00
USA	Philadelphia	Thursday	2009 October 15	19:00
USA	St Louis	Saturday	2009 October 31	14:00
UK	Swindon	Monday	2009 October 5	20:00

Some chapters may have yet to post their meeting for next month.   Meeting times may change.   Locations and more information. Also be sure to check for an NSCoder Night in your area.
---30---

2009-10-01 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report: Autumn trough dips below 2003's mid-Summer peak
DoL home page
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 443,694 in the week ending Sept. 26, an increase of 5,878 from the previous week.   There were 392,515 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.8% during the week ending Sept. 19, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,054,617, a decrease of 169,287 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.3% and the volume was 3,018,976.   Extended benefits were available in AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending September 12.   [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs

2009-10-01 11:13PDT (14:13EDT) (18:13GMT)
Patrick Thibodeau _Computer World_/_IDG_
Anger up, visas down: Top 10 H-1B stories of last 12 months: Active year could lead to final H-1B show-down during 2010 immigration reform debate
CIO

2009-10-01
Greg Toppo _USA Today_/_Gannett_
Union claims Filipino teachers held in "virtual servitude" in Louisiana
"The complaint, filed by the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), alleges that Universal Placement International charged Filipino nationals about $15K apiece to get jobs -- more than 40% of some new teachers' salaries in a few Louisiana parishes -- and required that they pay 10% of their monthly salary for 2 years to keep them...   The complaint also alleges that Universal violated Louisiana law by charging workers before they drew their first pay-check and by not maintaining an office in the state.   It also violated federal law, the union says, by charging teachers some $6,600 in H-1B visa application fees, which employers are obligated to pay."

2009-10-01
_Science Web Log_
4.4M year old Ardipithecus displaces Lucy as oldest found hominid skeleton
Larry Dignan: Ziff Davis/CNET/CBS
AAAS
Ann Gibbons: AAAS Science
Jamie Shreeve: National Geographic
Rex Dalton: Nature
Carol Biliczky: Akron OH Beacon Journal
T. Michael Cart: San Diego CA Examiner
Discover
"The female skeleton, nicknamed Ardi, is 4.4M years old, 1.2M years older than the skeleton of Lucy, or Australopithecus afarensis...   White and the team will publish the results of their analysis in 11 papers in the Oct. 2 issue of the journal Science, which has Ardi on the cover.   They announced their findings at press conferences held simultaneously today in Washington, DC, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia...   4-foot-tall skeleton...   Based on a thorough analysis of the creature's foot, leg and pelvis bones, for example, the scientists concluded that Ardi was bipedal -- she walked on 2 legs -- despite being flat-footed and likely unable to walk or run for long distances.   In part, this primitive ability to walk upright is because Ardi was still a tree-dweller, they said.   She had an opposable big toe, like chimpanzees, but was probably not as agile in the trees as a chimp.   Unlike chimps, however, she could have carried things while walking upright on the ground, and would have been able to manipulate objects better than a chimp.   And, contrary to what many scientists have thought, Ardi did not walk on her knuckles, White said...   Micro-CT scanners were used to study the inner and outer anatomy of the bones and teeth, and scanning electron microscopes were used to study the structure and surface details.   The 5K micro-CT slices through the broken skull allowed the team to reconstruct it on a computer and then 'print' it on a 3-D stereolithic printer at the University of Tokyo...   Ardi was an omnivore...   White said Ardi, who probably weighed about 110 pounds, had a brain close to the size of today's chimpanzees -- one-fifth that of Homo sapiens -- and a small face...   White admits that the relationship between Ar. ramidus and the Australopithecus fossils the team has found about 80 meters higher in the strata of the Ethiopian desert is tentative.   Nevertheless, he said Ardi's species could be the direct ancestor of Lucy's species, which could be the direct ancestor of modern humans.   Without additional fossil evidence, however, connecting the individual or species dots is hazardous, White said."

2009-10-01
_FAIR US_/_PR News Wire_
DHS Report Shows that 90% of U.S. Borders Are Not "Effectively Controlled"
Bioxi MS Sun Herald
"According to DHS's own definition, U.S. borders include 8,607 miles of land borders with Mexico and Canada and 'certain coastal sectors'.   The 894 miles now controlled by DHS represent just a little more than 10 percent of America's borders.   Despite that, according to the goals set forth for FY2010, the department does not intend to bring one additional mile of border under control during the coming year."

2009-10-01
Dwight L. Schwab _Examiner_
Will Pelosi, Reid, Feinstein, Boxer, Baucus, Eschoo et al. pay for health care of illegal aliens out of their own pockets?

2009-10-01
_WLS TV_
Body shoppers at Ideal Staffing Solutions Inc. sentenced for aiding illegal aliens
Chicago Tribune
Ted Cox: Chicago Daily Herald
Media News Wire
WAND TV/AP
Belleville IL News Daily
Fox 59 Indanapolis
"Mary Gurin, 38, of Carpentersville, IL, and Norinye Benitez, 26, of Franklin Park, were sentenced Sept. 30 by U.S. District Judge Elaine E. Bucklo, Northern District of Illinois, for harboring illegal aliens for financial gain.   Gurin, who pleaded guilty May 11 to the charge, was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison.   Benitez received 12 months and one day of imprisonment following her Dec. 12 guilty plea.   Both women had previously pleaded guilty to the charge of harboring illegal aliens.   In 2007, nearly two dozen illegal immigrants employed through Gurin's staffing agency were arrested and accused of using fake security badges to work in critical areas of O'Hare."

2009-10-01
Mike Gordon _Albert Lea MN Tribune_
Not all immigration is illegal

2009-10-01
Ron Ewart _Canada Free Press_
USA committing national suicide... Obama style
"The plan is to strip America of its wealth, its resources, its freedom and its sovereignty, all disguised as Motherhood, Apple Pie, Chevrolet, environmentalism, social justice, protecting the public health and national security, under the umbrella of a government-manufactured financial crisis...   Cygate, which changed its name to Sterling System after the law-suit, is one of thousands of low-profile companies that have come to play a central role in the U.S. tech industry in recent years.   These companies, many with just 10 to 50 employees, recruit workers from abroad and, when possible, place them at U.S. corporations to provide tech support, software programming, and other services...   Sterling President Nilesh Dasondi was charged with multiple counts of visa violations in the case filed by the U.S. attorney in NJ.   The government says he collected fees of up to $15K from the 6 workers, left them to find jobs on their own, and extracted more fees to launder their pay through his company...   Dasondi named Computer Sciences (CSC) as one customer in a 2006 law-suit: Dasondi wanted the technology giant to pay him for hiring away one of his employees."

2009-10-01
Steve Hamm & Moira Herbst _Business Week_
America's High-Tech Sweatshops: U.S. companies may be contributing to the exploitation of guest-workers by bodyshops
"So Patel applied and paid his prospective employer, Cygate Software & Consulting, in Edison, NJ, thousands of dollars in up-front fees. But when Patel arrived, Cygate had no tech job for him..."

2009-10-01
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
Pea-sized recycled glass bits plus binder used for porous paving: finely ground glass used for landscaping

2009-10-01 10:42PDT (13:42EDT) (17:42GMT)
Michael Cooney _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
DHS plans to hire 1K cyber-security workers over the next 3 years, thus leaving thousands more unemployed

2009-10-01
James Limbach _Consumer Affairs_
CGC: announced job cuts fell to 18-month low in September: 66,404 announced lay-offs
BNET/Ziff Davis/CBS
Canadian Business News Network/Reuters
Ron Scherer: Christian Science Monitor
Sonja Elmquist: Medill
Tom Abate: San Francisco Chronicle
66,404 announced lay-offs.   2008 September employers announce 95,094 planned job cuts.   For the quarter ending September 30, planned job cuts totaled 240,233.   That makes 1,136,908 so far this year.   22,114 in the automotive sector (151,020 for the year); 7,563 in government and non-profits (155,602 for the year); 104,029 for the year in industrial goods sectors; 683 in electronics (49,337 for the year); 494 in the computer sector (53,714 for the year); 617 in the telecomm sector (39,815 for the year).

2009-10-01
Randal O'Toole _Cato_
How Urban Planners Caused the Housing Bubble

2009-10-01
_Fibre 2 Fashion_
Economic Effects of Significant US Import Restraints
"Although the weighted-average U.S. tariff on all goods fell to an historic low of about 1.3% in 2007, many restraints on trade remain...   During the nearly 20 years since the USITC began these studies, the weighted-average tariff on total U.S. imports fell from 3.4% in 1989 to approximately 1.3% in 2007; many non-tariff measures have been eliminated, particularly in textiles and apparel; and trade (imports plus exports) as a share of GDP increased from 15% to 23%."

2009-10-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 51,439 job ads

2009-10-12
David Evans _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Is Hiring More Rational in the Real World?
: Alina Tugend: NY Times: Getting Hired Is Increasingly a Trial: NYTimes finally recognizes job markets have been dysfunctional for a while

2009-10-12
Mchelle J. Nealy _Washington Times_
Retail holiday hiring season coming late; Firms wait for shoppers

2009-10-12
Paul Fain _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Academia resistant to open accounting

2009-10-12
Andrew Nusca _Smart Planet_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Roof tiles reflect heat in summer, absorb it in winter

2009-10-12
_Numbers USA_
US government is not tracing visa over-stayers
"Last year, 39M foreigners entered the United States, and using paper logs, DHS has confirmed that 92.5% have left the country.   Of the remaining 2.9M foreign visitors, an estimated 200K are believed to have intentionally overstayed their visas.   Furthermore, the government's current system does a poor job of identifying people who have overstayed their visas.   Before Smadi was arrested for the plot in Dallas, he was pulled over for a traffic violation a few weeks earlier.   But when officers pulled up his information, there was no immigration record."

2009-10-12 (5770 Tishrei 24)
R' Hillel Goldberg _Jewish World Review_
Shimmering paradoxes

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

2009-10-13

2009-10-13
professor Gerald L. Boerner
PDP-1

2009-10-13
Dustin Bleizeffer _Casper WY Star-Tribune_/_Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
State plans to levy tax on using wind to generate electricity
"Rather than creating a tax specifically on wind energy, lawmakers are considering a tax on all electrical generation, then providing tax credits or exemptions to all other forms of generation but wind.   The purpose for this strategy is to fit within the state's constitution, which prohibits singling out a particular industry for exclusive taxation...   traditional power producers in the state -- coal-fired and natural-gas-fired utilities -- typically pay for a fuel that generates revenue to the state through a severance tax.   Those power producers also serve Wyoming's electricity-heavy oil, natural-gas and coal extraction industries."

2009-10-13
_Columbus OH Business Journal_
Job markets won't begin to recover until 2012
Greg Robb: MarketWatch
Libby Tucker: Columbian
Miami Herald
Amy Linn: New West
Mike Fightmaster: Blogging Stocks
Angela Carter: New Haven CT Register
St. Augustine FL Record
"unemployment rate is forecast to rise to 10% in the first quarter...   Fewer than 8% of the panelists expect lost jobs will be regained before 2012.   Thornberg predicted a 'near recession' by 2011, 'because we haven't actually fixed the problems' that created the financial crisis, he said.   'Unemployment will come down, but at best come down very slowly, and could still be at 8% in 2012.   There's not a very good prognosis for where this economy is headed in the short-term.'...   Montana has weathered the economic downturn better than most and is one of the most stable states in the Rocky Mountain region, with about 7% unemployment this year, compared to about 10% nationwide (and about 9% in Idaho), he said.   The state has lost up to 2% of its work-force and shed about 4,400 construction jobs...   Unemployment levels nationwide will hover at about 8.5% until 2012."

2009-10-13 (5770 Tishrei 25)
Jonathan Rosenblum _Jewish World Review_
Why Palestinian incitement matters so much

2009-10-13 (5770 Tishrei 25)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Magic Numbers in Politics part 1
"Our current economic meltdown results from the federal government, under both Democrats and Republicans, declaring home ownership to be a 'good thing' and treating the percentage of families who own their own home as if it was some sort of magic number that had to be kept growing -- without regard to the repercussions on other things...   Federal regulatory agencies leaned on banks to lend to people they were not lending to before...   Mortgage lending standards were lowered...   with lower lending standards, there were -- surprise! -- more mortgage payment delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures...   when the people who owed money on their mortgages stopped paying, the whole house of cards began to fall...   it was precisely the government regulators who forced the banks to lower their lending standards...   In reality, everybody and his brother saw it coming and said so -- including [Ron Paul on 2003 September 10], yours truly in the Wall Street Journal of 2005 May 26.   As far away as London, The Economist magazine warned about the danger.   So did many American publications and individuals.   The problem was that politicians refused to listen.   They were fixated on the magic number of home ownership and oblivious to the economic interconnections that Russian economists saw long ago and from far away."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

2009-10-14

2009-10-14: Chuck Yeager in X-1 rocket-plane exceeded speed of sound

2009-10-14
Jason Scott _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
County Redevelopment Authority lost $479K in cyber-attack
"state funds were diverted from one account to a separate payroll account the authority had with M&T Bank, its only account with electronic funds transfer capability.   Staff alerted the bank Sept. 23 of difficulty accessing its online banking features.   According to Gulotta, $479,247 was transferred to real accounts set up by the hacker, using names of limited liability companies (LLCs) and individuals, at 11 domestic financial institutions.   The FBI was immediately notified of the fraudulent activity and is currently investigating the accounts."

2009-10-14
Greg Gross _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Holocaust survivor signs memoirs book at Carlisle

2009-10-14
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Bitten by Profligacy

2009-10-14
_Reuters_
Workforce Alliance (TWA) and the Skills2Compete-Washington promoting cheap juco labor over cutting-edge careers in STEM fields: 470K juco jobs in WA, 650K in MI by 2016
Michigan

2009-10-14
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #2061
H-1B teacher scandal in Louisiana
"Soon after teacher shortages were announced, Louisiana school officials started taking all expense paid trips to Manila to find teachers that would work in New Orleans. The school district didn't hire the foreign teachers directly however -- they used a bodyshop named Universal Placement International, who used H-1B visas to import the labor. Universal Placement International is a California based company."
Pinoy Teacher's Hub: interesting insider information on Universal Placement International
Shreveport LA Times: Company that brought Filipino teachers to Caddo being investigated
Shreveport LA Times: Pastorek disavows knowing contract with recruiter was ended
San Jose Mercury News: Complaint filed against recruiter of teachers
N O LA: Teacher-recruitment agency accused of extortion in union complaint
CWA: Company Violated Law and Human Rights of Filipino Teachers (pdf)

2009-10-14
Mae Anderson _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Mattel/Fisher-Price to pay $50M in settlement over lead in toys made in Red China
Attorney At Law
Andrea Chang: Los Angeles Times
Jon Hood: Consumer Affairs
Wall Street Journal

2009-10-14 (5770 Tishrei 26)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Academic Dishonesty: Grade Inflation and universities gaming standardized test scores
"Some years ago, University of Miami omitted scores of athletes and special admission students so as to boost SAT scores of incoming freshmen...   'Gaming the College Rankings' contains an insert by John Leo, who is the editor of 'Minding the Campus' [news-letter from the Manhattan Institute], reporting that in the mid-1990s, Boston University raised its SAT scores by excluding the verbal scores of foreign students whilst including their math scores.   Monmouth University simply added 200 SAT points to its group scores.   University of California reported that 34 of its professors were members of a prestigious engineering association when in fact only 17 of their current faculty were.   Baylor University offered students, who were already admitted to the university, $300 in book-store credits to take the SAT again in the hopes of boosting Baylor's SAT averages."

2009-10-14 (5770 Tishrei 26)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Magic Numbers in Politics part 2
"The more fundamental problem is that the costs entailed by a magic number are often either ignored or down-played.   More miles per gallon, for example, are usually achieved by having lighter cars -- and lighter cars mean less protection from the consequences of automobile accidents.   Bluntly, it means more severe injuries and death...   higher miles per gallon can also mean trading blood for oil...   In real life, people weigh one thing against another.   But in politics one declares one thing to be imperative, so the issue then becomes how we do it.   In real life, all sorts of desirable things are not done, either because of other desirable things that would have to be sacrificed to do it or because of the dangers incurred in achieving the desired objective are worse than the problem we want to solve."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

2009-10-15

2009-10-15 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report: Continuing to follow typical weekly pattern for the year
DoL home page
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 503,973 in the week ending Oct. 10, an increase of 51,919 from the previous week.   There were 454,065 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.7% during the week ending Oct. 3, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,919,556, a decrease of 97,504 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.3% and the volume was 3,073,515.   Extended benefits were available in AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending September 26.   States reported 3,331,275 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Sept. 26, an increase of 10,065 from the prior week.   There were 1,505,423 claimants in the comparable week in 2008.   EUC weekly claims include both first and second tier activity.   [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs

2009-10-15
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #2062
27K lay-offs lead to "shortage"
Nicholas Stix: V Dare: Los Angeles Times Story on Laid-Off Teachers is Plagued by Non Sequiturs and Omissions

2009-10-15
Jacob Goldstein _Wall Street Journal_
Pfizer Deal to Buy Wyeth Wraps Up: Lay-Offs to Follow
"Pfizer has said it would cut about 15% of the companies' combined work-force.   That's just under 20K jobs."

2009-10-15
Katie Hoffmann & Margaret Brennan _Bloomberg_
Wipro CEO Azim Premji promises to hire US worker as bodyshopping rebounds
Tata median salaries by city
Wipro median salaries by city
Infosys median salaries by city

2009-10-15
Cody Willard _MarketWatch_
Wall Street's $140G bonuses for 2009, 20% of TARP, and What to do now

2009-10-15
Michelle Malkin _Martinsburg, Berkeley county WV Journal-News_
Who is behind the White House war on Fox?

2009-10-15
Warwick Ashford _Computer Weekly_
UK lags behind trading partners in data security

2009-10-15
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
Some of the rich and powerful have stolen the US economy
"The political system is unresponsive to the American people.   It is monopolized by a few powerful interest groups that control campaign contributions.   Interest groups have exercised their power to monopolize the economy for the benefit of themselves, the American people be damned."

2009-10-16 16:50PDT (10:50EDT) (14:50GMT)
Steve Kerch _MarketWatch_
continued deterioration in the job market guarantees millions more will be at risk of foreclosure in the coming months

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

2009-10-16

2009-10-16
professor Gerald L. Boerner
Burroughs Corporation
"Burroughs was 1 of the 8 major United States computer companies (with IBM, the largest, Honeywell, NCR Corporation, Control Data Corporation, General Electric, RCA and UNIVAC) through most of the 1960s."

2009-10-16
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Sub-freezing weather damaged beet & crops in several states
"Before the freeze, farmers were preparing to harvest a record crop. And crystal sugar prices were also at a 30-year high...   Then, the freeze came with roughly 80% of the crop still in the field... [along with 20% to 75% of the potato crop]."

2009-10-16
Heather Stauffer _Cumberland PA Sentinel_/_Lee_
Snow in northern PA: more on the way
"Tyburski says spotters are reporting 2 inches [of snow] in Coudersport in Potter County and 1.5 inches in Haneyville. About an inch has been recorded in the Pocono Mountains."

2009-10-16
Conar James Gillard _Daily Illini_
Illinois legislature restored MAP funding

2009-10-16 13:26PDT (16:26EDT) (20:26GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
US feral federal government ran $1.4T annual deficit for FY2009

2009-10-16 14:30:09PDT (17:30:09EDT) (21:30:09GMT)
_Contra Costa CA Times_
Immigration lawyer Kelly Einstein Darwin Giles of East West Law Group charged with visa fraud to buy grave sites
San Jose CA Mercury News
Liam Clifford: Global Visas
Amanda Bronstad: National Law Journal
"His two business associates, Joseph Wai-man Wu, 50, and Wu's wife, May Yin-man Wu, 43, were arrested early Thursday, ICE officials said.   The three are accused of setting up nearly a dozen shell companies in order to file fraudulent employment visa petitions on behalf of their clients...   Authorities allege the aliens named in those visa applications never worked for the defendants or the fictitious companies...   Also Thursday, ICE agents served notice on a local mortuary seeking to seize 30 vacant burial plots and 20 blank grave monuments.   Authorities allege the grave sites, located in Inspiration Meadow and the Garden of Gratitude at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, were bought by the defendants using proceeds from the visa fraud scheme.   ICE investigators emphasize that Rose Hills had no involvement in the alleged criminal activity.   According to funeral professionals, cemetery plots appreciate at a rate of up to 10% a year and are less susceptible to economic downturns than other types of real estate."

2009-10-16
_Reuters_/_PR News Wire_
insider trading charged by Manhattan US prosecutor
Zachary A. Goldfarb: Washington DC Post
Broke Crothers: CNET/Ziff Davis/CBS
Patrick May & John Boudreau: San Jose CA Mercury News
S. Mitra Kalita: Wall Street Journal
e-commerce journal
Bruce Golding: NY Post
Gregory Zuckerman, Don Clark & Susam Pulliam: Wall Street Journal
Grant McCool & Edith Honan: News Corp./Reuters
David Weidner: MarketWatch
"The defendants include: Raj Rajaratnam, the Managing Member of Galleon Management, LLC (Galleon), and a portfolio manager for Galleon Technology Offshore, Ltd.; Danielle Chiesi, an employee of New Castle Funds, LLC (New Castle), formerly the equity hedge fund group of Bear Stearns Asset Management, Inc.; Mark Kurland, a top executive at New Castle; Rajiv Goel, a Director in Strategic Investments at Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corporation (Intel); Anil Kumar, a Director at McKinsey & Company, Inc. (McKinsey), a global management consulting [bodyshopping] firm; and Robert Moffat, Senior Vice President and Group Executive at [Ill-Begotten Monstrosities] (IBM).   All are charged with participating in insider trading schemes that together netted more than $20M in illegal profits.   This case represents the first time that court-authorized wire-taps have been used to target significant insider trading on Wall Street."

2009-10-16
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #2064
Body shopper of teachers already convicted of fraud
"The president and owner of Universal Placement International is Lourdes 'Lulu' Navarro.   She is a native of the Philippines who moved to California.   In addition to being an immigrant, Lulu is also a convicted felon that has been charged with fraud and many other serious crimes.   This is what the attorney general of California has to say about her.   In the earlier case, Shams and Navarro were convicted on felony counts of Medi-Cal fraud, grand theft, money laundering, and identity theft for using the names of legitimate physicians without permission and filing thousands of false claims with the state for medical tests never performed.   The Attorney General's Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse seized approximately $1.1M in uncashed warrants which were returned to the Medi-Cal program.   First, let's look at a time-line:
 
2003: The Recovery School District (RSD) was created by the Louisiana Department of Education.   The purpose was to reform "low performing" schools.
 
2005 August 29: Hurricane Katrina strikes Louisiana.   The hurricane destroyed or severely damaged thousands of schools and universities in the Gulf coast states.   Over 250K students had no school to attend.   Thousands of teachers were instantly jobless.
 
2005 November: Over 107 "low performing" schools were put into the RSD.
 
2007 May 4: Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek appointed Paul Vallas to head the RSD.
 
2007 Summer: Paul Vallas, superintendent of the RSD, said that they were suffering a severe teacher shortage.   This was less than two years after Katrina displaced thousands of teachers.
 
2008 May 30: A memo was sent out to board members about a junket to the Philippines to hire teachers.
 
2008 June 20: School officials go on an all expense paid junket to the Philippines.
 
2008 July 15: Board members sent around emails about the Filipino teachers.
 
2008 August 5: Caddo Parish schools were notified that Filipinos with advanced degrees are being hired for low performing schools.   The implication was that Filipino geniuses would replace the incompetent American teachers.   Low performing schools would now become academic havens.
 
2008 September 6: The first Filipino teachers report to work.
 
2008 Nov 11: By this time 38 teachers had arrived from the Philippines.   School administrators said that the Filipinos were very good performers.
 
2009 August 3: The school district terminated the employment of dozens of teachers.   In total, about 250 teachers formed a pool of available teachers looking for jobs, but schools hired very few of them.   Most of them were not able to find teaching jobs.   That number of 250 is significant -- remember it."
 
2009 August 17: New school year starts.   By now about 200 teachers with H-1B visas were holding jobs.   That's very close to the number of Americans that were fired.   The number becomes even closer because some of the laid-off teachers were rehired by other schools.   Sadly, most of those teachers couldn't find jobs in Louisiana schools.
 
2009 September 30: A year after the first Filipino H-1B was hired the union announces complaints concerning Universal Placement International.
 
2009 October 1: The local teacher's union LFT and the American Federation of Teachers filed complaints to the Louisiana Workforce Commission and the Louisiana Attorney General against Universal Placement International.
 
> 2009 October 4: By this time 27K teachers in California had been pink slipped.   It never occurred to Louisiana school districts to offer them jobs, or to go to junkets in Los Angeles or San Francisco.
 
So, in summary here is what happened: School officials took an all expense paid junket to Manila.   They must have had a wonderful time because they decided to hire young female Filipino teachers.   There was just one big problem though -- they already had more teachers than they needed.   The problem was solved by initiating a large lay-off of their American teachers...
 
Of course the district favored hiring young teachers -- that's why they fired their older Americans and hired young females from the Philippines.   As I have explained many times, H-1B doesn't cause age discrimination but it makes it a lot easier for employers to do it.   It would be more accurate to say that H-1B is an age discrimination enabler because the program provides a huge pool of fresh, inexpensive young blood to exploit...
 
Louisiana isn't the only state that's doing it.
 
Take Georgia for example.   They list Universal Placement International as a registered supplier for foreign teachers. ---30---

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
more of what congress-critters are up to

2009-10-16

DJIA	9,995.51
S&P 500	1,087.68
NASDAQ	2,156.80
Nikkei	10,258
10-year US T-Bond	3.405%
crude oil	$78.53/barrel
gold	$1,050.70/ounce
silver	$17.42/ounce
platinum	$1,348.50/ounce
palladium	$330.65/ounce
copper	$0.17784375/ounce
natgas	$4.738/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.9793/gal
heatingoil	$2.0297/gal
dollarindex	75.584
yenperdollar	90.82
dollarspereuro	1.4903
dollarsperpound	1.6353
swissfranksperdollar	1.0180
indianrupeesperdollar	46.31
mexicanpesosperdollar	13.1050
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	540.69

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
 

2009-10-17

2009-10-17
Juan O. Tamayo _Miami FL Herald_
Telephone calls from USA to Cuba have decreased 22%

2009-10-17
Joe Jackson _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Congress should not limit savings accounts

2009-10-17
James Carlini
4G World: The GigaByte Generation Is Here part2
Carlini's comments

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-18

2009-10-18
professor Gerald L. Boerner
Unisys (a.k.a. Unithyth, Spurroughs)
Jimbo Wales's wikiPedia on Unisys
Seymour Cray did at least some of the design work on the 1101, because it was US Navy contract #13, according to a speech he made to a government agency which will remain un-named...jgo

2009-10-18
Jo MacFarlane _London Daily Mail_
UK probe reveals breach of medical data security in India: Private medical records for sale
"Scanning and Data Solutions... Kunal Gargatti and Jayesh Bagchandanai...   This is just one step up from grave-robbing, says patient."
Jay Vance: AdvanceWeb

2009-10-18
_Computer Weekly_
Who wants cloud computing other than to avoid national regulators?

2009-10-18
Jason Scott _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
"Warm the Children" shopping about to get started
"Beginning Nov. 1, the Carlisle Kiwanis Club, in partnership with The Sentinel, will kick off its annual Warm the Children shopping campaign.   Started in 1988 by Mack Stewart, a Connecticut newspaper publisher, Warm the Children has been adopted by newspapers in 13 states as a way of helping needy community children buy new winter clothing...   Last year, about 400 local kids were helped as Warm the Children received $34,446.   The shoppers go with the children to pick out clothing, which can be anything from new shoes or boots, gloves, coats or other needs like socks, pants and shirts.   The stipend allows children to buy only clothes, not toys or other items."

2009-10-18
_Economic Times of India_
Indian government to ask US government for even more on top of already hideously excessive H-1B visas
"H-1B visas are highly popular with Indian IT companies..."

2009-10-18
Robin Wilson _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Survey of Adjuncts
all questions and answers

2009-10-18
_Chai Samosa_
Probe reveals British personal private medical records are for sale in India

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-19

2009-10-19
professor Gerald L. Boerner
Control Data Corporation (CDC)

2009-10-19
_Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_/_Lee_
Over $16G in federal bonds from WW2 remain unredeemed: $55M in Montana
"Most American families bought at least one bond at the time and many never cashed them in -- thanks in part to a 40-year maturity in the bonds.   And those same 'Series E' war bonds continued to be sold by the federal government until 1980.   More than $16G worth of the bonds are unclaimed, either lost or forgotten about with the death of the original purchasers."

2009-10-19
Tina Irgang _Southern Maryland_
MD reaction to Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion proposal by Luis Gutierrez fore-shadows national debate
"In an interview, Help Save Maryland Director Brad Botwin said: 'We're shocked but not surprised.   (The proposal) is all about the illegals and nothing about the American people.'"

2009-10-19
Tom Raum _AP_/_Yahoo!_
High unemployments may be the new "normal"
Many of the 7.2M jobs lost since 2007 December may never come back.   3.4M jobs have been lost since January.

2009-10-19
Frosty Wooldridge _News with Views_
Made in Red China: importing America to its own death

2009-10-19
Dana Blankenhorn _Smart Planet_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
The Dana plan for peeling the layers of health care perversion proposals

2009-10-19
Stephens _Wall Street Journal_
Obama does not seem to believe in human rights

2009-10-19
Veronique de Rugy _Reason_
The Myth of the Money Multiplier

2009-10-19 (5770 Tishrei 30)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Is nepotism kosher?

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-20

2009-10-20
professor Gerald L. Boerner
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)

2009-10-20
Melinda Beck _Wall Street Journal_
Super Savers: Helping the Hoarders
"Hoarders often strenuously resist help and turn a blind eye to the chaos...   Nearly 90% of hoarders also acquire things excessively and experience a rush that's not typical of OCD.   'It's as if they go into a dissociative state where they forget that they don't have money to buy this or space to keep it.', says Randy O. Frost, professor of psychology and an expert on hoarding at Smith College in Northampton, MA.   Some hoarders show signs of dementia, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and attention-deficit disorder.   Many have trouble making decisions about objects and fear they'll later regret discarding something.   Their possessions are often extremely disorganized; bills often go unpaid because they are lost amid piles of videos and clothing.   Services get cut off, which compounds the squalor.   At the same time, some hoarders are extremely frugal, loath to waste anything that could be repaired or given to someone."
Michael A. Tompkins _Digging Out_
David F. Tolin, Gail Steketee, Randy O. Frost _Buried in Treasures_
Gail Steketee & Randy O. Frost _Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring: Therapist Guide_
Children of Hoarders
Obsessive-Compulsive FoundationNational Study Group on Chronic Disorganization

2009-10-20
Timothy Aeppel & Conor Dougherty _Wall Street Journal_
Holding Off on Hiring

2009-10-20
Michael Norman _Daily Illini_
ACM held programming competition, conference, last week-end

2009-10-20
_Daily Illini_
Amendment on ballot to create recall process in Illinois

2009-10-20
Liz Sidoti & Bob Lewis _AP_/_Yahoo!_
VA governor election a snap-shot of US politics: And the picture is not good for the radical leftists who call themselves Democratics

2009-10-20
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Democratic/Socialists in Obama justice dept. disingenuously claim many people cannot handle non-partisan voting

2009-10-20
Steve Johnson _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Sun dumping 3K workers

2009-10-20
Don E. Sears _eWeek_
2.5 year investigation turns up H-1B visa fraud tied to cemetery plot scheme

2009-10-20
Nanette Asimov _San Francisco CA Chronicle_
Dysmal Dysfunctional Job Markets Send More University Grads Back to Parents' Homes

2009-10-20
R. Cort Kirkwood _New American_
Muslims call for sharia law in Britain

2009-10-20 (5770 Mar-Cheshvan 02)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
To Sue or Not

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-21

2009-10-21
professor Gerald L. Boerner
Hewlett-Packard (HP)

2009-10-21
_Cumberland PA Sentinel_/_Lee_
Cumberland county PA sees decline in building permits

2009-10-21
Icess Fernandez _Shreveport LA Times_
Caddo parish school board paying for H-1B applications for cheap foreign teachers
"The board agreed to pay $1,660 to each Filipino teacher recruited by Universal Placement International to apply for each teacher's H-1B visa.   The action also reserves $400K for 'reimbursement for any potential claims sustained' by the teachers."

2009-10-21
John Reid Blackwell _Richmond VA Times-Dispatch_
Materials Software System must pay back wages to guest-workers
"ordered to pay $147,433 in back wages to 56 employees...   Materials Software System Inc., a software-development and IT consulting company [body shop]...   the company had agreed to an alternative wage and benefit plan with higher bill rates in lieu of certain benefits..."

2009-10-21
Rob Sanchez _V Dare_/_Job Destruction News-Letter_
Gabrielle Giffords proposed bill to triple already hideously excessive numbers of H-1B visas issued

2009-10-21
Addison Wiggin _Daily Reckoning_
India's Bureaucracy and Corruption Hold It Back

2009-10-21
Sue McAllister & Pete Carey _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Santa Clara county CA rents still very high
"The average asking monthly rent for units in large apartment complexes -- from studios to four-bedrooms -- fell to $1,536 last quarter, said a report from RealFacts, a Marin County company that tracks rents, vacancies and sales of large apartment complexes.   The last time rents were lower locally was in the first quarter of 2007, when the average was $1,522 a month...   The average monthly rent last quarter in both those metro areas was $1,569.   In Los Angeles, the average rent fell 5.6% compared with a year ago; in Santa Cruz, it fell 3.9%.   The San Francisco metro area recorded a slightly less significant decline than the San Jose area, with a 6.5% drop.   Average rent in the San Francisco metro area in the third quarter was $1,531.   The San Francisco metro area encompasses Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties...   Stern said rent for three bedrooms in an East San Jose apartment, duplex or house currently ranges from $1,695 to $1,850.   Rents for three-bedroom units in central San Jose run from $1,725 to $1,900; in West San Jose, $1,900 to $2,400; in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, $1,850 to $2,200; and in Cupertino, $2,100 to $2,500."

2009-10-21
Frosty Wooldridge _Op Ed News_
Made in Red China: importing the USA to its own death

2009-10-21 (5770 Mar-Cheshvan 03)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
American Idea
"Americans are harder workers, more philanthropic, individualistic, self-reliant, anti-government than people in most other countries...   we are just as capable of committing acts of gross evil that have been a part of mankind throughout his history.   We've not been a perfect nation but we've never approached the level of hideousness seen in other nations...   Thrown into the American mosaic are religions that have been in conflict for centuries such as Catholic and Protestant, and Christian and Muslim.   The question is: Why is the United States an exception and will it remain so?   At the heart of the American idea is the deep distrust and suspicion the founders of our nation had for government, distrust and suspicion not shared as much by today's Americans.   Some of the founders' distrust is seen in our Constitution's language such as Congress shall not: abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, violate and deny.   If the founders did not believe Congress would abuse our God-given rights, they would not have provided those protections.   After all, one would not expect to find a Bill of Rights in Heaven; it would be an affront to God.   Other founder distrust for government is found in the Constitution's separation of powers, checks and balances and the several anti-majoritarian provisions such as the Electoral College and the requirement that three-quarters of state legislatures ratify changes in the Constitution."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-22

2009-10-22
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
MIT Pres., US Pres., "best and brightest"
 
The [linked] op-ed by MIT president Susan Hockfield is basically a recycling of arguments used by the industry lobbyists in support of expansive policies for the H-1B work visa and employer-sponsored green cards.   As such I would ordinarily not comment, but there is a new example Hockfield brings up that I will relate to an important issue I've discussed in the past.
 
I just recently commented on a similar op-ed that highlighted the immigrant background of some of this year's American Nobel laureates.   There I detail themes I've stressed over the years:
 
1.   I strongly support facilitating the immigration of "the best and the brightest."
 
2.   However, the vast majority of H-1Bs are not in the "best and brightest" league.
 
3.   The presence of the foreign workers is causing an internal brain drain in the U.S.A., by making careers in science and engineering financially unattractive.
 
4.   "Our" National Science Foundation, whose job it is to fund university research [much of it unconstitutionally...jgo], explicitly called for bringing in a lot of foreign scientists and engineers in order to hold down PhD salaries.   Why would they do this?   Simple -- the NSF, being in the research business, wants to get the most bang for its buck, and thus benefits from low PhD salaries (and low PhD student stipends, again kept low by the swelling of the labor market).   Most importantly, the NSF forecast, correctly, that the resulting stagnant salaries would discourage Americans from pursuing PhDs.
 
I should note that several subscribers of this e-news-letter are MIT graduates, now in mid-career age but have had trouble finding tech employment in the last 10 years.   My guess is that President Hockfield is unaware of this situation, and of the fact that a core reason that employers want to hire H-1Bs is that they are younger, thus cheaper, so that the H-1B program gives employers a means of avoiding hiring older Americans.
 
The new example Hockfield uses is Technology Review's list of Top Innovators Under 35 for 2009.   She wrote:
 
Of the 35 young innovators recognized this year by Technology Review magazine for their exceptional new ideas, only 6 went to high school in the [United States of America].
 
Needless to say, one should be cautious in taking a magazine list so seriously, but let's accept it and discuss some of its implications.
 
First of all, there is my internal brain drain point above.   The H-1B program caused it -- and remember, the NSF knowingly promoted this -- and thus one should not conclude that H-1B has increased net innovation in the U.S.A.   It has brought in some innovators, but also pushed some innovators out of tech.
 
Second, the surnames of those 35, there are only 5 Indians and 3 Chinese.   That's in contrast to the fact that among H-1Bs, and indeed among foreign engineering grad students, the vast majority are Indians and Chinese.   This under-representation in the awards of the Indians and Chinese illustrates my point that the H-1B and employer-sponsored green card programs are NOT generally bringing in the best and the brightest.
 
Note carefully that I am not saying that there are no innovative Indians or Chinese.   I have my own list of brilliant immigrants from those countries.   Instead, I'm simply saying that the nationality data show that these foreign-worker programs are generally NOT about hiring the best and the brightest.
 
This disconnect between TR's innovator data and the H-1B demographics meshes with what David Hart of George Mason University found recently, as well as one aspect of a study by McGill University's Jennifer Hunt and my CIS article.
 
Again, I very strongly support bringing in the best and the brightest, whether they be Chinese or Indian or Russian or Nigerian.   But a key point is that current immigration policy already has a separate mechansim for doing this that works well, a specialized version of employer-sponsored green cards called EB-1, Foreign Nationals of Extraordinary Ability.   Processing is very quick, in contrast to the 5 years or more wait for ordinary green cards.   Yes, you really have to be good to get EB-1, but then isn't that the point?
 
Speaking of policy, Hockfield is incorrect in claiming,
 
Our immigration laws specifically require that students return to their home countries after earning their degrees and then apply for a visa if they want to return and work in the U.S.A.
 
This is false, as MIT's International Students Office could have explained to Hockfield in detail.
 
Finally, the big news on the MIT campus is that President Obama will visit this Friday, to give an address on energy.   I wonder if he will talk about "innovation" and maybe allude to foreign workers.   Another thing he might do is increase the stipend in the NSF traineeships, which would help a bit to stem the internal STEM brain drain.
 
It's always hard for the person at the top, be it Hockfield or Obama, to know what's going on in real life, sad to say.
 
Norm
Susan Hockfield: Wall Street Journal: It's crazy to drive away talented US citizen scholars
Kent Garber: US News & World Report: Hockfield launches energy initiative

2009-10-22 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report: Continuing to follow typical weekly pattern for the year
DoL home page
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 460,449 in the week ending October 17, a decrease of 49,113 from the previous week.   There were 416,111 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.7% during the week ending October 10, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,898,174, a decrease of 44,913 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.3% and the volume was 3,134,390.   Extended benefits were available in AL, AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending October 3...   States reported 3,390,622 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending October 3, an increase of 40,716 from the prior week.   There were 1,173,367 claimants in the comparable week in 2008.   EUC weekly claims include both first and second tier activity.   [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs

2009-10-22
_BLS_
Korea and the United States of America had the largest productivity increases (1.2%) in 2008; Singapore had the steepest productivity decline (-6.6%)
"United States: output per hour +1.2%; output -2.7%; hours worked -3.9%; employment -3.4%; average hours worked -0.5%; total compensation -1.0%; compensation per hour +3.0%; unit labor cost +1.7%."

2009-10-22
_BLS_
Mass lay-offs from large firms as reflected in unemployment compensation claims

2009-10-22
Anna Werner _CBS 5 San Francisco CA_
Security flaws discovered in California unemployment web site
"So how big of a problem is that?   Expert Pam Dixon with the World Privacy Forum said, 'That is not okay!'   Because she said resumes are a gold mine for criminals.   'Resumes are really fantastic tools for identity theft, because you get a person's name, you get their home address and you get a lot of information about them, so you can impersonate them much more easily.', Dixon said.   Job sites are already a target.   In January, Monster.com reported someone 'illegally accessed' its data-base and took private information including names and phone numbers.   In that case, not resumes.   But Dixon said in the case of CalJOBS, 'If the criminal gets access to the resume database, they will aggregate the resumes and sell them to other criminals.'   Diederich, a former reporter at Computer World Magazine, thought the problem serious enough that he sent the state an e-mail and called.   But he said, 'I didn't hear back from them.'...   CBS 5 asked UC Berkeley computer science professor and privacy expert, Doug Tygar to take a look at Diederich's problem.   He said, 'I consider that to be a serious security breach.'   But it turns out, not the only one.   Because just moments after beginning his examination of that web site, using Diederich's web link, Tygar was able to get into the site, and look at other applicants' supposedly private data.   'I was able to access other people's personal information including their address, their phone numbers, e-mail, personal details.', Tygar said.   All by just changing a few numbers in the URL.   In fact, Tygar even found he was able to go in and change information on peoples' resumes.   'I would in fact have been able to go through and change that if i were a malicious attacker.', he said.   Tygar said a hacker looking for identities to steal could have thousands of resumes at his disposal.   'They are giving the information out to people who they shouldn't.'"

2009-10-22
Jerry Kammer _Right Side News_
Roxana Bacon becomes chief counsel of USCIS; to help draft Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion proposals for Obama admin
"Her one contribution to a Republican over the past 16 years, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, was a $250 check in 1998 to then-senator Spencer Abraham.   Abraham was chairman of the Senate Judiciary immigration subcommittee and an advocate of expansive immigration policies.   In 2000 the Arizona Republic reported that Bacon's Phoenix law firm 'handles more than 1K H-1B applications a year for companies including Motorola Inc., ON Semiconductor and Microchip Technology'...   Bacon was general counsel of the American Immigration Lawyers Association from 1993 to 1995."

2009-10-22
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
It's Official: Government Admits Stimulus/Porkulus Failed to Improve Economic Situation

2009-10-22
Janet Morrissey _Time_/_awcorg_
Many Americans Now Plan to Work Past Age 67; not surprising now that life expectancy at adult-hood is up around 80
Techs Unite

2009-10-22
Glenn Beck _Fox_
John Stossel breaks down Massachusetts's RomneyDoesntCare
"It is eating up the state budget.   Democrats are scrambling to compensate.   How? Taxes.   They have increased fines also for those who didn't get insurance under the individual mandate.   They have increased business penalties.   They've taxed insurers and hospitals.   They've raised premiums.   They've even, in Massachusetts -- this isn't, you know, Botswana -- Massachusetts.   They have resorted to group doctor visits.   It's like, OK.   He has a gallstone and I've got a sore throat.   Can you do this at the same time? It's still not enough.   So what are they considering? Excluding coverage of low priority, low-value services.   Also, limit the coverage, implementing spending caps."

2009-10-22
Bob Evans _Information Week_/_UBM_
Systems In Motion, US-based body shop to employ more US citizens
alternate link

2009-10-22

2009-10-23: Brian Garst
on 2009-10-22: CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”
Pelosi: "Are you serious? Are you serious?"
CNSNews.com: "Yes, yes I am."
Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a «serious question»."
2009-10-22: Matt Cover: CNS: When Asked Where the Constitution Authorizes Congress to Order USA Citizens to Buy Health Insurance, Pelosi Says: "Are You Serious? Are You Serious?" (all CNS links are dead, replaced by redirection to Media Research Center)
Yid with the Lid
evil Alphabet/ Google/ YouTube
Todd Gaziano, Randy Barnett & Nathaniel Stewart: Heritage Foundation: ObummerDoesn'tCare is unprecedented and unconstituitonal
2012: Renee Lettow Lerner: George Washington U Law: enlightenment economics and the framing of the USA constitution

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-23

2009-10-23
professor Gerald L. Boerner
Data General
Jimbo Wales's wipiPedia on Data General

2009-10-23
Icess Fernandez _Shreveport LA Times_
AFT filed complaint with DoL against California-based Universal Placement International
ABS CBN News
Kevin McGill: WRAL/AP
"The complaints come weeks after the union's state chapter, Louisiana Federation of Teachers, submitted a complaint on behalf of more than 200 Filipino teachers statewide to the state attorney general and the Louisiana Workforce Commission.   Among the allegations is that teachers had to pay about $15K each to apply for jobs in school districts in the United States.   Once they were here, they paid 10% of their monthly salary to Universal Placement International.   According to the complaint, teachers were threatened with harm to their families back home if they didn't pay."

2009-10-23
Timothy Pratt _Las Vegas NV Sun_
2 senators have introduced legislation to count only adult US citizens for purposes of congressional districting

2009-10-23
Terry Coxon _Financial Sense_
When Will Inflation Really Hit Us?

2009-10-23
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Believe it if you actually see it

2009-10-23
_Breitbart_/_AFP_
Obama offers hundreds of millions to Muslim nations

2009-10-23
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
The Imperial Obama Administration Forbids Dissent

2009-10-23
Diane Cochran _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Teachers are seeing more homeless children

2009-10-23
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Increasing socialism by eliminating the family and marriage

2009-10-23
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Stimulus/Porkulus Plans Are Bound to Fail at Improving the Economy; but succeed at increasing government power

2009-10-23
Sue McAllister _San Jose CA Mercury News_
over 19% of Silicon Valley office space is vacant, again
"Across the valley -- in an area spanning from Palo Alto to San Jose to Fremont -- 19.1% of office space was vacant at the end of the third quarter, said the report from commercial real estate firm Grubb & Ellis.   That was up from a 17.8% vacancy rate in the second quarter, the company said.   The last time the office vacancy rate was higher was in the second quarter of 2004, at 19.5%...   The vacancy rate for R&D climbed to 16.2% in the July-September quarter, up from 15.1% in the second quarter.   The last time the vacancy rate in R&D was higher was in the second quarter of 2006, at 16.4%.   About 28.2M square feet of R&D space and 11.9M square feet of office space was available for rent by the end of September.   (For comparison's sake: All the retail stores at Westfield Valley Fair mall occupy about 1.5M square feet, so the amount of space for rent now is equal to nearly 27 Valley Fair [shopping centers].)   In downtown San Jose, office vacancy rose to 26.6%, from 24.9% at the end of the second quarter.   Valleywide, vacancy was highest in Sunnyvale, at 38.3%, and Newark, at 33.8%.   Sunnyvale's vacancy rate is so high in large part because of Moffett Towers, a completed, multi-building complex with nearly 1.8M square feet that has never been occupied."

2009-10-23
Frank Loy _Politics Daily_
Reforestation is necessary component of USA's climate change legislation
Frank Loy's web on muckety
Frank Loy's web on MarketVisual
follow the money from Frank E. Loy
follow the money from Frank Loy
Campaign Money
Public Citizen: White House for Sale: Bundler and Mega-Donor for Obama
Political Friendster
Business Week: profile
Jimbo Wales's WikiPedia

2009-10-23
Doris Hartlage _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Overview of work rules that affect tech workers

2009-10-23 (5770 Mar-Cheshvan 05)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform

2009-10-23

DJIA	9,972.18
S&P 500	1,079.60
NASDAQ	2,154.47
Nikkei	10,283
10-year US T-Bond	3.48%
crude oil	$81.19/barrel
gold	$1,056.40/ounce
silver	$17.723/ounce
platinum	$1,369.50 /ounce
palladium	$339.45/ounce
copper	$0.18965625/ounce
natgas	$4.787/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$2.0438/gal
heatingoil	$2.0756/gal
dollarindex	75.488
yenperdollar	92.10
dollarspereuro	1.5004
dollarsperpound	1.6353
swissfranksperdollar	1.0094
indianrupeesperdollar	46.50
mexicanpesosperdollar	13.0725
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	543.32

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
 

2009-10-24

2009-10-23 18:51PDT (2009-10-23 21:51EDT) (2009-10-23 01:51GMT)
Matt Andrejczak _MarketWatch_
106 banks have failed in 2009

2009-10-24
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Outlook better for wheat growers
"Grain prices skyrocketed in 2008 to 5 times the normal rate, in some cases.   The high gave Montana its first $1G wheat crop just as the national economy was turning nasty.   But the hangover has been dreadful...   Several things are working in the farmers' favor, Buschena said.   Wheat production this year is down 11% from 2008, helping erase a global glut...   Wheat prices had been on a roller coaster since 2007 October when prices jumped $1.33 a bushel in one month.   That jump, spurred by concerns over global grain scarcity and trader speculation, was the largest single month increase in Montana grain prices since 1910, according to the National Agriculture Statistics Service.   Average monthly sales prices continued to rise until 2008 May, peaking at $10.20 a bushel.   That amount was roughly half of national grain prices, which peaked earlier that year when few Montana farmers had grain to sell.   Recent falling prices have been equally historic.   The average sale price for Montana wheat fell $1.12 a bushel from August to September, the largest monthly drop, measured in dollars or percentage, in NASS' 99 years."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-25

2009-10-25
_Cumberland PA Sentinel_/_Lee_
Earth-quake swarms in central PA, eastern CA and south Pacific
Amanda Palleschi: PA Patriot-News
Michael Gorsegner: Fox 43 Harrisburg Lancaster Lebanon York
Teresa Ann Boeckel: York PA Daily Record
The 2008-2009 Earthquake Swarm Near Dillsburg, Pennsylvania (pdf)
PA Bureau of Topographic and Geological Survey
Kabc7 Lone Pine CA
Gary Robbins: Orange county Register
Larry O'Hanlon: Discovery

2009-10-25
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Argentina is a preview of Obama admin's path

2009-10-25
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Life is complicated and busy for young Montana farmers
Depression, recessions, and recovery

2009-10-25
Robert Lewis _Sacramento CA Bee_
California state court systems deal nears $2G
"An effort to create a centralized computer system for California's state courts, originally conceived as a modest upgrade in a few counties, now faces total costs approaching $2G and is years away from large-scale implementation...   The project has ballooned in scope and costs since its 2001 inception without the scrutiny other state computer systems face because the state Administrative Office of the Courts is not bound by the same project review requirements...   The man leading the push for the system is Ronald George, chief justice of the California Supreme Court since 1996.   The computer project is integral to his decade-long effort to shift control of the courts from counties to the state...   Allowing courts to interact online made perfect sense...   The Department of Education just launched a system to track student data, for instance, with a budget of at least $42.6M, including some ongoing costs -- more than triple its original $14.4M estimate.   Already, users are reporting problems...   a judge hearing a domestic violence case in one county might not know about pending charges in another county...   The office hired a major technology and consulting company [body shop], Bearingpoint, to create a web-based system to manage criminal and traffic cases in 2 county courts for $1.5M.   Later, officials added 9 counties to the plan before switching to another company after Bearingpoint foundered...   The system used in Ventura and Orange counties was a client-server application -- essentially living on the courts' computers, said Peter Kelly, a senior consultant and deployment manager for Deloitte from 2006 January to 2007 April.   Bearingpoint tried to take that system and make it a web-based application for other courts."

2009-10-25
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
The crooks are still inside the government: Are you ready for the next crisis?

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-26

2009-10-26
Kimberly Scarabello _Daily Illini_
U of IL researchers received $1M USDA grant to study apple/pear tree "fire blight" bacteria

2009-10-26
K.A. Badarinath & Ronojoy Banerjee _My Digital FC_
Quid Pro Quo: USA trade negotiators seek more access to India's agriculture, services and financial sector markets
LiveMint
trade balances

year	US trade surplus
1985	-$652.8M
1986	-$747.0M
1987	-$1,064.8M
1988	-$439.4M
1989	-$856.9M
1990	-$710.6M
1991	-$1,193.0M
1992	-$1,862.6M
1993	-$1,775.7M
1994	-$3,015.8M
1995	-$2,430.5M
1996	-$2,841.3M
1997	-$3,715.0M
1998	-$4,672.7M
1999	-$5,383.0M
2000	-$7,019.3M
2001	-$5,980.3M
2002	-$7,717.4M
2003	-$8,075.6M
2004	-$9,462.7M
2005	-$10,885.6M
2006	-$12,157.3M
2007	-$9,104.4M
2008	-$8,022.3M
2009	-$2,767.7M

Rob Sanchez: V Dare

2009-10-26
Melanie Philips _Daily Mail_
The outrageous truth slips out: Labour cynically plotted to transform the entire make-up of Britain without telling us
"For years, as the number of immigrants to Britain shot up apparently uncontrollably, the question was how exactly this had happened...   There could not have been a more grave abuse of the entire democratic process.   Now, however, we learn that this is exactly what did happen.   The Labour government has been engaged upon a deliberate and secret policy of national cultural sabotage...   Andrew Neather... wrote a landmark speech in 2000 September by the then immigration minister, Barbara Roche, that called for a loosening of immigration controls.   But the true scope and purpose of this new policy was actively concealed.   In its 1997 election manifesto, Labour promised 'firm control over immigration' and in 2005 it promised a 'crackdown on abuse'.   In 2001, its manifesto merely said that the immigration rules needed to reflect changes to the economy to meet 'skills shortages'...   the purpose of the policy Roche ushered in was to open up the UK to mass immigration.   This has been achieved.   Some 2.3M migrants have been added to the population since 2001.   Since 1997, the number of work permits has quadrupled to 120K a year.   Unless policies change, over the next 25 years some 7M more will be added to Britain's population, a rate of growth 3 times as fast as took place in the 1980s...   The Government's 'driving political purpose', wrote Neather, was 'to make the UK truly multi-cultural'...   It was done to destroy the right of the British people to live in a society defined by a common history, religion, law, language and traditions...   the reason for his astonishing candour is he thinks it's something to boast about...   What elitist arrogance!"
Indians and Brits of Indian descent were offended that prince Philip acknowledged that a lot of people named Patel were at one of their gatherings
Rate of new arrivals has surged by 50% under Labour party government
"mass immigration would make Britain more multi-cultural and allow Labour to portray the Tories as racists...   Whitehall statistics show that in the year of the document's publication, 370K non-British nationals arrived.   That rose to 416K the following year and, by 2006, had reached 510K.   In 2007, it fell back slightly to 502K -- but this was still an increase of 30% on 2001.   For net foreign immigration -- the number of non-British citizens arriving, versus the number leaving -- the figures are more dramatic.   In 2001, it stood at 221K -- but by 2007 it had reached 333K -- up by 50%...   Now immigration will add another 7M to our population over the next 25 years unless really serious measures are taken to cut immigration by at least 75%."
Vegetarian lifestyles and jet-setting climate change delegates won't save our planet, but it will empower radical leftists

2009-10-26
Don E. Sears _eWeek_
Ill-Begotten Monstrosities $1.34G illfare management system contract with Indiana government terminated

2009-10-26 13:22PDT (16:22EDT) (20:22GMT)
Shawn Langlois _MarketWatch_
Caterpillar is hiring and firing
"Caterpillar Inc. on Monday said it plans to bring back 550 laid-off employees...   2,500 idled workers... will be receiving separation packages.   Earlier this year, Caterpillar said it would dismiss about 22K workers ahead of what the company described as perhaps the weakest period of economic growth in the post-war period.   Caterpillar now employs about 95K workers."

2009-10-26
Daniel J. Mitchell
If more government is the answer, you've asked the wrong question

2009-10-26 (5770 Mar-Cheshvan 07)
R' doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Damaging disclosures with a twist

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-27

2009-10-27
Mary Beth Versaci _Daily Illini_
Losing touch with what matters most

2009-10-26 21:01PDT (2009-10-27 00:01EDT) (2009-10-27 04:01GMT)
Alistair Barr _MarketWatch_
Raj's legacy: Galleon charges shine harsh light on hedge-fund industry
"Galleon Group founder Rajaratnam; Danielle Chiesi and Mark Kurland of hedge-fund firm New Castle Partners; and executives at International Business Machines Corp., Intel Corp. and McKinsey & Company were arrested earlier this month on charges they were part of a network that trafficked in private, market-moving information about upcoming earnings reports and acquisitions."

2009-10-26 21:01PDT (2009-10-27 00:01EDT) (2009-10-27 04:01GMT)
Therese Poletti _MarketWatch_
Galleon did not surprise SiliValley: Rajaratnam: A product of cross-border bodyshopping

2009-10-27 08:11PDT (11:11EDT) (15:11GMT)
Andrea Coombes _MarketWatch_
workers in Brazil and Lithuania get 8 weeks of vacation per year
"Finland, France, Russia, Austria and Malta... offer workers from 38 to 41 days off per year...   Among the countries studied, the U.S. is the sole country where federal law does not set a minimum number of vacation days, but a typical full-time worker with five to 10 years on the job gets about three weeks off per year, according to the study...   U.S. workers enjoy 10 public holidays.   Those, combined with the typical vacation time of 15 days, add up to 25 days off per year...   Canada is in last place with a total of 19 days off -- 10 statutory days plus 9 public holidays.   China offers 21 days altogether (10 statutory days; 11 public holidays) and Singapore, 25 (14 statutory; 11 holidays)."

2009-10-27 08:24PDT (11:24EDT) (15:24GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Conference Board: Consumer Confidence dropped again

2009-10-27
Rob Sanchez _V Dare_/_Job Destruction News-Letter_
Louisiana Hiring Filipino Teachers, Firing Americans—Where Are The Teacher Unions When We Need Them?

2009-10-27
Howard C. Hayden _View from 1776_
Questionable modelS of global warming
"I write in regard to the Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, Proposed Rule, 74 Fed. Reg. 18,886 (2009 April 24), the so-called 'Endangerment Finding'...   If the science were settled, there would be precisely one model, and it would be in agreement with measurements.   Alternatively, one may ask which one of the twenty-some models settled the science so that all the rest could be discarded along with the research funds that have kept those models alive.   We can take this further.   Not a single climate model predicted the current cooling phase.   If the science were settled, the model (singular) would have predicted it.   Let me next address the horror story that we are approaching (or have passed) a 'tipping point'.   Anybody who has worked with amplifiers knows about tipping points.   The output 'goes to the rail'.   Not only that, but it stays there.   That's the official worry coming from the likes of James Hansen (of NASAGISS) and AlGore.   But therein lies the proof that we are nowhere near a tipping point.   The earth, it seems, has seen times when the CO₂ concentration was up to 8K ppm, and that did not lead to a tipping point.   If it did, we would not be here talking about it.   In fact, seen on the long scale, the CO₂ concentration in the present cycle of glacials (c. 200 ppm) and interglacials (c. 300-400 ppm) is lower than it has been for the last 300M years.   Global-warming alarmists tell us that the rising CO₂ concentration is (A) anthropogenic and (B) leading to global warming.   (A) CO₂ concentration has risen and fallen in the past with no help from mankind.   The present rise began in the 1700s, long before humans could have made a meaningful contribution.   Alarmists have failed to ask, let alone answer, what the CO₂ level would be today if we had never burned any fuels.   They simply assume that it would be the 'pre-industrial' value.   a. The solubility of CO₂ in water decreases as water warms, and increases as water cools.   The warming of the earth since the Little Ice Age has thus caused the oceans to emit CO₂ into the atmosphere.   (B) The first principle of causality is that the cause has to come before the effect.   The historical record shows that climate changes precede CO₂ changes.   How, then, can one conclude that CO₂ is responsible for the current warming?   Nobody doubts that CO₂ has some greenhouse effect, and nobody doubts that CO₂ concentration is increasing.   But what would we have to fear if CO₂ and temperature actually increased?   A warmer world is a better world.   Look at weather-related death rates in winter and in summer, and the case is overwhelming that warmer is better.   The higher the CO₂ levels, the more vibrant is the biosphere, as numerous experiments in greenhouses have shown.   But a quick trip to the museum can make that case in spades.   Those huge dinosaurs could not exist anywhere on the earth today because the land is not productive enough.   CO₂ is plant food, pure and simple.   CO₂ is not pollution by any reasonable definition.   A warmer world begets more precipitation.   All computer models predict a smaller temperature gradient between the poles and the equator.   Necessarily, this would mean fewer and less violent storms.   The melting point of ice is 0C in Antarctica, just as it is everywhere else.   The highest recorded temperature at the South Pole is –14C, and the lowest is –117C.   How, pray, will a putative few degrees of warming melt all the ice and inundate Florida, as is claimed by the warming alarmists?   Consider the change in vocabulary that has occurred.   The term global warming has given way to the term climate change, because the former is not supported by the data.   The latter term, climate change, admits of all kinds of illogical attributions.   If it warms up, that's climate change.   If it cools down, ditto.   Any change whatsoever can be said by alarmists to be proof of climate change.   In a way, we have been here before.   Lord Kelvin 'proved' that the earth could not possibly be as old as the geologists said.   He 'proved' it using the conservation of energy.   What he didn't know was that nuclear energy, not gravitation, provides the internal heat of the sun and the earth.   Similarly, the global-warming alarmists have 'proved' that CO₂ causes global warming.   Except when it doesn't.   To put it fairly but bluntly, the global-warming alarmists have relied on a pathetic version of science in which computer models take precedence over data, and numerical averages of computer outputs are believed to be able to predict the future climate.   It would be a travesty if the EPA were to countenance such nonsense."

2009-10-27 (5770 Mar-Cheshvan 09)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Dismantling America part 1
"the people [Obama] has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country...   Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government -- people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world...   Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-28

2009-10-28
Jennifer McKee _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
In-state software servcies to government being offered for less
"Montana's food stamp and cash welfare programs, known by their acronyms of SNAP and TANF, respectively.   Deloitte proposed to Montana human services officials to create the software for $29.6M, according to state information.   Deloitte also indicated in its proposal that some of that work would be [off-shored].   Northrop Grumman, primarily known as a defense contractor with a 125-person Helena office, proposed to do the work for $23.8M and was the lowest bid among the four companies that made it to the final round of considerations for the state contract.   Northrop Grumman's Helena branch is a certified 'Made in Montana' firm and, according to company information, intended to create the software entirely by workers at its Helena office.   Deloitte was selected as the top-scoring firm last week, but the deal is not final.   The would-be contract must still be signed off on by state contract officials and, ultimately, Anna Whiting Sorrell, director of the Department of Public Health and Human Services, which runs the two poverty-relief programs.   Northrop Grumman officials told its Helena employees Monday that eight employees there have been placed on indefinite unpaid furloughs.   The company won the last contract to build software for the programs and is the company maintaining $13.5M software now.   The company has an ongoing operation and maintenance contract for the existing software.   That work will not be affected by the new contract, said Christy Whitman, a Northrop Grumman spokeswoman...   It is unclear what role, if any, offshoring of work played in the final decision.   Brad Sanders, chief of the state's Procurement Bureau, did not respond to several phone calls seeking comment for this story explaining the scoring...   Two other firms, Accenture [formerly Anderson Consulting before they were caught up in the Enron fraud] and Keane, also submitted proposals for the contract.   Each scored better than Northrop Grumman, but also cost more."

2009-10-28
Jason Scott _Cumberland PA Sentinel_/_Lee_
Regional unemployment rate nears 8%
graphs

2009-10-28
Jason Scott _Cumberland PA Sentine_/_Lee_
Libraries are considering cuts in services

2009-10-28
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
"soft analysis proofs" of the under-payment of H-1Bs
 
Though I've been a computer science professor for a long time, and occasionally refer to my early career as a statistics professor, a little-known fact about me is that my PhD was in pure mathematics.   Ah, those were days.   I enjoy statistics and CS very much, but I do miss those days of pure intellectual pursuit without any application, in what I regard as a very elegant discipline.
 
One of the mini-triumphs one can sometimes achive in pure math is the "soft analysis proof".   Instead of long, intricate arguments with lots of inequalities, epsilons and deltas, with luck one might stumble onto a couple of insights and come up with a three-line proof that is very clean.
 
In this posting, I want to apply this concept to the question of whether H-1Bs are underpaid.   Lest you be misled by my somewhat lighthearted language above, let me say clearly that I'm dead serious here.   Though I believe the statistical evidence, taken in its totality, shows clearly that H-1Bs are indeed on average paid less than comparable Americans (my Type I salary savings, with Type II, the age-related one, also being very important), people tend to be overwhelmed by the statistics.   Even some professional analysts, astute people whom I highly respect such as Lindsay Lowell, seem not quite sure what to make of the data.   In addition, statistics can be subtle, and many good number crunchers who've analyzed the H-1B issue who limited understanding of which numbers ought to be crunched and what the numbers mean, resulting in a lot of misleading analyses.
 
Thus, some crisp, clean soft-analysis proofs should be useful.   Here they are:
 
Proof 1:
 
Step A: H-1Bs, especially those being sponsored for green cards, tend to be rather immobile, not able to freely move around in the labor market.
 
Step B: If one can't move around in the labor market, one generally cannot get the best salary deal for oneself.
 
Step C: Therefore, H-1Bs will typically be making less money than they ought to make, given their qualifications.
 
QED
 
Proof 2:
 
Step A: Employers claim that they hire H-1Bs because they have special, hard-to-find skill sets, or are more talented than the American applicants.
 
Step B: In the open market, employers would have to pay a premium for workers with hard-to-find skill sets, or of superior talent.
 
Step C: According to the DoL PERM data, most tech employers pay their H-1Bs (actually green card sponsorees, most of them H-1Bs) only the official "prevailing wage" or just a tad higher.
 
Step D: The official prevailing wage does not take into account special skill sets or high talent levels.
 
Step E: Therefore, H-1Bs are typically paid less than their qualifications would command in the free market.
 
QED
 
I've mentioned Proof 1 before.   Indeed, I bring it up whenever an H-1B tells me, as for instance a former student of mine once did, that they are not under-paid.   When I respond by asking whether they could make more money if they were to have full mobility in the labor market, they say "Of course.", to which I reply, "Well, then, you're under-paid after all."   Please note, though, that this does not imply that I support proposals for fast-track green cards, which I've explained are just as injurious to U.S. citizens and permanent residents as H-1B.
 
I brought up Proof 2 when I was interviewed by a team of researchers from the GAO a few weeks ago.   They agreed that all of Steps A-D were valid, but it wasn't clear whether they accepted Step E, the conclusion.   We'll find out when their report comes out (which won't be soon).
 
Norm
---30---

2009-10-28
Moira Herbst _Business Week_
Rutgers/Georgetown: No Shortage of U.S. Engineers
Laura Devaney: eSchool News
Sean Cavanagh: Education Week
Pitch Engine
Steady as She Goes: 3 Generations of Students through the Science and Engineering Pipe-Line (pdf)
"U.S. colleges and universities are graduating as many scientists and engineers as ever, according to a study released on Oct. 28 by a group of academics.   But that finding comes with a big caveat: Many of the highest-performing students are choosing careers in other fields.   The study by professors at Rutgers and Georgetown suggests that since the late 1990s, many of the top students have been lured to careers in finance and consulting...   'It is now up to science and technology firms to attract the best and the brightest graduates to come work for them.'...   'The top quintile SAT/ACT and GPA performers appear to have been dropping out of the STEM pipe-line at a substantial rate, and this decline seems to have come on quite suddenly in the mid-to-late 1990s.'"

2009-10-28
Tom Avril _Philadelphia Inquirer_
Georgetown/Rutgers study asks: What scientist and engineer shortage?

2009-10-28 01:45PST (04:45EST) (09:45GMT) (11:45Jerusalem)
Charles Breiterman _Numbers USA_
History of H-1B shows more than employer abuses: scary ghosts in the political machine
"The H-1B foreign worker program, in its current form, is an insult to the highly trained Americans that it discriminates against.   But, employers are not the only ones who should shoulder blame for the fraud and abuse we are seeing now.   These abuses are the result of a disturbing pattern of political subterfuge for most of the last 40 years.   Legislators used questionable ethics to accomplish their goals.   Moreover, irregular accounting practices, policy decisions by administrative department heads, and reinterpretations of original language by sub-committees have all implied a single minded purpose.   By means of political subterfuge, politicians, at the behest of industry special interests intent on obtaining cheap labor, have purchased their measure of success at expense of American citizens...   The first casualty of political erosion was the word 'temporary'.   Beginning in 1970 and culminating with its demise in 1990, all traces of temporary were removed.   The temporary nature of the job was removed through the reinterpretation of crucial phrases...   employers who jumped at the chance to hire workers who would be content with lower wages than their American counterparts, as well as, be available for long term employment...   2002 November... 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, HR2215. There is a provision in the bill dubbed the "7th Year Extension".   It allows H-1B visa holders to extend their stay past the 6th year if a labor certification has been pending for at least 365 days.   Furthermore, they can request this extension on a yearly basis until they get a green card.   Of the 400 members of the House who voted in favor of this bill, 206 were Republicans and 193 were Democrats.   That's what I call a bi-partisan back-stabbing!...   In 2008, Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary signed a new extension to the Optional Practical Training period for foreign students working in the U.S.A.   It extended the OPT period from 12 to 29 months...   changes in the wording of the definitions pertaining to qualifications were made.   These changes lowered the original intent for persons of pre-eminence, to those holding a bachelor's degree [but even that was never a consistently-applied requirement]... "

2009-10-28
Paul Nachman _V Dare_
California is imploding, in part because it is diverse
"Dan Walters, dean of the Sacramento press corps, makes a memorable observation: 'The much-vaunted checks and balances of the American system, designed by the nation's founders who had revolted against a king and feared centralized power, create stasis in a society with as many rival factions as California has.'.   [He says that as though it were a bad thing.]   Of course the founders, in the classic words of jack-of-all-trades founder John Jay, were working in hospitable conditions: 'Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people -- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.'"

2009-10-28
Yidhijit Bhattacharjee _Science_
USA does not need more science students
"'Those who advocate increasing the supply of STEM talent should cool their ardor a little bit.', says one of its authors, B. Lindsay Lowell, a demographer at Georgetown University in Washington, DC...   The way to promote US competitiveness in STEM fields is to 'put more emphasis on the demand side', says Lowell, noting that U.S. colleges and universities produce three times more STEM graduates every year than the number of STEM jobs available.   Cranking out even more STEM graduates, he says, does not give corporations any incentive to boost wages for STEM jobs, which would be one way to retain the highest-performing students in STEM."
Lindsay Lowell, Hal Salzman, Hamutal Bernstein & Everett Henderson: Rutgers/Georgetown: Three Generations of Students through the Science and Engineering Pipeline

2009-10-28 (5770 Mar-Cheshvan 10)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Obama's Nobel Peace Prize
"Past nominees included Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini...   [Obama] has generated considerable goodwill among Europeans because he shares many of their values.   Europeans are a people with little willingness to defend themselves."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-29

2009-10-29 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report: Continuing to follow typical weekly pattern for the year
DoL home page
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 492,456 in the week ending October 24, an increase of 32,026 from the previous week.   There were 449,389 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.8% during the week ending October 17, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,968,019, an increase of 51,445 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.4% and the volume was 3,233,118.   Extended benefits were available in AL, AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending October 10...   States reported 3,368,909 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending October 10, a decrease of 21,713 from the prior week.   There were 1,050,369 claimants in the comparable week in 2008.   EUC weekly claims include both first and second tier activity.   [Note: Covered employment was reduce this week from 133,823,421 to 131,823,421.]   [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs

2009-10-29 12:00PDT (15:00EDT) (19:00GMT)
Gabriela Montell _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Corrupt and inept university executives are eagerly hired by other universities

2009-10-29 16:57PDT (19:57EDT) (23:57GMT)
David Tong _The Street_
"Fast Money" recap: Is GDP increase a head fake?
Dave Fry: iStock Analyst
Dian L. Chu: Schiff says recession continues
Rick Newman: US News & World Report
Burton Folsom: National Review
Matthew Bradbard: Seeking Alpha
Liam Denning: Wall Street Journal: America's Grossly Distorted Product
"The Commerce Department reported the economy grew at an annual rate of 3.5% for the quarter, ending 4 consecutive quarters of declines."

2009-10-29
Justin Fox _Time_
What's a banker worth?
"If there were a simple correlation between financial-sector growth and economic growth, Philippon reasons, finance's share of the economy would stay constant.   But when he examined data back to 1860, he found that finance's share of GDP varied widely.   It ballooned in the late 19th century, shrank, ballooned again in the 1920s, shrank and stayed low for decades, then began to grow again in the 1970s, reaching unprecedented levels earlier this decade.   The measure Philippon uses is the economic value added of the financial sector as a percentage of GDP, which was at about 4% in the 1960s and hit almost 8% in 2006.   An easier-to-understand metric -- financial-sector profits as a share of overall corporate profits -- followed an even more dramatic trajectory, from 12% in the mid-1960s to almost 41% in 2002.

The 1960s were by most measures the best decade ever for growth and widening prosperity in the U.S.; the past decade has been a bust.   Yet the financial sector was relatively tiny in the 1960s and huge in the 2000s.   Could this mean that good times for finance are bad for the rest of us?   Philippon says it isn't that simple.   The 1990s, for example, were good for both Wall Street and Main Street.   His theory, which fits the historical evidence well, is that the financial sector's share of the economy should increase when there are fast-growing companies needing outside funding, like railroads in the late 19th century, manufacturers in the 1920s and tech firms in the 1990s.   If financing wasn't in great demand in the booming 1960s, perhaps that was a warning sign of stagnation to come rather than evidence of the uselessness of financiers.   Over the past decade, though, reality took a detour from Philippon's theory.   Corporate America's need for outside financing fell, but the financial sector refused to shrink; it pumped out ever riskier products until the system nearly collapsed.   Why the refusal? Maybe the pay was too good.   Philippon and the University of Virginia's Ariell Reshef have found that, starting in the mid-1980s, financial-sector pay-checks began to out-strip those for jobs in other sectors demanding similar skills and education levels.   Since the late 1990s, Philippon and Reshef estimate, 30% to 50% of financial-sector pay has amounted to what economists call rents -- wind-falls that serve no economic purpose."

2009-10-29
Rob Sanchez _V Dare_/_Job Destruction News-Letter_
Caddo parish schools didn't read the fine print when bringing in H-1B guest-teachers

2009-10-29
Richard Burnett _Orlando FL Sentinel_
Harris gets $196M contract with State Dept.

2009-10-29
Anne Marie Kukec _Chicagoland Daily Herald_
about 9,700 suburban Motorola employees have been dumped
"About 9,700 suburban workers have left Motorola since last year through lay-offs, retirements and attrition, and about 10K workers remain in Schaumburg, Arlington Heights, Libertyville and Chicago...   Mark McKechnie, an analyst with Broadpoint AmTech Inc. 'We're hoping for a good following from consumers during the holiday season.' So is Motorola, said co-CEO Sanjay Jha."

2009-10-29
_Silicon India_
NASSCOM says 75% of India tech workers are unemployable
"Bangalore: Indian IT firms reject 90% of college graduates and 75% of engineers who apply for jobs because they are not good enough to be trained, according to NASSCOM.   Wipro employs 95K, Infosys 105K and TCS 143K.   Of the Fortune 500, only Wal-Mart in America adds more people annually than either Infosys or TCS.   Last year Infosys hired 28,231 people, including 18K graduates paid Rs.300K a year.   This year they will hire 20K at Rs 325K.   Infosys is hiring though there isn't enough business.   Currently, 30K people at Infosys are 'benched'.   Why are they still hiring and raising salaries? Because they cannot find competent people and due to this reason, this year Infosys increased its training of employees to 29 weeks.   That's 7 months of training...   It wants government to boost college enrolment from 10% of those in secondary school, to 25%.   NASSCOM knows that this will only increase the number of job applicants, not the quality, but there's no other solution.   India produces 3M graduates, but NASSCOM says that next year it will see a 'shortage' of 500K graduates, because incompetents will swamp the rest."
Tata median salaries by city
Wipro median salaries by city
Infosys median salaries by city

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
 
 

2009-10-30

2009-10-30 06:10PDT (09:10EDT) (13:10GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Employment costs grew at record slow pace
BLS report

2009-10-30
_My State Line_
Shot reported, bullet struck home of Lou Dobbs after weeks of threatening phone calls
Joe Sterling: CNN: Police investigate
Joshua Rhett Miller: Fox
NY Daily News
James Hirsen: Los Angeles CA Examiner
Brenda Waker: V Dare
Meghan van Dyk: Daily Record
Mark Krikorian: National Review
Joe Moszczynski: NJ Star-Ledger

2009-10-30 07:19PDT (10:19EDT) (14:19GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Consumers cut back spending in light of shakey job markets, low incomes
BEA

2009-10-30 07:33PDT (10:33EDT) (14:33GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index went from 73.5 in September to 66.4 in early October to 70.6

2009-10-30
Brian Johnson _Wallet web log_
Tax-victims shouldn't be made to pay for worthless degrees

2009-10-30
Roy Beck _Numbers USA_
Government actively destroyed an additional 1.125M jobs

2009-10-30
John Dodge _SmartPlanet_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Research from UC Irvine suggess bad drivers are born that way
"Dr. Steven Cramer, an associate professor of neurology, has found that drivers with a particular gene variant perform 20% worse in driving tests than people without it.   He replicated the results with follow up tests and maintains that about 30% of Americans have the variant...   The gene limits the release of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) that stimulates part of the brain that helps the body respond to the activity...   Other studies have shown people with the gene variant maintain mental sharpness longer than those without it in patients with neuro-degenerative diseases."

2009-10-30 (5770 Mar-Cheshvan 12)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Silencing dissent in America

2009-10-30 (5770 Mar-Cheshvan 12)
R' David Aaron _Jewish World Review_
Secret to Immortality: Abraham paved the way

2009-10-30 (5770 Mar-Cheshvan 12)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Dismantling America part 2
"The memory of that long-ago episode has come back more than once while observing both the actions of the Obama administration and the fierce reactions of its supporters to any questioning or criticism.   Almost never do these reactions include factual or logical arguments against the administration's critics...   The entitlement mentality has eroded the once common belief that you earned things, including respect, instead of being given them."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
more of what congress-critters are up to

2009-10-30

DJIA	9,712.73
S&P 500	1,036.18
NASDAQ	2,045.11
Nikkei	10,035
10-year US T-Bond	3.40%
crude oil	$77.00/barrel
gold	$1,040.40/ounce
silver	$16.255/ounce
platinum	$1,326.30/ounce
palladium	$323.25/ounce
copper	$0.185/ounce
natgas	$5.04/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.94/gal
heatingoil	$1.98/gal
dollarindex	76.347
yenperdollar	89.97
dollarspereuro	1.4723
dollarsperpound	1.6353
swissfranksperdollar	1.0253
indianrupeesperdollar	46.965
mexicanpesosperdollar	13.2120
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	516.50

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
 

2009-10-31

2009-10-31
_GLGroup_
Ug99 wheat rust
"In 1999 scientists detected this rust in Uganda, hence this rust got its name Ug99...   This particular fungal disease which also affects barley has now jumped the Red Sea, from east Africa to Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, and is perfectly positioned to move on to Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia...   India is the world's second largest wheat producer after China.   The United States is third."

2009-10-31
Jen Skerrit _Winnipeg Ottawa Canada Free Press_
Tuberculosis explosing on northern reserves: Manitoba town has higher infection rate than Bangladesh

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

2009 October
_FAIR US_
Rising Immigrant Admissions to the United States of America
 

Proposed Bills 2009

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

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