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updated: 2019-01-08
 

"Gifted people appear to learn equally well kinesthetically, visually, & auditorily.   They are more evenly balanced between right- & left-brain hemi-spheres.   You can improve your ability to learn & to relate to others by developing your least preferred learning modalities." --- Bobbi De Porter & Mike Hernacki 1992 _Quantum Learning_ pg 140

 
 

2011 February

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

 

"The [Due Process Clause] is a restraint on the legislative as well as on the executive & judicial powers of the gov't, & cannot be so construed as to leave congress free to make any process 'due process of law', by its mere will." --- supremes 1855 in _Murray's Lessee v Hoboken Land & Improvement Co_ 59 US 272 @276, 18 How. (quoted in Antonin Scalia 1997 "Response" in Amy Gutmann, Antonin Scalia et al. 1997 _A Matter of Interpretation_ pg 143)

 
 
 

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

CocoaHeads is an international Mac programmer's group. Meetings are free and open to the public.   We specialize in Cocoa, but everything Mac/iPhone programming related is welcome.
 
Ottawa/Gatineau, Ontario, Canada - Thursday, 2011 February 10, 19:00
 
Hamburg, Germany - Thursday, 2011 February 3, 19:00
 
Göteborg, Sweden - Thursday, 2011 February 10, 19:00
 
Albany, NY, USA - Thursday, 2011 February 24, 19:00
Atlanta, GA, USA - Thursday, 2011 February 10, 19:00
Boston, MA, USA - Thursday, 2011 February 10, 19:00
Boulder, CO, USA - Tuesday, 2011 February 8, 17:00
Chattanooga, TN, USA - Saturday, 2011 February 12, 09:00
Colorado Springs, CO, USA - Thursday, 2011 February 10, 19:00
Columbia, MD, USA - Thursday, 2011 February 10, 19:00
Des Moines, IA, USA - Thursday, 2011 February 10, 19:00
Fayetteville, AR, USA - Thursday, 2011 February 10, 18:00
Lake Forest, CA, USA - Wednesday, 2011 February 9, 19:00
New York, NY, USA - Thursday, 2011 February 10, 18:00
Pittsburgh, PA, USA - Thursday, 2011 February 17, 19:30
Portland, OR, USA - Wednesday, 2011 February 23, 19:00
Sacramento, CA, USA - Wednesday, 2011 February 2, 19:00
 
United Kingdom: Nottingham - Wednesday, 2011 February 23, 18:30
 
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.
 
 

2011-02-01 (5771 Shebat 27)

2011-02-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 74,413 job ads

2011-01-31 20:28PST (2011-01-31 23:28EST) (2011-02-01 04:28GMT)
Violet Blue _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Red Chinese government thugs block searches/access to info on Egypt

2011-02-01 07:43PST (10:43EST) (15:43GMT) (17:43 Jerusalem)
_Numbers USA_
senators Grassley and Durbin outline concerns on H-1B fraud

2011-02-01 08:08PST (11:08EST) (16:08GMT)
Jim Turner _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
Tom Rooney starts 2012 re-election campaign

2011-02-01
Paul Korzeniowski _Redmond WA Magazine_
IT graduates find a difficult job market
"In 2009 IT spending declined 5.2% worldwide. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, IT employment peaked in the fall of 2008, when more than 4M individuals held jobs in IT departments.   After the financial melt-down, those numbers dropped by more than 10%...   In 2009, 43% of employers planned to hire recent college graduates, down from 56% in 2008 and 79% in 2007, according to CareerBuilder's Annual College Job Forecast.   For the industry overall, research firm Janco Associates Inc. found that the IT employment picture in 2010 wasn't much better.   In October, Janco found in data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics a 0.66% drop in IT employment compared to the year before..."

2011-02-01
Jonny Evans _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Google's reality distortion machine
"Google spent millions lobbying Washington last year -- more than Apple, Yahoo! and Facebook combined.   It works hard to focus all its products and services to generate a reality distortion field.   Is it any wonder these practices have generated such Android-focused hype? The hype will one day come crashing down..."

2011-02-01
George Gilder _American Spectator_
The California Green Debauch
Discovery Institute
"What was once the indispensable state is now an asylum of decline that threatens to drag the rest of America down with it."

2011-02-01 15:08PST (18:08EST) (23:08GMT)
Lawrence Kudlow _Investor's Business Daily_
Have the Federal Reserve inflation and US government subsidies to ethanol producers sunk Egypt?
"In addition to Egypt, the people have taken to the streets to varying degrees in Algeria, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Yemen.   Local food riots have even broken out in rural China and other Asian locales...   Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer.   Yet because of skyrocketing prices, Egyptian inflation is now over 10%, while some experts estimate that Egyptian food inflation has risen to as much as 20%.   So I have to ask this tough question: Is Ben Bernanke's ultra-easy QE2 money pump-priming partially to blame?...   The CRB food index is up an incredible 36% over the past year, including 8% year-to-date.   Raw materials are up 23% in the past year.   Inflation break-outs have occurred in [Red China], among various Asian Tigers, and in India, Brazil and other Latin American countries.   Even Britain and Germany are registering higher inflation readings.   In dollar terms, the price of wheat has soared 114% over the past year.   Corn has surged 88%."

2011-02-01
Lisa von Drasek _School Library Journal_
How to get a job against all odds
"My school typically receives about 50 resumes for each job opening.   But we only pass along 15 of them to our hiring team.   Why? Most have been weeded out for typos, poor writing, and failing to meet the basic requirements of the position.   In the end, we only interview 5 to 7 finalists -- and only 3 are invited back for a second interview."

2011-02-01 (5771 Shebat 27)
Edmund Sanders _Jewish World Review_
Is resentment toward USA being built in Egypt?

2011-02-01 (5771 Shebat 27)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Clueless in Washington DC

2011-02-01 (5771 Shebat 27)
Abolhassan Bani-Sadr _Jewish World Review_
On the anniversary of Khomeini's return and take-over, a warning
"An open future for the Arab world could mean the flowering of democracy -- or resurgent dictatorship.   To keep a new strongman from taking over, certain conditions must be met"

2011-02-01 (5771 Shebat 27)
Frank J. Gaffney _Jewish World Review_
"Muslim Brotherhood" is the enemy
"Such clarity is readily available because the Brotherhood (MB or, in Arabic, Ikhwan) has told us as much.   Consider, for example, the mission statement for the MB found in one of its secret documents, titled 'An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America'.   'The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.'   As a blue-ribbon group of national security experts convened by the Center for Security Policy, Team B II noted in its new best-seller _Shariah: The Threat to America_, the incompatibility of the Ikhwan's agenda with our interests has been evident from its inception: 'The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928.   Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement Shariah worldwide, and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State (caliphate).   Therefore, al Qaeda and the MB have the same objectives.   They differ only in the timing and tactics involved in realizing them.' We also know how the Brotherhood plans to pull off our destruction.   Another MB document, this one undated, is called 'Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan'.   It describes a five-installment program for achieving the triumph of Shariah -- together with a status report on the realization of several of the phases' goals:   Phase 1: 'Discreet and secret establishment of leadership.'   Phase 2: 'Phase of gradual appearance on the public scene and exercising and utilizing various public activities.   [The MB] greatly succeeded in implementing this stage.   It also succeeded in achieving a great deal of its important goals, such as infiltrating various sectors of the Government.'   Phase 3: 'Escalation phase, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media.   Currently in progress.'   Phase 4: 'Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach.   It is aggressively implementing the above-mentioned approach.   Training on the use of weapons domestically and over-seas in anticipation of zero-hour.   It has noticeable activities in this regard.'   Phase 5: 'Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.'..."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-01 (5771 Shebat 27)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Spilled Milk
Orange County CA Register
"We all understand why the Environmental Protection Agency was given the power to issue regulations to guard against oil spills, such as that of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska or the more recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.   But not everyone understands that any power given to any bureaucracy for any purpose can be stretched far beyond that purpose.   In a classic example of this process, the EPA has decided that, since milk contains oil, it has the authority to force farmers to comply with new regulations to file 'emergency management' plans to show how they will cope with spilled milk, how farmers will train 'first responders' and build 'containment facilities' if there is a flood of spilled milk.   Since there is no free lunch, all of this is going to cost the farmers both money and time that could be going into farming -- and is likely to end up costing consumers higher prices for farm products...   The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has expanded its definition of 'discrimination' to include things that no one thought was discrimination when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.   The Federal Communications Commission is trying to expand its jurisdiction to cover things that were never included in its jurisdiction, and that have no relationship to the reason why the FCC was created in the first place...   Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions -- and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business.   Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large.   No doubt the Environmental Protection Agency's costly new regulations may somewhere, somehow, prevent spilled milk from pouring out into some street and looking unsightly.   So the regulations are not literally 'useless'.   What is useless is making that the criterion."

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-02

2011-02-02
Eica Perez _California Watch_
sham Tri-Valley University was visa mill
Kelly Holt: New American
Claudia Cowan: Fox
Glenn Wohltmann: Pleasanton CA Weekly
Sophia Kazmi: San Jose CA Mercury "News"
"The U.S. attorney's office filed a Jan. 19 complaint for forfeiture of property owned by the president of Tri-Valley University in Pleasanton, saying the private college was running a front for illegal immigration, the Associated Press has reported.   Before he was advisory board chair and a faculty member at Tri-Valley University, Ronald Cottle was founder and president of Christian Life School of Theology, based in Georgia...   The Jan. 19 civil complaint seeks to forfeit 5 properties in Pleasanton and Livermore owned by Tri-Valley's chief operating officer, Susan Xiao-Ping Su.   Officials argue Su obtained the properties using the proceeds of an elaborate scheme to defraud.   According to the complaint, Su and others used Tri-Valley to illegally provide student visas to foreign nationals in return for tuition...   The college's records indicate that it had enrolled 939 foreign nationals as of 2010 May, and 95% of were citizens of India.   That number ballooned to 1,555 by 2010 December, the complaint says.   The college had also claimed in mandated reports to ICE that more than half of the students, who paid up to $2,700 per semester in tuition, were living at a single apartment in Sunnyvale." "The college, which claims to offer masters' and doctorate degree programs in a number of subjects, is housed in a two-story office building on Boulder Court off Valley Avenue.   The first floor consists of a two-office suite; the upstairs windows are masked with black plastic bags."

2011-02-02
Ian McKendry _iMarket News_
CGC: 38,519 lay-offs announced in January
Henry Unger: Atlanta GA Journal Constitution
Alex Kowalski: Bloomberg
UPI
Charles Riley & Annalyn Censky: CNN
Intentions to lay-off 38,519 were announced in January, up 20% from the 32,004 in December.
government and non-profit sector: 6,450
retail: 5,755
Georgia employers announced plans in January to cut 1,538 jobs. CA 4,848; IL 4,078.
graphs

2011-02-02
Rob Sanchez _V Dare_/_Job Destruction News-Letter_
Obama's State of the Union Address Makes No Sense and Will Produce No New Jobs
"Washington DC insiders use the 'innovation' codeword when they want to pitch further increases of H-1B and green cards, or to push the DREAM Act [NIGHTMARE Act] so that college students who are illegal aliens can get citizenship.   'Innovation' means 'more H-1Bs' in much the same way as 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform' means 'amnesty'."

2011-02-02
Paul Chesser _American Spectator_
When it comes to weather and climate, "this season's recurring lesson that humankind has no dominion over nature"

2011-02-02
Peter Ferrara _American Spectator_
The Legal Demise of Obamacare

2011-02-02 (5771 Shebat 28)
Borzou Daragahi & Stephen Starr _Jewish World Review_
Jordan's king sacked cabinet, protests possible in Syria: Will the dominoes continue to fall?

2011-02-02 (5771 Shebat 28)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Black Education
"In my 'Black Education Disaster' column (2010/12/22), I presented National Assessment of Educational Progress test data that demonstrated that an average black high school graduate had a level of reading, writing and math proficiency of a white seventh- or eighth-grader.   The public education establishment bears part of the responsibility for this disaster, but a greater portion is borne by black students and their parents, many of whom who are alien and hostile to the education process.   Let's look at the education environment in many schools and ask how conducive it is to the education process.   According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nationally during 2007-2008, more than 145K teachers were physically attacked.   6% of big-city schools report verbal abuse of teachers and 18% report non-verbal disrespect for teachers.   An earlier NCES study found that 18% of the nation's schools accounted for 75% of the reported incidents of violence, and 6.6% accounted for 50%.   So far as serious violence, murder and rapes, 1.9% of schools reported 50% of the incidents.   The preponderance of school violence occurs in big-city schools attended by black students.   What's the solution? Violence, weapons-carrying, gang activity and student or teacher intimidation should not be tolerated.   Students engaging in such activity should be summarily expelled.   Some might worry about the plight of expelled students.   I think we should have greater concern for those students whose education is made impossible by thugs and the impossible learning environment they create.   Another part of the black education disaster has to do with the home environment.   More than 70% of black children are born to unwedded mothers, who are often themselves born to unwedded mothers.   Today's level of female-headed households is new in black history.   Until the 1950s, almost 80% of black children lived in 2-parent households, as opposed to today's 35%...   Some of today's black political leadership is around my age, 75, such as representatives Maxine Waters, Charles Rangel, John Conyers, former Virginia governor Douglas Wilder, Jesse Jackson and many others.   Forget that they are liberal Democrats but ask them whether their parents, kin or neighbors would have tolerated children cursing to, or in the presence of, teachers and other adults.   Ask them what their parents would have done had they assaulted an adult or teacher.   Ask whether their parents would have accepted the grossly disrespectful behavior seen among many black youngsters on the streets and other public places using foul language and racial epithets.   Then ask why should today's blacks tolerate something our ancestors would not."

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-03

2011-02-03 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 459,683 in the week ending Jan. 29, a decrease of 26,633 from the previous week.   There were 533,320 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.7% during the week ending Jan. 22, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,619,319, an increase of 5,274 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 4.4% and the volume was 5,683,683.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Jan. 15 was 9,298,859.   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, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV, and WI, during the week ending January 15.   States reported 3,653,080 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Jan. 15, a decrease of 130,413 from the prior week.   There were 5,629,285 claimants in the comparable week in 2010.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" changes
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2011-02-03
Bill Snyder _InfoWorld_/_IDG_
Beware plot to increase numbers of H-1B visas
"Unemployment is still high, but executives of cash-rich tech companies and their allies in Congress want to expand the number of H-1B visas.   Don't let them...   That's the longest wait to fill the quota in about seven years, but that hasn't stopped anti-employee forces from hatching a scheme to allow an additional 55K graduates to stay in the country and push even more U.S. workers out the door.   What's more, a new survey of CFOs by accounting and consulting firm BDO USA points to a renewed wave of mergers and acquisitions in the software industry, a trend that always results in heavy job losses as work-forces and information systems are consolidated.   I don't blame the foreign-born techies and graduate students who want to work here; after all, everyone dreams of a better life for themselves and their families."

2011-02-03 09:44PST (12:44EST) (17:44GMT)
_ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Readers respond: Off-shoring, ageism and Apple vs. Google

2011-02-03
Quin Hillyer _American Spectator_
Mark Levin takes on John McCain

2011-02-03
Jeffrey Lord _American Spectator_
radical Muslim cleric Sheik Anjem Choudary exposed by Hannity

2011-02-03
Joseph Lawler _American Spectator_
The Seed of Constitutionalism Has Been Planted

2011-02-03
Danny Goodwin _Search Engine Watch_
Google received 75K job applications last week
Brian Womack: Bloomberg
San Jose CA Mercury "News"
London Telegraph
Doug Caverly: Web Pro News
Just a little over a week after announcing plans to hire more than 6K and make 2011 the largest hiring year in Google's history, the company has received more than 75K job applications worldwide.   This is the highest number of applications Google has ever received in one period of time, topping a previous high set in 2007 May by 15% (roughly 64K), Google spokesman Aaron Zamost told Bloomberg.   Google's previous biggest hiring year was also 2007."

2011-02-03
_Economist_
Germany makes economic progress through exports

2011-02-03
Eric J. Greene _Port Huron Times Herald_/_Battle Creek MI Enquirer_/_Gannett_
Job hunt class helps some
"I sent out 4 to 8 resumes every week.   Everything's on-line.   Nobody wants to see you anymore.   You have to impress them with whatever's on paper."

2011-02-03 (5771 Shebat 29)
Sheera Frenkel _Jewish World Review_
Israeli military's disarray adds to fears over Egyptian uprising

2011-02-03 (5771 Shebat 29)
Nadia Drake _Jewish World Review_
NASA leaps toward answering some timeless questions: Are we alone? Is Earth unique?
"On Wednesday, scientists with the NASA Ames-based Kepler project unveiled a stunning total of 1,235 potential planets and 170 suspected planetary systems...   this new tally nearly quadruples the number of known planets, after just 4 months of the project's space-borne observation...   54 of the potential planets are in what scientists have dubbed the 'Goldilocks zone' -- where it's neither too hot, nor too cold to support life.   5 of those planets are Earth-sized, said William Borucki, Kepler chief scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center...   'Exoplanets' first appeared on the scene 15 years ago, with the discovery of a planet circling the star 51 Pegasi."

2011-02-03 (5771 Shebat 29)
Michael Barone _Jewish World Review_
Obama's antique vision of technological progress

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-04

2011-02-04
_Jerusalem Post_
Muslim Brotherhood remains militantly opposed to Israel: plan to terminate treaty
Eli Lake: Washington Times
Shaun Waterman: Washington Times
Jay Solomon: Wall Street Journal
Patrick Martin: Globe and Mail
News Max
Ken Timmerman: News Max
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-04
_BLS_ Employment/Unemployment
U-3 = 9.8%
U-4 = 10.4%
U-5 = 11.4%
U-6 = 17.3%
unemployment rate for men = 10.8%
full-time unemployment rate = 10.5%
part-time unemployment rate = 6.7%
civilian, non-institutionalized population 16+ = 238.7M
employed = 137.6M
unemployed actively seeking work = 14.9M
not in labor force = 86M
labor force participation rate = 63.9%
employment/population = 57.6%
labor force participation rate for men = 70%
employment/population for men = 62.4%
native employment/population = 57.1%
foreign-born employment/pop = 60.4%
average duration of unemployment = 35.5 weeks
number employed as production workers in software product firms = 213,900
graphs

2011-02-04
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Genetically modified "Roundup Ready" beets approved for planting in 2011
"The Center, along with the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, The Organic Seed Alliance and High Mowing Seeds have been the main parties of opposition in the more than three year old legal battle against biotech beets.   Organic Valley, whose organic food brand has become common-place in conventional super-markets, vowed to fight the release of every bio-tech product approved in the future.   It remains to be seen if the opponents of bio-tech beets can thwart Friday's decision by the USDA.   The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts a 20% shortage in the nation's sugar supply if biotech beets weren't allowed.   It has been long enough since farmers bought non-biotech beet seed that analysts have speculated there might not be enough seed for everyone.   And what non-biotech seed is available might not all germinate.   It's at least four years old and rapidly approaching expiration.   Fearing economic disaster for Montana farmers if biotech beets weren't allowed this year, senator Max Baucus, D-MT, wrote Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack last week, urging him not to delay in deciding the 2011 crop's fate.   It was Baucus who broke the news Friday that approval was forthcoming.   'It's important the USDA complete its study, but our producers were being unfairly asked to wait in limbo as the planting season quickly approaches.', Baucus said, in announcing the approval hours before the USDA made its decision public.   Montana farmers planted 42,600 acres of beets in 2010, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.   Sugar from the beets is refined by Western Sugar Cooperative in Billings, where the industry is a multi-million piece of the local economy."

2011-02-04
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Keynesian model for full employment continues to fail
1992-03-01: Robert Higgs: Journal of Economic History: Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s

2011-02-04
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Weather, climate, science vs. the warmists
Michael Graham: Boston Herald
"Well, the one thing it apparently doesn't do is help predict the weather.   The UK's Met Office stopped giving seasonal forecasts last year after mis-predicting warmer winters three years in a row.   Meteorologists without a warmist agenda like Piers Corbyn and AccuWeather's Joe Bastardi, on the other hand, continue to pay the bills by making predictions directly contrary to the 'weirdos'.   Oddly, they don't have degrees in politics.   For a theory to be scientific, it must be fallible -- capable of being proven false.   If every weather condition can be used to 'prove' global warming simply by being declared 'weird', then it's not science.   It's a joke.   Which is exactly what the environmental movement has become."

2011-02-04
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
"Green Jobs" cronyism and cannibalism
"Obama wants us to pay for the privilege of destroying jobs.   His State of the Union called for 'incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America'.   Guess what? If it requires incentives, it isn't profitable!"

2011-02-04 (5771 Shebat 30)
Diana West _Jewish World Review_
Their notions of "freedom" are not freedom
"Jay Nordlinger at National Review quotes Bush, circa 2008, as saying: 'The truth is that freedom is a universal right -- the Almighty's gift to every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth.'   Such is 'universalist' gospel.   Universalists believe all peoples prefer freedom to its absence, which is probably true.   But they also believe all people define 'freedom' in the same way...   The entry on freedom, or hurriyya, in the _Encyclopedia of Islam_ describes a state of divine enthrallment that bears no resemblance to any Western understanding of freedom as predicated on the workings of the individual conscience.   According to the encyclopedia, Islamic freedom is 'the recognition of the essential relationship between God the master and His human slaves who are completely dependent on Him'.   Ibn Arabi, a Sufi scholar of note, is cited for having defined freedom as 'being perfect slavery' to Allah.   To put it another way, Islamic-style 'freedom' is freedom from unbelief.   Suddenly, something seems very lost in Bush-speak translation.   It has been from the start, which helps explain what's gone wrong in U.S. wars in the umma.   Bringing Western-style 'freedom' to the Islamic world may have resembled an idealistic extension of the civil rights crusade in the eyes of President Bush and his followers, but it was actually one big cultural misunderstanding...   Pew tells us 84% of Egyptians favor the death penalty for leaving Islam; 95% say it's good for Islam to play a big role in politics.   The Maryland/WorldOpinon poll shows that 74% of Egyptians favor 'strict Shariah', and that 67% favor a 'caliphate' uniting all of Islam...   Islam does not recognize as valid any religion but Islam.   That means that what we in the West hear as 'freedom of religion' becomes, in the Islamic context, freedom of Islam.   Indeed, as Stephen Coughlin, the brilliant analyst of Shariah, has pointed out to me, citing both the Koran and quoting the classic Sunni law book _Reliance of the Traveler_, Judaism and Christianity 'were abrogated by the universal message of Islam'.   That means over-ruled.   Further, it is 'unbelief (kufr)' -- grounds for the capital crime of apostasy -- 'to hold that the remnant cults now bearing the names of formerly valid religions, such as Christianity or Judaism, are acceptable to Allah Most High.'"

2011-02-04 (5771 Shebat 30)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Celebrate Arab "democracy"?
"Since then, Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia's Islamist party Ennahdha, returned to Tunisia [after] 22 years living in exile in London.   He was sentenced to life in prison in absentia by the regime of ousted president Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali on terrorism charges.   Then on Monday night unidentified assailants set fire to a synagogue in the town of Ghabes and burned the Torah scrolls.   In an interview with AFP, Trabelsi Perez, President of the Ghriba synagogue said the crime was made all the more shocking by the fact that it occurred as police were stationed close by...   If the Muslim Brotherhood were not a factor in Egypt, then Israel would probably have simply been indifferent to events there as it has been to the development of democracy in Iraq and to the popular revolt in Tunisia...   whether under authoritarian rule or democracy, anti-Semitism is the unifying sentiment of the Arab world.   Fractured along socioeconomic, tribal, religious, political, ethnic and other lines, the glue that binds Arab societies is hatred of Jews.   A Pew opinion survey of Arab attitudes towards Jews from June 2009 makes this clear.   95% of Egyptians, 97% of Jordanians and Palestinians and 98% of Lebanese expressed unfavorable opinions of Jews.   Three-quarters of Turks, Pakistanis and Indonesians also expressed hostile views of Jews.   Throughout the Arab and Muslim world, genocidal anti-Semitic propaganda is all-pervasive."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

Proposed Bills 2011

2011-02-04

DJIA	12,092.00
S&P 500(SPX)	1,310.87
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,769.30
Nikkei	10,544
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	3.64
crude oil(CLH11)	$89.03/barrel
natgas(NGH11)	$4.31/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RBH11)	$2.45/gal
heatingoil(HOH11)	$2.72/gal
gold(GCH11)	$1,349.00/ounce
silver(SIH11)	$28.91/ounce
platinum(PLJ11)	$1858.50/ounce
palladium(PAF11)	$820.55/ounce
copper(HGH11)	$0.2861875/ounce
soybeans	$14.335/bushel
maize	$6.785/bushel
wheat	$8.5375/bushel
dollarindex(DXY)	78.023
yenperdollar(USDYEN)	82.21
dollarspereuro(EURUSD)	1.359
dollarsperpound(GBPUSD)	1.6105
swissfrancsperdollar	0.9548
indianrupeesperdollar	45.65
mexicanpesosperdollar(MXN)	11.9925
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	714.27

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-05 (5771 Adar1 01)

2011-02-05
Michael Shedlock _Global Economic Analysis_
What's inside the BLS magic black box?

2011-02-05 00:54PST (03:54EST) (08:54GMT)
Marc Schenker _Vancouver Examiner_
Beck warns of Muslim Brotherhood and associated organizations' goal to establish Islamic caliphate
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-05 08:17PST (11:17EST) (16:17GMT)
John Spence _MarketWatch_
NASDAQ computer system hacked
Devlin Barrett: Wall Street Journal

2011-02-05 10:55PST (13:55EST) (18:55GMT)
_BBC_
State multi-culturalism has been harmful
"'Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism.', the prime minister said.   'Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights -- including for women and people of other faiths?   Do they believe in equality of all before the law?   Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government?   Do they encourage integration or separatism?   These are the sorts of questions we need to ask.   Fail these tests and the presumption should be not to engage with organisations.', he added...   A genuinely liberal country 'believes in certain values and actively promotes them', Mr. Cameron said.   'Freedom of speech.   Freedom of worship.   Democracy.   The rule of law.   Equal rights, regardless of race, sex or sexuality.   It says to its citizens: This is what defines us as a society.   To belong here is to believe these things.'   He said under the 'doctrine of state multi-culturalism', different cultures have been encouraged to live separate lives.   'We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong.   We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values.'   Building a stronger sense of national and local identity holds 'the key to achieving true cohesion' by allowing people to say, 'I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Christian, but I am a Londoner... too.', he said."

2011-02-05
Mary Pickett _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Costs of text-books and e-materials
"The cost of textbooks has out-paced inflation the past 15 to 20 years, Frisby said."
Mary Pickett: Why text-books are so expensive
"even the most popular text-book may sell only 5K to 10K copies."

2011-02-05
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Repeatedly throughout history governments have debased their currencies

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-06

2011-02-05 22:00PDT (2011-02-06 01:00EST) (2011-02-06 06:00GMT)
Dominic Gates & Rami Grunbaum _Seattle Times_
Boeing off-shore out-sourcing back-fired completely
"One bracing lesson that Albaugh was unusually candid about: the 787's global out-sourcing strategy -- specifically intended to slash Boeing's costs -- back-fired completely.   'We spent a lot more money in trying to recover than we ever would have spent if we'd tried to keep the key technologies closer to home.', Albaugh told his large audience of students and faculty...   Albaugh and other senior leaders within Boeing may be belatedly paying attention to a paper presented at an internal company symposium in 2001 by John Hart-Smith, a world-renowned airplane structures engineer...   The paper laid out the extreme risks of out-sourcing core technology and predicted it would bring massive additional costs and require Boeing to buy out partners who could not perform."

2011-02-06
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
MT State U, U of MT high-tech work incubates small business
"Browse the technology broker's files and you'll find crib notes for would-be miracle drugs, recipes for biofuels, secrets for landing combat helicopters safely in desert sand-storms, solutions for trapping coal pollution under-ground.   Need an antenna capable of finding cell phone service in the most remote backwaters of America? There's one on file.   But what isn't in the offing is perhaps the university's most remarkable breakthrough: a $109M stopper for Montana's brain drain.   That's roughly how much Montana State University spent last year on research, and it's $48M more than MSU spent on research 10 years ago.   Graduates of those research labs are staying in the state in increasing numbers, finding work with local companies started by MSU faculty members or going into business for themselves.   BusinessWeek lists MSU among 10 smaller universities that are extremely successful at licensing inventions that helped launch small businesses.   The Carnegie Foundation says that out of more than 4K universities and colleges, Montana State is among the 107 with the highest research output by faculty members...   The patent claims last a while and then expire.   At $35K a patent, the school has a catch-and-release policy for its technological guppies."

2011-02-06
Eugene Veklerov _American Thinker_
Hollowing out science and engineering careers
"Here is a reality check, courtesy of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS].   Back in the 1980s and 1990s, the unemployment rate among electrical engineers (EE) and computer scientists (CS) was, by and large, below 2%, but it has gone up drastically since then.   It soared to 8.6% in the second quarter of 2009 for EEs and to 5.7% for CSs.   At that time, the government counted 29K EEs out of work...   we are talking about a profession that drives technological progress.   On a human level, these people made personal sacrifices to get their degrees, trusting that their knowledge would be needed, only to find out that society had failed them.   Since then, jobless rates have fluctuated.   In the third quarter of 2009, the unemployment rate dropped for EEs, but increased for CSs.   For mechanical engineers, the unemployment rate was 9.5%.   All in all, the jobless level remains painfully high.   Not only do the new graduates have to compete for a smaller number of openings among themselves, they also compete with a larger pool of laid-off workers, as well as retirees, who lost their savings and need to return to work...   Our economy is losing ground not because of the decline of the education system.   It is the other way around -- our young and talented people are being let down by the economy."

2011-02-06
Andrew Becker & Richard Marosi _Center for Investigative Reporting_
Surge of illegal aliens from India baffles border officials in Texas
Los Angeles Times
Sikh Philosophy.net
Numbers USA
"More than 1,600 Indians have been caught since the influx began here early last year, while an undetermined number, perhaps thousands more, are believed to have sneaked through undetected, according to U.S. border authorities.   Hundreds have been released on their own recognizance or after posting bond...   About 650 Indians were arrested in South Texas in the last 3 months of 2010 alone.   Indians are now the largest group of immigrants other than Latin Americans being caught at the Southwest border...   Many Indians begin their journey by flying from Mumbai to Dubai, then to South American countries such as Ecuador or Venezuela, according to authorities and immigration attorneys.   Guatemala has emerged as the key transit hub into Mexico, they said.   The roundabout journeys are necessary because Mexico requires visas for Indians.   They sneak across the dangerous Guatemala-Mexico border and take buses or private vehicles to the closest U.S.-Mexico border.   Mexican organized crime groups are suspected of being involved either running the operations or charging groups tolls to pass through their territory...   The detainees eventually claim asylum...   Many detained immigrants clear the first hurdle toward a full asylum hearing by convincing asylum officers they have a 'credible fear' of persecution if they return to India.   They can then post bond and move anywhere in the United States as long as they agree to appear for their next court date.   Not all show up, however.   'That's why I won't take their cases anymore.', said Cathy Potter, a local immigration attorney who helped about 20 Indians get freed on bond last year.   'It undermines my credibility.   I don't want anything to do with this.'"

2011-02-06
Judith Graham, Becky Schlikerman & Abel Uribe _Chicago IL Tribune_
Illegal alien quadriplegic deported

2011-02-06
Leonard Cassuto _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Readers are angry at glut of credentialed workers in the job markets
"In the comments section of my column, one reader lashed out at tenured professors who have 'seemingly no clue about the realities of the current higher-ed job market'.   Another complained that 'the system wouldn't be in such a bad state as it is if faculty didn't blatantly mislead students, whether through their own ignorance or lying intentionally, about the actual value of a graduate degree'...   Unemployed, or fearful of becoming so, they are feeling more than a little enraged at their advisers and their institutions for failing to hold up our end of the deal...   They also provoked some survivor's guilt—as well as the recollection that the job market was a lot better for my own teachers than it was for me...   Like so many graduate students, I didn't start thinking carefully about the job market until it was upon me.   When I got a good job, it felt less like an achievement than an improbable success in the lottery.   (I recall my father saying soon afterward that if he had known how horrendous the academic job market was, he would have tried harder than he did to talk me out of going to graduate school.)..."   The comments are worth reading.
Uni Leaks

2011-02-06
Tom Mullen
but I paid into (was extorted for) the Socialist Insecurity Abomination

2011-02-06
William L. Anderson
All Warmism All the Time

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-07

2011-02-07
Roger Scruton _American Spectator_
Measure for Measure

2011-02-07
Daniel Oliver _American Spectator_
The New America Firsters
"The Republican Study Committee, the caucus of the conservative members of the House of Representatives, has lighted a small fire by drawing up a list of proposed cuts described by an incensed Left, the crowd that always puts government first, as deep, dramatic, and radical.   Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center, however, points out, complete with graph, that the cuts will hardly make a dent in the federal deficit.   That may be true, but the collection of proposals is, nevertheless, the most breath-taking Washington had ever seen [to hear the radical leftists talk about it] -- until Senator Rand Paul came along with a list of bigger cuts.   Not since Ronald Reagan campaigned on abolishing the Department of Education [and then, regrettably, wimped out] had anyone seriously proposed cutting the federal government.   It may be true that eliminating the subsidy for mohair will save, annually, only $1M, and the USDA Sugar Program, only $14M, and the International Fund for Ireland, only $17M...   Changing America's culture, so that it will put its financial house in order, will be, distressingly, more challenging than winning World War II...   No real progress toward averting the nation's coming fiscal disaster can be made without changing the culture of entitlements.   And no real progress in cutting entitlements can be made without changing the culture of spending.   If we cannot eliminate the $167M subsidy for the National Endowment for the Humanities, we cannot [eliminate the Socialist Insecurity Abomination].   If we cannot eliminate the Department of Energy's $530M program of Weatherization Grants to states, we cannot make changes in Medicare.   And if we cannot [eliminate the Socialist Insecurity Abomination] and Medicare, we will go broke."

2011-02-07
Philip Klein _American Spectator_
Why the debate over Obamacare's unconstitutionality is more than semantic
"While judges who have ruled on the merits of these arguments so far have split 2-2 on the Commerce Clause question, they have unanimously rejected the taxing power argument...   'Although purportedly grounded in the General Welfare Clause, the notion that the generation of revenue was a significant legislative objective is a transparent after-thought.', judge Henry Hudson wrote."

2011-02-07
Ben Stein _American Spectator_
Between Mubarak and a hard place
"No matter how this turns out, it's not going to be good for America.   The people in Cairo, Alexandria, and Suez demonstrating against Mubarak are not Jefferson, Madison, and Washington.   They are not liberal democrats and believers in universal human rights.   In the final analysis, they are not going to be pals of the United States or our only reliable friend in the area, Israel.   Dwight Eisenhower, a genuinely great President, stood up boldly against Israeli, French, and British seizure of the Suez Canal in an effort to befriend Egypt.   Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Egyptians responded by kicking us in the teeth every chance they could...   when there was a real democratic out-pouring in the streets of Iran, an attempted revolution against the dictatorship of the Holocaust-denying, America-hating, nuclear weapons–seeking Ahmadinejad in Iran, and Iran suppressed it with gunfire, Barack Obama said not a word.   He totally ignored the young people trying to make Iran into a democracy.   (Iran is the one place in the Mideast besides Israel where there are a lot of pro-American young people.)   He tried to kiss up to Ahmadinejad with the blood of pro-democracy youth."

2011-02-07 03:09PST (06:09EST) (11:09GMT)
Jonathan Allen & Jake Sherman _Politico_
House leadership preparing for debate on mostly microscopic federal budget cuts

2011-02-07
Eileen F. Toplansky _American Thinker_
Appeasing the Muslim Brotherhood
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-07
Konrad M. Lawson _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Increase security of communications with public-key encryption
Uni Leaks

2011-02-07
Stephanie Simon _Wall Street Journal_
A License to Shampoo: Jobs for which States Demand Approval Rise (with graph)
"But economists—and workers shut out of fields by educational requirements or difficult exams—say licensing mostly serves as a form of protectionism, allowing veterans of the trade to box out competitors who might undercut them on price or offer new services.   'Occupations prefer to be licensed because they can restrict competition and obtain higher wages.', said Morris Kleiner, a labor professor at the University of Minnesota.   'If you go to any statehouse, you'll see a line of occupations out the door wanting to be licensed.'"

2011-02-07
Whitney Kisling & Lynn Thomasson _Financial Post_/_Bloomberg_
S&P 500 are beating investors' expectations, but employment still falling
"Caterpillar Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc., barometers for the economy because of their building and delivery businesses, are among the 72% of Standard & Poor's 500 Index companies that reported more revenue last quarter than analysts estimated, the largest proportion since at least 2006...   While U.S. earnings have surpassed Wall Street estimates for 7 straight quarters, sales have trailed forecasts on average since 2008, as the U.S.A. ended its worst recession in 7 decades and employers cut as many as 8.75M workers."

2011-02-07
Cindy Uken _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
helps relieve Parkinson's symptoms in patient
"DBS uses a surgically implanted, battery-operated medical device similar to a heart pace-maker to stimulate areas in the brain that control movement, blocking the abnormal nerve signals that cause tremors and Parkinson's disease symptoms.   The device is the about the size of a stopwatch.   The electrodes in Leininger's brain are connected by wires to the device implanted under the skin over his chest.   It sends steady electrical pulses to specific areas of the brain [a part of the thalamus], blocking the impulses that cause tremors."

2011-02-07
Ben Wildavsky _Chronicle of Higher Education_
on-line engineering ed has an entry from India
"As my eyes ran down the table of contents of _Unlocking the Gates_ (Princeton University Press), a new book by Taylor Walsh that focuses primarily on efforts by top U.S. universities, including MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Yale, to offer their courses online, I was pleased to see a case study from another country.   While U.S. on-line course-ware ventures are often viewed, correctly, as offering opportunities for learners in the rest of the world to take advantage of educational resources in the West, albeit without earning degrees, these programs are by no means the only game in town.   The book devoted a chapter to India's National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), a home-grown effort to meet the country's urgent need to improve both the quality and the reach of engineering education...   Walsh quotes a 2005 report by the McKinsey Global Institute that said just 1 in 4 engineers in India 'would be suitable... to work for multi-national companies'."
Uni Leaks

2011-02-07
William L. Anderson
What About Other Commodity Prices?

2011-02-07 (5771 Adar1 03)
John R. Bolton _Jewish World Review_
Lebanon, not Egypt, may determine the fate of democracy in the Middle East
"History will rightly blame the West for the tragedy of the take-over in Beirut, because of its unwillingness to stand against Hezbollah and its Iranian puppet masters.   Washington must withhold recognition from any Lebanese government that relies on Hezbollah support.   In mid-January at The Hague, the prosecutor for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon submitted long-awaited indictments regarding the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.   Although the indictments are not yet public, they are widely expected to finger top leaders in Hezbollah, Syria and potentially Iran, and they are doubtless behind Hezbollah's decision to assert itself by collapsing the government of Hariri's son.   Rescuing Lebanon from radicals and terrorists will require strong action, noticeably absent in recent U.S. policy.   We can no longer pretend that the special tribunal's existence is an adequate response to the real problem in Lebanon: Tehran's long-standing drive for regional hegemony.   It was always a mistake to confuse the effectiveness of an international criminal court with courts of real constitutional governments, and harmfully naive to think that the special tribunal could operate in a vacuum, as the events in Lebanon make painfully clear."

2011-02-07 (5771 Adar1 03)
Laura King & Ned Parker _Jewish World Review_
Worst Case Scenario Confirmed: Muslim Brotherhood joins negotiations on Egypt crisis
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-07 (5771 Adar1 03)
Ken Dilanian _Jewish World Review_
Revealed: Last 2 years Obummer eased push (and funding) of Egyptian human rights reforms

2011-02-07 (5771 Adar1 03)
_Rasmussen_
most voters still think the federal government encourages illegal immigration

2011-02-07
_Science Daily_
genetic study uncovers new, earlier path to Polynesia
"In fact, the DNA of current Polynesians can be traced back to migrants from the Asian mainland who had already settled in islands close to New Guinea some 6K-8K years ago... 'Our study of the mtDNA evidence shows the interactions between the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific was far more complex than previous accounts tended to suggest and it paves the way for new theories of the spread of Austronesian languages.'"

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-08

2011-02-08
Catalina Camia _USA Today_/_Gannett_
Radical leftists buy ads to criticize effort to clear away unconstitutional National Socialist Health Care Perversion/PP&ACA/HCERA/ObummerDoesn'tCare

2011-02-07 22:00PST (2011-02-08 01:00EST) (2011-02-08 06:00GMT)
Karen Lee Ziner _Providence RI Journal_
RI state legislators propose immigration bills
"State representative Peter Palumbo's bill to restore former governor Donald L. Carcieri's 2008 illegal-immigration executive order is scheduled for a hearing Tuesday...   The Cranston Democrat said he still intends to file 'Arizona-style' legislation...   It would give the police broader authority to check a person's immigration status...   State representative Grace Diaz, D-Providence, is re-introducing the Student Equal Economic Opportunity Act that would exempt [illegal alien] students from paying non-resident tuition at Rhode Island colleges or universities, provided they have met certain requirements, including attending a Rhode Island high school for at least 3 years, as well as graduating from a Rhode Island high school or obtaining a GED in this state.   Diaz has also filed a bill to prevent the state, or cities or towns, from requiring employers to use an electronic verification system, E-Verify, to qualify for a government contract or apply for or maintain a business license...   [Palumbo's] bill requires the state Administration Department to screen new hires through the E-Verify program to determine whether they are legally eligible to work.   It also demands that state vendors register with and use E-Verify.   But the order also asks state police to forge a partnership with federal immigration authorities through the program known bureaucratically as '287(g)'."

2011-02-08 06:30PST (09:30EST) (14:30GMT)
Dan Kusnetzky _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Saying good bye to Digital Equipment Corp. founder Ken Olsen

2011-02-08 09:18PST (12:18EST) (17:18GMT)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_
Over 400 are paid for solar co-generation within TVA area and another 200 are in the pipe-line

2011-02-08 13:40PST (16:40EST) (21:40GMT)
Dave Gibson _Norfolk VA Examiner_
Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants under fire for employing illegal aliens
CNN
UPI
Julie Forster: St. Paul MN Pioneer Press
Los Angeles CA Times
Elizabeth Llorente: Fox
Leah Fabel: Washington Examiner
Houston TX Chronicle/AP

2011-02-08
_IEEE-USA_
Members of House science, space and technology committee
"The HSSTC Committee will be chaired by representative Ralph M. Hall (TX), who has served on the committee since his election in 1980...   The Republican members of committee were announced on January 18.   Serving with chairman Hall will be vice-chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI), Lamar Smith (TX), Dana Rohrabacher (CA), Roscoe Bartlett (MD), Frank Lucas (OK), Judy Biggert (IL), Todd Akin (MO), Randy Neugebauer (TX), Michael McCaul (TX), Paul Broun (GA), Sandy Adams (FL), Ben Quayle (AZ), Chuck Fleischmann (TN), Scott Rigell (VA), Steven Palazzo (MS), Mo Brooks (AL) and Andy Harris (MD).   The list includes 7 new members of the committee, including 6 newly elected Members of Congress: Representative Sandy Adams represents Florida's 33 district and brings an Air Force and law enforcement background to Congress.   Her district is home to the Kennedy Space Flight Center.   A lawyer by background, representative Ben Quayle represents Arizona's 3rd congressional district centered on Phoenix.   Representative Chuck Fleischmann is a lawyer and small businessman who represents Tennessee's eastern 3rd district, encompassing the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.   An auto-dealer, representative Scott Rigell hales from Virginia's coastal 2nd congressional district.   A Gulf War vet and small business owner, representative Steven Palazzo represents Mississippi's 4th district, which includes Biloxi and Gulfport.   Representative Mo Brooks represents northern Alabama's 5th congressional district.   His path to Congress includes a career in law, with service as a prosecutor and as a state legislator.   Representative Andy Harris of Maryland's Eastern Shore 1st district is an M.D. anesthesiologist and commanded John Hopkins Naval Reserve Medical Unit during the Gulf War.   Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX) will serve as the Ranking Member on the Democratic side of the aisle.   The other Democratic members of the committee were announced on January 19 and include (in order of seniority): Jerry Costello (IL), Lynn Woolsey (CA), Zoe Lofgren (CA), David Wu (OR), Brad Miller (NC), Daniel Lipinski (IL), Gabrielle Giffords (AZ), Donna Edwards (MD), Marcia Fudge (OH), Ben Lujan (NM), Paul Tonko (NY), Jerry McNerney (OH), John Sarbanes (MD), Terri Sewell (AL), Frederica Wilson (FL), and Hansen Clarke (MI).   The new Democrats included 3 congressional freshmen: Terri Sewell is a former securities lawyer who represents Alabama’s western 7th congressional district, which extends to encompass the University of Alabama at Birmingham.   A former teacher and school principal, Frederica Wilson served in the Florida legislature from 1998-2002.   Her 17th congressional district encompasses the North Miami area.   Hansen Clarke represents Michigan's 13th congressional district, which includes eastern Detroit and its inner suburbs.   An attorney by training, Clarke ran for Congress after serving as Chief of Staff to U.S. representative John Conyers...   only a handful of HSSTC members have a background in science, engineering, technology or medicine, a problem compounded by the retirement of long-time committee member and physicist Vernon Ehlers.   Among the continuing members, representative Todd Akin has a degree from Worcester Polytech in Engineering Management and worked for IBM as an engineer.   Representative Paul Broun (GA) is an M.D., with a background in chemistry.   Representative Jerry McNerney (CA) was a wind power entrepreneur with a math and engineering background and spent several years working for Sandia National Laboratories and the Electric Power Research Institute.   Representative.   Paul Tonko (NY) is a mechanical engineer by training and helped lead New York's energy R&D authority.   Long time committee member Roscoe Barlett of Maryland identifies himself as a 'scientist and inventor'.   Educated in human physiology, his experience includes a stint as director of a Space Life Sciences research group at the John Hopkins Appied Physics Laboratory.   Representative David Wu (OR) earned an undergraduate degree in biology before studying law at Yale and building a law practice focused on serving high tech companies in Oregon's Silicon Forest."
committee home page
Open Secrets on Ralph Moody Hall
WikiPedia

2011-02-08
_Mothers Against Illegal Aliens (MAIA)_
Citizens patrolling Arizona desert for smugglers and illegal aliens

2011-02-08 (5771 Adar1 04)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Undermining Allies
"The British newspaper The Telegraph has reported that part of the price which President Obama paid to get Russia to sign the START treaty, limiting nuclear arms, was revealing to the Russians the hitherto secret size of the British nuclear arsenal.   This information came from the latest WikiLeaks documents.   To betray vital military secrets of this country's oldest, most steadfast and most powerful ally, behind the back of the British government, is something that should set off alarm bells.   Following in the wake of earlier betrayals of prior American commitments to put a nuclear shield in Eastern Europe, and the undermining of Israel and calculated insults to its prime minister, this pattern raises serious, and perhaps almost unthinkable, questions about the Obama administration's foreign policy."

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-09

2011-02-08 07:45PST (2011-02-08 20:45EST) (2011-02-09 01:45GMT)

Jerome R. Corsi _World Net Daily_
Obama and Harper quietly inked executive "North American perimeter" pact
"By signing the declaration, the Obama administration has implemented without congressional approval a key initiative president Bush began under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, moving the United States and Canada beyond the North American Free Trade Agreement, commonly known as NAFTA, toward a developing North American Union regional government...   The Obama and Harper administrations' use of a low-key methodology to pursue continental political integration was further confirmed last week in Canada by the Toronto Star.   The paper disclosed a 14-page confidential public relations document circulated within the Canadian government that recommended the talks between Obama and Harper keep 'a low profile' in the months leading to last Friday's signing of the bilateral declaration...   The Beyond the Border Declaration signed by Obama and Harper also created a new Beyond the Border Working Group, designated by the acronym BBWG, composed of representatives from 'the appropriate departments and offices of our respective federal governments'.   The BBWG is tasked with developing a 'Plan of Action' to realize the goals of the declaration and to report annually to the 'Leaders', the president of the United States and the prime minister of Canada...   'expanding trusted traveler and trusted trader programs'...   'integrated transportation and communications networks'... "

2011-02-08 21:06PST (2011-02-09 00:06EST) (2011-02-09 05:06GMT)
Linda M. Linonis _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Education helps fulfill dreams, astronaut tells area science teachers

2011-02-09 04:00PST (07:00EST) (12:00GMT)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Excessive student visas explain Obama's "skills" push

2011-02-09 07:00PST (10:00EST) (15:00GMT)
Jennifer Jordan _Providence RI Journal_
average RI student shows some improvement on test scores
"Statewide, 55% of Rhode Island students are proficient or better in mathematics -- a slight increase over last year, while 71% are proficient or better in reading and 57% are proficient or better in writing, according to the latest results from standardized tests that were administered in October...   Overall, proficiency rates are similar to last year's although math scores at the high school level rose by 6 percentage points -- from 27% proficient or better to 33% proficient or better.   In another encouraging sign, the percentage of eleventh graders scoring in the lowest possible category, 'substantially below proficient' in math also decreased, from 45% of juniors last year to 38% of juniors this school year...   Another 29% of juniors scored "partially proficient" on the math test.   Elementary schools remained steady statewide.   While reading scores improved in grades 6 and 8, they fell by 5 percentage points in grade 7...   Achievement gaps among minority and low-income students and students with learning disabilities and students with limited English proficiency persist.   The gaps are as large as 30 to 40 percentage points when compared to white students, students who do not receive free or reduced lunch, students who do not receive special education services and students who speak English...   Vermont's scores are being released later today, but Rhode Island's high school reading proficiency rate is higher than New Hampshire's, 76 compared to 74%.   Rhode Island's high school math scores, however, are lower, 33% compared with 36% in New Hampshire.   In writing, 51% of Rhode Island's juniors scored proficient, compared to just 45% of New Hampshire's students."
2010 October assessment results and the 2010 graduation rates (pdf)
"in mathematics, the achievement gap of the Black and Hispanic students as a whole decreased by 1 and 3 percentage points, respectively, statewide from 2009 to 2010, but increased at the high school level by roughly 1 and 3 percentage points, respectively.   At the high school level in reading, the achievement gap between Black and White students increased 7 percentage points and between Hispanic and White students by 5 percentage points.   The most dramatic decrease in the achievement gap in both reading and mathematics occurred at the middle school level, where the gap between monitored LEP students and their native English-speaking peers has been reduced by 18 percentage points in reading and by 19 percentage points in mathematics."

2011-02-09 11:26PST (14:26EST) (19:26GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
Ron Paul slam's Feds debt-monetization program: Fed policies do not increase employment
"'Over $4T in bail-out facilities and out-right debt monetization, combined with interest rates near zero for over 2 years, have not and will not contribute to increased employment.', Paul said at a hearing of a House Financial Services sub-committee he heads...   the central bank is enabling profligate spending by the government...   The witnesses were Thomas DiLorenzo, an economics professor at Loyola University; Richard Vedder, an Ohio University economics professor; and Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute."

2011-02-09
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Media finally catches on that grocery prices have been rising
"Economists for the U.S. Department of Agriculture are forecasting inflation as high as 5.5% for some items as world supplies of key food commodities fail to keep up with demand.   Economists on Wednesday warned of higher prices for many items as corn reserves hit a 15-year low.   Having so little corn in storage -- roughly 5% of what's expected to be consumed -- means the prices could jump quickly if anything goes wrong with the crop...   Albertsons corporate parent Supervalu on Jan. 14 reported a third-quarter net loss of $202M, its 11th consecutive quarter of declining same-store sales...   When a shopper goes to the store and buys store-brand canned peaches for 50 cents less than the name-brand label she used to buy, the result is that the supermarket brings in less money.   Grocers try to boost sales of name-brand items by discounting some, but not others.   But if consumers don't perceive overall prices as being lower [than the competition], there's trouble.   'Supervalu is having a problem with pricing perceptions.', Livingston said.   It's not the same as lowering prices, it's about getting consumers to think they're lowering prices.'...   He expects prices will increase as weather-related events affect the nation's supply of some items.   It isn't often that fruit-producing areas in Georgia and Florida see freezing temperatures, but when they do, the cost of fruit goes up, Kelly said.   Analysts see other items affected by weather and global demand.   Wheat coming out of the field has been at a premium as drought hit Russia and Ukraine last fall and now parts of [Red China].   American cattle have fetched high prices as the demand rises globally, but the number of American cattle remains at its lowest point in decades.   USDA economists forecast a 4.5% rise in pork and beef prices at the supermarket level and a 3% rise in chicken prices.   Those forecasts follow a year when most grocery items increased less in price less than 2% and key items like cereals, soda and fresh fruits actually decreased in price."

2011-02-09 13:57PST (16:57EST) (21:57GMT)
Jim Kouri _Examiner_
representative Peter King to hold hearings on al-Qaeda and other violent Muslim organizations; Under attack by CAIR
"That announcement created a firestorm among Muslim leaders and progressive politicians in the United States.   Last week, ranking [minority member of the committee] Bennie Thompson (D-MS), acting on behalf of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) wrote chairman King a letter asking that King, instead of focusing on al Qaeda's efforts to radicalize and recruit within the Muslim-American community, examine extreme environmentalists and neo-Nazis.   In his response, sent yesterday, King wrote that 'the Committee will continue to examine the threat of Islamic radicalization, and I will not allow political correctness to obscure a real and dangerous threat to the safety and security of the citizens of the United States'...   CAIR officials routinely attacks anyone who questions the motives or actions of Muslims in the United States.   According to a report from the Senate Judiciary sub-committee on Terrorism and Homeland Security: 'The Council on American-Islamic Relations and its employees have combined, conspired, and agreed with third parties, including, but not limited to, the Islamic Association for Palestine, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the Global Relief Foundation, and foreign nationals hostile to the interests of the United States, to provide material support to known terrorist organizations, to advance the Hamas agenda, and to propagate radical Islam.'...   M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim who challenges groups such as CAIR, in an NYPD-used training video _The Third Jihad_ details how CAIR was created shortly after a secret 1993 meeting in Philadelphia involving members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee.   Their goal was to lead opposition to the 1993 Oslo accords and generate support for Hamas, the terrorist organization that now runs the government in Gaza.   Dr. Daniel Pipes, a foremost expert on radical Islam and terrorism cites several criminal cases involving CAIR officials: A senior staff member, Randall Royer a/k/a 'Ismail' Royer, pled guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for participating in a network of militant jihadists centered in Northern Virginia.   He admitted to aiding and abetting three persons who sought training in a terrorist camp in Pakistan for the purpose of waging jihad against American troops in Afghanistan.   Royer's illegal actions occurred while he was employed by CAIR.   CAIR's Director of Public Affairs, Bassem Kafagi was arrested by the US due to his ties with a terror-financing front group.   Khafagi pled guilty to charges of visa and bank fraud, and agreed to be deported to Egypt.   Khafagi's illegal actions occurred while he was employed by CAIR.   Ghassan Elashi, a founder of CAIR Texas chapter and founder of the Holy Land Foundation was arrested by the United States and charged with, making false statements on export declarations, dealing in the property of a designated terrorist organization, conspiracy and money laundering.   Ghassan Elashi committed his crimes while working at CAIR, and was found guilty.   CAIR board bember Imam Siraj Wahaj, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, has called for replacing the American government with an Islamic caliphate, and warned that America will crumble unless it accepts Islam."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
anti-CAIR
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-09
Jeff Young _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Disgruntled College Student Starts "UnCollege" to Challenge System
"he is tapping into growing frustrations about the high costs of college and the value of a college degree, and the site seems as much a means to spark discussion as a serious educational institution.   Essentially, UnCollege plans to serve as a social group for self-learners [auto-didacts] to trade tips on how to learn enough through non-traditional means to get the job they're aiming for...   he says he is frustrated with his experience so far at college, mainly because of what he calls 'a gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application of that knowledge'...   The plan for UnCollege so far is to charge participants $100 per month to gain access to the web-site and a network of mentors that Mr. Stephens is pulling together...   Participants are encouraged to post their projects and self-evaluations on-line to form their 'experience transcript'...   for many jobs (he named law among them), students who pass necessary certifications should be able to practice without a formal college degree, he said."
Uni Leaks

2011-02-09
Ron D. deSantis & Adam Paul Laxalt _American Spectator_
Justice Scalia's timely advice about the US constitution: Read the Federalist Papers
To which I add that we should also read the Anti-Federalist Papers.

2011-02-09
William L. Anderson
On Academe and Discrimination

2011-02-09
William L. Anderson
Tom DiLorenzo and Ron Paul scare the left

2011-02-09 (5771 Adar1 05)
George Friedman _Jewish World Review_/_StratFor_
Egypt, Israel and strategic reconsideration

2011-02-09 (5771 Adar1 05)
Paul Richter, David S. Cloud & Kathleen Hennessey _Jewish World Review_
Threat of cut-off of billions in aid from USA to Egypt are over

2011-02-09 (5771 Adar1 05)
Anna Mulrine _Jewish World Review_
Asia and cyber attacks head-line list of growing threats to USA, military says

2011-02-09 (5771 Adar1 05)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
FDA Is a Killer Agency
"the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's policies have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans...   On approval speed, 61% to 77% of physicians surveyed say the FDA approval process is too slow.   78% believe the FDA has hurt their ability to give patients the best care."

2011-02-09 (5771 Adar1 05)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The "Judicial Activism" ploy
Opelika-Auburn AL News
"'Judicial activism' is a term coined years ago by critics of judges who make rulings based on their own beliefs and preferences, rather than on the law as written.   It is not a very complicated notion, but political rhetoric can confuse and distort anything.   In recent years, a brand-new definition of 'judicial activism' has been created by the political left, so that they can turn the tables on critics of judicial activism.   The new definition of 'judicial activism' defines it as declaring laws unconstitutional.   It is a simpler, easily quantifiable definition.   You don't need to ask whether Congress exceeded its authority under the Constitution.   That key question can be sidestepped by simply calling the judge a 'judicial activist'.   A judge who lets politicians do whatever they want to, whether or not it violates the Constitution, never has to worry about being called a judicial activist by the left or by most of the media.   But the rest of us have to worry about what is going to happen to this country if politicians can get away with ignoring the Constitution."

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-10

2011-02-10 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 438,548 in the week ending Feb. 5, a decrease of 25,928 from the previous week.   There were 507,634 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.6% during the week ending Jan. 29, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,579,513, a decrease of 52,382 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 4.4% and the volume was 5,683,530.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Jan. 22 was 9,405,527.   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, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV, and WI, during the week ending January 22.   States reported 3,756,990 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Jan. 22, an increase of 100,366 from the prior week.   There were 5,491,377 claimants in the comparable week in 2010.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" changes
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2011-02-10 05:59PST (08:59EST) (13:59GMT)
Ryan Naraine _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Red Chinese hack energy companies around the world
"Security researchers at McAfee have sounded an alarm for what is described as 'coordinated covert and targeted cyber-attacks' against global oil, energy, and petrochemical companies.   McAfee said the attacks begain 2009 November and combined several techniques -- social engineering, spear phishing and vulnerability exploits -- to load custom RATs (remote administration tools) on hijacked machines.   The attacks, which McAfee tracked to [Red China], allowed intruders to target and harvest sensitive competitive proprietary operations and project-financing information with regard to oil and gas field bids and operations."

2011-02-10 08:23PST (11:23EST) (16:23GMT)
Dave Hodges _Tallahassee Demagogue_
Bing Energy announces relocation to Enervation Pork in Tallahassee, to employ 244 over 5 years
Business Week
Gray Rohrer: SunShine State News
First Science
Andrew Edwards: San Bernardino CA Sun
Fuel Cell Today
"The start-up business, now located in Chino, CA, has leased laboratory space in the Collins Building in Innovation Park, and will house its management and administrative staff in the adjacent Morgan Building, the company said.   Dean Minardi, Bing's chief financial officer, said the company is filling a dozen positions immediately and will use Workforce Plus as its hiring portal.   Bing is using a special application of carbon nanotube technology in the production of hydrogen fuel cells.   Minardi said the technology builds upon the work of electrical and computer engineering professor and principal investigator Jim P. Zheng of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the Center for Advanced Power Systems.   Zheng worked with the carbon nanotube material, or Buckypaper, which is one-tenth the weight yet potentially 500 times stronger than steel when the sheets are stacked to create a composite.   Buckypaper conducts electricity just like copper or silicon, and Zheng figured out how to attach small particles of platinum to the carbon, greatly increasing the surface area of the platinum and its effectiveness in the fuel cell's ability to generate electricity.   Buckypaper ultimately reduces the amount of expensive platinum needed for a fuel cell, a major contributor to the cost of the device."

2011-02-10
Christopher Orlet _American Spectator_
The Rise of the AI machines
"These so-called singularitarians, members of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Berkeley, CA, are convinced that at some point in the near future computers will become self-aware and develop the ability to make themselves exponentially smarter -- smart enough to build better and smarter versions of themselves.   This is what's known as the Technological Singularity."

2011-02-10 (09:12PST) (12:12EST) (17:12GMT)
Avani Chhaya _Daily Illini_
Whacked-out leftist and LGBT U of IL students protest having Chick-fil-A on campus
"Nothing sounds better than a steaming hot plate of waffle fries and a chicken sandwich, but University students may be biting into more than they can chew.   Chick-fil-A, an original Southern restaurant and fast food chain, has been openly criticized for its transparent Christian values and conservative religious ideals."

2011-02-10 09:56PST (12:56EST) (17:56GMT)
David Gewirtz _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
bankrupt 3Leaf Systems gives Red China's Huawei Technologies a powerful new super-weapon development system
"Roughly, 3Leaf was building technology for dynamically scalable supercomputers...   Huawei was founded by a former [Red Chinese] soldier and may have more serious ties to the [Red Chinese] military.   Anyway, Huawei decided to pick up 3Leaf's assets (including employees, patents, and servers) from the bankruptcy.   Essentially, Huawei bought 3Leaf [and its super-computer technology] without having to buy 3Leaf.   This little deal came to the attention of Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an inter-agency group that watches over such acquisitions.   CFIUS say this not good for America.   According to the Wall Street Journal (paywall), the CFIUS is asking President Obama and the Pentagon to stop the sale."

2011-02-10 14:10:52PST (17:10:52EST) (22:10:52GMT)
Mike Swift _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
Native US citizen blacks and Latinos protest STEM hiring practices
David Louie: abc/KGO-TV Mountain View CA
Richard Prince: Journal-isms/The Root
Richard Prince's Journal-ismas: Maynard Institute
"leaders picketed Google's Mountain View head-quarters Thursday, asking the Internet giant and other large valley companies to disclose their work-place diversity data.   The protest, organized by the Black Economic Council, the Latino Business Chamber of Greater Los Angeles and the National Asian American Coalition, was sparked by a series of reports in the Mercury News last year...   The leaders called on the federal government to review the H-1B work visa program that technology companies use to hire engineers from abroad unless the companies comply.   The groups are filing a complaint with the federal government, saying that of 34 Silicon Valley tech companies from which they requested work force data, only 12 agreed to share it.   The groups are asking the government to force the companies to disclose their data."

2011-02-10
Rachel Ehrenfeld _Creeping Sharia_
US tax-victims funding terrorist Hamas through UN relief and works agency (UNRWA)

2011-02-10
Patrick J. Buchanan _V Dare_
Gaps in Dubya's knowledge of history of international trade
Human Events
American Conservative

2011-02-10
Andrea Koncz & Kevin Gray _NACE_
Averaging starting salary to class of 2011 up 3.5%

2011-02-10
Ariel Cheung _U of Cincinnati News Record_ program cuts planned by college of engineering and applied sciences
2011-02-09 in News Record
2011-02-17 in News Record
"The College of Engineering and Applied Science announced plans to suspend the computer science program, combine several majors and implement a fee for all CEAS students at a town hall meeting Feb. 3.   CEAS Dean Carlo Montemagno's presentation cited the upcoming semester conversion, budget cuts and the summer 2010 merger of the Colleges of Engineering and Applied Science as reasons for the upcoming changes.   The plan calls for an indefinite suspension to undergraduate computer science admissions beginning Fall quarter 2012.   The plan also states that a small number of computer science courses will be permanently shifted to the computer engineering program.   'The dean is not acting in the best interest of the students.', said Jon Wedaman, treasurer of the Association of Computing Machining (ACM)'s UC chapter...   ACM members hosted a town hall meeting Tuesday to discuss the ramifications of Montemagno's plan.   The organization is also sending letters to the global ACM community and companies that participate in the UC co-op program, asking them to send responses to UC administrators.   'Cincinnati has 9 Fortune-500 companies, and every single one of those companies is going to need computer science majors in the future.', said Wedaman, a fifth-year computer science student.   'If UC [goes through with the plan], we're compromising the future of UC and the future of Cincinnati as well.'   Companies that recruit UC computer science co-op students include General Electric, Children's Hospital, Seapine Software and Northrup.   In addition, Tata Consultancy Services recently opened an office in Mason [Milford], Ohio to gain better access to UC computer science students, said T.J. Ellis, president of UC's ACM and a fifth-year computer science student...   Suspending admission to the program could affect the accreditation process, said Jerry Paul, UC professor emeritus of computer science.   UC's program is up for ABET reaccreditation in 2012."
U of Cincinnati News Record home

2011-02-10
"Christian Liberty" _Dem/Red/Leftist/Regressive/Fascist/Collectivist Policy Polling_
GoP on right side on slavery, women's rights; Socialist Insecurity Abomination is an immoral Ponzi scheme millions of times worse than anything Bernie Madoff did

2011-02-10
Thomas J. DiLorenzo _Lew Rockwell_
My Associations with Liars, Bigots, and Murderers, i.e. the USA congress

2011-02-10
William L. Anderson
The Great Inflationist Knee-Capper

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-11

2011-02-11 03:00PST (06:00EST) (11:00GMT)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Top user/abuser of H-1B visas for FY2010 is... bodyshopper Infosys (with table)
"Infosys Technologies Ltd., as receiving nearly 3,800 visas last year.... Cognizant... MSFT..."

2011-02-11 06:38PST (09:38EST) (14:38GMT)
Ben Fritz & Richard Verrier _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_Los Angeles Times_
Regal and AMC forming new venture to acquire and release movies
"Knoxville-based Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Entertainment Inc. are close to launching a joint venture to acquire and release independent movies, according to people familiar with the situation, a part of the business historically dominated by the Hollywood studios...   From 2007 to 2010, the number of movie releases in the U.S. dropped 16%, according to Box Office Mojo.   At the same time, the theater industry's trade group estimates that the number of screens in the country has risen 1%, making fewer pictures available for a larger number of screens.   And with attendance flat over the last five years and down 5% in 2010...   While a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court consent decree barred the major studios from owning movie theaters, the federal government has relaxed the rules over the Past two decades.   In 1996, MCA Inc., the former owner of Universal Pictures, bought a large stake in theater company Cineplex Odeon.   Also, the parent company of Sony Pictures Entertainment previously owned the Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp.   Currently, the Massachusetts theater chain National Amusements Inc., is privately held by Sumner Redstone, the controlling share-holder in Paramount Pictures parent Viacom Inc.   And the largest share-holder of Regal, Philip Anschutz, also owns the movie production company Walden Media."

2011-02-11 06:58PST (09:58EST) (14:58GMT)
Christin Erazo _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
Illegal aliens see Snyder bill as a danger to "their" communities

2011-02-11 07:33PST (10:33EST) (15:33GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index rose from 74.2 in January to 75.1 in mid-February
Federal Reserve Board St. Louis

2011-02-11 07:40PST (10:40EST) (15:40GMT)
Thomas Kostigen _MarketWatch_
Kostigen: Why I think US farm subsidies caused political crisis in Egypt
"Egypt [one of the earliest wheat and barley cultivation areas after their domestication] is among the world's largest importers of wheat.   When such commodity prices rise due to U.S. subsidy and tariff intervention, as well as speculation in the capital markets, the price of bread skyrockets.   Bread is made from wheat.   In 2008, food riots broke out in Egypt, Mexico, Bangladesh and many developing countries when farmers, attracted to ethanol subsidies, abandoned food production in favor of fuel.   This, along with rising oil prices, droughts, and other factors, decreased food supplies.   Prices spiked."

2011-02-11 08:42PST (11:42EST) (16:42GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
US trade deficit increased to $40.6G in December
"For all of 2010, the trade deficit totaled $497.8G, up 32.8% from 2009.   Exports rose 16.6% to $1.83T, as imports increased 19.7% to $2.33T."

2011-02-11
_Charlotte NC Observer_/_AP_
Donations for defending Arizona and US immigration law against federal efforts at refusing to enforce immigration laws near $3.7M from 43K donors

2011-02-11 (5771 Adar1 07)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Ideologically-driven strategic ineptitude
"since 2006 Pakistan has increased the size of its nuclear arsenal from 30-60 atomic bombs to approximately 110...   Pakistan has developed nuclear-capable land and air-launched cruise missiles.   Its Shaheen II missile, with a range of 1,500 miles is about to go into operational deployment.   Wednesday Pakistan test-fired its Hatf-VII new nuclear-capable cruise missile with a 600 kilometer range."

Proposed Bills 2011

2011-02-11

DJIA	12,273.26
S&P 500(SPX)	1,329.15
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,809.44
Nikkei	10,606
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	3.64
crude oil(CLH11)	$85.58/barrel
natgas(NGH11)	$3.91/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RBH11)	$2.47/gal
heatingoil(HOH11)	$2.71/gal
gold(GCH11)	$1,360.40/ounce
silver(SIH11)	$29.99/ounce
platinum(PLJ11)	$1,813.50/ounce
palladium(PAF11)	$814.70/ounce
copper(HGH11)	$0.28375/ounce
soybeans	$14.16/bushel
maize	$7.06/bushel
wheat	$8.67/bushel
dollarindex(DXY)	78.379
yenperdollar(USDYEN)	83.46
dollarspereuro(EURUSD)	1.3558
dollarsperpound(GBPUSD)	1.6031
swissfrancsperdollar	0.9757
indianrupeesperdollar	45.68
mexicanpesosperdollar(MXN)	12.0325
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	714.10

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-12

2011-02-12 15:44PST (18:44EST) (23:44GMT)
Steve Holland _Reuters_
Conservative PAC straw poll: Ron Paul 30%, Mitt Romney 23%, Chris Christie 6%, Gary Johnson 6%, Newt Gingrich 5%, Michele Bachmann 4%, Tim Pawlenty 4%, Mitch Daniels 4%, Sarah Palin 3%, Mike Huckabee 2%, Herman Cain 2%, Rick Santorum 2%, John Thune 2%, Jon Huntsman 1%, Haley Barbour 1%, John Bolton
Catalina Camia: USA Today/Gannett
David Lightman: Miami FL Herald/McClatchy
Byron Tau: Politico
Michael A. Memoli: Los Angeles CA Times
Patrick O'Connor: Wall Street Journal
"The poll made that clear: 53% said reducing the size of the federal government is the most important issue.   Second, at 38%, is reducing government spending."
YouTube vide of results being reported

2011-02-12
William L. Anderson
Maybe Paul Krugman is not such a great weather guy after all

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-13

2011-02-13
Kristine Gill _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Illegal aliens from Red China destroying millions of ash trees in USA
"The purple trap was one of 23 set around Mill Creek Park as part of a statewide effort to track the spread of the invasive bug, which reached Ohio in 2003 and is now in 14 other states.   It was first found in Mahoning County and reported to the USDA on 2007 June 19.   Emerald ash borers already have killed millions of ash trees across the country and could destroy the tens of thousands in Mill Creek Park if they can't be stopped...   scientists believe some native insects also have learned to attack the emerald ash borer.   The invasive species was first identified in Detroit in 2002 and likely came to the country on shipping containers from China.   It's estimated that the bug was boring into ash bark as early as the 1990s but remained undetected until experts looked further into what they thought was a case of Ash Yellows disease felling the trees.   It can take 5 years before a borer kills a tree."

2011-02-13
Amy Pearson _Winona MN Daily News_/_Lee_
$45K grant to help teach "Immigrants and Refugees" computer technology

2011-02-13
Dean Calbreath _San Diego CA Union-Tribune_
SD tech company execs say they cannot fill thousands of jobs
"'Our universities have terrific programs in engineering, biotechnology and other fields, but we lose a large number when they graduate, especially the ones who don't have family roots here.', said Roy Moore, chief executive of the wireless industry association CommNexus...   The local median salary for a high-tech worker is $93,250, just $10 different from the median in Austin, TX.   But San Diego's median home price of $333K compares with Austin's median of $222,450, according to Sperling's Best Places, which compares U.S. cities.   Sperling's estimates that a median-salary tech worker moving from Austin to San Diego would need to make $116,506 to make up for the higher living costs...   'when you get applicants from places like Texas or Florida, which don't even have (state) income taxes, and then they price out the difference in the cost of living, they feel they should be getting $50K or $60K more per year to make up for it.'...   Tom Munro, chief executive at the pay-TV security firm Verimatrix, also said that his firm has occasionally moved people in the past, to make up for concerns about real estate prices and taxes.   'But it's a very rare exception that we would do that.,' he added."

2011-02-13 13:52PST (16:52EST) (21:52GMT)
Dean Baker _Business Insider_
Managers of San Diego tech firms don't know how to run their businesses
"There actually is a chart accompanying the article that tells readers why tech firms in San Diego may be having trouble getting workers.   Of 14 cities listed on the chart, the pay for tech workers in San Diego, adjusted for living costs, ranks 8th.   It is more than 30% below the pay in Durham, NC, the top paying city on the list...   These firms are simply unwilling to hire people at the prevailing wage...   According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they are more than 160K unemployed people in San Diego.   The article reports that there are 6K unfilled tech jobs.   This means that if every last tech job was filled (there would always be some vacancies due to turnover), it would reduce the number of unemployed by less than 4%."

2011-02-13
Matthew Brown _Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_
Federal penalties for brucellosis in livestock near Yellowstone have been eased
"Brucellosis causes pregnant cattle, bison, elk and other animals to miscarry.   It has been largely eradicated outside the Yellowstone region of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where it lingers in wildlife...   Within one elk herd at the northern end of Yellowstone, the rate has gone from about 1% of animals in the early 1990s to more than 15% in some areas in recent years.   At least 8 cattle infections have been found over the last decade.   Elk are believed to be the main source of those transmissions.   Yet because elk roam freely and often in small numbers, there have been few efforts to control their movements.   That leaves bison -- which generally move in large groups -- as the animals most restricted by brucellosis containment efforts."

2011-02-13
Brynn Twait _Daily Illini_
U of IL to open lobbying office in DC

2011-02-13
David Horowitz _News Real Web Log_
The Muslim Brotherhood and leftist fellow travelers at Slate
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-13
David Horowitz _Front Page Magazine_
CPAC speech, plus Muslim Brotherhood connections inside the conservative movement
"The front groups that the Muslim Brotherhood set up were identified in the captured document.   Among them were the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, and the Council on American Islamic Relations or CAIR.   The latter was set up to be a so-called civil rights organization whose purpose was to use the American Constitution to advance the Brotherhood's aims.   The Communist Party had several similar fronts, including the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee and the Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born as well.   The late Mahboob Khan was an American Muslim, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of the founders of the Muslim Students Association.   He was also instrumental in creating the Islamic Society of North America.   Mahboob Khan's widow today sits on the board of one of the regional organizations of the Muslim Brotherhood front CAIR.   Mahboob Khan also founded 3 mosques in California, which preach the totalitarian doctrines of the Brotherhood.   In 1993 Mahboob Khan and one of his mosques hosted the 'Blind Sheik' Abdul Rahman just two months before the Sheik's terrorist group [set off a bomb in the garage of] the World Trade Center, killing 6 people and wounding more than a thousand.   In 1995 Mahboob Khan and his mosque in Santa Clara, CA hosted and held a fund-raiser for Ayaman al-Zawahiri, a member of the Brotherhood and the number two man in al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden...   Frank Gaffney has been the courageous bringer of the bad news about Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan to the board of the American Conservative Union."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
anti-CAIR
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-14

2011-02-13 22:00PST (2011-02-14 01:00EST) (2011-02-14 06:00GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
Surprisingly dangerous jobs
"The rate of fatal occupational injuries for farmers and ranchers is 38.5 per 100K full-time workers, versus 4.4 for firefighters, and 13.1 for police and sheriff's patrol officers, according to U.S. Labor Department data for 2009, the most recent available...   The rate of fatal injuries for aircraft pilots and flight engineers is 57.1, and for fishers and related fishing workers it's 200.   Among civilian workers -- the military, volunteers and those under 16 are excluded -- the fatality rate is an average of 3.3...   Overall, the average incidence rate of non-fatal occupational injuries and illnesses, requiring days away from work, was 117 per 10K full-time workers in 2009."

2011-02-14
_Economic Times of India_
America's top banks including CitiGroup, JP Morgan and Bank of India are set to off-shore out-source more IT and back office projects worth nearly $5G this year to India

2011-02-14 Ann d'Innocenzio _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_
quality of materials and workmanship of clothing have been falling for years, now prices are going up 10% this Spring
Tom Zanki: Express-Times
Audrina Bigos: Fox
W.C. Varones

2011-02-14 08:13:20PST (11:13:20EST) (16:13:20GMT)
_San Jose CA Mercury "News"_/_AP_
EchoStar to buy Hughes Communications for $1.34G

2011-02-14
Robert Stacy McCain _American Spectator_
New Media, Old Bias

2011-02-14
Gary Jason _Orange County CA Register_
A college degree is no longer a guarantee of prosperity
Texas Insider
Beerkens' web log
Warm 'n' Fuzzy Conseva-Puppies
Tim Johnson: Burlington VT Free Press
Rhode Island Statewide Coalition
Arizona's Own Espresso Pundit: The Worst Investment
Richard Vedder: Minding the Campus: What happens when college is over-sold?
"Richard Vedder...has published a report showing that the students who manage to survive our K-12 educational system and get through college earning a degree are facing underutilization of their talents...   They found that the number of under-employed college graduates -- those with at least a bachelor's degree who are working in jobs that the Labor Department classifies as needing only a high school diploma -- is now more than a third of all working graduates.   That is 3 times the level in the early 1970s...   Between 1992-2008, the U.S.A. added 20M new college grads.   Of these, 12M are under-employed.   So the rate of under-employment seems to be increasing, which makes increasing the amount of public resources devoted to college education a questionable policy.   Consider a few figures from 2008.   That year, more than 12% of waiters and waitresses, more than 17% of general office clerks, more than 15% of taxi drivers and chauffeurs and -- amazingly -- more than 17% of bellhops had 4-year degrees or better...   this under-employment of the highly educated is not a recent result of the recent recession, but goes back decades and has been steadily increasing."
From Wall Street to WM: Why College Graduates are not Getting Good (pdf)
"the person he hired to cut down a tree had a master's degree in history, the fellow who fixed his furnace was a mathematics graduate, and, more recently, a TSA airport inspector (whose job it was to insure that we took our shoes off while going through security) was a recent college graduate...   In the early 1990s, Hecker (1992 July) noted, in research for the Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], that 'there are more job-seekers with college degrees than there are openings in jobs requiring a degree'...   in 1960, only 7.7% of American adults over the age of 25 possessed college degrees.   This proportion has increased in every year since 1960 for which data is available, with the exception of both 1992 and 2005, and by 2008, 29.4% of Americans 25 years of age and older held college degrees...   the rate at which college-level jobs increased did not keep pace, according to the best available evidence, as Wolff showed.   Indeed, an examination of BLS occupational data across the past 4 decades strongly substantiates the claim that the American work-force is becoming increasingly over-educated...   In 1967, the first year for which we have data, the United States had both a relatively low college attainment rate and a relatively small percentage of under-employed college educated workers; in this year, only 10.8% of graduates were employed in below-college level jobs.   Over time, however, as the educational attainment rate increased, the percentage of under-employed college graduates rose as well.   College graduate under-employment rose to 35.3% by 2008, meaning that fully one third of all college graduates were employed in jobs which they could have obtained without earning a bachelor's degree...   Second, the historical nature of the data above suggests this is not a new problem that has emerged out of the 2007-8 recession that will recede as the economy strengthens.   The under-employed college graduate has been around for a long time, although the number has increased dramatically in the past 20 years...   Fourth, all of [these are] signs of 'credential inflation' [hyper-credentialism].   It takes an ever more advanced credential to be certified as qualified for a job.   It is our view that the problem is NOT that employers are demanding more education, but rather that educators and public policy makers are producing more degrees, giving employers a large pool of applicants, and demands for the higher credential (e.g., bachelor's degree) are instituted to narrow the applicant pool to a manageable size.   Other things equal, on average, college graduates are somewhat smarter, more disciplined, and perform better academically than non-graduates.   The probability that a prospective employee will be successful vocationally is traditionally enhanced by obtaining a degree—independent of whether the individual 'learned' much while in college."

2011-02-14
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy & Diana Costello _Lower Hudson Valley Journal News_
Un-emplyment and under-employment
"At the start of 2008, RT was earning more than $75K a year working as the chief technology officer for a non-profit in Upper Nyack...   Last year, he brought home $15K.   RT has plenty of company.   He is one of 26.2M Americans, including 1.5M New Yorkers, who are under-employed..."

2011-02-14
_Ace of Spades HQ_
Over $700G in "un-obligated" funds sitting idle in federal government agency coffers

2011-02-14
Robert P. Murphy _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Lost in a maze of money aggregates? (with graph)
"money is a generally accepted medium of exchange, though they might not choose such terminology.   But standard texts may say that money has other functions, that it (for example) serves as a store of value and as a unit of account.   But in Mises's view, these functions are an outgrowth of the fact that money is a generally accepted medium of exchange; that's why it can also serve as a store of value, a unit of account, and so on."
"True Money Supply"

2011-02-14
William L. Anderson
Krugman says government hand-outs are "America's seed corn"

2011-02-14 (5771 Adar1 10)
Paul Richter _Jewish World Review_
US allies in Mideast worr over leanings of Obama administration

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-15

2011-02-14 17:17PST (2011-02-14 20:17EST) (2011-02-15 01:17GMT)
Jerome R. Corsi _World Net Daily_
All children to be registered in national biometric records: Identity-tracking scheme assembled under radar for "border pass" program

2011-02-15
Eric Savitz _Forbes_
Despite devastating US citizens' lives and the economy, off-shore out-sourcing will continue to grow

2011-02-15
Christopher S. Rugaber & Jeannine Aversa _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_
Federal government deficit expected to reach $1.65 this fiscal year, 11% of GDP, highest since 1945

2011-02-15
_Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_
MT governor Schweitzer temporarily blocks shipments of bison to slaughter, fears spread of brucellosis to livestock
"The disease causes pregnant cattle, bison and elk to prematurely abort their young.   It has been confined largely to Yellowstone's wildlife after a decades-long eradication effort by the cattle industry, although periodic transmissions occur between elk and cattle...   More than 200 of the recently captured bison have tested positive for exposure to the disease."

2011-02-15
Bob McTeer _National Center for Policy Analysis_
Exports make better jobs, but not necessarily more jobs
"Coming off a depressed level, U.S. exports rose nearly 17% in 2010 to $1.8T.   At year end, exports increased $2.8G from November to December...   I'm not saying that increased foreign trade is not a good thing.   It's a very good thing.   It increases our standard of living.   It extends the benefits of the division and specialization of labor; it increases our productivity in much the same way as technology does.   It makes our jobs more productive.   International trade enhances, in the words of Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations."

2011-02-15
Marc Shenker _Vancouver Examiner_
Hannity debate: chapter 3, verse 28 of Quran instructs Muslims to lie

2011-02-15
Jeffrey Lord _American Spectator_
Mohamed Atta and the Muslim Brotherhood
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-15
Richard Prince _The Root_
Sili Valley confronted on lack of diversity

2011-02-15 (5771 Adar1 11)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
The legacy of a teetering peace
"Ayman Nour, the head of the oppositionist Ghad Party and the man heralded as the liberal democratic alternative to Mubarak by Washington neo-conservatives has called for the peace treaty to be abrogated.   In an interview with an Egyptian radio station he said, 'The Camp David Accords are finished.   Egypt has to at least conduct negotiations over conditions of the agreement.'   For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood has been outspoken in its call to end the treaty since it was signed 32 years ago."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-15 (5771 Adar1 11)
Waller R. Newell _Jewish World Review_
You say you want a revolution?

2011-02-15 (5771 Adar1 11)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Self-Inflicted Poverty
Lubbock TX Avalanche-Journal
"about 40% of Egypt's 80M people live on or below the $2 per-day poverty line set by the World Bank.   Unemployment is estimated to be twice the official rate pegged at 10%.   Much of Egypt's economic problems are directly related to government interference and control that have resulted in weak institutions vital to prosperity.   Hernando De Soto, president of Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy, laid out much of Egypt's problem in his Wall Street Journal article (2011 Feb. 3), 'Egypt's Economic Apartheid'.   More than 90% of Egyptians hold their property without legal title.   De Soto says, 'Without clear legal title to their assets and real estate, in short, these entrepreneurs own what I have called dead capital -- property that cannot be leveraged as collateral for loans, to obtain investment capital, or as security for long-term contractual deals.   And so the majority of these Egyptian enterprises remain small and relatively poor.'   Egypt's legal private sector employs 6.8M people and the public sector 5.9M.   More than 9M people work in the extralegal sector, making Egypt's under-ground economy the nation's biggest employer.   Why are so many Egyptians in the under-ground economy? De Soto, who's done extensive study of hampered entrepreneurship, gives a typical example: 'To open a small bakery, our investigators found, would take more than 500 days.   To get legal title to a vacant piece of land would take more than 10 years of dealing with red tape.   To do business in Egypt, an aspiring poor entrepreneur would have to deal with 56 government agencies and repetitive government inspections.'...   Some the world's richest countries are former colonies: United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.   Some of the world's poorest countries were never colonies, at least for not long, such as Ethiopia, Liberia, Tibet and Nepal.   Pointing to the U.S.A., some say that it's bountiful natural resources that explain wealth.   Again nonsense.   The 2 natural resources richest continents, Africa and South America, are home to the world's most miserably poor.   Hong Kong, Great Britain and Japan, poor in natural resources, are among the world's richest nations...   Those countries with greater economic liberty and private property rights tend also to have stronger protections of human rights.   And as an important side benefit of that greater economic liberty and human rights protections, their people are wealthier.   We need to persuade our fellow man around the globe that liberty is a necessary ingredient for prosperity."

2011-02-15 (5771 Adar1 11)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Rocky and Republicans
Contra Costa CA Times
"Rocky Marciano was the only heavyweight champion who never lost a single fight in his whole career -- and, at the time, he seemed the least likely fighter to do that.   In many a boxing match, he was battered, bruised and bleeding.   One of the reasons Marciano took so much punishment in the ring was that he had shorter arms than most other heavyweights.   It was easier for others to hit him than for him to hit them.   In a sense, Republicans today are in a similar position in the political arena.   With most of the media heavily tilted toward the Democrats, Republicans are going to get hit far more often than they are going to get in their own punches.   The difference is that Rocky Marciano understood from the beginning that he was going to get hit more often, and prepared himself for that kind of fight.   His strategy was to concentrate on developing punches powerful enough to nullify his opponents' greater number of punches...   High tax rates drive investors into tax shelters like tax-exempt bonds or drive their investments out of the country altogether, costing Americans jobs.   This is not rocket science -- and the data are there to prove it.   But somebody has to say it."

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-16

2011-02-15 21:07:59PST (2011-02-16 00:07:59EST) (2011-02-16 05:07:59GMT)
Lolita C. Baldor _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_/_AP_
Over 100 foreign government intelligence agencies and terrorist groups probe US defense networks

2011-02-16
Jeffrey Sparshott _NASDAQ_/_Dow Jones_
Geithner & Hatch: More cheap, pliant foreign STEM workers would make USA more "competitive"
Obama and Geithner want to pass "free" trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia and Panama this year
Geithner: "competitive playing field" is shifting away from Red China "in our direction"
Obama & Geithner would consider tax repatriation as part of overall reform
"H-1B visas...   Congress caps the number at 85K annually [but over 100K are issued]...   Geithner Wednesday said the Obama administration wants to pass free-trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia and Panama this year...   Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday said the U.S.A. is becoming more competitive with [Red China] as the Asian nation's currency slowly appreciates and inflation rises...   Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Wednesday said the Obama administration would consider a tax holiday on repatriated profits...   The tax code allows firms to defer paying taxes on over-seas profits, unless the funds are brought back to the U.S.A., which would trigger tax rates up to 35%.   Proponents of the tax holiday argue it would free up hundreds of billions that U.S. firms could plow back into U.S. hiring, capital equipment and research, giving a jolt to the U.S. economy.   A 2004 law cut taxes on repatriated profits for one year.   That led firms to bring roughly $300G back to the U.S.A."

2011-02-16
Kristine Gill _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Local schools' increased teaching of Chinese reflects growing clout

2011-02-16
William K. Alcorn _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
3 Mahoning Valley hospitals dump 81 employees

2011-02-16
Josh Fischman _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Columbia U professor Eben Moglen trying to government-proof the Internet to prevent shut-downs
Uni Leaks

2011-02-16
Konrad M. Lawson _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Secure e-Mail in Thunderbird and Apple Mail with PGP
Uni Leaks

2011-02-16 15:16PST (18:16EST) (23:16GMT)
Melanie Trottman _MarketWatch_
unemployed need not apply
Wall Street Journal
Tony Pugh: Miami FL Herald/McClatchy
Sam Hananel: BusinessWeek
Stephanie Armour: Bloomberg
San Jose CA Mercury "News"/AP
Phil Piemonte: Government Computer News
"1 in every 3 short- and medium-term unemployed workers -- 33.8% -- are 40 and older, while among the long-term unemployed, 1 in 2, or 52.2%, are 40 and older, Mr. Spriggs said."

2011-02-16
Peter Ferrara _American Spectator_
Good Morning, Suckers
"President Obama's budget released on Monday proposes to spend $3.73T for 2012.   He can't say Bush made him do that.   That proposed spending is an undeniable fact that reveals who he is, which he successfully hid from 53% of voters in 2008."

2011-02-16
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
Innovative products and processes featured at Montana Agri-Trade Exposition and Home and Health Expo

2011-02-16
"Washington Watcher" _V Dare_
CPAC: placing pandering above immigration control
"Goode repeatedly asserted that legal immigration needed to be dramatically reduced, in addition to a crackdown on illegal immigration."

2011-02-16 (5771 Adar1 12)
Carol Rosenberg _Jewish World Review_
Noor Uthman Mohammed pleads guilty
"A Sudanese man accused of training a generation of terrorists ahead of the 2001/09/11 attacks pleaded guilty Tuesday to supporting terror and conspiring with al-Qaida.   Noor Uthman Mohammed, in his 40s, stood silently in white traditional gown and skull-cap as his Army lawyer, major AF, entered the plea on behalf of the 1990s-era weapons instructor and sometime operations manager of the Khaldan terror training camp along the tribal frontier border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.   He said only yes -- 'na'am' in Arabic -- when asked whether he understood the proceedings.   The judge, Navy captain MM, sealed the substance of the plea bargain, signed by Noor with a thumb-print Jan. 26.   It included a narrative of what he did at the camp and in the company of an alleged arch-terrorist known as Abu Zubaydah.   Also under seal was how much time he would have to serve on a punitive cellblock as a war criminal.   The Pentagon's chief war crimes prosecutor, Navy captain JM, said Noor 'was part of the apparatus of al-Qaida', between 1996 and 2000 at Khaldan.   The 2001/09/11 Commission Report said he trained 3 of the so-called 'muscle hijackers' who took part in the 2001 Sept. 11, terror attacks.   He called the guilty plea 'another step in the justice that we are achieving in the commissions'...   Pakistani security forces working with the CIA captured Noor in a 2002 March 28, raid on a safe house that netted the United States its first so-called 'high-value detainee' after the 2001 Sept. 11, terror attacks -- Zayn Abdeen al-Hussain, better known as Abu Zubaydah."

2011-02-16 (5771 Adar1 12)
Peter Grier _Jewish World Review_
Obama support protestors in Iran is weak

2011-02-16 (5771 Adar1 12)
Timothy M. Phelps _Jewish World Review_
welcome to the "new Egypt" where the once-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood just formed a political party
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-16 (5771 Adar1 12)
Noah Browning & Kim Murphy _Jewish World Review_
Protests rage in Yemen, Bahrain; Iran hard-liners want foes executed

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-17

2011-02-17
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Brookings Institute/GMU "high tech" immigration conference
 
As I've discussed before in these pages, in the last few years there has been a push for giving fast-track green cards to foreign students who earn advanced degrees in STEM at U.S. universities.   The pitch has been that these are the "good" foreign workers, as opposed to the "bad" H-1Bs imported directly from abroad by the "bodyshops", rent-a-programmer firms.   (I will refer to the foreign students here as "H-1Bs", since most of them who work in the U.S.A. after graduation do so while holding an H-1B visa, typically en route to a green card.)
 
I've consistently opposed such proposals.   While I strongly support facilitating the immigration of "the best and the brightest", only a small percentage of the foreign students are in that league.   All the proposals would do is exacerbate the oversupply of labor in STEM that we already have.
 
Lately the push has become more intense, with "innovation" becoming the buzz-word of choice.   The message is that the U.S.A., a nation of over 300M people and the world's best track record of innovation, somehow has lost its ability to innovate, and needs foreign workers for that purpose.
 
This theme was even mentioned by Obama in his recent State of the Union address.   (my analysis)
 
This theme seems to be arising with increasing frequency these days, especially in DC, as exemplified by a a conference held jointly by the Brookings Institution and George Mason University on February 7 titled, "Immigration Policy: Highly Skilled Workers and U.S. Competitiveness and Innovation".   As evident in the conference blurb, the conference's goal was not to debate whether immigration of tech workers is good for the U.S.A.; instead, it took that as a given, and asked how to facilitate that immigration.   The conference blurb:
 
On February 7, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings and the Center for Science and Technology Policy at George Mason University hosted a forum on immigration policies toward the highly skilled and the reforms needed to capture the benefits of a high-skill immigrant work-force.   Discussants also shared new research findings on immigration's role in spurring innovation.
 
I was not there, but fortunately full transcripts are available (though unfortunately without the slide presentations).   These make it possible for me to write a detailed analysis here.
 
The conference was largely a "kangaroo court", inviting only speakers perceived to believe that immigration is important for innovation.   I say "perceived", because for example I consider at least 2 of the speakers to be at least neutral on the question (Hunt, Lowell), and a third, Hira, is a major critic of H-1B.   But Hunt is perceived to have written positively about immigrants as a source of patents, and Hira supports fast-track green cards.   Lowell is skeptical about the latter, but does support the notion that innovation and immigrants are related, and does support giving incentives to foreign students to stay in the U.S.A.   The rest of the speakers were overtly in support of that notion.   In short, attendees came away from this conference with the impression that experts across the board think that immigration is increasing our ability to innovate, with essentially no dissenting voices.
 
Before I get into those details, I need to repeat 2 points which I've made so often, just to make sure we're all on the same page here:
 
1.   The H-1B program is causing an INTERNAL BRAIN DRAIN in the U.S.A.   The H-1B program causes displacement (direct and indirect) of U.S. citizens and permanent residents -- especially those over age 35 -- from the tech field, and it discourages young people from going into tech in the first place.
 
2.   Our federal government, especially the National Science Foundation, has played an active role in facilitating this internal brain drain.   Back [from 1986 through 1990] the NSF was in the vanguard of those pushing Congress to establish the H-1B program, and an internal NSF paper advocated bringing in large numbers of foreign scientists and engineers for the explicit goal of holding down PhD wages.   Moreover, the NSF explicitly stated that this would CAUSE an internal brain drain, as the domestic students would be put off by the stagnant wages.
 
The above 2 points are of the utmost importance, and the entire conference -- 2 panels, with a total of 8 speakers -- must be viewed in the context of these 2 points.   In fact, I must ask in advance for forgiveness for my "shouting", by writing INTERNAL BRAIN DRAIN repeatedly in all-caps form below, but I'm doing so in order that readers will keep this absolutely central point in mind.   I've found over the years that even those who are critical of H-1B tend to forget this point, so again, please forgive me for the repeated all-caps spelling.
 
With all that in mind, following are the highlights of the speakers' remarks.
 
PRESENTATIONS, PANEL 1:
 
Robert Hamilton, Wyle Information Systems (federal contractor):
 
He said that 100K got their PhDs in STEM at U.S. universities in the last 12 years, and then repeatedly used the term "best and brightest", implying that all 100K were in this category.   Actually, as I've discussed before, they are generally of average abilities, e.g. David North's data showed that they tend to be disproportionately concentrated in the lower-ranked PhD programs.
 
Hamilton did let the cat out of the bag a bit by remarking, "foreign doctoral students also appear to benefit universities in a situation similar to on-the-job training where these foreign students are employed as relatively low-wage, highly skilled research assistants while they pursue their doctoral degrees".   Note that the NSF [in stating their] goal of holding down wages in industry also [recognized that it would lead] to the same effect on graduate student stipends.
 
Patrick Gaule, post-doc at MIT:
 
Gaule's is one of the more technical presentations, thus of special interest to me, but it turned out to be profoundly disappointing.   He has chosen an interesting topic and interesting ways to approach it.   However, I'm sorry to say this, but Gaule lacks the necessary depth on the subject matter, he lacks impartiality, and above all he uses startlingly incorrect quantitative analysis whose flaws should be clear even to the average person.
 
He made some interesting remarks about students from China, based on his paper.   I'll report on that paper later in a separate posting after I read it, but I'll make a couple of comments here, as I believe Gaule's paper will become highly cited in DC circles.
 
First, Gaule uses number of publications as his criterion, and finds that graduate students from China tend to publish a lot.   This is similar to what Jennifer Hunt found (for immigrant scientists in general, not specific to China), and as I said in my review of her work, it sounds plausible to me.   In my years in academia, I've definitely found that the immigrant faculty publish more.   The point, though, is that this [quantity] is NOT a valid criterion for measuring quality.   Writing a lot of mundane papers with the goal of maximizing the length of one's CV is NOT equal to having publications that are smaller in number but much more significant in their impact on their fields.
 
But even more importantly, the one section of Gaule's paper that I did read was alarmingly off the mark.   He wrote:
 
Indeed Chinese graduate students overwhelmingly come from a set of extremely selective Chinese universities.   Around 10M high school finishers take the national college entrance exam but only 3K are admitted into the 2 most prestigious schools, Peking University and Tsinghua University.   Peking University and Tsinghua University are thus more selective than the most exclusive US institutions -- the majority of MIT under-graduates would not have had standardized test scores high enough to be admitted into the under-graduate programs of Peking University and Tsinghua University (10).
 
(Footnote 10: The median maths SAT score of MIT under-graduates is 770 which is lower than the top centile cutoff.   Only 3% of Chinese entrance test takers scoring in the top centile are admitted into Peking University and Tsinghua University.)
 
First of all, Gaule apparently doesn't know that admissions policies at Chinese universities give heavy priority to applicants from the universities' own provinces.   An applicant to Peking (Beijing) University from Beijing has a far higher chance of admission than an equally-qualified applicant from another region.   The main reason for this is probably the fact that the Chinese government still regulates residence; one has a residence permit for one's home province, and that is very difficult to change.   But in any case, whatever the motivation behind the Chinese admissions policy, the point is that Gaule's numerator of 3K and his denominator of 10M are completely incomparable.
 
Since China's system is so different, Gaule's ignorance is forgivable (though dangerous, because as mentioned, Gaule's paper will undoubtedly be widely circulated in the corridors of power in the U.S.A.).   But that foot-note of his is outrageous innumeracy.
 
At selective universities like MIT the SAT plays a minor role.   Most MIT applicants have SAT Math scores at or near 800, so it basically becomes a non-factor, in stark contrast to Chinese university admission, which depends entirely on the exam, the 高考.   But that point pales in comparison to the gross error in Gaule's foot-note, in which that 50% ("median") figure is a totally different animal from his 3%.   The 3% number is admittees divided by applicants, whereas the 50% is admittees divided by admittees.   The data Gaule cites says nothing about what percentage of MIT applicants in the top SAT decile get admitted to MIT.
 
This reasoning is so far off the mark that it makes me wonder about the validity of the rest of the paper.   But in addition, the paper lacks impartiality.   Gaule's presentation, especially his overtly admiring language, comes across as indicating that he has a fascination for the Chinese.   Well so do I, and granted, in the world of immigration research, people are generally viewed as favoring one side of the issue or the other (Lowell and Hunt below are exceptions).   But I found one of the remarks Gaule made in his presentation to be quite telling:
 
One point I need to emphasize is that it does not necessarily follow from the fact whether Chinese students or -- have a strong publication performance and it does not follow from that fact that immigration of these students is good thing for America and there are a number of possible counter-arguments.   The main one is that Chinese and other immigrations may reduce incentives for Americans to engage in scientific careers, for instance by reducing wages for post-docs.   One thought at this point is there are tools besides immigration policy that could be used to address that concern; in particular the amount of NSF graduate fellowships could be increased to make scientific careers more attractive for talented Americans without toying with immigration policy.
 
This of course relates to the NSF comment I noted above, that the NSF projected back in 1989 that H-1B would have the effect of driving American students out of PhD programs.   It's good that Gaule is bringing that up here, but that last sentence of his is very telling: He's saying, Immigration must be protected at all costs; we must find ways to solve this problem without reducing immigration.
 
IOW, he is presuming that immigration is the end rather than [a] means, that immigration must be preserved above all.   The ostensible aim of the conference was to promote immigration as a means to an end, the latter being enhancing the innovative capacity of the U.S.A.   But Gaule apparently regards the replacement of the foreign students by domestic students in U.S. graduate programs to be inherently a bad thing.   (Gaule himself is apparently a Swiss national.)
 
At any rate, Gaule's "solution", to have the NSF expand the number of prestigious fellowships it awards to grad students, would of course be pretty much useless.   As the NSF projected, the domestic students are discouraged from STEM doctoral study because of the low wages.   In addition, in the lab sciences, they are put off by the absurd post-doc system, in which one can reach age 40, say, and still not know whether one will have a career in the field.   Both of these disincentives come from the swelling of the labor [supply] by the foreign influx, which I must stress again was NSF's explicit [means to its goal of driving down compensation to those with PhDs].   Offering more fellowships wouldn't do anything to solve those basic barriers.
 
Lindsay Lowell, Georgetown University:
 
He said, that contrary to what we see in the newspapers, only a small minority of foreign faculty return to India and China.   Presumably he was challenging the claim that without a fast-track green card program as an incentive to say, the H-1Bs will return home.   He also mentioned that Chinese students are coming to the U.S.A. in record numbers, though I would mention that that is misleading, as these days they're coming to do under-graduate work, not pursue PhDs, and they are studying business rather than tech, and their intent is to go home after graduation.
 
Lowell notes:
 
What does it mean to have shortages in STEM?   If you look at this box down here -- and you can't, like I warned you, read all this stuff in any great detail -- wage change in IT and even natural sciences lagged other professions.   The person who looks at this, Mr. Lemieu, says it's difficult to understand an industry with a high level of demand generates so few wage gains, so where is the evidence of shortages?
 
I of course have made the same comments, for more detailed categories of workers (new CS and EE graduates).
 
He argues that the quality of foreign students is decreasing, not increasing, simply because as we take more and more of them, we become less and less selective, and cites some data to support that claim.
 
Darrell West, Brookings Institution:
 
Pure industry lobbyist talking points here, I'm sorry to say.   He brings up examples of immigrants who made good in tech, without mentioning that none of the people he cites came here as a foreign student or as an H-1B.   He implies that Andy Grove was the sole founder of Intel when in fact he was not a founder at all.   Etc.
 
He said
 
I found it very interesting in Robert [Hamilton]'s paper that he found that 38% of doctoral students today are coming from abroad, but yet very few of these people actually have an opportunity to stay here.
 
Hamilton said no such thing, and the PhDs can and do easily stay here, as their green card process is already fast-track.
 
In general, I found West's presentation to be quite shallow.   He's been speaking out about this topic for the last few months, but he doesn't have the depth of the other speakers.   He hasn't done his home-work.
 
Q&A, PANEL 1:
 
Lowell noted that for 30 years, about one-third of college students plan to major in STEM, so interest has NOT been declining.   High school math scores are up, even if not relative to other nations.   Anyway, average scores don't mean much; STEM draws from people at the top.   Only one-third of those with STEM degrees are working in STEM.
 
A questioner asked whether giving easy green cards was wise, with say 250K people entering the labor pool and holding down wages etc.   West answered that we need a lot in order to get a Sergey Brin.   (See my comment above.)   Lowell then said that a similar policy in Australia had lots of perverse effects.   He did call for a longer OPT period for STEM.
 
Another questioner pointed out that Brin and Intel's Andy Grove did NOT come to the U.S.A. as foreign students.
 
Lowell mentioned that STEM unemployment is low but wages aren't growing, whereas lawyers' wages are going up fast.   He said he doesn't know why.   But the answer of course is H-1B.   Even the NRC report, generally favoring the industry point of view, noted that the sheer size of the H-1B population (current and also those now holding green cards or citizenship) holds down wages.   As I mentioned above, the NSF advocated bringing in foreign scientists and engineers for this very purpose, and Alan Greenspan has made similar remarks.
 
Another questioner asked why the speakers are advocating immigration as a solution to the need for innovative.   The questioner asked, Wait a minute, who says we lack innovation?   No one really answered.
 
PRESENTATIONS, PANEL 2:
 
Jeanne Batalova, Migration Policy Institute:
 
MPI is a think tank known as promoting high levels of immigration, the mirror image of the Center for Immigration Studies.   Batalova's theme was on something she called "brain waste", in which highly-educated immigrants wind up in occupations "beneath" their background in the U.S.A.
 
Her attitude would probably make many American anti-H-1B activists' blood boil, because THEY are under-employed and believe that the influx of foreign workers is a major factor causing that.   I'm sure they would consider it outrageous that Batalova is sympathizing with the immigrants, when (a different set of) immigrants are causing the Americans' under-employment.
 
Batalova may be surprised by this phenomenon, but it certainly isn't surprising to people who live in immigrant communities.   For example, I knew a man some years ago who was a physician in China but just a medical assistant here, and our neighbor, also a physician in China, is a nurse here.   A waiter at a local Chinese restaurant we frequent was an engineer in China.   We recently met a woman who was a pharmacist in China but works as a butcher here.
 
But what Batalova is missing is the number of highly-educated Americans who were displaced by immigrants and ended up in occupations beneath their backgrounds.   Again, H-1B and the like are causing an INTERNAL BRAIN DRAIN [or in her terms a BRAIN WASTE] in the U.S.A.
 
Unfortunately, Batalova is also unaware of the biggest cause of that "brain waste" -- age discrimination.   She sees a correlation of under-employment with having only foreign university degrees, but that is a conflation; the real issue is age.   And it's not really language either; Silicon Valley is full of immigrants with poor grammar and limited vocabulary, but they do just fine.
 
Of course, Batalova's solution is training programs for the educated immigrants.   These would be just as useless as the ones for the Americans, e.g. the ones funded by H-1B user fees, as I've detailed before.
 
Jennifer Hunt, McGill University:
 
I've stated before that professor Hunt has conducted the most detailed, most statistically valid study ever done on tech immigrants.   You can read my analysis of that study at the URL I gave above.
 
Though I like Hunt's study very much, I did have one major criticism of it at the time, which is that she did not take into account the displacement effect.   As I've mentioned above, H-1B is causing an INTERNAL BRAIN DRAIN in the U.S.A.   She touched on that point in her talk in this conference, but only touched.
 
First she said, more or less hypothetically,
 
The more people [tech] you have, the more ideas are likely to pop up, and the richer per capita a country you will be.
 
Again, I strongly disagree, because if many of those tech people are not working in tech, displaced from the field, then the ideas will NOT pop up.
 
Indeed, later in the presentation she said,
 
Now, OTOH, immigrants might actually contribute less than you would think by looking at their own productivity because perhaps -- as has been mentioned a few times -- they're discouraging the native-born from going into innovative fields.   And here, I'm going to actually present you some evidence [that this] is true.
 
But actually, she never did get back to that point.   She may have been referring to the effects on native patenting, which once again I think is flawed by not considering the INTERNAL BRAIN DRAIN.
 
Later she said:
 
And I do that by comparing similar natives and immigrants.   And by "similar", what I really mean is here I'm comparing immigrants and natives with the same level of education, and the same field of study.
 
And when you do that, you find that compared to similar natives, the immigrants actually earn 8% less.   This is a rather well known result that I won't linger on, that seems to be closely related to how old you are when you arrive in the U.S.A., and language ability.   But what's very interesting is that the results are different for the other more technology-related outcomes.
 
No, it is NOT language ability.   As I explained above, there are lots of immigrants with poor English in Silicon Valley who do great.   No one cares, really.
 
Instead, one must look at the more obvious explanations.   First of all, the H-1Bs ARE paid less than comparable natives.   This has been shown statistically and also in employer surveys (NRC, GAO), where employers admitted it.   It also is quite clear qualitatively, just by noting that if an H-1B is being sponsored for a green card, she is effectively immobile, and thus cannot roam the job market to get the best wage offer like U.S. citizens and permanent residents can.
 
After getting the green card, the worker does become a free agent, but HR departments are reluctant to give too big a raise to someone relative to their last salary, so there is a "momentum" effect at work here for a few years.
 
The other obvious explanation is that maybe on average the immigrants are simply of lesser quality.   Hunt's criteria of publishing and patenting are questionable, for the reasons I cited above, and by other measures that I've used before, the immigrants do come out as having less quality.  
 
Hunt's main claim is that immigrants cause natives to be more productive.   But again, that analysis (which comes from the paper she wrote before the one I reviewed) ignores the problem of the INTERNAL BRAIN DRAIN [BRAIN WASTE].
 
Another one of Hunt's productivity criteria was entrepreneurship.   As I mentioned in my above-cited analysis of her paper, though, this is a difficult quantity to get a handle on.   Many of the immigrant-founded tech businesses are basically off-shoring shops, something we really ought not count as "productivity".   I've also pointed out that a Saxenian paper found that "36% of the Chinese-owned firms are in the business of Computer Wholesaling", meaning that they are simply assemblers of commodity PCs, with no engineering or programming work being done, again something we shouldn't count as "productivity".
 
Since the topic of the conference is the foreign students in the U.S. who go on to get H-1B visas and green cards, I am surprised that Hunt did not cite what I consider one of the most important findings of her previous work: She found that the H-1Bs who come to the U.S.A. as foreign students are LESS prone to patenting than the natives, and have an even greater wage differential than the 8% she cited in her talk (13.2%).
 
Ron Hira, Rochester Institute of Technology:
 
He made a big point of the fact that in the discussion of foreign workers, the H-1B (temporary work visa) and green card (permanent immigrant visa) are typically confused.   He's right.   And my observation has been that industry lobbyists often deliberately confuse the two, by the way.
 
He stated:
 
One big myth is that there's a labor market test.   In fact, there is no labor market test for H-1B or L-1 visas.   Employers do not have to look for American workers before hiring H-1Bs or Ls.   And, in fact, they can replace American workers with H-1B and L1 visas.   And this isn't just a theoretical thing.   It's been reported in various press accounts that major companies like Pfizer, Wachovia, when it was taking TARP money, IBM and Siemens have actually had, and forced their American workers to train foreign replacements on H-1B and L-1 visas.
 
This is a good example.   Rob Sanchez used to have on his web site a collection of letters from senators and representatives to their constituents, saying that employers of H-1Bs must give hiring priority to Americans.   It's not true.
 
Much of [Ron Hira's] talk was about the use of H-1Bs and L-1s to facilitate off-shoring.   He's written extensively about this, of course, but here he brought into some interesting profitability data.
 
He talked a fair amount about the loop-holes, my favorite H-1B topic, though unfortunately he didn't explain how loop-holes make the official prevailing wage lower than the true market wage.
 
David Hart, GMU:
 
He did a study on immigrant entrepreneurship.   As it is basically the study I reviewed previously here in the e-news-letter.   If you haven't read that review yet, or have forgotten it, I urge you to take a look, especially regarding countries of origin.
 
I'll only make one comment on Hart's presentation here:
 
I have to give Hart credit, as I did with Hunt above, for considering "crowding out" effects, in which the influx of immigrants is reducing in this case native entrepreneurship.   However, he appears to be unaware of the internal brain drain [internal brain waste] problem that I've identified as key here, that the NSF actually planned that fewer Americans would pursue careers in science and engineering, as the foreign workers would be cheaper.   Work that is not informed of this key fact simply cannot address the crowding-out problem, IMO; mere number crunching is not enough.   Hart did state that he doesn't know the answer to the question, though he thinks the answer is no.
 
Norm
Patrick Thibodeau: ComputerWorld/IDG
 

2011-02-17 04:40PST (07:30EST) (12:30GMT)
John Hazard _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Technology job boards have failed recruiters and job seekers
"The volume of available information technology talent has made it a near Sisyphean task for recruiters to separate the [capable] from the [incapable]...   Most employers and agency recruiters (62%, according to the TalentDriveIn report) [mistakenly] rely on a stand-alone resume search engine or resume search application built into an applicant tracking system (ATS) to collect, categorize and filter incoming resumes...   But ATSes do a poor job...   'just because a candidate is buried somewhere in your [black-hole] data-base, it doesn't mean you've actually found them (or can find them when you want or need to).'   And in a cruel twist, the recession has made hiring managers significantly more selective.   Recruiters call it the purple squirrel syndrome.   In the past it was enough to find a purple squirrel to fill an opening for a purple squirrel, but, because the recession made so many purple squirrels available, hiring managers now ask for a purple squirrel… with size-9 shoes...w/ white shoe-laces...and 7 years experience with size-9 shoes...and 4 years experience using white shoe-laces...in emerging markets."

2011-02-17 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 421,713 in the week ending Feb. 12, a decrease of 19,271 from the previous week.   There were 478,235 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.6% during the week ending Feb. 5, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,544,310, a decrease of 62,137 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 4.3% and the volume was 5,597,688.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Jan. 29 was 9,250,156.   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, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV, and WI, during the week ending January 29.   States reported 3,629,604 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Jan. 29, a decrease of 127,386 from the prior week.   There were 5,795,648 claimants in the comparable week in 2010.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" changes
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2011-02-17 06:45PST (09:45EST) (14:45GMT)
Zack Whittaker _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Should students sue universities over grades

2011-02-17 08:24PST (11:24EST) (16:24GMT)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Orrin Hatch wants more H-1B visas
Rob Sanchez: Job Destruction News-Letter/V Dare

2011-02-17 12:31:15PST (15:31:15EST) (20:31:15GMT)
Mike Swift _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_

2011-02-17
Patrick J. Buchanan _V Dare_
What's Wrong with a Middle East without America?

2011-02-17
Jennifer Doren _NBC Washington DC_
Prince William county supervisors say ICE has been releasing within the USA illegal aliens convicted of additional crimes

2011-02-17 (5771 Adar1 13)
Ned Parker & Kim Murphy _Jewish World Review_
Bahrain authorities launch surprise attack on sleeping protesters, with at least two reported killed

2011-02-17 (5771 Adar1 13)
R' Yonason Goldson _Jewish World Review_
Nothing but the Truth

2011-02-17 (5771 Adar1 13)
Eryn Brown _Jewish World Review_
Less human growth hormone may reduce risks of cancer and diabetes in old age
"The discovery, published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, backs up earlier research showing that yeast, flies and rodents live longer -- in some species, as much as 10 times longer -- when they grow slowly...   The discovery hinged on a group of extended relatives living in the Andes in Ecuador, many of whom share a genetic mutation that shuts off receptors to human growth hormone.   The hormone helps regulate metabolism throughout the body as well as the way that cells change as they age.   The mutation, called E180, is one of several that cause Laron Syndrome, a disorder that stunts growth after birth by about 50%.   The most obvious effects of the disorder are negative, said study co-author Dr. Jaime Guevara-Aguirre of the Institute of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Reproduction in Quito, Ecuador.   These include short stature -- people with Laron grow to be about 3 to 4 feet tall -- and high infant mortality.   But Guevara-Aguirre, who treats the Laron patients, saw a positive side, too: Virtually none of them got cancer or diabetes...   serum from Laron patients protected DNA from breakage that can contribute to cancer.   Serum from unaffected relatives did not.   The Laron serum also promoted a kind of suicide among damaged cells.   This, Longo said, might protect against cancer by killing off cells that are about to turn rogue."

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-18

2011-02-17 22:02:29PST (2011-02-18 01:02:29EST) (2011-02-18 06:02:29GMT)
John Boudreau _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
Obama meets with Sili Valley, Oregon, Washington tech execs and VCs, refuses to acknowledge Programmers Guild, WashTech, American Engineering Association
Sophie Freeman & David Gardner; Daily Mail
Darlene Superville: Washington DC Post
Cecilia Kang: Washington DC Post
Jon Swartz: USA Today/Gannett
Los Angeles CA Times
Investor's Business Daily
San Diaz: Ziff Davis/CBS
Larry Dignan: Ziff Davis/CBS: Obama's big tech powwow invite list: A few stunning omissions

2011-02-18 13:00PST (16:00EST) (21:00GMT)
John Shinal _MarketWatch_
Killing tech jobs: relatively high IT unemployment rates

2011-02-18
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
Rising corn prices biting ranchers' wallets
"'We have 7,500 head and they eat about 300K pounds of feed a day, depending on the weather.', James said...   Now the nation's reserve corn supply is at its lowest level in 37 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.   Since last June, the price of corn has doubled.   The price of cattle and hogs, which have a corn-heavy diet, have increased 25% during the same time...   Feed barley, another option, rises and falls in price at 80% to 85% of corn's value."

2011-02-18 15:07PST (18:07EST) (23:07GMT)
_WSB-TV_
FAIR says illegal aliens cost GA $2.4G

2011-02-18 15:32PST (18:32EST) (23:32GMT)
_Numbers USA_
Bob Goodlatte introduced SAFE act (HR704) to end green card lottery

2011-02-18
William L. Anderson
Krugman trying to be a comedian

2011-02-18 (5771 Adar1 14)
_Rsamussen_
67% say state and local governments should enforce immigration laws in addition to federal government

2011-02-18 (5771 Adar1 14)
Dennis Mclellan _Jewish World Review_
Joanne Siegel, inspiration for Lois Lane, died Saturday at 93
"Joanne Siegel, who played a role in the creation of the Superman saga in the 1930s as Joe Shuster's teenage model for Lois Lane and later married the Man of Steel's co-creator, writer Jerry Siegel, has died.   She was 93.   Siegel, a long-time resident of Marina del Rey, CA, who successfully fought a long legal battle to regain her late husband's copyrights to Superman and related characters, died Saturday in Santa Monica, said her daughter, Laura Siegel Larson.   The cause of death has not yet been determined.   Joanne Siegel was high school student Joanne Kovacs when she took out a small classified ad under 'Situation Wanted—Female' in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the Depression year of 1935: 'ARTIST MODEL: No experience.'   One of the responses to the ad came from Shuster, a young Cleveland artist who was developing Superman as a cartoon strip with his young writer friend, Siegel.   'Joe was taking art lessons and felt that he needed someone to pose as the Lois Lane character for the Superman story.   So I posed.', Joanne Siegel recalled in a 1996 interview with the Plain Dealer.   'I remember the day I met Jerry in Joe's living room.   Jerry was the model for Superman.   He was standing there in a Superman-like pose.   He said their character was going to fly through the air, and he leaped off the couch to demonstrate.'...   'My father said she not only posed for the character, but from the day he met her it was her personality that he infused into the character.   She was not only beautiful but very smart and determined, and she had a lot of guts; she was a courageous person.'   Superman made his debut in 1938, in Action Comics No. 1 published by the predecessor of DC Comics.   The character became an immediate sensation and was on its way to becoming one of the most recognizable characters in the world.   Siegel and Shuster, however, signed a publisher's release in 1938, and a court later ruled that they had sold the entire Superman copyright for $130.   The daughter of Hungarian immigrants, Joanne Siegel was born Jolan Kovacs in Cleveland on 1917 Dec. 1.   (Because teachers and classmates found her first name difficult to pronounce—it's pronounced YO-lon—they called her Joanne.) After graduating from high school, she modeled in Boston and New York under the name Joanne Carter before working in a shipyard in the Los Angeles area during World War II.   After the war, she moved back to New York City, where she was reunited with Siegel, whom she married in 1948.   Both had been married previously.   The previous year, Shuster and Siegel had tried and failed to get back the rights to Superman.   After that, Larson said, 'my father tried to get work and found that publishers were not willing to hire him.   He'd been black-listed.   My mother and father lived in complete poverty for many, many years.'"

Proposed Bills 2011

2011-02-18

DJIA	12,391.25
S&P 500(SPX)	1,343.01
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,833.95
Nikkei	10,843
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	3.60
crude oil(CLH11)	$86.20/barrel
natgas(NGH11)	$3.876/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RBH11)	$2.55/gal
heatingoil(HOH11)	$2.71/gal
gold(GCJ11)	$1,388.60/ounce
silver(SIH11)	$32.296/ounce
platinum(PLJ11)	$1,843.30/ounce
palladium(PAF11)	$857.70/ounce
copper(HGH11)	$0.280125/ounce
soybeans	$14.0450/bushel
maize	$7.1275/bushel
wheat	$8.5075/bushel
dollarindex(DXY)	77.632
yenperdollar(USDYEN)	83.12
dollarspereuro(EURUSD)	1.3696
dollarsperpound(GBPUSD)	1.6246
swissfrancsperdollar	0.9439
indianrupeesperdollar	45.19
mexicanpesosperdollar(MXN)	12.0275
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	724.64

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-19

2011-02-19
Marc Kovac _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Ohio jobs bill signed into law
"JobsOhio would be overseen by a 9-member board, including Kasich and 8 other individuals he will appoint.   He told reporters Friday that Mark Kvamme, a long-time friend and current director of the Ohio Department of Development, would be one of the board members."

2011-02-19
_Wall Street Journal_
Why Investors Can't Get More Cash Out of US Companies
"Earlier this month, MSFT borrowed $2.25G in unsecured debt.   What in the world possesses a company with $40G in cash and short-term securities to go out and borrow money?...   MSFT can't bring home much of its cash without writing a fat check to the Internal Revenue Service.   Politicians have been carping about the more than $2T in cash sitting idle in corporate coffers even as unemployment remains high.   But much of that cash isn't in the U.S.A.; it is abroad.   And it isn't likely to come back home unless U.S. tax laws change."

2011-02-19
Brenda Walker _V Dare_
Tea party as governor Scott Walker's back

2011-02-19 (5771 Adar1 15)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Lara Logan and media rules
"CBS Correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo's Tahrir Square, moments before she was assaulted...   When we understand identity politics we understand how it is that the wholesale assaults against foreign journalists have received so little analysis --- even by their own outlets."

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-20

2011-02-20
Randall Burns _V Dare_
H-1B and illegal immigration

2011-02-20
Jan Falstad _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
US cabinet-makers hang on by working quickly and hard

2011-02-20
Peter Delevett _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
VC funding grew to $21.8G, in 3,277 deals in 2010
"In the final quarter, venture capitalists poured $5G into private companies.   That was a slight increase over the previous quarter but still well below Q2, when $6.2G was invested.   As usual, Silicon Valley scored the largest share of venture deals and dollars.   The $2G invested here last quarter was 40% of the national total, a slight up-tick over the previous quarter...   Software companies took home the largest slice of the venture pie last year, with $4G spread across 835 firms.   Both numbers represented about a 20% increase compared with 2009.   Software deals perked up especially in the fourth quarter, marking the sector's best quarter in more than 3 years."

2011-02-20
Darryl W. Perry _iNewP_
A modest budget proposal

2011-02-20
Jennifer Lewington _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Lavish spending on research reverses Canada's brain drain

2011-02-20
William N. Grigg _Freedom in Our Time_
When tax-feeders are revolting
"What would happen if tax-victims, rather than tax-feeders, were to go on strike?"

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-02-21

2011-02-21 08:32PST (11:32EST) (16:32GMT)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_Scripps_
U of TN 4th annual business plan competition entries due March 2
Roger Harris
contact Roger Harris

2011-02-21
Jan C. Ting _News Works_
Obama is wrong on immigration
"But whether we should respect and admire immigrants is not the issue.   The hard issue, which too many politicians try to avoid discussing, is whether or not to enforce a numerical limit on how many immigrants we allow in each year.   Enforcing a numerical limit means turning away people like our ancestors, not because they are bad people, but simply because their entry would exceed the numerical limit we have set.   Whether we set the numerical limit higher or lower, it has to be enforced to have any meaning.   Those seeking entry in excess of the limit must be turned away.   And if they come anyway in violation of our laws, they must be deported."

2011-02-21
William L. Anderson
Krugman's new fight song is "On Wisconsin"

2011-02-21 Steve Hargreaves _CNN_
court orders Obummer to approve or reject oil drilling permits

2011-02-21
Charles M. Sennott _Global Post_
Inside the Muslim Brotherhood
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-21 (5771 Adar1 17)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
How pro-Israel is Obama? Assessing the UN post-veto fall-out

2011-02-21 (5771 Adar1 17)
Edmund Sanders _Jewish World Review_
Hamas thrilled at opportunity created by change in Egypt

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

 
 

2011-02-22

2011-02-21 20:57PST (2011-02-21 23:57EST) (2011-02-22 04:57GMT)
Hannah Pitstick _Daily Illini_
Illinois engineers compete in Seismic Design Competition
Earthquake Engineering Research Institute Student Leadership Council competition results
SUNY Buffalo Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research
"Twelve buildings constructed by under-graduates around the world came crumbling down in San Diego earlier this month due to extreme tremors.   Luckily, the building constructed by the University seismic team survived the quakes, earning them a third place finish in the 2011 Undergraduate Seismic Design Competition on Feb. 10.   The competition was held in conjunction with the 63rd Earthquake Engineering Research Institute's annual meeting.   It challenged teams of students to design and construct a three-to-five-foot tall model building out of balsa wood, which is capable of withstanding the motion and intensity of past earthquakes as simulated by a 2.25 square-foot shake table.   The University seismic team consisted of nine students from the College of Engineering, including team leaders Quinton Champer, Daniel Biernat, Michael Morun and Jon LaScala as well as Jeanine Genchanok, Anh Le, Kiet Nguyen, Meghana Devineni and Ryan Leigh."
2011 rules (pdf)

2011-02-22
John Otis _Global Post_
Red China plans to build rail-road across isthmus of Panama
"Since 1999, the U.S. has provided Colombia with about $8G in mostly military aid to fight guerrillas and drug traffickers.   Colombia, in turn, supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq and has been a loyal soldier in Washington's long-running war on drugs.   As a result, the Bogota government saw little need to follow the path of nearby Peru, Chile and Brazil in bolstering trade with China."

2011-02-22 08:56PST (11:56EST) (16:56GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
Conference Board's consumer confidence index rose from revised 64.8 in January to 70.4 in February
"The 2011 February 22, release of The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index is the first based on survey data collected by The Nielsen Company [which off-shored much of their computer work to India].   Data has been restated back to 2010 November, the effective change-over month...   Those saying jobs are 'plentiful' rose from 4.6% to 4.9%, while those stating jobs are 'hard to get' decreased from 47.0% to 45.7%...   Consumers were mixed about the job market.   Those expecting more jobs in the months ahead edged down from 20.8% to 19.8%, however, those anticipating fewer jobs decreased from 21.2% to 15.4%.   The proportion of consumers expecting an increase in their incomes rose from 15.3% to 17.3%."

2011-02-22
Ana Campoy & Ashby Jones _Wall Street Journals_
Corrupt sheisters abuse FB for jury selection

2011-02-22
Nicole Ferraro _Internet Evolution_
10 ways FB is ruining our lives

2011-02-22
Jeffrey Lord _American Spectator_
Howard Dean and the $100K Wisconsin slush fund

2011-02-22
Charles Heller _Arizona Daily Star_
Gun control: punishing the innocent

2011-02-22 (5771 Adar1 18)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Obama's devastating mixed signals

2011-02-22 (5771 Adar1 18)
Edmund Sanders & Batsheva Sobelman _Jewish World Review_
In Egypt "pro-democracy" leaders already seeking to "re-assess" peace with Israel
"As early as today, Egypt is expected to permit two Iranian warships to pass through the Suez Canal for the first time since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Israeli officials say."

2011-02-22 (5771 Adar1 18)
Neela Banerjee & Ronald D. White _Jewish World Review_
Overthrowing autocrats in Middle East comes at a stiff price

2011-02-22 (5771 Adar1 18)
_Rsamussen_
most voters say it is better to enforce existing immigration laws than write new ones

2011-02-22 (5771 Adar1 18)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Reckless Spending
Town Hall

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

"Listening doesn't happen automatically.   It's based on how quickly I get to something you can use.   You'll stay if I promise some new insights & alternative processes that could improve your life; some ideas that are important & practical enough for you to accept & want to try." --- Sonya Hamlin 1988 _How to Talk so People Listen_ pg 1

 
 

2011-02-23

2011-02-23
Jeanne Starmack _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Chinese educationists learn here
"Judy Teng and Nancy Zhang have been staying with Campbell elementary school principal Robert Walls since Feb. 4...   Walls... visited schools in their Chinese province of Zhejiang in 2007.   Zhang, a vice principal at a foreign-language school called Xiangshan in the city of Ningbo, invited Walls there after Teng came to Campbell schools while she was a visiting scholar at Youngstown State University for a short time in 2007.   'A professor took me here to Campbell, and I was deeply impressed.', Teng said.   Zhang asked her to develop a sister school, she said, so she set up that relationship with Campbell.   Teng, an associate professor of English who teaches but also designs programs for teacher-trainees at Hangzhou Normal University in the city of Hangzhou, said China has come a long way economically.   There is still work to be done in its educational system, however, she said...   The Confucian philosophy of education, which dates back 2K years, holds that teachers should teach according to students' differences -- tailoring teaching to individual needs, Zhang said...   Yes, Teng said: Writing words in Chinese is like drawing pictures, and pronouncing them is like music.   In 15 minutes, Vratkovich's students learned how to count to 5 and how to draw the words for person, people, tree, and forest.   Zhang took over, teaching them the traditional art of Chinese paper cutting.   They learned to cut out the word for 'really, really happy'."

2011-02-23
William K. Alcorn _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Number of homeless in Mahoning river valley up 18%
"The 2011 Homeless Point-In-Time 24-Hour Count, conducted from midnight Jan. 24 to 23:59 Jan. 25 by the Mahoning County Homeless Continuum of Care, found 223 homeless residents compared with 183 during the 24-hour count on the same day in 2010, said Michele Schaper, Homeless Management Information System administrator...   40 were severely mentally ill.   65 were chronic substance abusers...   253 individuals were in permanent supportive housing.   354 were in Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program housing."

2011-02-23
_Charleston Tea Party_
Orrin Hatch says ending diversity green card lottery would plug national security loop-hole and reduce US job losses

2011-02-23
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Bountiful 2010 wheat crop sets $1.4G record
"Analysts have pegged the value of Montana's 2010 wheat crop at $1.43G, the result of an extremely large harvest and prices driven upward by crop-killer weather elsewhere in the world.   To put the latest value in perspective, in 137 years of record keeping, the state had achieved just two $1G harvests before 2010.   Twice, the state has marked harvests topping $900M.   In 2002, Montana's entire wheat crop was valued at $449M...   The state produced 215.3M bushels of wheat, a little lower in average quality than the 2008 crop that hit $1G, but also the largest crop on record.   At Pompey's Pillar on Tuesday, the line of the semitrailers heavy with grain trailed down the 300-yard driveway of the United Harvest elevator and onto the state highway.   With prices as strong as they've been since 2008, truck traffic has doubled at the elevator, which is taking in 100K bushels of grain daily, said Brandy Bryer, assistant manager.   Construction has started on 2, 500K-bushel steel elevators to boost capacity.   The cash price for the best quality wheat in the region was $11.39 a bushel Tuesday, even as prices fell sharply in response to turmoil in Libya."

2011-02-23
George Melloan _Wall Street Journal_
Federal Reserve inflation driving rising food prices which helps drive unrest in Middle East
MarketWatch

2011-02-22 22:00PST (2011-02-23 01:00EST) (2011-02-23 06:00GMT)
Linda Borg _Providence RI Journal_
Providence plans to fire all 1,926 teachers at the end of the school year
"In an e-mail sent to all teachers and School Department staff, Brady said, 'We are forced to take this precautionary action by the March 1 deadline given the dire budget outline for the 2011-2012 school year in which we are projecting a near $40M deficit for the district.', Brady wrote.   'Since the full extent of the potential cuts to the school budget have yet to be determined, issuing a dismissal letter to all teachers was necessary to give the mayor, the School Board and the district maximum flexibility to consider every cost savings option, including reductions in staff.'   State law requires that teachers be notified about potential changes to their employment status by March 1.   'To be clear about what this means', Brady wrote, 'this action gives the School Board the right to dismiss teachers as necessary, but not all teachers will actually be dismissed at the end of the school year.'...   Mayor Angel Taveras, in a statement issued Tuesday night, said the uncertainty around the city's finances, combined with the March 1 dead-line, led to this decision...   The city had a $57M deficit last year and expects a higher figure for the year ending June 30.   In addition, the city, under then-mayor David N. Cicilline, nearly depleted its reserves to cover day-to-day expenses...   Last year, only about 100 teachers received lay-off notices, but in years past, as many as 500 have."

2011-02-23 03:47PST (06:47EST) (11:47GMT)
Marc Schenker _Vancouver Examiner_
Anti-American Muslim cleric plans protest outside White House in favor of imposition of Sharia in the USA
"Englishman Anjem Choudary first came to be noticed by Americans when he was involved in a fiery [shouting match] with Sean Hannity some weeks ago...   He asserted his wacko belief that Islam, and more specifically Sharia Law (read: Anti-women Law), was actually the solution to all the troubles that Americans and, indeed, the whole world are feeling.   The truly staggering thing is that this anti-American cleric is 100% dead serious about his assertions, no matter how they sound like the opinions of a lunatic.   His intention to enter the US—which will be difficult, I think, because he has started so many groups that the UK has banned for supporting terrorism -- is part of the mentality of these Islamofascists who want to rule over everything and everyone."

2011-02-23 02:35PST (05:35EST) (10:35GMT)
John Hazard _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Hackruiter to side-step Sili Valley tech recruiters

2011-02-23 04:45PST (07:45EST) (12:45GMT)
Zack Whittaker _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Prospective employers starting to demand candidates' FB names and pass-words

2011-02-23 08:46PST (11:46EST) (16:46GMT)
_Numbers USA_
Richard Mourdock to challenge Lugar in primary
"'Senator Lugar has always seemed to me to be a serious statesman, but that quality has always been missing in his blind eye to the suffering that his immigration policies cause the most vulnerable Americans, as well as the deterioration to the quality of life of ordinary citizens.', said Roy Beck, President of NumbersUSA.   'Our Immigration-Reduction Report Cards give senator Lugar a D-minus for his career, beating out senator John McCain for the worst Republican in the Senate.'   Senator Lugar has never seen an amnesty bill he didn't like, voting in favor of mass amnesties 15 different times.   Senator Lugar supported the mass amnesty bills in 2006 and 2007, voted in favor of the [NIGHTMARE] Act in 2007 and 2010, and voted for the Ag-JOBS amnesty in 2005.   He's also been a co-sponsor of the [NIGHTMARE] Act and, on multiple occasions, co-sponsored bills to extend the 245(i) amnesties."

2011-02-23
David North _Center for Immigration Studies_
Estimating the numbers of people in the USA on H-1B visas

2011-02-23
Hugh Holub _Tucson AZ Citizen_
128 aliens arrested in desert west of Lukeville by Border Patrol
KOLD 13
Sierra Vista AZ Herald
"Operators working surveillance equipment spotted a group of people traveling northbound about 15 miles west of Lukeville, AZ.   Agents responded to the area and apprehended a group of 22 illegal aliens.   Soon after, the OAM helicopter responded and conducted an aerial search of the area where they discovered three additional groups of approximately 35 individuals per group hiding in the thick brush and resulting in the apprehension of a total of 128 illegal aliens."

2011-02-23 14:13PST (17:13EST) (22:13GMT)
Declan McCullagh _CNET_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Federal government seeks new ways to bypass encryption

2011-02-23
Robin Marty _care2_
After running on immigration control, Republicans cut border security funding

2011-02-23
Jason Buch & John Gonzalez _San Antonio TX Express-News_
Lone Star Bakery audited by ICE, fires 200, 40% of employees

2011-02-23 13:07PST (16:07EST) (21:07GMT)
Jim Kouri _Examiner_
Suspicious people (including illegal aliens) still getting flight training in the USA

2011-02-23
Brenda Goodman _Web MD_
Genes linked to PTSD in women
Medical News Today
US News & World Report
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
"An international team of researchers says it has found a gene and its associated protein that appears to play a key role in how well women withstand stress and fear, which may influence the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a stressful event.   The protein, known as pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP), appears to be controlled by estrogen, which may help explain why women have far higher rates of PTSD than men...   women with above-average levels of this protein were 5 times as likely to have PTSD than those who had lower levels, but there was no such association in men.   The researchers, from Emory University and the University of Vermont, also found that women with a certain 'protective' variation of the gene that codes for the PACAP hormone's receptor had a lower rate of PTSD than men, even though they had experienced similar levels of trauma."
abstract
"secondary dependent trait variables, or endophenotypes, of PTSD: (1) intrusive, hyperarousal, and avoidant symptoms; (2) physiological markers of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) dysregulation; and (3) the acoustic startle response...   FKBP5 is an immunophilin that acts as a chaperone protein for steroid receptors, assisting in their translocation into the nucleus.   My colleague, Elisabeth Binder (Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich), has shown that FKBP5 moderates emotional stability and the rate of antidepressant response.   Data from our group have now demonstrated that polymorphisms at the FKBP5 locus also mediate the effect of child abuse on development of PTSD in adults (Figure 2)...   We use a variety of transgenic, genetically modified virus, and pharmacological approaches to enhance extinction of fear.   This decrease in fear occurs when a fearful situation or memory is repeatedly encountered in the absence of negative consequences—the underlying mechanism of exposure-based psychotherapy for fear disorders.   BDNF is required for the consolidation of extinction.   Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), acting through the tyrosine receptor kinase B receptor (TrkB), is a critical mediator of learning.   As there are no available selective antagonists of TrkB, we used a lentivirus encoding a dominant-negative TrkB (TrkB.t1) to antagonize BDNF signaling during extinction of conditioned fear (see Figure 3).   Whereas TrkB.t1-infected rats showed normal within-session extinction of fear, their retention of extinction was impaired, suggesting that amygdala TrkB activation is required for the consolidation of stable extinction memories.   This work suggests that pharmacological agonists of the TrkB receptor would act as cognitive enhancers to augment extinction-based psychotherapy in human patients with fear disorders, as we have demonstrated with an NMDA-acting agent.   D-cycloserine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate glutamate (NMDA) receptor partial agonist, enhances extinction of fear in rodent models and in humans.   Knowing that extinction of fear is dependent on NMDA, we initially reasoned that the partial NMDA agonist D-cycloserine (DCS) would enhance extinction of fear if given prior to extinction learning."

2011-02-23
Aaron Goldstein _American Spectator_
Bloody Double Standard

2011-02-23
Chris Horner _American Spectator_
Grab your wallet... the UN wants what's in it

2011-02-23
Philip Klein _American Spectator_
Prank call reveals that Scott Walker is being consistent in standing up for what he believes is right
recording

2011-02-23
Robert Stacy McCain _American Spectator_
Brief thoughts on constitutional law
"Cornell law professor William Jacobson observes, judge Kessler's ruling theorized whether 'mental activity, i.e. decision-making' might be governed by the Commerce Clause"
All your thoughts are belong to us

2011-02-23
_Tax Foundation_
State and Local Tax Burdens Fall as Revenues Shrink Faster than Income: New Report Ranks New Jersey First, Alaska Last in Combined Tax Burden
Richard Locker: Knoxville TN News Sentinel/Commercial Appeal
"[Tax-victims] in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut bore the highest state-local burdens in the country, while residents in South Dakota, Nevada and Alaska experienced the lowest.   The study estimates the average total tax burden for residents of each state, including both the in-state taxes they're subject to as well as taxes they pay to other states, for example by virtue of working in, traveling to, or buying products from other states.   This method takes the point of view of the individual [tax-victim], counting all taxes they pay, no matter which state they pay them to.   Many other tax measures focus only on state-by-state revenue totals and reflect the perspective of a state's tax collectors.   The nation as a whole paid 9.8% of its income in state and local taxes, down slightly from 9.9% in 2008 and down significantly from 10.4% in 1977, the earliest year for which the Tax Foundation has done such estimates.   While it is useful and informative to look at the national trend, burdens among the states can vary widely.   [Tax-victims] in high-tax New Jersey, for example, pay almost twice the state-local tax rate as those in Alaska, the state with the lowest burden.   'Alaska is able to shift almost 80% of its tax collections to residents of other states.', notes staff economist and study author Mark Robyn."
Mark Robyn & Gerald Prante: special report #189
data down-loads

2011-02-23 (5771 Adar1 19)
Warren Richey _Jewish World Review_
US Supremes refuse appeal of case over whether removal of display of Aseret Ha Dibrot at KY court-houses is constitutional; upheld display in TX

2011-02-23 (5771 Adar1 19)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Voices of Moderation
St. Augustine FL Record
Investor's Business Daily
"President Obama's rhetoric has moderated, even if his policies and practices have not...   Moderation is fine -- if it is not carried to extremes.   But some moderates seem to think that it is always a good thing to tone down your words.   Yet history shows that muffling your message can mean forfeiting many a battle to extremists...   What Reagan had was a clear, coherent and believable message.   Even voters who did not agree with him 100% could respect that and prefer it to the alternative...   the atmosphere in Dallas did not kill JFK.   A bullet from a far-left kook killed him...   you can't buy your opponents' assumptions and then try to oppose the conclusions that follow...   Hitler and Stalin were pragmatic and that did not stop them from being extremists...   nobody is running against 'the presidency'.   They will be running against Barack Obama.   Are we not to consider a possibility with deep and painful implications for the future of this nation, for such feeble reasons as these?"

2011-02-23 (5771 Adar1 19)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
"Democracy" versus Liberty
Santa Rosa FL Press Gazette
Front Page Magazine
World Net Daily
"James Madison, in Federalist Paper #10, said that in a pure democracy, 'there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual'.   At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Virginia governor Edmund Randolph said, '...that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.'   John Adams said, 'Remember, democracy never lasts long.   It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.   There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.'   [Even] Alexander Hamilton said, 'We are now forming a Republican form of government.   Real Liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.   If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship.'   The word 'democracy' appears nowhere in the 2 most fundamental documents of our nation -- the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.   Our Constitution's Article IV, Section 4, guarantees 'to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government'...   What's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence when he said, 'You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.'   That means Congress does not grant us rights; their job is to protect our natural or God-given rights.   For example, the Constitution's First Amendment doesn't say Congress shall grant us freedom of speech, the press and religion.   It says, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...'...   how many decisions in your life would you like to be made democratically."

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

"1 Quality information must be used for improvement, not to judge or control people.   2 Authority must be equal to responsibility.   3 There must be rewards for results.   4 Cooperation, not competition, must be the basis for working together.   5 Employees must have secure jobs.   6 There must be a climate of fairness.   7 Compensation should be equitable.   8 Employees should have an ownership stake." --- Marshall Sishkin & Kenneth J. Kiser 1992 _Total Quality Management_ pg 61

 
 

2011-02-24

2011-02-24 05:00PST (08:00EST) (13:00GMT)
Erica Dolson _Cumberland PA Sentinel_/_Lee_
Expert on educating the gifted visits Cumberland Valley
"In spring of 2009, Joyce Van Tassel-Baska, a national expert on gifted education, visited the Cumberland Valley School District to review its gifted education program.   This week, Van Tassel-Baska, director of the College of William and Mary's Center for Gifted and Talented Education, returned for a post-research review of the district's gifted education program...   'The opportunities offered through the gifted program are not only serving the gifted, (but all students).'"

2011-02-24 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 383,998 in the week ending Feb. 19, a decrease of 40,404 from the previous week.   There were 454,492 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.6% during the week ending Feb. 12, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,536,884, a decrease of 35,422 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 4.3% and the volume was 5,546,408.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Feb 5 was 9,158,980.   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, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV, and WI, during the week ending February 5.   States reported 3,685,361 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Feb. 5, an increase of 55,757 from the prior week.   There were 5,479,190 claimants in the comparable week in 2010.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" changes
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03;
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25;
to 125,560,066 beginning 2011-01-15.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2011-02-24 05:55PST (08:55EST) (13:55GMT)
Toni Bowers _Tech Republic_/_CBS_
Why aren't more CEOs fired?
"Despite an environment of record lay-offs of workers, you don't hear very often about a CEO being fired.   Why is that? The past couple of years have set a record for employee lay-offs.   Unfortunately, because of this, news of lay-offs have all the shock value of a '78 degree and clear' weather forecast in San Francisco.   But what does perk interest is when a CEO is ousted from an organization.   Data shows that only 2% of Fortune 500 CEOs on average are fired every year.   It seems like a CEO can be the spawn of Satan and routinely taser his employees and still stay gainfully employed.   It's always seemed a little weird to me that a company can be bleeding money so much that they have to lay off 25% of their workforce but retain the CEO.   I understand that revenue loss is mainly due to uncontrollable economic conditions, but the management of the top guy or gal has to play into a poor financial picture more often than we are led to believe.   So what's the deal? Why aren't more CEOs ousted by their Board of Directors? Wharton finance professor Luke Taylor wondered this same thing.   He set out to model the decision to fire a CEO and quantify the forces at work.   One of the conclusions Taylor reached was that more CEOs aren't fired because of personal reasons, including the directors' own ties to the CEO, or considerations that firing the CEO may put their own jobs as directors at risk, or hurt their chances of being nominated to other boards."

2011-02-24
Kirsten Russo _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Diesel fuel prices continue to climb
"Though it can vary, drivers at most trucking companies travel about 500 miles each day and get an average of 7 miles to the gallon, said Sean McNally, spokesman for the American Trucking Association.   With diesel prices averaging $3.52 per gallon across the Midwest, that brings the total fuel bill to more than $250 per truck per day...   cars with diesel engines are about 25% more fuel-efficient than cars with gasoline engines.   Drivers of those diesel-powered cars and pickups also do not get the bulk-rate discounts that schools and trucking companies can get because they don't typically buy large quantities of diesel.   Even with the discounts, some of the larger school districts in Mahoning County are starting to feel the pinch.   Rich Archer, business manager for the Canfield Local School District, said the school buses in his district use about 60K gallons of diesel fuel each year.   At the school's bulk discounted rate, the most recent fuel shipment cost $3.10 per gallon.   Last year the shipments ranged from $1.79 to $2.59 per gallon.   Archer said that with the amount of fuel the district uses, the price increase between this year and last year -- about $78K -- is more than the salary equivalent of a full-time teacher and an aide."

2011-02-24
Patrick Barta & Geeta Anand _Wall Street Journal_
People in VietNam, Singapore, India protest rising food prices (with graph)
Arpan Kukherjee & Biman Mukherjee: WSJ: India government budget likely to include subsidies for food storage facilities
Yuriy Humber & Luzi Ann Javier: Bloomberg: Governments' attitudes toward food companies may make things worse
"China and India between them control 65% of global rice reserves and 42% of wheat, according to USDA data."

2011-02-24
Robert Stacy McCain _American Spectator_
Don't support union bosses? "Bad Jew!"
Michelle Malkin: Video: CWA union thug strikes young female FreedomWorks activist

2011-02-24
W. James Antle iii _American Spectator_
Left Turn: Dems refuse to learn from election

2011-02-24
David Wessel _Wall Street Journal_
Bernanke's "Tinker Bell" economics colors inflation expectations

2011-02-24 13:59PST (15:59EST) (20:59GMT)
Nick Sloan _Dallas Examiner_
Saudi national Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari arrested in Lubbock, TX for attempting to set off bombs
Wall Street Journal/AP
Richard A. Serrano: Los Angeles CA Times
Teresa Rivas: Barrons
Dallas Voice
Jeremy Pelofsky: Reuters
Richard Adams: Manchester Guardian
David Jackson: USA Today/Gannett
Aldawsari, 20, entered the USA on a student visa in 2008 October from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to study chemical engineering at Texas Tech University.   He later transferred to South Plains College at Levelland near Lubbock.   Aldawsari allegedly attempted to purchase phenol over the internet from Carolina Biological Supply of Burlington, NC, which reported the suspicious order.   Con-way Freight notified Lubbock police and the FBI of the suspicious order on the same day.   He apparently planned to hide bomb materials inside dolls and baby carriages to blow up dams, nuclear plants or the Dallas home of former president George W. Bush.

2011-02-24
Gavin Rabinowitz _Sydney Australia Morning Herald_
Israel responds to rocket attack from Gaza
Arieh O'Sullivan: Media Line
Boston Herald/AP: Netanyahu warns Hamas not to test Israel
USA Today/Gannett/AP
Ibrahim Barzak: NY News Day/AP

2011-02-24
Donald A. Collins _V Dare_
Dems and Reps ask, Why are so many politicians open border advocates?
"the disastrous 1986 amnesty for 3M illegal aliens resulted in over 12M illegal aliens here now, uncounted and unsought except when they murder someone or commit serious crimes."

2011-02-24
Katrina Trinko _National Review_
Wisconsin leftists and unions

2011-02-24
Marc Caputo _Miami Herald_
senator Marco Rubio warns of US government debt death spiral

2011-02-24 (5771 Adar1 20)
Caryle Murphy _Jewish World Review_
Will Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah's bribe of $36G in benefits work?
"After 3 months away, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz promised his subjects billions of dollars in new benefits as he returned home today to a region roiled by revolt.   As other leaders across the Middle East scurry to appease discontented citizens, the king introduced 19 new measures estimated to cost 135 riyals ($36G), according to John Sfakianakis, chief economist of Banque Sausi Fransi.   The measures address inflation and housing, expand social security benefits, and ease unemployment and education costs -- 2 areas of particular concern to Saudi youths."

2011-02-24 (5771 Adar1 20)
Robert Marquand _Jewish World Review_
Why upheaval in the Arab world was met with slow, tepid response from the EU

2011-02-24 (5771 Adar1 20)
Greg Gordon _Jewish World Review_
Families of Lockerbie dead out to make sure Gadhafi is held accountable
"A boast from Libya's defected justice minister that he can prove that Moammar Gadhafi ordered the 1988 bombing of a U.S. jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, stirred hope among families of the 270 dead that the rogue dictator might be held accountable someday."

2011-02-24 (5771 Adar1 20)
George Friedman _Jewish World Review_/_Strat For_
Revolution and the Muslim world
"There have been moments in history where revolution spread in a region or around the world as if it were a wildfire.   These moments do not come often.   Those that come to mind include 1848, where a rising in France [and the Frankfurter Verein] engulfed Europe.   There was also 1968, where the demonstrations of what we might call the New Left swept the world: Mexico City, Paris, New York and hundreds of other towns saw anti-war revolutions staged by Marxists and other radicals.   Prague saw the Soviets smash a New Leftist government.   Even China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution could, by a stretch, be included.   In 1989, a wave of unrest, triggered by East Germans wanting to get to the West, generated an uprising in Eastern Europe that overthrew Soviet rule.   Each had a basic theme.   The 1848 uprisings attempted to establish liberal democracies in nations that had been submerged in the reaction to Napoleon.   1968 was about radical [leftism] in capitalist society.   1989 was about the over-throw of communism.   They were all more complex than that, varying from country to country.   But in the end, the reasons behind them could reasonably be condensed into a sentence or two...   The key principle that appears to be driving the risings is a feeling that the regimes, or a group of individuals within the regimes, has deprived the public of political and, more important, economic rights -- in short, that they enriched themselves beyond what good taste permitted...   Any regime dominated by a small group of people over time will see that group use their position to enrich themselves."

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

"[M]ost American organizations use performance & quality information not to improve performance & quality, but in an attempt to control employees.   This is done by monitoring & evaluating employees..." --- Marshall Sishkin & Kenneth J. Kiser 1992 _Total Quality Management_ pg 62

 
 

2011-02-25

2011-02-25
_Global Post_
Red Chinese censorship still batty
Petar Kujundzic: Reuters
Alison Diana: Information Week
Bloomberg
Gady Epstein: Forbes
Michael Kan: PC World/IDG
Michael Kan: PC World/IDG: Jasmine Revolution
Jo Ling Kent: CNN
"[Red China] is clenching its fist around the internet.   It has censored the name of the U.S. ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, who was spotted near anti-government protests earlier in the week, and also apparently blocked LinkedIn, the professional networking site, for more than 24 hours.   The online censorship coincides with a rash of detentions following a call for 'Jasmine Revolution' gatherings to press the Communist Party to make way for democratic change."

2011-02-25
Ed Kemmick _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Harsh winter breaks city's snow-removal budget
"Public Works Director Dave Mumford said Thursday that the city has exceeded its $750K snow-plowing budget by $369,457, for a spending total of $1,119,457."

2011-02-25 04:53PST (07:53EST) (12:53GMT)
Julie Pace _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_
As corporate profits rise and Wall Street earnings soar, president Barack Obama is pressing American business leaders to create more jobs and find ways for struggling middle-class families to share in the nation's economic recovery

2011-02-25 05:20PST (08:20EST) (13:20GMT)
Mike Pare _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
Chattanooga striving to move from 7th to smartest city
Chattanooga TN Times Free Press
"Chattanooga's ranking in ICF's top 7 was bolstered by EPB's fully accessible, 1-gigabit residential Internet service, officials said.   Also mentioned was improved air quality, downtown revitalization and better standards for secondary education with integrated career training...   U.S. senator Bob Corker, R-TN, cited such city efforts as developing Enterprise South industrial park, downtown's renaissance, marketing its natural outdoor attractions and the SIM Center among others...   Robert Bell, ICF's co-founder, said an international jury of 200 people will vote on the top city and that will combine with scores from a research company to come up with a winner.   Last year's #1 was Suwon, South Korea."

2011-02-25 05:24PST (08:24EST) (13:24GMT)
Joan Verdon _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_Hackensack NJ Record_/_McClatchy_
Cotton price rise putting pinch on manufacturers and clothing shops
"cotton prices that have jumped more than 130% in a year to the highest prices per pound since the Civil War, but retailers and manufacturers say that probably will change when fall merchandise begins arriving in stores.   A decrease in the cotton supply because of poor crops and reduced planting in response to the recession, rising labor costs in [Red China] and India, and renewed demand for apparel as the economy recovers, have combined to make cotton a hot commodity...   Analysts are predicting clothing prices will rise 10% in the Fall.   Sareen, however, said increases ultimately could be even higher."
Peter B. Lord: Providence RI Journal: Suspicious fire guts closed textile mill in Woonsocket

2011-02-25 08:03PST (11:03EST) (16:03GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index from 74.2 in January to 75.1 in early February to 77.5 in late February
Federal Reserve Board St. Louis

2011-02-25 08:12PST (11:12EST) (16:12GMT)
Jeffry Bartash _MarketWatch_
2010Q4 GDP grew 2.8%

2011-02-25 09:20PST (12:20EST) (17:29GMT)
Jim Abrams _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_
House Republicans say partial federal government shut-down as alternative to modest spending cuts would be irresponsible
Jason Scott: Cumberland PA Sentine/Lee

2011-02-25
Brett French _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
12% of elk in Ruby Valley were positive for brucellosis in initial field tests
"The initial blood testing indicates if an animal has been exposed to the disease and does not mean the animal is infected and can spread the disease, Anderson explained.   The cow elk that tested positive in the field and that were pregnant were given tracking devices that will be expelled when they give birth.   It's believed that birth material is the most common means of transmitting brucellosis.   After being tested in the field, all of the blood samples were sent to the Montana Department of Livestock Diagnostic Laboratory for further testing.   After being tested in the field, all of the blood samples were sent to the Montana Department of Livestock Diagnostic Laboratory for further testing.   8 cow elk tested positive for exposure in the field, 6 of which were pregnant and received the tracking device.   The Livestock Department lab was where the additional four positives were discovered. The samples that tested positive on the full panel of tests at the Livestock Department lab will now be sent to a laboratory at Louisiana State University for an additional test to determine if false positive results may have occurred."

2011-02-25 11:00PST (14:00EST) (19:00GMT)
Steven Callegan _CourtHouse News Service_
Large-scale visa fraud alleged at Infosys
Daniel Shane: Information Age
"'During one of the meetings, Infosys management, discussed the need to, and ways to, creatively get around the H-1B limitations and process and to work the system in order to increase profits and the value of Infosys' stock.   The decision was made by management to start using the B-1 visa program to get around the H-1B restrictions.'"

2011-02-25 11:45PST (14:45EST) (19:45GMT)
Mike Swift _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
Google messes with search results prioritization scheme, again
Thomas Claburn: Information Week/UBM
"What Google called 'a major improvement' was designed to highlight sites with high-quality content and will noticeably affect about 12% of all U.S. searches.   It is also a clear signal that the company was also concerned about the problem.   Google Fellow Amit Singhal, who is in charge of Google's search algorithm, said in an interview Thursday that Google recognized the problem more than 15 months ago, and has been working on a solution long before the current wave of criticism."
ixquick web search

2011-02-25
Michael Whipple _US Action News_
Wisconsin passes bill to protect the people from unions
Canada Free Press

2011-02-25
William L. Anderson
Krugman thinks he discovered "dastardly plot" in Wisconsin
"George Soros -- who really does bankroll internationalist groups that believe that what we need is One Single Bureaucracy to rule over us all -- gives more money to his 'causes' in a year than the Koch brothers have given in their life-times."

2011-02-25 (5771 Adar1 21)
Warren Richey _Jewish World Review_/_Strat For_
American jihadi gets 25 years for "South Park", FB death threats, and material support for Somalia-based terrorists

2011-02-25 (5771 Adar1 21)
Richard Z. Chesnoff _Jewish World Review_/_Strat For_
Inside Muammar's Mad-House

2011-02-25 (5771 Adar1 21)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_/_Strat For_
A first taste of the New Middle East: The academic president who theorized that diplomacy-by-apology was more powerful than governing-by-strength is being outmaneuvered -- and outright humiliated -- by Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Fatah
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-02-25 (5771 Adar1 21)
R' David Aaron _Jewish World Review_/_Strat For_
Successful people are unaccomplished: Taking time for what matters on Shabbat

Proposed Bills 2011

2011-02-25

DJIA	12,130.45
S&P 500(SPX)	1,319.88
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,781.05
Nikkei	10,527
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	3.42
crude oil(CLJ11)	$97.88/barrel
natgas(NGH11)	$4.005/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RBH11)	$2.9086/gal
heatingoil(HOH11)	$2.9455/gal
gold(GCG11)	$1,409.30/ounce
silver(SIH11)	$32.90/ounce
platinum(PLJ11)	$1,794.28/ounce
palladium(PAF11)	$784.36/ounce
copper(HGH11)	$0.27834375/ounce
soybeans	$13.75/bushel
maize	$7.22/bushel
wheat	$8.1125/bushel
dollarindex(DXY)	77.21
yenperdollar(USDYEN)	81.68
dollarspereuro(EURUSD)	1.3747
dollarsperpound(GBPUSD)	1.6888
swissfrancsperdollar	0.9284
indianrupeesperdollar	45.25
mexicanpesosperdollar(MXN)	12.1043
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	703.65

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

"When you plan your next project, leave time at the end to administer a brief evaluation to the people involved.   Remember to include these basic questions: What worked?   What didn't?   What could have been done better?   What are some specific suggestions for improvement?   Then take time to read over the answers, asking what you learned from the experience.   Before beginning your next project, reflect on these lessons & include them in your plans." --- Diane Dreher 1996 _The Tao of Personal Leadership_ pg 61

 
 

2011-02-26

2011-02-26
Denise Dick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
HS students vie in bridge-building competition
"Teams of 3 high-school students huddled over drawings and matchstick-sized pieces of balsa wood, carefully assembling the parts.   They were participating in the Mahoning Valley Miniature Bridge Building Competition on Friday in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center at Youngstown State University.   The objective was to design and build a span with the highest load-to-weight capacity ratio...   Teams were given 3 hours to build their bridges and another hour to allow the glue to dry.   Then came judging to determine how much weight each span can hold.   Judges start with a 10-pound weight in a bucket and keep adding weight until each bridge breaks.   The structure with the highest load-to-weight-capacity ratio wins."

2011-02-26
_Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Chicks in Science
video

2011-02-26
David Skolnick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
senator Portman promotes industry at V&M Star
"He said he will oppose imposing onerous environmental rules that could hamper progress and growth in natural-gas drilling and industries in the Valley...   The company chose the Mahoning Valley location for the expansion 'not only because of the development of the Marcellus Shale gas reserves but also because of the knowledge and skill set of our Youngstown employees and the extraordinary cooperation we received from local, state and federal officials.', said Joel Mastervich, V&M Star's president and chief operating officer in a prepared statement Friday...   There is great potential for natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, a rock layer that is under several states including Ohio and Pennsylvania, Portman said.   There is also great potential to drill in the Utica Shale, a rock layer below Marcellus, he said."

2011-02-26
Ellis Washington _World Net Daily_
Democracy to mobocracy to genocide

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

"By ignoring the learning curve, orthodox economics negates the very thing that is unique about human economics -- the capacity to respond to experience with intelligence & creativity." --- Michael Rothschild 1992 _Bionomics_ pg 183

 
 

2011-02-27

2011-02-27
Dina Kraft _NY Times_
rediscovery of color "tekhelet"

2011-02-27 15:09PST (18:09EST) (23:09GMT)
Michael Carl _World Net Daily_
Islamic indoctrination on U.S. tax-victims' tab: Guelen called 'most dangerous Islamist in the world'

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

"If progress is believed possible, it will likely be sought; & if it is looked for, there is some possibility of finding it...   The assumption that continual progress can occur may also create an atmosphere which encourages uncovering ideas or recognizing them when stumbled upon... &nnbsp; Conversely, if betterment is not believed possible, then the incentive to seek improvement is reduced, & an atmosphere of maintaining the status quo is encouraged." --- Winfred B. Hirschmann 1964-01-?? "Profit from the Learning Curve" _Harvard Business Review_ pp 134-136 (quoted in Michael Rothschild 1992 _Bionomics_ pg 197)

 
 

2011-02-28

2011-02-28
_Youngstown OH Vindicator_/_AP_
Joule Unlimited has developed an organism that produces ethanol or diesel fuel from CO₂, water and sun-light

2011-02-27 22:52PST (2011-02-28 01:52EST) (2011-02-28 06:52GMT)
Dave Gibson _Examiner_
Clinton Roy Perkins sentenced to 18 months in prison and a fine of $465,178 for hiring illegal aliens at 2 Chicago bodyshops
MMD News Wire

2011-02-28 07:30PST (10:30EST) (15:30GMT)
Tim Johnson _Burlington VT Free Press_
Higher Ed Finances
"Consider the compendium of higher ed stats released earlier this month by the National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], the latest in a series of 'First Look' reports based on data from more than 6,700 institutions nationwide.   Among the findings is that public institutions, on average, received about 20% of their revenue in the form of tuition and fees.   By contrast, the tuition/fees share at Vermont State Colleges is about 80%.   And at the University of Vermont, about 57% of the Fiscal Year 2010 general fund budget of $289M came from tuition and fees -- 50% from out-of-state students alone."
NCES report (pdf)

2011-02-28 08:31PST (11:31EST) (16:31GMT)
_Fox_
illegal immigrant convicted of murder has been set free pending deportation proceedings

2011-02-28 14:06PST (17:06EST) (22:06GMT)
Dave Gibson _Examiner_
On Friday, Apolinare Collado, 43, pleaded guilty to $1.6M of food stamp fraud through Hartford, CT groceries

2011-02-28
Rob Rikoon _Santa Fe New Mexican_
Why official economic indicators don't align with reality
"Inflation numbers have been under-reported for 40 years, with each successive administration adding to the mirage...   I am not quite sure what will give out first -- the international money funding our fantasy or our tolerance of being lied to.   We aren't forced, on a daily basis, to feel the pain that may be required to take the cure that reality would prescribe: living within our means and doing what it takes to be sustainably productive."

2011-02-28
Rupa Subramanya Dehejia _Wall Street Journal_
Why migrant workers can't find work in India
"This is the reality in India's major cities: a poor migrant worker pounding the pavement is unable to find gainful employment, while a construction foreman next door is looking for a skilled welder or brick-layer -- but the job goes unfilled...   Bihari migrant workers unable to find unskilled jobs in Mumbai, and at the same time the inability of would-be employers to find semi-skilled and skilled workers to fill vacant positions...   one exacerbates the other...   Rigid labor laws [in India] make it difficult to fire workers, and, therefore, employers are reluctant to hire them in the first place."

2011-02-28
Reeve Hamilton _Texas Tribune_
Are illegal aliens importing diseases?

2011-02-28
Holbrook Mohr _abc_/_AP_
after raid, women file law-suit against Howard Industries in MS for favoring illegal aliens in hiring

2011-02-28
Patrick J. Buchanan _V Dare_
Why Wisconsin's governor Scott Walker must win

2011-02-28
Jed Babbin _American Spectator_
Fear and Loathing on the Arab Trail

2011-02-28 (5771 Adar1 24)
Paul Richter & David S. Cloud _Jewish World Review_/_Strat For_
Obama looks to Europe to take principal role in Libyan crisis

2011-02-28 (5771 Adar1 24)
Hannah Allam _Jewish World Review_/_Strat For_
At long last, a reporter gets an unfiltered look at Libya

2011-02-28 (5771 Adar1 24)
Kim Murphy _Jewish World Review_/_Strat For_
In Jordan, King Abdullah ii getting earful from tribal leaders

Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

"One of the evidences of a good analysis process is the improvement of existing procedures, independent of, & generally long before, the implementation of a new computer application." --- George Koch & Kevin Loney 1995 _Oracle: The Complete Reference (v7.2)_ pg 593

 
 

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Proposed Bills 2011

Congressional candidate fund-raising, expenditures, and debt
 

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

"To improve the golden moment of opportunity & catch the good that is within our reach is the great art of life." --- Samuel Johnson (quoted in Alexandra Stoddard 1995 _The Art of the Possible_ pg 243)

Movies Coming Soon
 

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