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updated: 2021-03-26
 

"It may be heuristically useful to keep in mind what one has observed.   But on principle it is quite wrong to try grounding a theory on observable quantities alone.   In reality the opposite happens.   it is the theory which determines what we can observe [what we are likely to notice]." --- Albert Einstein (quoted in Michael A. Cremo, Richard L. Thompson & Stephen Bernath 1993, 1998 _Forbidden Archeology_ pg23; citing S.G. Brush 1974 "Should the history of science be rated X?" _Science_ vol183 pg1167)

 
 

2011 Nov

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

 

"Place names ending in ham, the Old English for 'settlement', indicate an Anglo-Saxon origin -- as in Durham, Clapham, or Sandringham.   Other Anglo-Saxon endings include ing (as in Reading), stowe (as in Felixstowe), stead (as in Hampstead), and ton (as in Kingston).   Viking settlements can be identified by the ending by, which originally meant a farm (as in Whitby, Derby, or Grimsby); and other Danish endings include thorpe (as in Scunthorpe), toft, meaning a plot of land (as in Lowestoft), and scale, meaning a temporary hut or shelter (as in Windscale)." --- Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger 1999, 2000 _The Year 1K: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium: An Englishman's World_ pg41

 
 
 

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

2011-11-01

2011-11-01 10:51PDT (13:51EDT) (17:51GMT) (20:51 Jerusalem)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_
Site Selection magazine said TN has 8th best business climate in USA

2011-11-01 11:26PDT (14:26EDT) (18:26GMT) (21:26 Jerusalem)
Scott Lowe _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
What you should consider when venturing off on your own?

2011-11-01
Nicole Ferraro _Internet Evolution_/_UBM_
White House's false claims of openness and transparency
"The first round of 'official responses' has come in, and they've officially proven me -- and anyone else skeptical of this transparency toy -- right, in that they are hardly more than paragraphs of prepackaged White House/[politician-]speak...   'We petition the [Obummer] administration to: Actually take these petitions seriously instead of just using them as an excuse to pretend you are listening'...   That same question goes for any company that does the same -- one that hosts an externally facing blog but doesn't encourage or allow participation..."

2011-11-01
Michelle Hirsch _Fiscal Times_
Baby boom crisis: Over 55 and desperate for employment
"But that's scant solace to aging Baby Boomers who lost their jobs and can't find new ones.   Only 50% of job-seekers in their 50s and early 60s are finding employment within two-years compared with roughly 90% of workers 20 to 65 who do, according to data from Nicole Maestas, a senior economist at RAND.   Of course, unemployed older workers have always faced discrimination in the job market because they have higher salary expectations and employers are reluctant to hire someone they consider 'over-qualified' for lower-paying work.   But now they face another hurdle: competition from other boomers."

2011-11-01
Goldie Blumenstyk _Chronicle of Higher Education_
150 universities reported just under $1.8G from licensing of intellectual property last year

2011-11-01 16:00PDT (19:00EDT) (23:00GMT) (2011-11-02 02:00 Jerusalem)
_Investor's Business Daily_
Nasty Pelosi vs. jobs
"The ex-House Speaker who promised millions of jobs from ObummerDoesn'tCare says that not creating jobs is better than creating non-union jobs.   But then she also believes unemployment checks grow the economy."

2011-11-01
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Leftists have undermined education in the USA

2011-11-01
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
ObummerSpeak
HolderSpeak

2011-11-01
Mark J. Perry
Does Red Chinese currency manipulation benefit US consumers and businesses?

2011-11-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 81,680 job ads

2011-11-01 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 04)
Edmund Sanders & Paul Richter _Jewish World Review_
US government cut off funding to UNESCO after it admitted Palestine
"The UNESCO action triggered U.S. laws from the early 1990s that bar Washington from giving money to any UN body that grants state status to Palestine."

2011-11-01 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 04)
Frank J. Gaffney ii _Jewish World Review_
The enemy is inside the wire: Shariah front groups now over-see fed's counter-extremism training

2011-11-01 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 04)
Warren Richey _Jewish World Review_
Did Supremes leave issue of crosses on public land in a shambles?
"The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request to take up 2 cases examining whether officials in Utah violated the [establishment and free exercise clauses] when they authorized the placement of 13 white crosses on public roadsides and other property as memorials to fallen state troopers.   The court's rejection of the case leaves in place a circuit court ruling that would require the removal or dismantling of the crosses...   Utah officials had urged the justices to use the case to identify a new legal framework to decide disputes involving displays on public property featuring crosses, the Ten Commandments, holiday creches, menorahs, and signs with religious or quasi-religious messages.   Apparently, the only justice willing to take up that project was Clarence Thomas, who issued a 19-page dissent to the high court's refusal to hear the Utah cross cases.   'Today, the court rejects an opportunity to provide clarity to an establishment clause jurisprudence in shambles.', Justice Thomas wrote.   He said the Supreme Court's approach to such cases 'has confounded the lower courts and rendered the constitutionality of displays of religious imagery on government property anyone's guess'."

2011-11-01 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 04)
Kalyani Vittala _Jewish World Review_
Is Canada's oil more or less ethican than Saudi Arabia's?

2011-11-01 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 04)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Liberty vs. democracy vs. mob rule
"Sloppy words and sloppy thinking often go together, both in the mobs and in the media that are covering them.   It is common, for example, to hear in the media how some 'protesters' were arrested.   But anyone who reads this column regularly knows that I protest against all sorts of things -- and don't get arrested.   The difference is that I don't block traffic, join mobs sleeping over-night in parks or urinate in the street.   If the media cannot distinguish between protesting and disturbing the peace, then their education may also have wasted a lot of [tax-victims'] money...   'Greed' says how much you want.   But you can become the greediest person on earth and that will not increase your pay in the slightest.   It is what other people pay you [or how much you can rob from them using force and fraud] that increases your income."
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-02

2011-11-01 17:01PDT (2011-11-01 20:01EDT) (2011-11-02 00:01GMT) (03:01 Jerusalem)
Jonathan Mattise _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
Thomas Rooney filed bill in US House aimed at opening up energy resources and creating jobs

2011-11-01 21:01PDT (2011-11-02 00:01EDT) (2011-11-02 04:01GMT) (2011-11-02 07:01 Jerusalem)
_Cherokee GA Tribune_
Only in the USA do illegal aliens feel they are entitled to privileged treatment
"The 3, all of whom had been arrested on various forgery, driving and shop-lifting violations, sued Cobb county sheriff Neil Warren, Cobb county commission chairman Tim Lee and others claiming their Miranda 'rights' had been violated; claiming the police had illegally seized immigration documents that would have allowed them to stay here; and had denied them access to lawyers.   Funny thing about that last allegation -- they didn't seem to have any trouble finding one to take their case, did they?   In essence, the three and their attorney were trying to have the federal 287(g) program employed by [Cobb county's] sheriff declared unconstitutional."

2011-11-02
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Hira vs. Wadhwa, Round 2
 
Some of you will recall the infamous CNBC debate between professor Ron Hira of RIT and Vivek Wadha, a former tech [bodyshop] CEO turned tech commentator and academic researcher, chronicled in my posting.
 
Well, a few days ago the 2 went at it again, this time on CNN.   The word "xenophobia" came up several times, as it did in Round 1.   More on this point later.
 
Apparently a significant amount of the material at the above URL was deleted, but you can infer some of it by reading Don Tennant's column on the incident.
 
I've praised Don here before, and I've continued to find him to be exceptionally astute.   Though I think he would admit to being biased a bit in favor of the industry, he usually makes a genuine attempt to be open-minded.   In this instance, though, Don dropped the ball.   [I disagree WRT Don Tennant.   I don't find him to be the least bit "astute" or "open-minded".   It is my impression that he has had a fixed agenda all along, and just keeps on pounding the drum and yodeling "lalala" to himself like a 3-year-old to block his hearing of evidence that does not support his assertions.   Many people have sent him such evidence (besides you and Kim and Rob and me) with all the neat source citations and methodologies, and he fails or refuses to mention it or show any sign of considering it.   We have had a word for this since the late 1980s on usenet.   DT appears to be a troll.   And the first rule is "don't feed the troll".   Don't respond to it.   Don't encourage it.   Don't give it the satisfaction of seeing that you're riled.   Just shun it, and discovering that it can't get what it wants by such behavior, it will go away...jgo]
 
Ron had stated during the interview that many major U.S. firms have a policy to hire foreign workers in lieu of Americans.   Don considered this to be an "outrageous" claim, one that would greatly undermine Ron's message.
 
In the Comments section of the above web page, several readers objected, and in his replies Don worsened the situation by challenging the readers to file whistle-blower complaints against the alleged offender employers.   That remark really shocked me, as Don should know that hiring an H-1B instead of an American, or replacing an American worker by an H-1B, is perfectly legal.   (There is a minuscule exception to the former.)
 
Back to the displacement/replacement issue, Don wrote in response to one reader,
 
Of course American workers are being displaced, Roy.   Of course they are.
 
But he claimed that this is not being done as a matter of deliberate policy.   I'm curious as to how he thinks it might NOT be deliberate.   How could this be the case?   These firms have highly professional HR staffs.
 
Let's focus this discussion with a specific example, the [Bank of India], one of the firms Ron cited.   Here's an excerpt of what I wrote after Round 1:
 
1. In 1997, the following report came out (Michael Liedtke, "[BofI] Tech Workers Fear Jobs Heading Off to India", Contra Costa Times (East San Francisco Bay Area newspaper), 1997 April 27):
 
[Bank of India's] technology center is in the early stages of an unsettling cost-cutting experiment.   The San Francisco-based bank is asking its computer engineers in [Concord, CA] to under-mine their own job security by helping to train potential replacment workers imported from India before shipping an untold number of positions over-seas...
 
The bank also maintains none of its [Concord, CA] employees will be dropped from the pay-roll if the pilot program with the India workers proves to be a success.
 
That latter statement by the bank proved to be false.   After completion of the out-sourcing program, the bank did indeed lay off its IT workers in [Concord, CA] and elsewhere in 2002 (Jim Gardner, "Bank job: You're Fired, Now Go Train Your Replacement" San Francisco Business Times 2002 November 22):
 
Spreading some pre-holiday cheer, [Bank of India] this week announced that it is cutting 900 tech positions -- with the twist that some lay-off victims have to help train replacements if they want to get severance pay...
 
The job cuts, 232 of them in the Bay Area, come as [BofI] is out-sourcing an increasing amount of tech work abroad, particularly to India.   That has earned the Charlotte, NC-based institution the nickname of Bank of India among disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-employees.
 
Sure enough, dozens of Indian tech workers have been visiting [BofI's] major tech centers in [Concord, CA]; Jacksonville, FL, and other cities around the country recently.   They're getting training on work they'll do back at home for about half what departing employees are paid.   The bank confirms that some laid-off workers are being required to help train new ones (and not speak to the media) as a condition of receiving severance...
 
2. The [BofI] did the same thing in Charlotte, converting jobs from [BofI] to HCL (an out-sourcing firm).   The workers were still working AT the [BofI], but technically not FOR the [BofI] -- and soon afterward, they weren't working at all, because HCL replaced them with H-1Bs for literally half their salaries.   This is detailed in the excellent case study by the Programmers Guild, titled, How to Under-Pay an H-1B.
 
Come on, Don, what do you see in the above that you think might not be deliberate?   Granted, some of this is off-shoring rather than H-1B per se, but the 2 are linked, as Ron's research has shown.   Moreover, the main-stream U.S. firms underpay their H-1Bs and green card sponsorees (see below); how could this possibly be anything other than deliberate policy?
 
Now concerning the xenophobia charges: I've been actively working against xenophobia/racism (they're treated synonymously these days) all my adult life (see my bio).   Accordingly, I'm quite sensitive to this issue, and contrary to claims that Don has made publicly and to me privately that there is a strong streak of unhealthy race attitudes pervading the H-1B reform movement, I simply have not seen it.   Yes, once in a while, but nothing pervasive, and certainly nothing more than I hear on occasion in so-called genteel society: my faculty colleagues, my liberal friends and neighbors -- and maybe among politicians.
 
Concerning the latter, there has been an alarming trend the last few years to cast the H-1B/green card issue as what I call "Intels versus Infosyses", symbolizing the U.S. versus Indian firms.   The Intels are portrayed as the Good Guys and the Infosyses as the Bad Guys (or as my academic colleague Lindsay Lowell recently put it, the Good Actors versus the Bad Actors).   Representative Lofgren's automatic green card bill makes this very explicit in all senses except using the word "Indian".   Don Tennant himself strongly holds this notion.
 
[Yes, there are probably a few good executives and managers who make use of H-1B visas only after they have made an industrious and honest effort to recruit, relocate and train capable US talent, and only use them to bring in the truly best and brightest -- people with IQs above 160 and unique technical knowledge and creative insights in some unique niche.   And there are others like MSFT, IBM, Infosys, Tata, Accenture, Wipro, Robert Half, Perot Systems, Boeing, EDS, BEA, BAE, Siemens, and various US universities for whom abuse of B-1, H-1B, J, and L visas amounts to a core business plan focused on cheap, pliant labor that will do essentially anything with no consideration of ethics, and work under poorer conditions...jgo]
 
Note carefully that I'm not saying that Don or Lindsay or Zoe Lofgren are anti-Indian, but if they're going to take this kind of stance in such a racially sensitive context, they had better make darn sure they are on firm ground, i.e. that the Intels really are angels while the Infosyses are devils in terms of H-1B/green card issues.
 
The fact is that abuse of H-1B/green cards is commonplace among the American firms.   That has been clear to those on the ground for years (see David Huber's sad encounter with Cisco, the Cohen & Grigsby law firm videos, Vivek'S frank admission that he himself under-paid H-1Bs when he was a CEO in North Carolina, etc.), and I showed it quantitatively in this past summer's Sloan conference; see my statistical analysis (pdf).   Yes, the Indian firms tend to hire workers at much lower salaries than the American firms do, but that's because the Indian hires tend to be of much lower quality, e.g. Bachelor's degrees instead of Baster's.   But BOTH the Indian firms AND the American firms are under-paying their foreign workers, the data show.
 
Terms like "xenophobia" and "racism" are easy to toss around, but one should make accusations very carefully, and above all one should put one's own house in order first.
 
Norm
---30---

2011-11-02 06:11PDT (09:11EDT) (13:11GMT) (16:11 Jerusalem)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
CGC: 42,759 planned lay-offs were announced in October
Julie Steinberg: Dow Jones/FINS
UPI
Mary Ann Milbourn: Orange county CA Register
Ron Scherer: Christian Science Monitor
South Florida Business Journal
Michigan Business Review
CNN/Chicago Tribune
Deutsche-Boerse
Wichita KS Eagle & Beacon
"'Anticipated cuts at the U.S. Post Office alone could result in more than 200K job cuts.', said Challenger."
521,823 year to date
7,194 in CA
2,188 in NC
1,500 in VA
1,208 in GA
942 in Florida
172 in Ohio
2,785 government
1,162 telecomm
1,207 electronics
497 financial
361 computer

2011-11-02 07:49PDT (10:49EDT) (14:49GMT) (17:49 Jerusalem)
Kara Reeder _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
600K FB accounts hacked per day, and that doesn't include the privacy loss by users to FB itself

2011-11-02 12:56:18PDT (15:56:18EDT) (19:56:18GT) (22:56:18 Jerusalem)
Dana Hull _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Solyndra execs gave themselves hefty bonuses in months before filing bankruptcy

composite: "Karen Alter, Solyndra's vice president of marketing, had an annual base salary of $275K; she was awarded a $55K bonus in April and again in July.   Ben Bierman, Solyndra's executive vice president of operations and engineering, had an annual base salary of $300K; he was awarded $60K in April and again in July.   Will Stover, the company's chief financial officer, was also awarded a $60K bonus in April and again in July...   Chris Gronet, was terminated July 1, almost 2 months before Solyndra announced he was leaving.   He received $456K in severance, documents show."

2011-11-02 14:31PDT (17:31EDT) (21:31GMT) (2011-11-02 00:31 Jerusalem)
Brien Posey _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
10 tips for breaking in new IT staffers

2011-11-02
Mark J. Perry
Costs to produce in KWh of electricity by various means

2011-11-02
Mark J. Perry
Collegiage Bead moved manufacturing back to USA

2011-11-02
Mark J. Perry
ND & MI are recovering most quickly

2011-11-02
Mark J. Perry
Rates of change in home ownership

2011-11-02
Mark J. Perry
Matt Ridley: I can't find one piece of data supporing warmism

2011-11-02
Liz Peek _Fiscal Times_
Inflation: As the dollar sinks, so goes the recovery

2011-11-02
William L. Anderson
The lure of inflation

2011-11-02 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 05)
R' Joshua Hess _Jewish World Review_
Blitzing for the Lord
"For the uninitiated, 'Tebowing' is defined as, 'to get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different'...   The definition and concept of 'Tebowing' as well as its name are the brainchild of Denver native, Jared Kleinstein, who now runs the popular web-site Tebowing.com.   On it you can find hundreds of 'up to the minute' uploads of people 'Tebowing'.   Among the many pictures, is one of a young boy 'Tebowing' while under-going chemotherapy, which actually caught Tebow's attention.   I find the pictures amusing, cute and mostly done in good taste...   The Talmud teaches, 'Mitoch Shelo Lishma Ba Lishma'.   This means that if a person, initially, develops good habits or good behaviors for the 'wrong' reasons, eventually he will begin to do those same behaviors for the 'right' reasons.   Based on this concept, the great philosopher Maimonides asserts that people should be encouraged to fulfill the Lord's will by being offered incentives for religious observance."

2011-11-02 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 05)
Mark Clayton _Jewish World Review_
Red Chinese hackers engaged in industrial espionage of USA
"Dozens of chemical companies and other industrial firms worldwide were hit this summer by highly focused cyberattacks controlled by [Red Chinese] hackers, according to a new report.   The cyberattacks, which began in July and lasted through mid-September, appeared to be a concerted industrial spying effort targeting proprietary designs, formulas, and manufacturing processes, says the report by Symantec, a computer security firm in Cupertino, CA.   Affected companies included a number of Fortune 100 companies involved in research and development of advanced materials, often for military or industrial purposes...   'The [Red Chinese government] encourages economic espionage [for illicit acquisition of technology], but that does not mean it directs all economic espionage.'"

2011-11-02 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 05)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Democracy is impossible
"It's good to see the removal of a tyrant, but if we're going to be realistic, there's little hope for the emergence of what we in the West call a democracy.   Let's look at it.   Throughout most of mankind's history, personal liberty, private property rights and rule of law have always won a hostile reception.   There's little older in most of human history than: the notion that a few people are to give orders while others obey those orders; the political leadership classes are exempt from laws that the masses are obliged to heed; and the rights of individuals are only secondary to the rights of the state.   The exception to this vision feebly emerged in the West, mainly in England, in 1215 with the Magna Carta, a charter that limited the power of the king and required him to proclaim and recognize the liberties of English subjects.   The Magna Carta served as inspiration for other instruments of personal liberty, such as habeas corpus and bills of rights, and five centuries later served as inspiration for the U.S. Constitution.   The ideas of liberty and limited government were cultivated by great British philosophers -- such as Francis Bacon, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and David Hume -- and on the Continent by the likes of Baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.   Through the works of Western philosophers and the politicians influenced by them, including the founders of our nation, the idea emerged that political leaders couldn't run roughshod over the common man.   The key point to recognize is that Western transition from barbarism to civility didn't take place overnight; it took centuries.   More importantly, for the most part Western civility and its institutions were not transplanted; they emerged from within Western civilization.   Where they were successfully transplanted, it was done through Western colonialism, such as in the cases of the U.S.A., Canada and Australia."

2011-11-02 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 05)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
pay-day loans
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-03

2011-11-03 05:00PDT (08:00EDT) (12:00GMT) (15:00 Jerusalem)
David Gewirtz _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Stop Online Piracy Act (HR3261) may strangle the net or curtail freedom of speech
HR3261: Lamar Smith of TX: stop on-line piracy and strangle free speech in the process

2011-11-03 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (15:30 Jerusalem)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 366,923 in the week ending October 29, a decrease of 10,433 from the previous week.   There were 421,097 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5% during the week ending October 22, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,178,790, a decrease of 16,241 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.0% and the volume was 3,759,365.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending October 15 was 6,781,960, an increase of 103,117 from the previous week.   Extended benefits were available in AL, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending October 15.   States reported 2,945,642 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending October 15, an increase of 23,705 from the prior week.   There were 3,978,374 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" (the divisor) 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;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2011-11-03 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (15:30 Jerusalem)
Lauren McLane _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
proposed gerrymandering scheme splits towns, counties
"The proposed districts give new meaning to the term 'gerry-mandering' -- a term coined in 1812 to describe a district that curved like a salamander and was named for Elbridge Gerry, the then-governor of Massachusetts who authorized it -- by meandering across municipal and county boundaries willy-nilly."

2011-11-03 06:00PDT (09:00EDT) (13:00GMT) (16:00 Jerusalem)
Joseph Cress _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Restoration of Molly Pitcher memorial to be unveiled
"'Sergeant Molly' never trained to be a soldier, but she rests among the other veterans buried in the Old Graveyard in Carlisle."

2011-11-03 06:23PDT (09:23EDT) (13:23GMT) (16:23 Jerusalem)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
At this rate full employment is 12 years away (with graph)
graphs

2011-11-03
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
Sugar beet harvest winding down in good shape

2011-11-03
_National Organization for Software & Technology Professionals_
22 illegal aliens from India arrested in UK
"22 Indians have been arrested over the past 5 weeks by Britain's immigration authorities for working illegally in the country, and the UK Border Agency is now working to deport them from the country.   The illegal workers were arrested in enforcement operations on businesses and private addresses across England, Wales and Scotland.   These businesses now face fines of up to 10K pounds for each illegal worker, unless they can prove that they carried out the correct pre-employment checks, the agency said...   legal advisor...Harpreet Dhall, was jailed for 6 years earlier this year for helping to submit applications for work visas by creating false documents and employment histories for his clients."

2011-11-03 09:34PDT (12:34EDT) (16:34GMT) (19:34 Jerusalem)
_Numbers USA_
Peter DeFazio criticized Oregonian forestry contractors who used stimulus money to hire foreign workers instead of Americans

2011-11-03 12:17:46PDT (15:17:46EDT) (19:17:46GMT) (22:17:46 Jerusalem)
Mike Cassidy _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Peter Ullman has helped hundreds of convicts get work on release
"In fact, Ullman, who is Jewish, had his own tough start.   He fled Nazi Germany with his parents in 1936.   Within 6 years of settling in the United States, both his parents had committed suicide, apparently unable to cope with being uprooted and replanted in a strange place with a strange culture...   when he went into the jails as a volunteer in 1987. He'd been a manufacturing engineer at valley companies like Fairchild and HP...   Know all about the company where you're applying.   Dress nicely.   Address interviewers as Mr., Mrs., Miss, etc.   Don't misspell words or mangle grammar on your résumé or in your cover letter.   Follow up an interview with a thank-you note..."

2011-11-03 13:22:57PDT (16:22:57EDT) (20:22:57GMT) (23:22:57 Jerusalem)
Steve Johnson & Jeremy C. Owens _San Jose CA Mercury News_
AMD to lay off 1,400, about 80 in Sunnyvale

2011-11-03
Dave Gibson _Examiner_
House immigration sub-committee voted to sub-poena DHS for deportation figures
Fox
"On Wednesday, in an effort to find out why Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has failed to deport roughly 250K illegal aliens identified in local jails across the country through the federal Secure Communities program, the House Judiciary Committee's Immigration Policy and Enforcement Subcommittee voted to authorize a subpoena for the pertinent data.   The committee asked the Department of Homeland Security for the information over two and a half months ago with an October 31 dead-line.   Last week, representative Smith again delivered the request, this time, directly to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano during her appearance before the committee...   Last month, the Congressional Research Service issued a report stating that during the first half of fiscal year 2011, local law enforcement through Secure Communities had identified 318,308 foreign nationals eligible for possible deportation while ICE issued only 73,466 detainers for these suspects."

2011-11-03
Mark J. Perry
US rail traffic continues to increase

2011-11-03
Mark J. Perry
ND oil boom sparks a huge rail boom

2011-11-03
Mark J. Perry
Longitudinal data show income mobility: 57% of top 1% in 1996 weren't there in 2005

2011-11-03
Mark J. Perry
GDP has recovered to 2007 peak with 6.6M fewer workers

2011-11-03 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 06)
Diane Dimond _Jewish World Review_
Perverted, twisted, upside-down "sunshine" laws putting citizens at risk

2011-11-03 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 06)
Melissa Healy _Jewish World Review_
Are you memory or learning impaired? It may not be old age, and it could be cured
"Consider the possibility that last night's sleep was punctuated by mini-awakenings, robbing you of the ability to commit that new skill to memory...   when sleep is interrupted frequently -- as it is in a wide range of disorders, including sleep apnea, alcoholism and Alzheimer's disease -- the ability to learn new things can be dramatically impaired...   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...   even when frequent waking doesn't affect sleep quality and doesn't cut into overall sleep time, memory takes a hit...   Researchers suggest that new skills and information are committed to memory -- or 'consolidated' -- during sleep when our brains 'replay' recently learned actions or sequences.   In the process, the memory, now neatly packaged and ready for storage, is transferred from the hippocampus to the neocortex, from which it can be retrieved when needed.   The Stanford researchers who led the study -- biologist H. Craig Heller and neuroscientist Luis de Lecea -- suggested that when frequent awakenings interrupt that process, the memory can be lost or compromised before it is stored."

2011-11-03 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 06)
Chloe Stepney _Jewish World Review_
Bicycle switches gears by reading your mind
"Prius X Parlee... PXP is a joint venture of Deeplocal; Parlee Cycles, a bike manufacturer that handcrafts carbon-fiber bikes; and Toyota, maker of the Prius hybrid car."

2011-11-03 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 06)
_Coolest Guides on the Planet_
how to add, install, and configure an SSL Certificate to Mac OS X 10.7 Lion server
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-04

2011-11-04
William L. Anderson
Washington DC: the REAL oligarchy
"the least-productive and most parasitic area of the country -- Washington, DC, and its immediate environs in Maryland and Northern Virginia -- is also the highest-income locale."

2011-11-04
Michael Cutler _One Old Vet_
The numbers game
Californians for Population Stabilization

2011-11-04
Mark J. Perry
X prizes proven success vs. federal government subsidy failures

graphs of employment/unemployment data from BLS

2011-11-04 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 07)
R' Nathan Lopes Cardozo _Jewish World Review_
Marriage, li, and the need for martyrdom

2011-11-04 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 07)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Delegitimizing the delegitimizers
"Since 1974 UNESCO has been an enthusiastic partner in the Palestinians' bid to erase Jewish history, heritage and culture in the Land of Israel from the historical record...   UNESCO's moves to deny Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the rest of historic Israel have continued unabated ever since.   For instance, in 1989 UNESCO condemned 'Israel's occupation of Jerusalem' [but not the 'Palestinians'' occupation of Israel, including Jerusalem] claiming it was destroying the city through 'acts of interference, destruction and transformation'.   In 1996 UNESCO held a symposium on Jerusalem at its Paris headquarters.   No Jewish or Israeli groups were invited to participate.   Beginning in 1996, the Arab Wakf on the the Temple Mount began systematically destroying artifacts of the Second Temple.   The destruction was undertaken during illegal excavations under the Temple Mount carried out in order to construct an illegal, unlicensed mosque at Solomon's Stables.   UNESCO never bothered to condemn this act...   Similarly, UNESCO never condemned Palestinian desecration of Rachel's Tomb, of Joesph's Tomb or of any of the ancient synagogues in Gaza and Jericho which they razed to the ground."

2011-11-04 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 07)
Mark Clayton _Jewish World Review_
USA names names in detailing cyber-espionage
"Whereas in the past, individual spies might have painstakingly collected and transferred physical copies of secret corporate documents, the ease and anonymity of downloading files from the Internet or copying thousands of documents at a time onto a portable thumb drive have made cyberespionage a crucial threat to the nation, the report says.   Project 863, for instance, is a clandestine initiative launched by [Red China] in 1986, the report says, 'to enhance [Red China's] economic competitiveness and narrow the science and technology gap between China and the West in areas like nanotechnology, computers and biotechnology'.   Cyberespionage is now a big part of Project 863, it says.   Against that back-drop, the report says, American companies and specifically cyber-security companies have 'reported an onslaught of computer network intrusions' originating from Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in [Red China]...   [Red China's] 863 program, the report says, is trying to acquire advanced materials and manufacturing techniques, in particular to boost its industrial competitiveness in aviation and high-speed rail.   Meanwhile, Russia and Iran are focusing on advanced materials like nanotechnology."
 
Proposed Bills 2011

2011-11-04

DJIA	12,983.24
S&P 500(SPX)	1,253.23
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,686.15
Nikkei	8,801.40
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	2.03%
crude oil(CL1Z)	$94.26/barrel
natgas(NG11Z)	$3.78/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RB1Z)	$2.66/gal
heatingoil(HO1Z)	$3.07/gal
gold(GC1Z)	$1,755.70/ounce
silver(SI1Z)	$34.08/ounce
platinum(PL2F)	$1,629.30/ounce
palladium(PA1Z)	$655.30/ounce
copper(HG1Z)	$0.2225/ounce
soybeans	$12.19/bushel
maize	$6.54/bushel
wheat	$6.36/bushel
dollarindex (DXY)	76.984
yenperdollar (USDYEN)	78.17
dollarspereuro (EURUSD)	$1.377
dollarsperpound (GBPUSD)	$1.6030
swissfrancsperdollar (USDCHF)	0.8875
indianrupeesperdollar (USDINR)	48.975
mexicanpesosperdollar (USDMXN)	13.4911
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	640.18

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-05

2011-11-05
_Farm and Ranch Guide_
Soybean export sales in 2011 not living up to expectations
"So ahead of the November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, the USDA reduced the 2011 U.S. soybean export forecast by 40M bushels to 1.375G bushels...   The export number is still phenomenal -- especially given the U.S. projected soybean carryout is just 160M bushels.   Significant exports are one of the reasons the USDA forecast an average U.S. cash price of $12.15-$14.15 per bushel in October.   At one elevator in western Minnesota followed in this column, cash soybeans were $11.56 per bushel, with a basis of 70 cents under.   Compared with the price on Oct. 14, the price was 34 cents lower and the basis had narrowed by 10 cents."

2011-11-05
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
On my supposed isolationist "hillbilly" roots: the Nicholson family in Madison county VA part1
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-06

2011-11-06
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
the latest in STEM education angst
 
We're seeing a continuing flurry of anxiety-laden articles in the press, accompanied by hand-wringing by politicians on Capitol Hill, that the sky is falling because there's a problem with STEM education.   Many articles make comparisons to China, ironically while the [Red Chinese government] is doing its own hand-wringing, over concern that [Red China] just isn't producing innovators like the U.S.A. does, due to its creativity-killing rote memory style of learning.
 
I continue to believe that ultimately much of the impetus for these reports in the American press can be traced back to industry lobbyists pushing their H-1B agenda.   After the 2008 financial crash and concomitant plummet in the economy, the lobbyists realized that they had a powerful issue: "We need H-1Bs to innovate so we can get the economy back on track."   (Again, never mind the above-mentioned irony.)   That message hit a responsive chord, getting academics into the act, and the thing mushroomed.
 
One academic study that has gotten a ton of press lately is that of Tony Carnevale of Georgetown University, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   No, it's not quite what you think from the Gates connection, but wait for my analysis, which I won't get to for at least a week.
 
In the mean-time, though, there is an article in yesterday's NYT that has attracted much attention, titled Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It's Just So Darn Hard). Though it's in this same genre as described above, this is really man-bites-dog stuff: Instead of bemoaning some (presumed) softness in our educational system, it now is stated that the system is too rigorous!   We're scaring these poor kids away from STEM!   Go figure.
 
The funny part is that the article is actually correct: Our STEM education is in fact quite demanding at the university level.   Well, then, why do I have problems with this article?
 
Well, first of all, the Urban Institute study of a couple years ago showed clearly that we graduate plenty of STEM students, many more than we need.   And as I reported, a Texas Instruments executive testified at a recent House hearing that there is no shortage of engineering students at the bachelor's degree level.   One can debate whether enough go on to grad school, and if not then why not, but the point is that a (more than) sufficient number do finish their bachelor's degree in STEM.   So, the NYT's tale of woe concerning those who start as STEM majors but then bail out before getting their degrees is IRRELEVANT.
 
Second, the article completely ignores the economic aspect.   As I've discussed elsewhere, STEM just isn't financially attractive compared to other fields that those with STEM-type skills (math, logic, problem solving) have open to them -- finance (yep, still going strong, crash or no crash), law, medicine and so on.   These other fields pay more AND have much better career longevity (one can work after age 35, for goodness sake!).   This has been much noted, including by Carnevale recently, Richard Freeman a few years ago, and so on.   The kids know it, and vote with their feet; how come the NYT doesn't know it?   And don't get me started on the discgraceful science post doc fiasco.
 
Put another way, during the dot-com boom, tech majors were INUNDATED with majors.   The kids were happy at that time to put up with demanding course-work, lower grades, and the various other ills the NYT cites -- because they knew that good, high-paying jobs were awaiting them, with a reasonable expectation of having a lengthy career.   Now they aren't so sure of that.
 
The Carnevale study shows that STEM grads are paid well even if they're not in STEM jobs, likely reflecting those same general STEM skills noted above.   But the dot-com bust had a highly sobering effect on young people.   They saw that feast can turn to famine in an instant in STEM.   And 2000 wasn't the first time it had happened; it had also occurred in the early 80s and early 90s.   At least for the computer field, the lack of stability is a big turnoff to the kids, as it should be.   Small wonder, then, that they move to (literally) greener pastures in non-STEM jobs after their bachelor's degree in STEM.
 
A student of mine summed it up in the early 2000s.   He was changing his major from computer science to econ.   Asked why, he cited having to do all-nighters debugging his programming home-work, all, he said, for possibly having to move to another field after just a short career in CS.   He noted, "If I'm going to end up in an econ-type job, I might as well major in econ now [and enjoy the college years more]."
 
Yes, at a good university (note the comparison of UC to CSU in the article), STEM majors can be pretty daunting -- tons of work, lots of theory, etc.   Well, it SHOULD be that way.   "No pain, no gain."   I'd be the first to say that CS curricula could stand to teach less theory, and for that matter fewer all-nighters, but yes, programming assignments should be challenging and creative.   That means one must build foundation, which takes time and much effort.
 
A very much related problem is that the high school curricula are, IMO, doing the wrong thing.   A university mathematics major bears very little resemblance to high school math.   As a mathematician myself, I think the university math curricula are just right; it is the high schools that are wrong.   Ironically, they focus on exactly the thing [Red China] is trying to get away from -- rote memory, mechanical problem solving by imitating patterns, and so on.   It has been said that mathematics is the Queen of the Sciences, rightly so, and I would add that geometry should be considered the Princess of (high school) Math.   Yet most high schools don't teach geometry in a proof-oriented fashion these days, losing most of the value, and certainly losing its connection to university-level math.
 
My point is that these poor kids do pretty well in math in high school and then major in math at university, thinking it will be "more of the same".   They then are shocked by the proof-oriented, non-mechanical way in which they are expected to think in university math courses.   To a large degree, the same is true for physics.   And since engineering students must take substantial math and physics in the first 2 years, well, you see where that goes.   But again, the solution -- if indeed there is a problem, which as I point out above, there really isn't -- is to change what's taught in high school.   But that is not gonna happen, due to the test-score obsessed climate we're in now.   Proofs can't easily be tested in, say, the SAT or AP tests, so the high schools have no incentive to emphasize them.
 
Hopefully I'll have time to comment on the Carnevale study soon.
 
Norm
---30---

2011-11-06
Hugh Pickens _Slash Dot_
Why do so many STEM majors drop out?

2011-11-06
Gabriel Silverman _Provo UT Daily Herald_/_NorthWestern U_
Farmers object to "burden" of legal work-force
"Farmers who use H-2A labor must pay to advertise the positions first to American workers.   U.S. citizens have first shot at the jobs, but several farmers say domestic hires rarely make it through the season, or sometimes even the first day, because of the difficulty of the work.   In addition, H-2A employers must provide free housing, pay for transportation to and from the worker's country, cover all visa costs, and guarantee a wage more than $2 higher than federal minimum wage.   Before a single vegetable is picked, the Daughtrys estimate they must pay upwards of $1,200 per employee.   With 58 H-2A employees that means nearly an additional $70K each season -- not including the higher wages, which they would not be obligated to pay if they hired outside the program."

2011-11-06
Marc Parry _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Foreign-language instruction on-line

2011-11-06
Mark J. Perry
Rail shipments of oil set new record in October

2011-11-06
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Intermission in the Nicholson story...

2011-11-06
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
On my supposed isolationist "hillbilly" roots: the Nicholson family in Madison county VA part2
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-07

2011-11-07
Christine Keeling _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Students use iPads to learn

2011-11-07
Conor Dougherty _Wall Street Journal_
Generation jobless: young men suffer as economy continues to stagger

2011-11-07 07:00PST (10:00EST) (15:00GMT) (17:00 Jerusalem)
_MarketWatch_/_UBM_
Conference Board: Employment Trends Index at 101.92, highest in 3 years
BusinessWeek

2011-11-07 11:04PST (14:04EST) (19:04GMT) (21:04 Jerusalem)
Emil Protalinski _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Researchers' bots show how easy it is to grab gobs of personal private info from "social networking" and other sites
"The researchers were able to gather 35% of all the personally identifiable information found on their direct networks, and 24% from extended networks.   All of this profile information was recorded, including 46,500 e-mail addresses and 14,500 home addresses.   On average, each socialbot collected 175 new 'chunks' of [supposedly] publicly-inaccessible users' data per day."

2011-11-07 11:12:53PST (14:12:53EST) (19:12:53GMT) (21:12:53 Jerusalem)
Curt Anderson _San Jose CA Mercury News_/_AP_
13.2M Bank of India customers may deserve debit card over-draft refunds

2011-11-07 12:50:53PST (15:50:53EST) (20:50:53GMT) (22:50:53 Jerusalem)
David Klepper _San Jose CA Mercury News_/_AP_
Zuckerberg went to MIT & Harvard to recruit employees for his privacy violating business

2011-11-07 14:34PST (17:34EST) (21:34GMT) (23:34 Jerusalem)
Allison Rupp _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
After 4 months in class-rooms, iPads have eliminated some excuses and changed learning
"'The only excuse is my battery died or my dad ran over my iPad.', said White, a sixth-grade composition teacher...   Problems they thought might occur, such as being a distraction, breakage and tech problems, haven't been big issues...   To protect the $500 machines, King uses military-grade casing.   Educational and organizational apps the schools use regularly: Join.me; Flashcardlet; Teach Me: Kindergarten; 3D Brain; Evernote; Mindjet; Kindle; Rocket Math; Alphabet Tracing."

2011-11-07
Mark J. Perry
US maize yields per acre are 6 times what they were in 1930s, estimated to double again by 2030
"After remaining flat between 1866 and 1939 at about 26 bushels per acre, corn yields started increasing dramatically in the 1940s due to the introduction of hybrid seeds, and the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides (source).   By 2009, average corn yields had increased [to] more than 6 times [what they had been] to a record high 165 bushels per acre, before falling to 153 bushels per acre last year, and an estimated 148.1 bushels per acre for 2011...   The yield per acre has skyrocketed from 24 bushels in 1931 to 154 now...   The national average of 153 bushels produced on each acre in 2010 was nearly 20% larger than the average yield in 2002 -- and plant breeding experts estimate yields may jump 40% before 2020 and, perhaps, hit a national average of 300 bushels per acre by 2030."

2011-11-07
Mark J. Perry
Huge geo-thermal resources in USA

2011-11-07
Mark J. Perry
ND leading USA in hotel occupancy rates

2011-11-07
Mark J. Perry
Public school teachers are over-paid by 52% on average

2011-11-07
William L. Anderson
overly sunny view of solar power

2011-11-07 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 10)
John Rosemond _Jewish World Review_
Children, rats and mazes: the failure of "behavior modification"
"the principles that govern the behavior of a rat do not govern the behavior of a human being...   only human beings are capable of acting deliberately contrary to their best interests, even when they know where their best interests lie...   That's why the toddler and many a contemporary teen (as opposed the typical teen of 60-plus years ago) both boast that they will submit to no one's authority.   This is a self-destructive impulse because it is clearly in the best interest of a child to submit to legitimate adult authority, beginning with his parents' authority.   The research finds that the happiest children are also the most obedient children, and that obedient children tend to have parents who score high on measures of authority.   IOW, parents who are most comfortable with the responsibility of providing authority to children tend to raise the happiest kids...   The clearer a parent is concerning his or her expectations, the more likely it is the child will obey.   Say what you mean and mean what you say, and communicate your expectations in the least number of words.   The more words you employ, the more it appears that you are pleading as opposed to directing...   it is also necessary that a child eventually come to understand the moral principles behind your decisions.   That 'moral compass' endows your decisions with a coherence and consistency that would otherwise be absent."

2011-11-07 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 10)
Carol Rosenberg _Jewish World Review_
After years of secrecy, DoD is seking an order to let the public view a Guantanao terrorism trial
"in the case of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi-born Guantanamo captive accused of masterminding al-Qaida's 2000 October suicide bombing of the USS Cole...   The Navy has arranged a closed-circuit television feed so relatives of the victims can watch the proceedings at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia.   The Pentagon separately has set up a 100-seat viewing center 200 miles away at Fort Meade, MD, for reporters covering the proceedings.   Only 20 reporters have signed up, however, leaving at least 80 seats vacant at Fort Meade that could be used by members of the public.   How many additional spots might be available at Norfolk was uncertain.   One of Nashiri's lawyers said Saturday that the defense team would study the request, but in principle they want the American people to see the proceedings."

2011-11-07 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 10)
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz _Jewish World Review_
Should blood type guide your food choices?
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-08

2011-11-08 02:30PST (05:30EST) (10:30GMT) (12:30 Jerusalem)
Ryan Naraine _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Security researcher Charlie Miller discovered weakness in code-signing scheme: developer cert. revoked
Andy Greenberg: Forbes
"Charlie Miller [a former NSA analyst who now works as a researcher with consultancy Accuvant] gets a kick of out defeating Apple's security mechanisms, using his hacking skills to break into MacBooks and iPhones.   Now, Apple has kicked the security researcher out of its iOS developer program after word got out that he built a proof-of-concept iPhone app to showcase a bypass of the code signing mechanism.   According to Forbes's Andy Greenberg, Miller found a way to sneak an evil app [making use of the evil MSFT JavaScript] into the iPhone/iPad app store and will demonstrate the vulnerability at the upcoming SysCan conference in Taiwan...   Miller has created a video demonstrating the attack, which gave him enough control over the hijacked iPhone to control the device vibration or read files off the iPhone.   Details on the actual vulnerability being exploited is being kept under wraps until Apple issues a fix.   Just hours after word of his Miller's app -- which was approved by Apple [through it's app store software submission process] -- was publicized by Greenberg, Apple nuked Miller from the iOS dev program 'effective immediately'."

2011-11-08 04:36PST (07:36EST) (12:36GMT) (14;36 Jerusalem)
Scott Lowe _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
4 interviewing techniques i don't like

2011-11-08
Holbrook Mohr _Provo UT Daily Herald_/_AP_
State Dept. temporarily restraining growth of abuse of exchange visas for work

2011-11-08
Neil Versel _InformationWeek_/_UBM_
50K health IT jobs: HIMSS, HR gurus want you
OMG and HIMSS to conspire
"Health-care sees need for 50K more IT workers to support implementation of electronic health records and health information exchange [i.e. privacy violation schemes].   HIMSS and ASHHRA partner to let technology professionals know and they want to have access to each other's knowledge [yet another layer of privacy violation].   The Health-care Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration (ASHHRA) have agreed to [conspire] on efforts to attract [unethical] job seekers to health IT.   This [conspiracy] will result in a new effort to deliver health-care industry-specific guidance and specifications enabling the national vision of secure and seamless exchange of health information [among people who have no business accessing it]."

2011-11-08
_MSFT NBC_
Faribault MN blanket mill reopens with local owners, US employees
"The Faribault Woolen Mills is weaving its way back from oblivion one thread and one American employee at a time.   In 1852, Alexander Faribault founded the Minnesota town bearing his name.   13 years later, the Faribault Woolen Mills opened for business, shipping its products all over the world...   until 2009, that is, when it literally stopped mid-stitch, bankrupted by poor management and a weak economy...   Cousins Chuck and Paul Mooty decided to buy it all, from the aging equipment to the formerly global brand...   Faribault Woolen Mills now has 35 employees, most of whom worked there before the company was shuttered in 2009...   they expect the number of employees to rise to 50 by year's end and double that in 2012."

2011-11-08
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_Scripps_
Exide dumping 236 workers from manufacturing plant in Bristol

2011-11-08
Bill Brewer & Hugh G. Willett _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
Thermocom has yet another means to recycle Styrofoam/polystyrene
"Most consumers recognize polystyrene -- a petroleum-based plastic -- under the name Styrofoam, a trade-marked foam product from the Dow Chemical Company used for housing insulation.   Because polystyrene is about 95% air, the material makes an excellent insulator for use in serving hot beverages and foods.   It also has found widespread acceptance as a low cost, lightweight packaging material...   polystyrene, also known as #6 plastic...   By volume, the amount of space used up in landfills by all plastics is between 25% and 30%, according to the Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education in Los Angeles.   The Thermocom equipment reduces the volume of polystyrene waste...by up to 95%.   The system uses medium heat to reverse the plastic foam manufacturing process, removing the air and compacting the material.   About 1,200 foam cups and plates can be reduced into a 22-pound odorless block of resin about 2 feet long and 6 inches thick, according to Spears.   The blocks of resin can be picked up by a local distributor and shipped to manufacturers around the country who require polystyrene resin for the production of other plastic products such as flower pots, picture frames, insulation, even diesel fuel."

2011-11-08
Mark J. Perry
73% remain in the top 400 in income for only 1 year
"Almost 3 out of 4 of those individuals (2,676 or 72.88%) were in the top 400 [tax-victim] group for only a single year over the 17-year period.   Only 439 individuals, or 11.96% of the total, remained in the top 400 for 2 years.   Therefore, almost 85% (or 3,115 of the 3,672 total) were in the top 400 for only 1 or 2 years.   Only 1% of the sample group (37 out of 3,672) stayed in the top 400 for 14 years or more, and only 4 [tax-victims] (or about 0.1% or 1 in a 1K) stayed in the group for the entire 17-year period [from 1992-2008]."

2011-11-08
Mark J. Perry
job openings reached 3-year high in September, recovering only to mid-Shrub levels

2011-11-08
Mark J. Perry
Over the last 4 weeks, 650K disgusted with high debit card fees moved their accounts to credit unions

2011-11-08
Mark J. Perry
Builder Magazine: The 8 healthiest US housing markets

2011-11-08 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 11)
Eliezer Schulman & Michal Ish-Shalom _Jewish World Review_
Almost a martyr

2011-11-08 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 11)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Waiting out Obummer

2011-11-08 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 11)
Paul Walsh _Jewish World Review_
Good deed repaid as stricken driver is resuscitated by driver he had just helped

2011-11-08 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 11)
Carol J. Williams _Jewish World Review_
With 4th amendment, technology is now exhibit A

2011-11-08 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 11)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Numbers games
"The relationship between age and income is not hard to understand.   It usually takes years to acquire the skills and experience that high-paying jobs require, or to build up a clientele for those in business or the professions...   Differences in wealth between the young and the old are even greater than differences in income.   Households headed by someone 65 years old and older have more than 15 times as much wealth as households headed by someone under 35 years of age.   But these are not different classes of people, as so often insinuated in runaway political rhetoric.   Everybody who is 65 years old was once under 35 years of age.   And most people under 35 years of age will someday be 65 years old...   During recent years, when 'the top 1%' as an income category has been getting a growing share of the nation's income, IRS data show that actual flesh and blood people who were in the top 1% in 1996 had their incomes go down -- repeat, DOWN -- by a whopping 26% by 2005...   A University of Michigan study showed that most of the working people who were in the bottom 20% of income earners in 1975 were also in the top 40% at some point by 1991.   Only 5% of those in the bottom quintile [20%] in 1975 were still there in 1991, while 29% of them were now in the top quintile."
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-09

2011-11-09
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_ let the press cast the first stone
 
Fascinating interview of former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff on 60 Minutes the other day.
 
I've long noted the highly corrupt nature of H-1B politics, openly admitted to on at least 2 occasions.   Former senator Robert Bennett (R-UT) remarked, "Once it's clear (the visa bill) is going to get through, everybody signs up so nobody can be in the position of being accused of being against high tech.   There were, in fact, a whole lot of folks against it, but because they are tapping the high-tech community for campaign contributions, they don't want to admit that in public."   Former representative Tom Davis (R-VA), said, "This is not a popular bill with the public.   It's popular with the CEOs...   This is a very important issue for the high-tech executives who give the money."
 
The effect of the campaign contributions is obvious.   (Representative Davis was chair of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.)   But the details given by Abramoff were striking.   For example, he said that they would offer future jobs to the chiefs of staff of members of Congress, and noted, "Once we did that to a chief of staff, we OWNED him."   The congressperson then hears from his staff only what the lobbyists want them to hear.
 
Abramoff made it clear that what he did was widespread among lobbyists on the Hill, and that virtually no members of Congress did not "participate".
 
Leslie Stahl, the 60 Minutes correspondent who did the Abramoff interview, repeatedly expressed shock at what he described was his way of doing business back in his lobbying days.   She even said, smiling and good naturedly, "I hate you."   But wait...
 
A few years ago, it was Stahl herself who was considered corrupt by many activist H-1B critics.   She ran a highly fawning piece on the IITs, the Indian Institutes of Technology, India's top technical universities.   The producer later told an activist (who then brought me into the e-mail conversation) that 60 Minutes had run the piece at the suggestion of an Indian-American political activist.   That in turn seemed to be part of the "Brand IIT" campaign that was being run in the U.S.A. at the time.   At any rate, Stahl's message in the piece was that IIT grads are all geniuses, with the apparent implication that the U.S.A. is lucky to get them as foreign students at U.S. universities and later as H-1Bs at U.S. tech firms.
 
So, were Stahl and 60 Minutes corrupt here?   We don't know how much Stahl was involved, but one thing that we do know is that 60 Minutes ran NO viewer comments responding to this piece on IIT, in spite of the complaints of the activist, and in spite of the fact that the show ran the piece several times in repeats.   By contrast, around the same time 60 Minutes ran a piece on severely disabled physicist Stephen Hawking, and despite Hawking's obvious courage, the show felt the need to include comments by a rival physicist trashing him, for "balance".
 
Now let's turn to Bill Moyers, another well known journalist, one who is perceived as particularly having a conscience.   He gave a wonderful speech a few weeks ago.
 
Note the out-take quote: "Our politicians are little more than money launderers in the trafficking of power and policy -- fewer than 6 degrees of separation from the spirit and tactics of Tony Soprano."   He can really turn a phrase, Moyers can.   But wait...
 
I used to admire Moyers.   He did a fine series on the history of Chinese-Americans some years ago, very nicely crafted, and very much appreciated by my Chinese-American friends.
 
Yet, a few years ago, when one of his staff called me for leads to programmers or engineers whose job had been shipped abroad, I lost that admiration for Moyers.   When I offered to give the staffer names of people who had been replaced by H-1Bs here in the U.S.A., the Moyers researcher declined.   She said explicitly that Moyers would not discuss immigration in a negative way in his shows.
 
Stahl and 60 Minutes were possibly succumbing to pressure from CBS and/or advertisers.   In Moyers' case, the show would have been for PBS, but he still needs funding, and he may have been worried about that.   Or maybe he was simply ideologically opposed to saying anything negative about any kind of immigration.   In any case, he was engaging in censorship, just as insidious as Abramoff's actions in a way.
 
One more example: The Kauffman Foundation, which is very pro-H-1B and has funded some of Vivek Wadhwa's work, actually "bought" an issue of the Washington Monthly.
 
Odd, then, to see the press citing corruption on the Hill.
 
Norm
It puzzles me why Dr. Matloff believes this is "odd". To the media, it's an "us vs. them" thing.   And we're buried under a pile of boulders...jgo

2011-11-09 04:04PST (07:04EST) (12:04GMT) (14:04 Jerusalem)
Toni Bowers _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Managers should avoid terrorizing employees

2011-11-09
Ildefonso Ortiz & Jared Taylor _McAllen TX Monitor_
SWAT teams dispatched as gun battle unfolds near Escobares

2011-11-09
Michael Cutler _One Old Vet_
Why did the illegal alien run the border? There is no definitive way of knowing
Californians for Population Stabilization

2011-11-09
Mark J. Perry
The power of the web log: story, images, video led to murder charges against those responsible in Fullerton, CA

2011-11-09
Mark J. Perry
ND oil production continues exponential growth

2011-11-09
Mark J. Perry
international trade

2011-11-09 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 12)
Ken Dilanian _Jewish World Review_
UN admits Iran is developing nuclear weapons

2011-11-09 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 12)
Arnold Ahlert _Jewish World Review_
Open microphones and closed minds
"The tale begins at the summit of G-20 nations in Cannes.   After meeting with reporters for a presser, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and our very own Barack Obama retreated to a private room to continue their conversation.   Unfortunately for our dynamic duo, the microphones they were wearing remained on and a private conversation became embarrassingly public.   In the first part of the exchange between the 2 men Obama criticized Sarkozy for not giving him a heads-up on the fact that France would be voting in favor of the Palestinian membership bid to join UNESCO.   That's the same UNESCO which had its portion of U.S. funds cut off by an American Congress which just can't find any humor -- or legality (U.S. law bars funding any organization which admits Palestine as a member before it reaches a peace deal negotiated with Israel) -- in subsidizing terrorist-abetting organizations with taxpayer funds.   It should be noted that the president hardly agrees.   'The United States remains deeply committed to UNESCO and its noble mission to build peace in the minds of men and women.', said U.S. envoy to UNESCO, David Killion -- who stressed that continuing U.S. participation was not in doubt.   'Despite the challenges ahead, we pledge to continue our efforts to find ways to support and strengthen the important work of this vital organization.'   IOW, in a reaction which is rapidly becoming the modus operandi for this administration, Obama and company are going to do their best to figure out a way to ignore Congress and do as they please.   That's the non-juicy part of the exchange between Sarozy and Obama.   The juicy part was about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.   'I cannot stand him.   He is a liar.', said Sarkozy.   Not to be out-done Obama reportedly replied, 'You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!'"

2011-11-09 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 12)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Ignorance exploited
"As it turns out, a corporation is an artificial creation of the legal system and, as such, a legal fiction.   A corporation is not a person and therefore cannot pay taxes.   When tax is levied on a corporation, who pays it?   There's an entire subject area in economics, known as tax incidence, that investigates who bears the burden of a tax.   It turns out that the burden of a tax is not necessarily borne by the party or entity upon whom it is levied.   For example, if a sales tax is levied on a cigarette retailer, the retailer does not bear the full burden of the tax.   Part of it will be shifted forward to customers in the form of higher product prices.   The exact amount of the shifting depends upon market supply and demand conditions...   According to the Tax Foundation, 19% of federal tax returns report dividend income but 42% of taxpayers older than 65 report dividend income.   Therefore, it is people, not some legal fiction called a corporation, who bear the burden of the tax.   Because corporations have these responses to the imposition of a tax, they are merely government tax collectors.   The largest burden of corporate taxes is borne by workers...   In 1980, Joseph Stiglitz, now a Nobel laureate, said that workers share the highest corporate tax burden in the form of lower wages.   A number of economic studies, including that of the Congressional Budget Office, show that workers bear anywhere from 45% to 75% of the corporate tax burden.   Adding to the burden is the fact that capital has the kind of mobility that labor doesn't.   Corporate capital can flee to other countries easily, but workers cannot."
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-10

2011-11-10 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT) (15:30 Jerusalem)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 398,753 in the week ending November 5, an increase of 29,106 from the previous week.   There were 452,657 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5% during the week ending October 29, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,166,982, a decrease of 32,545 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.0% and the volume was 3,783,097.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending October 22 was 6,835,604, an increase of 51,990 from the previous week.   Extended benefits were available in AL, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending October 22.   States reported 2,953,824 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending October 22, an increase of 8,182 from the prior week.   There were 3,900,038 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" (the divisor) 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;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2011-11-10 12:27PDT (15:27EST) (20:27GMT) (22:27 Jerusalem)
Richard Locker _Memphis TN Commercial Appeal_
TN Higher Ed Commission recommends 5% to 8% tuition and fee hikes
"If approved, the tuition increases would be on top of cumulative tuition increases over the last 5 years ranging from 38% to 49% on the state's public college and university campuses.   Tuition and fees for the current school year increased between 7.4% and 13.7% over last year."

2011-11-10 12:17PST (15:17EST) (20:17GMT) (22:17 Jerusalem)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
federal judge bars arbitration in case of B-1 visa abuse by Infosys
"Palmer's law-suit claims that he suffered threats and harassment after he refused to help foster use of the B-1 visas at the company.   Infosys had filed a motion to move Palmer's complaint to arbitration and had argued that Palmer, in his employment contract, had agreed to settle disputes in arbitration.   But U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in Alabama, which is Palmer's home state, denied the motion in an 18-page decision.   The court found, in part, that the 'arbitration agreement is unconscionable because of its lack of mutuality'.   Palmer's attorney, Kenneth Mendelsohn of Montgomery, AL, said the court agreed with his argument that the arbitration agreement was one-sided.   The arbitration agreement was 'a take it or leave it type deal -- it wasn't negotiated', Mendelsohn said.   'In the eyes of the law, that's not a contract, that's not a fair agreement.', he said.   Mendelsohn said the decision means his client can now press ahead with the court case...   The Palmer case has had the potential for broader implications.   A federal grand jury in Texas has been looking into the visa issue at Infosys.   That grand jury is still meeting, but there's no word yet on when it might complete its work."

2011-11-10
Mark J. Perry
Republic Wireless offering $19 per month unlimited telecomm

2011-11-10
Mark J. Perry
international trade, it always balances

2011-11-10
Mark J. Perry
government-employee union albatross

2011-11-10
Mark J. Perry
cost of classic Thanks-Giving dinner for 10 people from 1986 to present

2011-11-10 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 14)
Melissa Healy _Jewish World Review_
Anti-cancer drug adipotide aids weight loss
"The study, published Wednesday, describes trials in which three species of primates responded to injections of the synthetic peptide by eating less, shedding belly fat and showing changes in metabolic function likely to keep at bay Type 2 diabetes -- a frequent consequence of obesity.   The trick behind the therapy: killing fat cells by robbing them of the blood supply that nourishes them.   This strategy, known as angiogenesis inhibition, is the basis for more than 15 drugs used to treat cancers of the brain, colon, lungs and kidneys.   The new study, reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, is the first to test the strategy in primates as a treatment for obesity.   After 4 weeks of daily injections of adipotide and a 4-week follow-up with no treatment -- and without forced changes in diet or exercise -- 10 obese female rhesus macaques lost an average of 11% of body weight and 39% of fat deposits."

2011-11-10 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 14)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The real scandal
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-11: Veterans' Day

2011-11-11 07:00PST (10:00EST) (15:00GMT) (17:00 Jerusalem)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index up from 60.9 in late October to 64.2 in early November

2011-11-11
Stefan Kanfer _City Journal_
ABCs of self-reliance

2011-11-11
Richard Vedder _Minding the Campus_
About All Those STEM Drop-Outs
"National survey data (e.g., the Bureau of Labor Time Use Survey) show that typical students spend fewer than 30 hours weekly on academics.   That does not cut it in engineering or many of the hard sciences.   Students can study political science and related courses for 28 hours a week and get 'B' or 'B+' grades, or toil for maybe 45 or 50 hours a week in tough engineering courses to get the same or even lower grades -- maybe a 'B-'...   About the time of Sputnik (1957), Nobel prize winning economist George Stigler and David Blank wrote a monograph for the National Bureau of Economic Research on The Demand and Supply of Scientific Personnel that dared to say that, based on wage data, there was no shortage of scientific personnel.   The Princeton University Press on the urging of an engineering professor demanded the offending statement be removed, and Stigler and Blank refused, forcing them to produce the book elsewhere (see Stigler's _Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist_ pp.172-73 for more details).   By the way, the 'shortage' of the 1950s did not keep America from continuing to achieve economic and scientific preeminence...   my reading of the data today is that the alleged shortage is, at the minimum, highly exaggerated."

2011-11-11
Mark J. Perry
USA ha save network of pipe-lines (with map)

2011-11-11
Mark J. Perry
Obummercare destroys 1K jobs at Stryker with medical device excise tax

2011-11-11
Mark J. Perry
decision to block pipe-line signals USA is not open for business and Obummer is not serious about creating jobs

2011-11-11
Mark J. Perry
Cat brings 1K+ jobs back from Japan to Victoria, TX

2011-11-11
Mark J. Perry
federal attacks on Gibson Guitars signals USA is not open for business and Obummer is not serious about creating jobs

2011-11-11 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 14)
Mordechai Schiller _Jewish World Review_
Salute to a liberator
"Rist never met any Jewish people until he was in the army.   The first Jew he discovered was a buddy in his squad who once disappeared for what he called a 'religious day'.   But Rist would soon become part of Jewish history.   On 1945 April 29, Sergeant Arnold Rist, serving under the command of General George Patton, stood in formation in southern Germany, outside the city of Dachau, home to the prototype of Nazi concentration camps.   One of his friends was a tank captain.   Rist rode in a half-track, a vehicle with tracks in back for power and wheels in front to enable steering.   ('The army probably has a name that's about 4 miles long, but we called it a half-track.', he says.)   A 2-star general later admitted to Rist that they didn't know what was in Dachau until they got there.   From the outside it looked like a military base, with barracks, a stockade, and guard towers.   Before they reached the camp, his division lost 2 tanks to the '88s' -- German flak guns (anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery).   As they stood in column, they saw a man on the side of the road.   He was a Lutheran minister who had escaped from the camp.   He told Rist's friend, the tank captain, what was going on in the camp and gave him a list of the most heinous SS guards.   'My friend later told me that when he got to the camp, he put his tank through the wire and wood fence, right into the stockade.', Rist says.   When they entered the camp, the smell was horrendous.   Bodies that the SS didn't have time to cremate lay in piles on the grass.   Railroad tracks led into the camp, and about forty boxcars were lined up on them.   The cars carried human cargo.   Most of the people were already dead.   The Nazis were trying to hide everything as fast as they could because the Allies had been getting closer since D-Day.   But they didn't finish the clean-up.   The railroad cars were called '40 and 8"; they could hold 40 men or 8 horses.   But these cars were stuffed with 100 to 120 people.   They would ride for 3 or 4 days, without food or sanitary facilities.   And they all had to stand up because there was no room to sit or lie down.   Most of them died along the way...   'I just do what I think is important.   That's the main thing.   Many people do community service in many different ways.   When I see something I think should be done, I just do it.   And when that's done, I do something else.'   Rist graduated SUNY at Cortland in 1947 with a bachelor's degree in physical education.   He later earned two M.A.s from Syracuse University and a doctorate from New York University.   He taught in college and in high school, and he founded his own educational program -- Rockland Educational Services, Inc., which offers PSAT preparation programs for grades 8 through 12.   He has placed a special focus on helping underprivileged and minority students...   He launched a one-man program of lectures on the Holocaust.   He speaks 25 times a year to high-school and college students at the State University in Cortland, New York.   The more he teaches and the more questions he is asked, the more research he does to improve the program.   When asked if he would speak for a yeshivah in Monsey, New York, near his present home in Nanuet, Rist hesitated.   'I don't know if I'd want to speak for a Jewish group...   I feel inadequate.   What would I tell them?   They know more than I do!'   Rist tells about his meeting with a survivor of a thousand-mile death march.   At the opening of the Holocaust Museum in Washington in 1993, the 20th Armored Division Association arranged to have its reunion at the same time so they could participate in the ceremony.   That is where he met Nesse Godin, whose brother was in Dachau when it was liberated.   Nesse Godin was born in Shavel (Siauliai), Lithuania.   She was twelve years old when the knock came on the door in the middle of the night and the SS troops pulled her family out to the town square, along with other families.   'The day before', Godin told Rist, 'the SS had rounded up a thousand Jewish young men and had them dig a big trench.   At daylight, they lined them up at the edge of the trench and mowed them down with machine-gun fire, and they fell into the ditch.'...   'You don't let even the smallest injustice go by without speaking up against it or doing something about it.', Rist says.   'If somebody had taken Hitler out early on, before he started that diabolical trip of his, it would have saved over 50M lives.'"

2011-11-11 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 14)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
With friends like these...s

2011-11-11 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 14)
Clifford D. May _Jewish World Review_
Brave new trans-national regressive world
"The attacks of 2001/09/11 awoke Americans -- by no means all -- to the threat posed by totalitarian interpretations of Islam.   John Fonte, a scholar at the Hudson Institute, has long been concerned about another ideology that is perhaps no less dangerous to free peoples.   It goes by names that sound either vaguely utopian, like 'global governance', or too wonky to worry about, like 'transnational [regressivism]'.   But in a new book, _Sovereignty or Submission_, Fonte makes clear how this ideology -- widely embraced in Europe and, increasingly, among elites in the U.S.A. as well -- is stealthily undermining liberal democracy, self-government, constitutionalism, individual freedom and even traditional internationalism, the relations among sovereign nation-states.   To put it bluntly: While the jihadists call for 'Death to the West!' the trans-national [regressives] are quietly promoting civilizational suicide...   Indeed, since the end of the Cold War transnational progressives have been establishing international laws -- really supra-national laws -- that no voters can repeal or even amend.   One way they accomplish this: A treaty is drafted.   International pressure is applied to get the U.S. president's signature and the U.S. Senate's ratification.   [Or, worse, it's an 'executive agreement' which the current president signs, but does not require a super-majority approval in the US senate.]   Judges -- often from undemocratic [anti-liberty] countries -- in transnational courts then interpret the treaty to mean whatever they want it to mean.   There are no courts of appeal.   [Fortunately, in the USA, all it takes to over-ride or terminate an agreement or treaty is a simple majority vote of both houses.]"
 
Proposed Bills 2011

2011-11-11

DJIA	12,9153.68
S&P 500(SPX)	1,263.85
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,678.75
Nikkei	8,514.47
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	2.05%
crude oil(CL1Z)	$98.99/barrel
natgas(NG11Z)	$3.58/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RB1Z)	$2.60/gal
heatingoil(HO1Z)	$3.17/gal
gold(GC1Z)	$1,788.10/ounce
silver(SI1Z)	$34.68/ounce
platinum(PL2F)	$1,646.70/ounce
palladium(PA1Z)	$662.80/ounce
copper(HG1Z)	$0.21625/ounce
soybeans	$11.735/bushel
maize	$6.465/bushel
wheat	$6.20/bushel
dollarindex (DXY)	76.947
yenperdollar (USDYEN)	77.305
dollarspereuro (EURUSD)	$0.6928
dollarsperpound (GBPUSD)	$1.6066
swissfrancsperdollar (USDCHF)	0.9015
indianrupeesperdollar (USDINR)	49.805
mexicanpesosperdollar (USDMXN)	13.541
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	639.03

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-12

2011-11-12
Zach Benoit _Billings MT Gazette_
Annual adoption event celebrates second chances: 2011 National Adoption Awareness Month Celebration
"Nearly 40 families in the Billings area have finalized adoptions since the beginning of the year.   Nationwide, about 114K children are in the foster care system and up for adoption, with about 40 residing in the Billings area."

2011-11-12
Mark J. Perry
Wage gap with Red China continues to shrink, which may eventually mean more manufacturing in the USA

2011-11-12
Mark J. Perry
Corrupt congress-critters exempted themselves and their staffers from prohibitions on insider trading

2011-11-12
Mark J. Perry
PA mining and natural resources boosting employment and economy
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-13

2011-11-13
Denise Dick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Hands-on learning at Chaney STEM school

2011-11-13
Mark J. Perry
Long, undistinguished, extremely costly grave-yard of failed government energy projects

2011-11-13
Mark J. Perry
Peter Thiel on higher ed bubble: aptitude test for employes instead of college degrees?

2011-11-13
Mark J. Perry
Livin' large leftist Moore and his lake-front manse in exclusive Michigan community

2011-11-13
Mark J. Perry
Big farm's crony socialism

2011-11-13
Mark J. Perry
5 firms seek to export US liquified natural gas

2011-11-13
Mark J. Perry
more crony socialism in "renewable energy"

2011-11-13
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
On my supposed isolationist "hillbilly" roots: the Nicholson family in Madison county VA part3
"In either case, what you read in that account is part of the beginning of the end for the people who were later relocated to make way for the Shenandoah National Park.   Understand, however, it's not that I don't have an appreciation for the SNP... in fact, I love the place... but I find the beginnings rather shady."

2012-11-13
_Rasmussen_
Families consolidate resources into fewer households as 72% have grown children back in the nest
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-14

2011-11-14
_FAIR US_
Lax immigration and guest-worker policies are undermining US tech workers
"Prior to the recession, the National Science Foundation estimated that there were between 4.3M and 5.8M STEM jobs in the U.S.A. for some 16.6M workers with degrees in those fields.   As a result, nearly two-thirds of native-born workers with degrees in science and engineering are working in careers outside their field of training.   Meanwhile, the U.S. labor market is flooded with hundreds of thousands of H-1B guest workers, and multi-national corporations are increasingly utilizing L-1 visas to transfer over-seas workers to jobs in the U.S.A.   Among the key findings of 'Jobs Americans Can't Do?': The U.S.A. has an adequate supply of native-born STEM workers to meet present and foreseeable labor market needs.   STEM industry employers prefer H-1B workers.   The Government Accountability Office confirms this finding, stating, 'H-1B workers [are] often prepared to work for less money than U.S. workers'.   Wages for workers with STEM degrees have not kept pace with wages of other college graduates and, in some occupations have actually declined in recent years.   Petitions for additional H-1B workers are virtually rubber-stamped by the government, with 94% of requests approved by the Department of Labor.   The issuance of L-1 visas, for intra-company transfers, grew by 53% between 2000 and 2008.   There is no numerical cap on the issuance of L-1 visas.   9 of the top 10 companies petitioning for L-1 visas between 1999 and 2004 produced absolutely nothing in this country.   These companies were IT out-sourcing firms [cross-border bodyshops] which rent out workers to other companies."
report

2011-11-14 04:11PST (07:11EST) (12:11GMT) (14:11 Jerusalem)
Laurianne McLaughlin _Tech Web_/_UBM_
What has been eating your IT job
"But consider the overall numbers: 'To meet demand for on-shore services, HCL is building out its presence in the U.S.A.   Company officials said about 8K of the their 83K employees are now in the United States, and that number will grow.', McDougall writes.   'Ultimately, it wants more than 12% of its employees to be based in the U.S.A. or Europe by 2015.   [Only about] 40% of HCL's current U.S.A.-based workers are [American citizens] or green card holders; the rest are on H-1B and other temporary visas [but they won't give the separate numbers of citizens, but it's significantly less then 3200, and therefor less than 3.85% of their total staff].'"

2011-11-14
Rob Jenkins _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Grades: What are they good for?
"The student, an 11th grader, brought me an English essay -- excuse me, a language-arts paper -- on which she had received a failing grade.   She was devastated by the grade because she had never failed a writing assignment before.   In fact, in her previous 11 years of public schooling, she had never made less than an A on any test or assignment in language arts, which, she told me solemnly (and her mother affirmed), was her 'best subject'...   she had won the state literary competition as a 9th grader and had published 3 or 4 editorials in the local newspaper.   She also scored a perfect 5 on the world history AP exam, which included an essay...   it was definitely not a failing paper.   As a piece of writing it had much to recommend it, including some facility with language, few grammatical errors, and a distinct voice...   What she needed to do, I told her, was to figure out what this particular teacher wanted and then give it to her...   I've always believed that my job was to help students learn to write and, therefore, pave the way for their future success in college and beyond."

2011-11-14
Amy Levin-Epstein _CBS_
4 things a manager should never say

2011-11-14
Nick Corcodilos
half-assed recruiting: why employers can't find talent

2011-11-14
William L. Anderson
insane Keynesian insistance on fighting bubbles by creating more and bigger bubbles

2011-11-14
Mark J. Perry
more on insider trading on capitol hill

2011-11-14
Mark J. Perry
natural gas prices at 10 year low for November

2011-11-14
Mark J. Perry
super-hydrophobic coating

2011-11-14
Mark J. Perry
P.J. O'Rourke's birth-day

2011-11-14
Mark J. Perry
insider trading by congressional staffers

2011-11-14
Mark J. Perry
companies continue to flee anti-business Kalifornia in record numbers, and save 40% on costs

2011-11-14
Mark J. Perry
structural shift in USA: GDP vs. employment

2011-11-14
Mark J. Perry
housing slump has some unusual results

2011-11-14 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 17)
Jacob Silverman _Jewish World Review_
Is radio fading away?
"According to the research firm Arbitron [formerly a subsidiary of Control Data Corporation], 190M Americans ages 12 and older listen to radio on a weekly basis.   What's more is that for musicians...the mass reach of radio is still the easiest way to break out big as an artist."

2011-11-14 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 17)
Ahsron Noguchi _Jewish World Review_
Don't get math? Researchers home in on how the brain does math
"the parietal cortex in the top back part of the head.   It could be a problem that has roots not in a failed arithmetic or 'new math' lesson, but even earlier.   Recent findings indicate that how well 3-year-olds estimate quantities predicts their math ability in elementary school.   Another study funded by the National Institutes of Health showed that the innate capacity to estimate is impaired in children who have a math learning disability.   The findings are so new that there's no widely accepted way to diagnose what's known as dyscalculia (dis-cal-KOO-lia), nor any set strategies for coping with it -- even though 5% to 8% of the population is thought so suffer from the math learning disability.   Consider it the mathematical partner to dyslexia, which impairs reading ability...   He has taken intermediate algebra six times at San Jose City College but has always dropped out part way.   Finally, a teacher explained formulas in an understandable way.   Just like he's overcome his dyslexia, he said, maybe researchers will find a way to better teach differently wired brains...   Michele M.M. Mazzocco...and colleagues at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore began tracking 249 kindergartners in public schools in 1997.   She found large differences in children's estimation skills.   Even as ninth-graders, some who viewed a set of colored dots flashed briefly on a screen found it difficult to consistently estimate the number, or to distinguish quantities, such as 20 dots from 15 dots.   To tell how many dots we see or to compare quantities, the brain taps into its 'approximate number system'.   Mazzocco found that students in the bottom 10% of math achievement lagged in those estimation skills.   However, that doesn't apply to everyone who 'doesn't get' math; the study found that children in the bottom 11% to 25% had no problem with estimation.   What dyscalculic children lack is 'number sense', something that most people take for granted but is a construct that can't always be taught...   children with dyscalculia don't activate the parietal cortex, which is critical for number processing, in the same way that other children do.   Researchers still don't know why, nor whether inactivity in that lobe of the brain causes the math problem or is a symptom of the disability...   what happens as children fail in arithmetic, he said, is that some develop math anxiety and want to shun the subject.   A just-released survey seems to bear that out.   The for-profit Sylvan Learning reports that about one-third of 400 children surveyed would sacrifice a month of video gaming or going on Facebook if they could never have to do algebra again, and 71% of 534 parents surveyed think helping kids with algebra is harder than teaching them to drive."
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-15

2011-11-15
Hannah Meisel _Daily Illini_
Cray Inc. inked deal with UIUC NCSA National Petascale Computing Facility project
"The NCSA and Cray have entered into a $188M contract, according to an NCSA press release Monday.   Cray will begin installing hardware in the National Petascale Computing Facility in early 2012, according to its press release."

2011-11-15 06:40PST (09:40EST) (14:40GMT) (16:40 Jerusalem)
Janet Begley _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
Two Treasure Coast areas have made the Business Journal's list of the top eight U.S. markets posting the strongest income-growth rates since 1970
"Port St. Lucie ranked 7th among 366 metropolitan areas in Total Personal Income Growth in the past 40 years.   Sebastian-Vero Beach ranked 8th...   Palm Coast, which ranked highest out of 366 markets.   Naples-Marco Island ranked second, with Cape Coral-Fort Myers placing fourth and Punta Gorda coming in at number 5...   9. Las Vegas-Paradise, Nevada   10. Bend, Oregon"

2011-11-15
_AAAS Science_
report of skilled US worker surplus
Eric Ruark: Immigration Reform
FAIR US
pdf
"There is no evidence that there is, or will exist in the foreseeable future, a shortage of 'qualified' native-born scientists and engineers in the United States.   The glut of science and engineering (S&E) degree holders in the United States has caused many S&E graduates to seek work in other fields.   Less than one-third of S&E degree holders are working in a field closely related to their degree, while 65% are either employed in or training for a career in another field within 2 years of graduating.   Wages in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) occupations have not kept pace with those of other college graduates, and in some occupations have actually decreased.   The Government Accountability Office [GAO] found that some U.S. employers acknowledged that 'H-1B workers were often prepared to work for less money than U.S. workers' and this factored into the employers' hiring decision.   Nearly 675K H-1B and L-1 visa holders were approved for work in the United States in 2009.   The Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor has never initiated an investigation to ensure that employers are properly paying their H-1B workers.   94% of H-1B petitions were approved between 2000 and 2009.   In 2008, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) found that 21% of H-1B petitions contained a violation.   L-1 approved visas rose by 53% from 2000 to 2008."

2011-11-15
William Tucker _American Spectator_
Paul Krugman flunked Moore's Law
"In the first place, Moore's Law has nothing to do with price.   It's about information.   Literally, it describes the number of components that can be placed in an integrated circuit.   Moore noted in a 1965 paper that the figure had doubled every 2 years from 1958 to 1965 and thought it would probably continue at that pace 'for at least 10 years'.   In fact it's continued that way ever since and has now accelerated to once every 18 months...   Moore himself predicted in 2005 that in twenty years we would reach the dimensions of individual atoms and progress might end -- unless we started working at the subatomic level."

2011-11-15
Aaron Goldstein _American Spectator_
Obummer's crude chutzpah: his ideological and intellectual laziness is a job killer

2011-11-15
Thomas Mitchell _UCLA_
new mouth-wash may eliminate cavities
UCLA college of dentistry
CBS Los Angeles CA
International Business Times
Health Canal
Phys Org/Medical Xpress
Buffalo Business First
"Dental caries, commonly known as tooth decay or cavities, is one of the most common and costly infectious diseases in the United States, affecting more than 50% of children and the vast majority of adults aged 18 and older. Americans spend more than $70G each year on dental services, with the majority of that amount going toward the treatment of dental caries.   This new mouthwash is the product of nearly a decade of research conducted by Wenyuan Shi, chair of the oral biology section at the UCLA School of Dentistry.   Shi developed a new anti-microbial technology called STAMP (specifically targeted anti-microbial peptides) with support from Colgate-Palmolive and from C3-Jian Inc., a company he founded around patent rights he developed at UCLA; the patents were exclusively licensed by UCLA to C3-Jian.   The mouthwash uses a STAMP known as C16G2...   those who rinsed with the UCLA-developed mouth-wash just once over a 4-day testing period experienced a near-complete elimination of the S. mutans bacteria... published in Caries Research...   conventional mouth-wash, indiscriminately kill both benign and harmful pathogenic organisms and only do so for a 12-hour time period."

2011-11-15
William L. Anderson
apparent White House-Solyndra collusion in fraud

2011-11-15
Mark J. Perry
jobs in TX vs. CA

2011-11-15
Mark J. Perry
Tax-victims as the government's ATM...

2011-11-15
Mark J. Perry
ND oil production approaching Ecuador's level

2011-11-15 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 18)
Heidi Stevens _Jewish World Review_
Coping with the copycat syndrome

2011-11-15 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 18)
Steve Johnson _Jewish World Review_
After 15 years and $150M, Geron stops human embryonic stem cell experiments

2011-11-15 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 18)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Will Republicans blow it?
"Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that a good catch phrase could stop thinking for 50 years...   Ronald Reagan won two landslide elections when he ran as Ronald Reagan.   Vice President George H.W. Bush then won when he ran as if he were another Ronald Reagan, with his famous statement, 'Read my lips, no new taxes.'   But after Bush 41 was elected and turned 'kinder and gentler' -- to everyone except the [tax-victims] -- he lost to an unknown governor from a small state.   Other Republican presidential candidates who went the 'moderate' route -- Bob Dole and John McCain -- also came across as neither fish nor fowl, and also went down to defeat...   The question now is whether the conservative Republican candidates who have enjoyed their successive and short-lived boomlets -- Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain -- are prepared to stay in the primary race to the bitter end, or whether their conservative principles will move them to withdraw and throw their support to another conservative candidate.   There has probably never been a time in the history of this country when we more urgently needed to get a president out of the White House, before he ruined the country.   But will the conservative Republican candidates let that guide them?"
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-16

2011-11-16 09:46PST (12:46EST) (17:46GMT) (19:46 Jerusalem)
_KGO San Francisco CA_/_AP_
Citigroup may dump 3K more US employees

2011-11-16
Lynn O'Shaughnessy _CBS_
25 majors with the highest unemployment rates

2011-11-16
Justin Rohrlich _MarketWatch_
Insider trading by congress-critters and executive branch

2011-11-16
Michael Cutler _One Old Vet_
people being attacked for position on the need to enforce immigration laws
Californians for Population Stabilization

2011-11-16
Mark J. Perry
gasoline prices in the USA and Europe

2011-11-16
Mark J. Perry
CPI indices for natural gas down 2.2%, electricity up 2.9%, fuel oil up 26.8%, all energy up 14.2% since a year ago

2011-11-16
Mark J. Perry
Institute for Justice challenges CT dental cartel

2011-11-16
Mark J. Perry
architecture billings

2011-11-16
Mark J. Perry
oil imports as share of total US oil consumption

2011-11-16 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 19)
Marc Caputo _Jewish World Review_
Mystery over donation to Bill Nelson campaign says much about fight for Jewish vote in Florida
"Senator Bill Nelson's campaign is embroiled in a whodunit over a political contribution made by an Islamic activist who has branded Israel a 'terrorist state'.   The Florida Democrat's campaign says it rejected a $500 donation made at an Oct. 22 fund-raiser by activist Ahmed Bedier due to his strident criticisms of Israel.   But Bedier said he never gave the contribution in the first place.   So nothing was rejected.   The host of the event, Ocala pharmacist Manal Fakhoury, said Bedier is telling the truth.   'He did not give money.', said Fakhoury, who held the fundraiser for 60 people at her home.   'I saw the list' of donors...   A jury acquitted Al-Arian of 8 counts but deadlocked on nine others before Al-Arian pleaded guilty to one charge of helping associates of a terrorist group with nonviolent activities.   Before his case ended, Al-Arian was a central figure in the 2004 U.S. senate race, which Democrat Betty Castor narrowly lost to Mel Martinez.   Castor was heavily criticized for not doing more to fire Al-Arian while he was a professor during her time as the head of the University of South Florida.   Al-Arian's links to Palestinian Islamic Jihad were first publicly detailed in a PBS show by journalist-turned-terrorism-expert Steve Emerson, who went on to found a group called the Investigative Project on Terrorism...   the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which Bedier used to lead in Tampa.   Critics brand CAIR as a group with terrorist sympathies because of evidence in a 2008 federal Hamas-support trial in Dallas...   Conservative groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition -- tied to Nelson opponent Adam Hasner, a former state House GOP leader from Delray Beach -- say Nelson hasn't backed Israel enough."
Clarion Project: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
anti-CAIR
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-11-16 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 19)
Pete Spotts _Jewish World Review_
Crowd-sourcing science: How gamers are changing scientific discovery
"On Sept. 18, the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology announced that 2 teams of computer gamers had solved it in 3 weeks.   Using a game called FoldIt, the teams uncovered the structure of a class of proteins...   Some scientists, like FoldIt's creators, seek to tap the competitive, problem-solving skills of gamers.   Others are asking outsiders to make their computers part of data-crunching networks.   And some amateurs are helping to classify everything from distant galaxies to features on the moon...   In the world of proteins, shape is everything, but computers have a tough time analyzing it.   Humans, however, excel at 3-D pattern recognition and can wield the game's on-line tools to shape the protein.   Meanwhile, the game acts as a referee should team members run afoul of the basic physics that govern bonding between the molecules involved.   The less energy needed to retain the protein's shape, the higher a team's score...   Zoran Popovic, head of the Center for Game Science at the University of Washington in Seattle and FoldIt architect...   Since the inception of Planet Hunters, volunteers have classified light curves that would take one person 60 years to process, says Yale University astronomer Debra Fischer, one of the scientists running the Planet Hunters program."

2011-11-16 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 19)
F. Roger Devlin _V Dare_
the impossibility of reforming "higher education"

2011-11-16 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 19)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Poverty in America?
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-17

2011-11-16 20:22PST (2011-11-16 23:22EST) (2011-11-17 04:22GMT) (2011-11-17 06:22 Jerusalem)
Manan Kakkar _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
India's evil national ID program hits several snags

2011-11-17 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (13:30GMT) (15:30 Jerusalem)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 360,139 in the week ending November 12, a decrease of 42,355 from the previous week.   There were 409,548 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5% during the week ending November 5, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,164,504, a decrease of 46,356 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.0% and the volume was 3,735,938.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending October 29 was 6,773,326, a decrease of 62,278 from the previous week.   Extended benefits were available in AL, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending October 29.   States reported 2,935,466 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending October 29, a decrease of 18,358 from the prior week.   There were 3,961,485 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" (the divisor) 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;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2011-11-17
Justin Rohrlich _Minyanville_
Congress-critters exempted themselves from insider trading prohibition (staffers and lobbyists, too)

2011-11-17
Christopher Orlet _American Spectator_
abuse of SSI has replaced AFDC as the biggest illfare swindle

2011-11-17 13:30PST (16:30EST) (21:30GMT) (23:30 Jerusalem)
Michael Hirsh _National Journal_
nearly a century of flawed economic thinking have helped to drive increasing long-term unemployment

2011-11-17
Reid Smith _American Spectator_
Preventing a nuclear Iran

2011-11-17
Mark J. Perry
Obummer's decision to block pipe-line: Wake up and smell the tar sands

2011-11-17
Mark J. Perry
record farm profits, and $10G in subsidies

2011-11-17
Mark J. Perry
Obummer's indefensible pipe-line punt

2011-11-17
Mark J. Perry
shipments leaving port of Los Angeles set record high in October

2011-11-17
William L. Anderson
Krugmanomics: partisanship ueber alles

2011-11-17 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
Erika Bolstad _Jewish World Review_
Holocaust survivors argue for quest to sue European companies
"Bretholz and 2 fellow Holocaust survivors on Wednesday appealed to Congress for the ability to sue European companies such as Allianz AG, a German insurance giant, in state courts for unpaid life insurance policies sold before World War2.   They're also seeking passage of the Holocaust Rail Justice Act, which would open the French rail firm SNCF to U.S. law-suits from an estimated 75K Jews and other victims transported by the company's trains to World War2 concentration camps...   The State Department opposes the bill and told the committee in a statement submitted for the hearing that many of the survivors who believe they've not been properly compensated would 'face great difficulty' with their claims.   That's why the U.S. government supported in 1998 the creation of the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, the State Department said.   In all, the commission paid about $300M to 48K claimants, the State Department's Douglas Davidson said in a memo."

2011-11-17 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
Clifford D. May _Jewish World Review_
Appease, temporize, posture and gesture?

2011-11-17 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
Habib Zohori _Jewish World Review_
Karzai renews call for USA to end tactic crucial to capturing Taliban and al-Qaida operatives
"U.S. State Department and USAID assistance to Afghanistan in 2010 was $4.1G."

2011-11-17 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
Michael D. Tanner _Cato Policy Analysis_
Socialist Insecurity, other Ponzi schemes, and the need for reform
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-18

2011-11-18
Denise Dick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
$1M anonymous donation wows officials at science center for kids

2011-11-18 03:17PST (06:17EST) (11:17GMT) (13:17 Jerusalem)
Jason Palmer _BBC_
improved experiment confirms neutrinos appear to be traveling faster than light
"Cern test 'breaks speed of light'.   time taken by neutrinos 0.0024 seconds.   0.000 000 06 second faster than the expected.   732 kilometers distance travelled through rock [from CERN, Geneva to Gran Sasso, Italy]."

2011-11-18
Martin Crutsinger _USA Today_/_Gannett_/_AP_
Conference Board: leading indicators up 0.9% in October
"The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.S.A. increased 0.9% in October to 117.4 (2004 = 100), following a 0.1% increase in September, and a 0.3% increase in August...   The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index® (CEI) for the U.S.A. increased 0.2% in October to 103.5 (2004 = 100), following no change in September and August."

2011-11-18 09:44PST (12:44EST) (17:44GMT) (19:44 Jerusalem)
Ellen Nakashima _Washington DC Post_
Hackers cause physical damage at Springfield, IL and Houston, NV water plant
Dancho Danchev: Ziff Davis/CBS
"a series of minor glitches with a water pump gradually escalated to the point where the pump motor was being turned on and off frequently.   It soon burned out, according to the report.   The report blamed the damage on the actions of somebody using a computer registered to an Internet address in Russia."

2011-11-18
_Happy Schools web log_
F, M, & J visa grants were briefly on hold due to communication difficulties among the Consolidated Consular Data-Base, SEVP and SEVIS

2011-11-18
Ben Baden _US News & World Report_
Employers are to blame for their own alleged "skills shortages": workers say they've been forced to develop new skills on their own
"The majority of workers (55%) report that they are under pressure to develop additional skills to succeed in their current and future jobs, but only 21% say they have acquired new skills through company-provided formal training during the past 5 years...   52% have added technology skills in the past 5 years, but many hadn't updated other in-demand skills such as problem solving (31%), analytical skills (26%), and managerial skills (21%). Most workers surveyed (63%) say they have developed new skills through on-the-job experience."

2011-11-18
Ned Ryun _American Spectator_
Ohio rising: greater freedom and less government
"Those familiar with the Tea Party movement know that one of its more sophisticated coalitions is the Ohio Liberty Council (OLC), a collection of 80 Tea Party and 9/12 groups spread across the Buckeye State.   As an umbrella organization, the OLC has developed a model of connecting various local groups in a way that allows them to retain their autonomy while working toward the common goal of greater freedom and less government."

2011-11-18
Mark J. Perry
natural gas vs. oil prices

2011-11-18
Mark J. Perry
Milionaires who say they want higher taxes refuse opportunity to pay more voluntarily

2011-11-18
Mark J. Perry
7 of 12 busiest sea-ports are in Red China, 10 are in Asia

2011-11-18
Mark J. Perry
Conference Board's leading economic index

2011-11-18
Quin Hillyer _American Spectator_
Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton make "blues" a joy

2011-11-18
Samuel Gregg _American Spectator_
European "leaders" refuse to face economic reality

2011-11-18
Ross Kaminsky _American Spectator_
Federal government debt $15T and counting

2011-11-18 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 21)
Arnold Ahlert _Jewish World Review_
Walking along Avenue J(ew) in Brooklyn, NY
 
Proposed Bills 2011

2011-11-18

DJIA	11,796.16
S&P 500(SPX)	1,215.65
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,572.50
Nikkei	8,374.91
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	2.01%
crude oil(CL2F)	$97.41/barrel
natgas(NG11Z)	$3.32/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RB1Z)	$2.48/gal
heatingoil(HO1Z)	$3.03/gal
gold(GC1Z)	$1,725.10/ounce
silver(SI1Z)	$32.42/ounce
platinum(PL2F)	$1,588.70/ounce
palladium(PA1Z)	$605.15/ounce
copper(HG1Z)	$0.2125/ounce
soybeans	$11.6825/bushel
maize	$6.1025/bushel
wheat	$5.9825/bushel
dollarindex (DXY)	78.098
yenperdollar (USDYEN)	76.85
dollarspereuro (EURUSD)	$1.3577
dollarsperpound (GBPUSD)	$1.5807
swissfrancsperdollar (USDCHF)	0.9159
indianrupeesperdollar (USDINR)	51.2355
mexicanpesosperdollar (USDMXN)	13.727
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	603.7

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-19

2011-11-19
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
UCB conference -- a little heat, but lots of light
 
The Berkeley Schools of Law and Journalism hosted a conference on immigration this week, in which I served in a panel discussion on H-1B.   Like the meeting last year, the goal was to educate journalists on immigration, "going beyond the rhetoric".
 
I was a panelist at the conference last year too.
 
which includes among other things a link to the videos of last year's presentations.
 
This year's panel consisted of Vivek Wadhwa, well known to readers of this e-news-letter, Angelo Paparelli, a prominent immigration lawyer, and myself.
 
The organizers did another great job in inviting interesting speakers.   I regret not being able to attend the other days' sessions.   And I would say that in terms of the H-1B session, this turned out to be the most educational (for the audience) forum I've ever ever participated in on H-1B.   But this will unfold gradually below, so please bear with me.
 
I'm cc-ing the organizers.   For their benefit, let me explain that this e-news-letter is read by programmers, engineers, journalists, academics, policy analysts and others interested in H-1B and related issues.   (Old postings.)
 
The panel came at the end of a long day, so one of the organizers of the conference expressed concern that the audience might be a little less attention.   Vivek replied, "Don't worry, we'll wake them up [then turning to me], right, Norm?"   I agreed that the audience would definitely be attentive.
 
That turned out to be a huge under-statement, as fire-works followed!   Vivek became very highly emotional during his presentation, and during much of the Q&A session.
 
Vivek does have a track record along these lines, but this time he was even more emotional, losing control.   I will indeed describe it (I feel I have to, since someone in the audience wrote about it on Twitter), but I ask the reader NOT to dwell on this issue.   Yes, those in the audience probably found Vivek's outburst to be one of the most memorable incidents during the 5 days of the conference, but I believe that they'll feel that it was equally dramatic that Vivek and I agree regarding the under-payment.   He and I knew beforehand that we agreed on that, of course, but the audience didn't, so this is huge.   (Though there are definitely other important things I'll report on in this posting.)
 
[University of California at] Berkeley economics professor David Card spoke in an earlier session the same day.   His presentation itself was rather dry, and he did his own sniping at some fellow economics, accusing them of bias.   But some of his responses to audience questions were quite surprising.   I'll discuss this too; don't miss it.
 
The organizers of the conference encouraged the audience to "tweet" about what they were seeing, and I'm including the tweets below as well.
 
Angelo spoke first.   He complained a lot about the arbitrary and capricious behavior of USCIS adjudicators in foreign labor cases (which I agreed upon later in my talk).   There was a lot of the usual "why are we making it difficult for smart people, entrepreneurs etc. that could help the U.S. economy"?   He noted that no major change has been made to the immigration code since 1990, asserting that it no longer is fit for current times.   The now-common term "our broken immigration system" (which by the way is on the USCIS web page) came up once or twice.
 
I was up next.   I was the only 1 of the 3 to have slides (pdf).   My theme was that representative Lofgren's current bill, and one by senator Schumer last year, amount to unfair scape-goating of the Indian firms.
 
This "blame the Indians" approach has been around DC and related circles for many years, and long-time readers of this e-news-letter know that I've been complaining about it for years.   I've been warning that it would eventually lead to the introduction of unfair and unhelpful legislation, which of course has now come to pass.   I mention here my long opposition to such thinking because Vivek seemed to think that it was a recent, and "convenient", trick that I had suddenly thought of; more on this below.
 
Some of you will recall that this past July I was a participant in a work-shop in DC on STEM labor issues, funded by the Sloan Foundation.   In my report here at the time, I described the cast of characters, though nameless:
 
The attendees (by invitation only) could be described as the Who's Who of DC policy-makers related to the above issues, people in key positions in various major federal government agencies.   (For reasons explained below, I will not list their names or agencies here.)   There were also several of us from academia, as well as several professional advocates -- one from organized labor, one from the business community who specializes in matters such as H-1B, and one from a think tank allied with the immigration lawyers.
 
The work-shop was conducted under Chatham House Rules, meaning that one may report what was said but not who said it (including their affiliations).
 
If you haven't read that posting yet, I urge you to do so, because it gives a rare glimpse of how policy is made in DC, but here is my point: One of the speakers in the morning, a political appointee in a key government agency, spoke glowingly of the Lofgren bill.   Again, from my write-up here at the time:
 
Though it never explicitly says so, the recently-introduced Lofgren IDEA Act is very much focused on the [Indian firms]...   [I spent most of my afternoon presentation on this point] only to find that everyone already seemed to be aware of it.   Indeed, they seemed to understand that this was in fact the point of the Lofgren bill, to target the Indians.
 
Here in a nut-shell is my argument that I made to the Berkeley conference as to why such targeting is unfair:
 
1.   The employers claim they hire H-1Bs because they have some special quality, say experience in a "hot" technological skill, an advanced degree, "best and brightest" talent level, etc.
 
2.   Yet the legal prevailing wage is just an average for the given occupation, region and experience level, so it doesn't take into account "special qualities".
 
3.   Therefore the legal prevailing wage is lower than what the H-1Bs would command on the open market.
 
4.   The PERM data for employer-sponsored green cards show that more than half of the software engineers are paid only at or near the prevailing wage -- thus they are under-paid!
 
5.   The Indian firms usually don't sponsor workers for green cards, so the PERM data are for main-stream U.S. firms.
 
6.   Therefore the main-stream U.S. firms under-pay the foreign workers, just like the Indian firms do, and thus legislation that targets the Indians is scape-goating.
 
This data analysis was in general.   I then presented the number for Angelo's firm, Seyfarth and Shaw -- and it was the same.   In other words, more than half of Angelo's firm's clients are under-paid.
 
Keep in mind, this under-payment is FULLY LEGAL, due to loop-holes [the way "prevailing wage" is defined in the statutes and regulations].   I emphasized this point repeatedly in my presentation.
 
I also emphasized another favorite point of mine, that H-1B and related programs are causing an Internal Brain Drain [USA Brain Waste], in which we're losing our own best and brightest to more lucrative fields, because the influx of foreign workers has kept STEM wages down.   I also brought in my constant point that H-1B is fundamentally about age, used by employers to avoid hiring the 35+ year-old Americans, hiring the 20-something H-1Bs instead, for much lower wages.
 
During my presentation, I brought in some quotes of Vivek's, along the lines of (a) the H-1Bs ARE under-paid, and it IS due to loop-holes; (b) there IS a big age issue in tech, and (c) Vivek reacted just as negatively as I did to Schumer's Indian-scape-goating bill.
 
Then it was Vivek's turn.   He had a stern look on his face as he walked up to the podium, and he immediately went into a tirade directed at me.   He was quite angry.   He started by complaining "I don't like my words being used against me!", "I don't like hearing my name 4 times!", and so on.   He didn't claim that I had misquoted him, or that I had quoted him out of context, nor did he explain why what I said was "against him".   But then he started to call me a racist, claiming that my outrage against the Indian scape-goating was just a ruse on my part.   He ridiculed the fact that my wife is a Chinese immigrant, etc.   He repeatedly said to the audience, "Now you watch, Matloff is going to write this in his e-news-letter" (which of course is exactly what I'm doing here).   One of the journalists in the audience tweeted that Vivek also called me a "wacko"; I don't remember that one, but the epithets were flying by so quickly that I just couldn't keep up.
 
Vivek complained that people make negative comments about him on blogs, quoting me on the H-1B issue, and so on.   It's true that Vivek seems to be a favorite target of some H-1B critics on the web, who assert that he exaggerates his credentials, that his statements are highly misleading if not dishonest, and so on.   But of course this comes with the territory, if one is something of a public figure, and Vivek has to get used to that.
 
Vivek finally did get into his real topics: America is losing good people because the green card waits are as long as 70 years, India and China are the winners from this, 52% of the start-ups in Silicon Valley are founded by immigrants, etc.
 
Then he suddenly stopped and went back to his seat.   There was stunned silence in the audience.   The moderator said nothing.   In my 35 years in academia (and quasi-academia, i.e. the think tanks and so on), I have seen only one other out-burst like it.
 
Vivek's tirade was not a total surprise, given his track record in debates in which he harangued professor Ron Hira on CNBC and more recently CNN (Hira on [Bank of India] and Hira vs. Wadhwa.)
 
Here's what I wrote in that first posting:
 
As someone who likes and respects both Vivek and Ron, the video clip was painful to watch.   Vivek got carried away, and said things I think he doesn't really believe.   Ron, by contrast, was very calm, with a "Why did I EVER agree to participating in this circus?" look on his face, but calm to the point of not aggressively defending his point of view.
 
I had thought that the CNBC incident would be the last, but there was another like it on CNN, again between Vivek and Ron, just a couple of weeks ago.   I should add that Vivek has on 2 occasions publicly accused me of fabricating my data, the worst charge one can bring against an academic.   This certainly annoys me, as I've stated publicly here and privately to some of you.   Yet, having grown up in an emotional family, I tend to be more understanding; I'll just leave it at that.
 
I've also strongly praised some of Vivek's research, especially the novel way in which he investigated whether there is a tech labor shortage.
 
One of Vivek's hobby horses is Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and uber-libertarian who is giving "fellowships" to highly talented college kids to quit school and become entrepreneurs.   Vivek brought that up during the Q&A, saying how strongly he opposed Thiel on this issue, and I said I agreed with Vivek.   Vivek then smiled and said, "In that case, I'll calm down."   (He did "sorry about all that" to me when I said goodbye to him at the end of the day.)
 
During the Q&A Vivek did say emphatically that H-1Bs are underpaid, and that he wants to abolish the H-1B visa program entirely, replacing it with a liberalized green card program.   Angelo of course disagreed, saying some people just want to work temporarily.   I agreed with Angelo; I've never called for eliminating the program.
 
Vivek also mentioned that he has added a couple of universities to his string of affiliations, and mentioned that he does not draw a salary.   (He had a funny "Rick Perry" moment, rattling off the string of schools, ending with Stanford, but then saying, "There's one more...uh...let's see...oh, Emory!")
 
When it came Angelo's first turn to talk during the Q&A, he said in response to the data I had shown about his firm, "I can assure you that my firm does not violate the law."   That of course ignored the umpteen times I had stated that H-1Bs are under-paid in full compliance with the law, due to loop-holes.
 
Thus I was quite taken aback when Angelo later actually brought up a loop-hole on his own, though he tried to "explain" why there was nothing insidious about it.   Here's the setting.
 
I've mentioned that prevailing wage is based on the JOB, not the WORKER.   Say an employer (sincerely) advertises a job as requiring a bachelor's degree, with a master's being a plus.   If the employer hires an H-1B who has a master's, the law only requires the employer to pay the worker at a bachelor's wage.   IOW, the law sets up the employer to hire a master's worker at a bachelor's wage.   Such a deal!
 
But Angelo tried to justify it, saying "So what if the foreign worker wants to work for a lower wage?   It's up to him."   But that of course is ignoring the point that when an employer says "master's degree a plus", it means by definition that the employer VALUES a master's, and would pay extra for it were the applicant a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.   The hypothetical H-1B here is under-paid, and thus can edge an American with the same "qualifications" out of being hired.
 
I had enjoyed chatting with Angelo during an earlier break, but he and I had an odd exchange during the Q&A:
 
me, addressing the audience: What Vivek was referring to was a tiff between him and Ron Hira on CNN recently, in which Ron cited the incident of the [Bank of India] replacing Americans by H-1Bs.
 
Angelo: That's impossible.   If it occurred, the Americans could have brought a complaint, and the [Bank of India] would have been debarred from the H-1B program.   It's illegal to displace Americans like that.
 
me, in amazement: Angelo, what law are you citing?
 
Angelo, after a substantial pause: The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act [IANA].
 
me: Angelo, I'm sorry, but I'm amazed you would say this in public.   It's not true.
 
Angelo: It's true for so-called "H-1B dependent employers" [which is an extremely tiny percentage of H-1B sponsors, less than 2%, as I recall...jgo].
 
me: Angelo, the [Bank of India] is not an "H-1B dependent employer".
 
Angelo: No, but if they had used an outside staffing agency that IS an "H-1B dependent employer", then they'd be in violation.
 
IOW, Angelo knew all along that as long as the [BofI] did the replacing (which I believe is the case), it would not be illegal at all.   Yet he was flatly stating that it would have been illegal, no matter what firm did the replacing.   If I hadn't called him on it, the audience would have believed that American workers were safe from displacement by our big institutions like the [BofI].
 
At any rate, in spite of the histrionics, I believe the audience came away with a clear view that Vivek and I agreed that the H-1Bs are under-paid.   Poor Angelo, sitting between Vivek and me, must have felt a little odd, especially since he probably expected Vivek to agree with him (which he does on some issues).
 
Unfortunately, we ran out of time in the Q&A, so I didn't have time to discuss, for instance, Vivek's 52% figure and the like.   I did say his 70-year wait figure comes from an extremely biased person whose research I've found to be quite misleading over the years.
 
Now, what about David Card?   He's an accomplished figure, various honors and so on.   I believe he is best known for his research on (a) the impact of the Mariel boat-lift on Miami labor and (b) impact of minimum wage laws.
 
He spent a considerable part of his time criticizing the work of Harvard's George Borjas concerning the impact of immigration on labor.   He also said that researchers from the Center for Immigration Studies were "anti-immigrant" (verbatim phrase), and seemed to be implying the same for Borjas.   When someone in the audience asked whether Borjas was guilty of political bias, Card said yes.
 
There's no question that George is more on what is called the "restrictionist" side of the immigration debate.   He wrote a book on it, after all.   But Card praised my Davis colleague Giovanni Peri as neutral on the issue, which is absurd.   Giovanni's a nice guy, and kindly agreed to give a guest lecture when I once taught a freshman seminar on immigration.   But Giovanni is no middle-of-the-roader on immigration, that's for sure, and is just as supportive of large-scale immigration as George and the CIS people have reservations about it.
 
In the midst of that discussion, Card suddenly said, "[Biased research] is like when one is an expert witness, presenting only one side of the issue."   Since Card and I served as expert witnesses in an age discrimination suit against a prominent tech firm a couple of years ago (he was retained by the defendant, and I by the plaintiff; the case was settled), his out-of-the-blue remark really took me aback.   I strongly disagree with that characterization of an expert's role, and can certainly say that in all my stints as an expert, I have taken my responsibility to be presenting all the facts, not filtered.
 
But the most interesting part of Card's session in the conference was that Angelo asked him from the audience, "Do you agree that high-tech immigrants create jobs?"   Card answered no, citing some economic principles.   But Angelo pressed it, asking, "Well, maybe the high-tech immigrants raise incomes -- are people who say that all wet?"   Card answered, "Yes, they're pretty wet."   Actually, I didn't find Card's explanations very convincing, and in my view both of them were missing the real point: Even if some tech product does create new jobs, it does so whoever develops that product, immigrant or native, as long as the developer is competent and creative.   If there weren't "qualified" [capable] people to fill that developer position, things might be different, but they ARE available, if not at the employer's preferred price.
 
Someone asked Card if he, as an immigrant, has been under-paid.   As a matter of fact yes, he said smiling.   When Princeton applied for a green card for him when he joined their faculty, the INS rejected the application because the offered salary was too low.   (One of the journalists said he'd been under-paid when he was an H-1B too.)
 
Tweeting was suggested by the organizers, under the name #journalism2011, and I'm enclosing the audience tweets below.   They make for fun reading, but I must comment on the remark by Neroulias questioning MY credentials.   [See, Vivek, you're not alone. :-) ]   I wonder why she feels that David Card is "qualified" to analyze immigration, given that he uses statistical regression analysis, just like me.   And what about Vivek?   He has no formal background in research at all, so why is he "qualified", in Neroulias' view?   Neroulias was the one, I believe, who seemed to express admiration for Google co-founder and immigrant Sergei Brin, so there might be a bit of bias there.
 
Again, certainly one of the most stimulating conferences I've participated in, and many thanks to the organizers.
 
Norm
 
Roxana A. Soto roxanaSB
@wadhwa: high skilled worker immigrants are getting fed up & leaving US because of amount of time it takes 2 get green card #journalism2011
 
BeliefBeat Nicole Neroulias
@wadhwa: India & China has tech boom b/c US now drives those ppl away!   Many Silicon Valley startups founded by immigrants.
 
scribehernan Hernan Rozemberg
Prof. Norman Matloff @ UC-Davis: Foreign professionals on high-tech visas are underpaid b/c they're more educated. #journalism2011
 
lizcgoodwin Liz Goodwin
High-skilled immig panel getting heated. Vivek Wadhwa just called our previous panelist, Prof Norman Matloff, a wacko. #journalism2011
 
scribehernan Hernan Rozemberg
Vivek Wadhwa: Presenter at Berkeley immigration seminar likens previous speaker, Prof. Matloff, to "white supremacists."
 
BeliefBeat Nicole Neroulias
Matloff: Fix H-1B by raising prevailing wage to 75 percentile (currently at 50th), 90th to get quick greencards. #journalism2011
 
raquel ruiz author raquelruizwrite
#journalism2011 .#immigration Prof Matloff: confirms that fewer Americans get PhDs b/c immigrants had lowered wages
 
BeliefBeat Nicole Neroulias
Matloff: Fewer Americans get PhDs now b/c immigration has lowered grad student salaries.   (Not sure I agree.) #journalism2011
 
NewsGus Gustavo Martinez
Norman Matloff: Americans don't go to grad school because H1B Visas stagnate salaries. #journalism2011
 
raquelruizwrite raquel ruiz author
.#journalism2011 .#immigration Prof Matloff: The visa H-B1 is all about cheap labor.   The "Indias" has been scape-goats
 
scribehernan Hernan Rozemberg
Prof. Norman Matloff @ UC-Davis: Foreign professionals on high-tech visas are under-paid b/c they're more educated .
 
raquelruizwrite raquel ruiz author
.#Journalism2011 .#immigration Prof Matloff: INS is 1 of the worst bureaucracies, but the law itself -immigration- its the 1 with problems
 
raquel ruiz author @raquelruizwrite
.#journalism2011 .#immigration Prof Matloff: The visa H-B1 is all about cheap labor.   The "Indias" has been scapegoats
 
Nicole Neroulias of BeliefBeat
In all seriousness - Matloff is statistics/computer science prof.   How/why is he expert in immigration/age discrimination?
---30---

2011-11-19
David Phillips _Automotive News_
former GM (1992-11-02 to 1995-12-31) and Procter & Gamble (1982-1990) chairman John Smale died at 84
"...[Robert Stempel] died this past May... In 1991 December, under pressure from GM's outside directors, chairman Robert Stempel...[began elimination of] 74K jobs and announced the closing of 21 plants [planned through 1995]... John Smale, a lead outside director, took over as GM chairman on 1992-11-02 when Stempel, Reuss, and others were eventually ousted. The auto-maker -- battered by a recession, the first Gulf War and steady market share losses -- lost more than $17G in North America from 1990 to 1993... GM spent $800 more per car on labor than rival Ford Motor Co., while producing lower-quality vehicles... Under Smale and [Jack Smith ii], GM slowly regained financial footing and posted record profits of $4.9G on sales of $154.9G in 1994... $9.6G in operating losses under Stempel's watch... Smale...was a graduate of Miami U in Oxford, Ohio...
FindAGrave: John Gray Smale (son of ? Smale & ?) m: Phyllis Weaver (d of Charles S. Weaver & Dorothy McKee)

2011-11-19
Mark J. Perry
Euro debt web

2011-11-19
Mark J. Perry
Oil v. natural gas prices on energy-equivalent basis
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-20

2011-11-20
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
the latest H-1B cause celebre
 
The San Francisco Chronicle article reports that a San Francisco school teacher, a Cantonese-speaking speech specialist, is "facing deportation" because her H-1B visa is expiring and the school district cannot justify sponsoring her for a green card, given that there are "qualified" U.S. applicants for the job.
 
Putting aside the point that this person will not be "deported" -- her visa will end, and she and her family will simply move back to Canada, as opposed to being frog-marched over the border-- give me a break!   No Cantonese-speaking teachers in the Bay Area?   有冇搞錯! (Cantonese equiv. of "Are you kidding me?")   Granted, this was a specialty teaching position, but even if the position itself is justified (I have my doubts of that, more on this below), the notion that there are no "qualified and willing" U.S. citizen or permanent resident candidates available is just absurd.
 
What immediately came to mind was the case a couple of years ago of the Dallas Morning News, a major newspaper, sponsoring for a green card a foreign worker to fill a position as a "bilingual [English, Spanish] sports photographer".   The bilingual requirement is questionable, and very possibly a pretext, but even if it was genuine, give me a break!   This is DALLAS, not Des Moines.   There ought to be some Spanish-speaking sports photographers around.
 
There was a teacher case similar to the one above last year in Oakland.
 
IIRC, the district did hire an American (who also happened to be of Filipino descent like the "deported" teacher, actually a friend of the latter).
 
In the San Francisco Chronicle article above (with, by the way, 284 reader comments as I write this), city councilman David Chiu called the teacher a victim of the country's broken immigration policies.   And the people interviewed in the Chinese-language coverage of the story on the region's main Chinese TV station made it sound like the problem is USCIS' confusing bureaucracy.
 
But there is nothing broken or bureaucratic about it.   The law [under the PERM process requirements?] says that this teacher can't be hired if a "willing and qualified" American can be found to fill the job.   The district says they indeed have "qualified" applicants.
 
I discussed this case today with professor Ling-chi Wang, a close friend of mine.   Ling-chi, retired from UC Berkeley, is arguably the dean of the Asian-American Studies community nationwide.   (He is actually the one credited with coining the term "Asian-American.")   He has been looking into helping the teacher, and kindly agreed to allow me to quote his comments in this posting:
 
I feel very badly for Yuen-Ming Sin.   This personal catastrophe could have been avoided, if the school district has been more competent and conscientious in handling the case and the needs of the students.   The school administrators knew about the looming immigration problems more than a year ago and they had to opportunity to do it right.   Now it is approaching a tragic end for the teacher and the students.
 
I know when the administrators realized what was about to happen, they quickly tried to find a replacement.   What they did find was a person who is still in training and still unlicensed, as far as I know.   If there are other better "qualified" teachers, the district did not bother to look for him or her.   How else can we explain the situation now?
 
You may quote me.
 
Ling-chi
 
I have enormous respect for Ling-chi, and of course appreciate his concern for Ms. Sin.   His passion for helping the under-dog is unmatched.
 
But the bottom line remains that this job could be filled by a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, in fact probably one who is even more "qualified" than Ms. Sin.   Keep in mind that this job pays $113K per year!   (I saw one report that said $137,700.)   Not only are there large numbers of Cantonese speakers in the Bay Area, there are many, many more all over the country.   No speech therapists among them who'd be interested in a $100K+ job?   Come on.
 
There is of course also the issue of just what it is Ms. Sin is doing.   Nothing I've read in the newspapers or gotten from the Chinese TV news indicates that Ms. Sin is really doing speech therapy.   From my experience as an ESL teacher in Chinatown (long ago), and reading the reports and the reader comments (some from parents who've had contact with Ms. Sin), it appears that she is simply evaluating English ability for placement of immigrant kids, and teaching an ESL course and advising the kids' parents.   Thus there are, I believe, likely issues of the district over-defining the job, not to mention wasting their precarious budget.
 
But in any case, the central fact is that the district simply didn't try very hard to find someone.   For them H-1B/green card was the first resort, not the last resort.   In this case, it wasn't our immigration system that was broken, but rather then employer's abuse of it.
 
Norm
---30---

2011-11-20
Alexandra Rice _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Students losing an average of 45 minutes of sleep each week because of their cell phones
"Students already average a 'sleep debt' of 2 hours each night, according to Ms. Adams's study, which reflects similar findings from national sleep studies.   Her study and others suggest that college students need nine and one-quarter hours of sleep each night, though they get an average of only seven hours.   So losing those extra 45 minutes hurts even more.   The students who had the highest rates of technology use also had higher levels of anxiety and depression compared with the rest of the students in the Rhode Island study."

2011-11-20
Kevin Carey _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Innovative tech trio puts students in solid jobs
"JK dropped out of Indiana University in the 1970s...worked his way up through the industry, eventually managing entire plants...   So he founded a company, 180 Skills, to help solve the problem.   Today the company, located in Indianapolis, is providing important lessons for the higher-education sector that he long ago left behind—an industry that may be on the cusp of its own wrenching transformation.   The workers in JK's factories were faced with the lean, harsh reality of 21st-century industry: Base salaries were no longer enough to support a middle-class life.   Workers couldn't get a raise simply by showing up on time and accumulating seniority.   Shrinking private-sector labor unions didn't have the leverage to get more money from companies that were struggling to stay solvent in the face of global competition.   Salaries were tied to skills.   The only way to earn more was to learn more.   But learning more wasn't easy.   The machines in the factories were complex and expensive and becoming more so by the year...   More-formal in-factory training was expensive and ineffective.   So JK turned to the local community colleges for help.   But that didn't work very well, either...   Students who weren't able to learn on the job or in the class-room could succeed on-line...   simulations developed by 180 Skills teach students exactly how to use sophisticated manufacturing equipment.   Students sit for a series of proctored exams, and if they pass with a score of at least 90%, they earn two technical certificates.   Then they move on to a final four weeks of live instruction conducted by Edmonds.   The whole course costs $4,800, and students emerge with 27.5 college credits...   Boeing...says it has already hired more than 75% of the program's 424 graduates, meaning that more than 300 students have moved into solid middle-class jobs...   But then how would they explain the Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative, where cognitive scientists have developed online courses with 'intelligent tutoring systems, virtual laboratories, simulations, and frequent opportunities for assessment and feed-back' in traditional subjects like statistics, biology, chemistry, philosophy, and French? Those courses aren't just cheap—they're free."

2011-11-20
Mark J. Perry
cut-throat competition is the consumer's best friend

2011-11-20
Mark J. Perry
adjusted for inflation, Kalifornia home mortgage payments are lowest on record

2011-11-20
Mark J. Perry
new era of oil and gas exploration promises to bring economic boom and 200K jobs to Ohio (with map)

2011-11-20
Mark J. Perry
college degrees by discipline and sex

2011-11-20
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Looking back on Remembrance Day 2011 (lots of pictures and maps)
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-21

2011-11-21
Karl Henkel _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Surge in gas and oil leases following a NE path
"About 4 wells can fit on a 640-acre plot, Rea said."

2011-11-21 05:09PST (08:09EST) (13:09GMT) (15:09 Jerusalem)
Toni Bowers _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
45% of Americans are satisfied with their jobs
"fewer than half of American workers -- 45% -- are satisfied with their jobs.   This is the lowest percentage since 1987...   What do you want?...   How do you want to feel?...   Why should you change course?...   When you're that far into life, it may be a little difficult to pursue your dream..."

2011-11-21 07:16PST (10:16EST) (15:16GMT) (17:16 Jerusalem)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_
Gibson using torrefied maple until federal ebony & rosewood insanity passes

2011-11-21
Mark J. Perry
despite DC interference the energy outlook in the USA is looking better

2011-11-21
Mark J. Perry
the moral case for markets in medical transplants

2011-11-21
Mark J. Perry
food trucks in Columbia, SC win victory over protectionist restaurant association

2011-11-21
Mark J. Perry
Canada balanced budgets with 7 times the spending cuts as extortion increases

2011-11-21
Mark J. Perry
household appliances increasing energy efficiency

2011-11-21
Mark J. Perry
text books and supplies vs. home prices vs. CPI

2011-11-21 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 24)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
Obummer must act to stop Hamas-Fatah-Hizbullah deal

2011-11-21 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 24)
Robert Marquand _Jewish World Review_
Does the Arab Spring need a bill of rights? Would they tolerate it?

2011-11-21 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 24)
Tina Susman _Jewish World Review_
al-Qaida sympathizer Jose Pimentel accused of NY, NY bomb plots: Was about to test explosives he hoped to use against police and American troops
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-22

2011-11-22 08:08PST (11:08EST) (16:08GMT) (18:08 Jerusalem)
Jeffry Bartash _MarketWatch_
GDP 2011Q3 revised to 2% growth rate

2011-11-22 15:26PST (18:26EST) (23:26GMT) (2011-11-23 01:26 Jerusalem)
judge Andrew Napolitano _Washington DC Examiner_
What if the US Constitution did not apply?

2011-11-22
Mark J. Perry
household income or individual income: What's your percentile?

2011-11-22
Mark J. Perry
contact lens computer display?

2011-11-22
Mark J. Perry
California tried to hire Americans, but not very hard

2011-11-22
Mark J. Perry
American bodyshopping association, weekly bodyshopping index from 2007 January to 2011 November

2011-11-22
Mark J. Perry
shortage of kidneys for transplantation worsens

2011-11-22 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 25)
Jim Sollisch _Jewish World Review_
The up-side of unemployed college grads: only about half of grads from 2010 had jobs a year later
"(By contrast, 90% of the classes of 2006 and 2007 already had jobs a year later.)...   They're tending bar, pressing espressos, making change at Target.   They're sending out dozens of resumes a week, doing volunteer work to build theirresumes, networking on LinkedIn, and an alarming number are back at home, living with Mom and Dad...   The first thing they're getting is an attitude adjustment.   The bad economy is doing them a favor by teaching them the value of a job.   I see it in my own kids, and I see it in the new employees at my ad agency.   There's a sense of purpose, a focus and even, dare I say it, a sense of loyalty and gratitude that's been missing for most of a generation."

2011-11-22 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 25)
Paul Richter _Jewish World Review_
Obama refuses to enact stiff economic penalties against Iran: U.S.A. officials maintain Iran is the most active state-supported terrorist program in the world

2011-11-22 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 25)
Mark Johnson _Jewish World Review_
scientists turn stem cells into nerve cells and get them to integrate into brain

2011-11-22 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 25)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Alice in Leftist Land
"In the world of [Leftist Land], you can just take for granted all the benefits of the existing society, and then simply tack on your new, wonderful ideas that will make things better."
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-23

2011-11-23 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (13:30GMT) (15:30 Jerusalem)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
DoL regulations
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 437,049 in the week ending November 19, an increase of 74,214 from the previous week.   There were 464,817 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.7% during the week ending November 12, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the prior week's unrevised rate.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,362,820, an increase of 185,343 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.1% and the volume was 3,871,043.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending November 5 was 6,728,652, a decrease of 44,608 from the previous week.   Extended benefits were available in AL, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending November 5.   States reported 2,896,629 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending November 5, a decrease of 38,837 from the prior week.   There were 3,801,294 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" (the divisor) 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;
to 125,572,661 beginning 2011-04-02;
to 125,807,389 beginning 2011-07-02;
to 126,188,733 beginning 2011-10-01.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2011-11-23 09:05PST (12:05EST) (17:05GMT) (19:05 Jerusalem)
Selena Frye _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
following the money in identity theft

2011-11-23
Mark J. Perry
giving thanks for some semblance of capitalism, the invisible hand, the miracle of the market, and few turkey czars

2011-11-23
Mark J. Perry
87% of firms that were in the Fortune 500 list in 1955 are gone: only 67 appear in both lists

2011-11-23
Mark J. Perry
manufacturing boosts October trucking tonnage

2011-11-23 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 26)
Jeff Jacoby _Jewish World Review_
Making Americans: Assimilation and diversity

2011-11-23 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 26)
Sheera Frenkel _Jewish World Review_
Israel preparing for day when it has no relations with Egypt: jihadist Spring is inching forward

2011-11-23 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 26)
Ron Scherer _Jewish World Review_
Can latest terror suspect, Jose Pimentel, claim entrapment?

2011-11-23 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 26)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Failure or success?
"you cannot judge success or failure without knowing what the goal was.   If you think the goal was to solve the country's fiscal crisis, then obviously the Super Committee was a complete failure.   But, if you think the goal was to improve the chances of the Obama administration being re-elected in 2012, it was a complete success...   Splitting the blame with the Republicans for what Democrats alone had done was a political victory, in terms of making the Obama administration less vulnerable at the polls in 2012.   With the help of the media, the big issue was no longer the big spending that drove the national debt up to the legal ceiling..."

2011-11-23 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 26)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Should the rich be condemned?
"Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb, the phonograph, the DC motor and other items in everyday use and became wealthy by doing so.   Thomas Watson founded IBM and became rich through his company's contribution to [hampering] the computation revolution [and violating the privacy of hundreds of millions].   Lloyd Conover, while in the employ of Pfizer, created the antibiotic tetracycline...   Andrew Carnegie's steel empire produced the raw materials that built the physical infrastructure of the United States.   Bill Gates co-founded MSFT and produced [low-quality] software products that [have handicapped] the computer revolution...   [From the 1950s through the 1980s, Seymour Cray designed elegant super-computers which speeded scientific and engineering analysis, design, manufacturing, made computer-based education a practical option, and paved the way for the video-game industry.]   In a free society, in a significant way income inequality reflects differences in productive capacity, namely one's ability to please his fellow man.   For example, I can play basketball and so can LeBron James, but would the Miami Heat pay me anything close to the $43M they pay him? If not, why not? I think it has to do with the discriminating tastes of basketball fans who pay $100 or more to watch the game.   If the Miami Heat hired me, they would have to pay fans to watch."

2011-11-23 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 26)
Milton Friedman
Socialist Insecurity Abomination and the driving out of private, voluntary, action (video, automagically captioned [with a few glitches... a couple of them apt :B-])
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-24: ThanksGiving Day

2011-11-24
Tam Harbert _IT World Canada_/_IDG_
Age discrimination is information technology's big open secret

2011-11-24
Mark J. Perry
Frac boom triggering sand boom

2011-11-24
Mark J. Perry
oil boom in ND is creating millionaires
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-25

2011-11-25
Alan Scher Zagier _Fox_/_AP_
Some student recruiters at universities are paid extra to bring in foreign students
Washington DC Post
Atlanta GA Journal Constitution
"Blumenthal's institute showed a 32% increase in the number of international students in the U.S.A. compared with a decade ago...   the National Association for College Admission Counseling proposed the ban on the use of some international recruiters out of concern that unscrupulous agents were exaggerating students' English skills and submitting falsified applications in search of a fast financial reward."

2011-11-25 09:00PST (12:00EST) (17:00GMT) (19:00 Jerusalem)
Brandon Carroll _Tech Republic_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
5 handy Mac apps for network admin

2011-11-25
Danielle Kurtzleben _US News & World Report_
income growth + improved consumer sentiment make for Black Friday optimism
Economist
"Today, the Commerce Department reported that disposable income was up 0.3% in October, and the most recent Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey of consumers also showed that consumer sentiment moved up 3.2 points, to 64.1, in November.   In addition, the National Retail Federation estimates a 2.8% retail sales increase in November and December combined.   Economic forecaster and consulting firm IHS Global Insight likewise foresees holiday retail sales 4.2% higher than last year's $453G...   Consumption was up by a paltry 0.1% in October...   And though consumer sentiment is up for its third consecutive month, having recovered from August's dismal 55.7, the current reading of 64.1 is still well below last November's 71.6."

2011-11-25
Mark J. Perry
net oil imports a fraction of us consumption, lowest since 1995

2011-11-25 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 28)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Calling things by their proper names
"Iraq's Iranian-allied Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is purging the Iraqi military and security services and the Iraqi civil service of pro-Western, anti-Iranian commanders and senior officials.   With American acquiescence, Maliki and his Shiite allies already managed to effectively overturn the 2010 March election results.   Those elections gave the Sunni-dominated Iraqiya party led by former prime minister Ayad Allawi the right to form the next government."

2011-11-25 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 28)
Howard LaFranchi _Jewish World Review_
Obummer to Egypt: Stick to election plan, even if it means empowering violent Muslim Brotherhood
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2011-11-25 (5772 Mar-Cheshvan 28)
"davenj1" _True Blue Republican State_
immigration reform vs. immigration law perversion: anchor babies... give me a break
 
Proposed Bills 2011

2011-11-25

DJIA	11,231.78
S&P 500(SPX)	1,158.67
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,441.51
Nikkei	8,160.01
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	1.96%
crude oil(CL2F)	$96.77/barrel
natgas(NG11Z)	$3.54/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RB1Z)	$2.45/gal
heatingoil(HO1Z)	$2.93/gal
gold(GC1Z)	$1,685.70/ounce
silver(SI1Z)	$31.01/ounce
platinum(PL2F)	$1,533.10/ounce
palladium(PA1Z)	$570.10/ounce
copper(HG1Z)	$0.204375/ounce
soybeans	$11.165/bushel
maize	$5.88/bushel
wheat	$5.74/bushel
dollarindex (DXY)	79.607
yenperdollar (USDYEN)	77.745
dollarspereuro (EURUSD)	$1.3231
dollarsperpound (GBPUSD)	$1.5434
swissfrancsperdollar (USDCHF)	0.9321
indianrupeesperdollar (USDINR)	52.2355
mexicanpesosperdollar (USDMXN)	14.2566
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	603.7

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-26

2011-11-25 21:32PST (2011-11-26 00:32EST) (2011-11-26 05:32GMT) (2011-11-26 07:32 Jerusalem)
Thomas Hargrove _Chicago IL Sun-Times_/_Scripps Howard_
Cook county IL lost 26% of manufacturing jobs over the last decade
"Cook lost some 89,100 jobs, more than any other county in the United States except for Los Angeles county, which saw 113K jobs disappear.   Detroit's Wayne County lost 84K manufacturing jobs, according to a Scripps Howard News Service tally.   Every county in the Chicago area lost manufacturing jobs in that time span -- more than 125,500.   Statewide, Illinois in 2010 had 742,089 manufacturing jobs, a 20% decline from 2000, according to U.S. Census figures.   Among the bigger-name casualties: a Motorola plant in Harvard in 2003; a Jay's Potato chip plant on the South Side in 2007; a Brach's Candy factory on the West Side in 2003; Replogle Globes announced it was closing its plant in Broadview 2010; Wrigley shuttered its South Ashland plant in 2006...   Illinois manufacturers still employ about 600K people and account for 13% of the state's economic output, Denzler said.   U.S. factory employment fell from 17.3M workers in the summer of 2000 to just 11.8M last July, a drop of nearly 32%.   There has been a small uptick in manufacturing jobs during the past year, but it doesn't come close to replacing what has been lost.   Michigan has suffered the worst decline in the total number of manufacturing workers.   It had more than 1M in 2000 and dropped to less than 700K a decade later.   Among the other major losers are CA, which saw 306K production jobs disappear; OH, which tallied nearly 282K lost jobs; NY, with 231K; and NC, 225K.   'We have lost nearly 2.3M jobs just since the recession began in 2007.', said Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers...   The Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] estimates the fastest-declining production job in America is team-assembly-line worker, which dropped nearly 378K jobs from 2000 to 2011.   Sewing machine operators lost nearly 215K jobs; production supervisors saw 214K jobs disappear; electronic equipment assemblers lost 186K, and cutting, punching and press machine operators, 168K."

2011-11-26
Mark J. Perry
boom in non-green energy and jobs: oil production, oil jobs

2011-11-26
Mark J. Perry
Consumer greed on Black Friday

2011-11-26
Mark J. Perry
Venezuela tries to repeal laws of supply and demand... with 27% inflation rate as result

2011-11-26
Mark J. Perry
perverse incentives have cops targetting pot smokers instead of violent criminals
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-27

2011-11-27
Audrey Williams June _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Negotiating tactics for women
"They should talk to people to get a sense of what men ask for and shoot for that...   You need to think about what your market value is...   Don't try to negotiate until you have the offer.   If you signal that you want a lot when they're feeling stressed financially, they might not make you the offer.   Once you get the offer, proceed slowly.   Try to read the person.   Volunteer a little bit of information, and when you do that, they'll share something.   Share what your constraints are, what your goals are.   Argue from the position of your own value.   Remember that you're going to have to work with these people and you don't want to antagonize them before you even arrive...   It's really good to get together with someone and role-play.   Ask the other person to take it seriously.   Get them to push your buttons and practice responding calmly and moving things in a positive direction away from conflict and emotionalism.   Get them to explain why they can't give you what you want.   That gives you some practice on drawing them out so you can figure out what to say to remove whatever road-block they raise."

2011-11-27
Jeremy Fugleberg _Billings MT Gazette_/_Casper WY Star-Tribune_
NY firm adds to WY rare earth mining leases
"Rare earth elements aren't rare, but are highly sought after for use in renewable energy technology and other applications such as hybrid and electric cars, wind turbines, computer hard drives and military technology.   Royal Energy Resources isn't the only company with plans to develop rare earth minerals deposits in Crook County."

2011-11-27
Thomas E. Brewton
Warmist propagandists can run but they can't hide their crimes forever

2011-11-27
Mark J. Perry
10 things capitalists really believe

2011-11-27
Mark J. Perry
pro-market vs. pro-executive
"There is a world of difference between being pro-market and being pro-busines. Sometimes, the 2 positions happen to coincide; often they don't." --- Daniel Hannan
Stated differently, many of the criticisms of capitalism are really criticisms of [crony socialism].

2011-11-27
William L. Anderson
Yes, maybe we should have Singapore's lower tax rates
"In calling for higher taxes, Paul Krugman now is trying to claim that if the U.S. Government increases taxes on some people, that will help lead us out of the depression.   Now, it would be the first time in human history that increasing taxes brought economic recovery, but in Wonderland (and the Princeton University economics department), anything is possible...   Singapore has NO taxes on capital gains (and Krugman demands that Congress raise capital gains taxes); Sinapore's corporate income rate is a flat 17%; Singapore's income tax rates are substantially lower than U.S. rates...   For that matter, tax rates in Hong Kong, both corporate and individual, are substantially lower than U.S. rates.   (And Hong Kong has no tax on capital gains.)"
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-28

2011-11-28 10:43PST (13:43EST) (18:43GMT) (20:43 Jerusalem)
Larry Dignan _Smart Planet_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
GE steps up investment in low-dose radiation privacy violation tech schemes... which may also find some use in medical diagnostics

2011-11-28
Jim Kouri _Accuracy in Media_
US senators to Obummer & DHS: Stop support of sanctuary cities for illegal aliens while attacking states and local governments which support federal law
"stop ignoring local ordinances that undermine federal laws by offering undocumented aliens sanctuary.   Two cities were recently added to the growing list of so-called sanctuary cities that protect illegal -- even criminal -- aliens from Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] agents: Washington, DC, and New York City...   Cook county IL where local authorities openly flip the finger at the feds by refusing to report illegal immigrants who come in contact with police, even dangerous criminals."

2011-11-28
Edwin Mora _Cybercast News Service_
Obummer has halved spending on boder security, leaving 1300 miles of Mexican border un-fenced and lightly patrolled
"In 2008, according to GAO, the federal government spent more than $1.3G on border security fencing, infrastructure and technology.   In 2011, it spend $573M.   Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection has said that as of 2011 June it had fenced only 649 miles of the nearly 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border -- leaving more than 1,300 miles of that border unfenced.   The 2011 November GAO report refers to this category of federal spending by the acronym BSFIT.   'Over $4.7G has been appropriated for BSFIT activities from fiscal years 2007 through 2011.', it says.   The report breaks the figure down for the 5 consecutive fiscal years (the 12-month period from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 of the following year) -- $1.188G for FY2007, $1.303G for FY2008, $845M for FY2009, $800M for FY2010 and $573M for FY2011...   'A total of 350 miles of primary pedestrian fence has been constructed, while the final total of vehicle fence (the project was officially completed on 2010 January 8) was 299 miles', it says...   CBP is responsible for securing a total of 8,607 miles of the U.S. border, including about 2K miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, approximately 4K miles of the U.S.-Canada border, plus sectors of coast-line in the Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.   As of the end of FY2010, the U.S. government had established 'effective control' over [only] 1,107 miles of the 8,607 miles it is responsible for securing -- 69 miles along the northern border, 873 on the U.S.-Mexico border and 165 miles in coastal sectors."

2011-11-28
Amy Levin-Epstein _CBS_
How NOT to fire someone: 5 common mistakes

2011-11-28
Mark J. Perry
kkkredit kkkard delinquency rate has fallen to 16-year low

2011-11-28
Mark J. Perry
Delta rolls out mobile device baggage tracking app

2011-11-28
Mark J. Perry
EU wine cartel whining about competition

2011-11-28
Mark J. Perry
following federal blocking of Keystone XL pipe-line to USA, Red China is anxious to tap Canada's tar sands oil

2011-11-28
Mark J. Perry
average new home price $242,300, is lowest it's been for 8 years

2011-11-28
Mark J. Perry
free computer classes at Stanford U

2011-11-28
Mark J. Perry
in ND and PA, drill, drill drill means jobs, jobs, jobs

2011-11-28 (5772 Kislev 02)
Jonathan Rosenblum _Jewish World Review_
Why more than 200K attended funeral of R' Nosson Tzvi Finkel
"He proceeded to describe the situation of the Jews arriving in Auschwitz and other death camps, after being packed into cattle cars for days, without water or facilities of any kind, and then being separated from their loved ones.   When the lucky ones reached a barracks, they were given one blanket for 6 people.   They could choose to share it or each one could try to grab it for himself.   They chose the former.   'The greatest lesson of the Holocaust', he concluded, 'is the triumph of the human spirit.   Now, each of you return to America and share your blanket with five others.'"

2011-11-28 (5772 Kislev 02)
Jay Weaver _Jewish World Review_
GOP chair of House foreign affairs committee is seeking to talk media into refusing advertising from Allianz, an insurer with Nazi ties, until they make amends

2011-11-28 (5772 Kislev 02)
Yomiuri Shimbun _Jewish World Review_
induced pluripotent stem cells being studied for longevity effects
"Aiming to discover the key to longevity, a team of Keio University researchers in Japan has succeeded in creating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) from the blood of people aged 110 or older, it has been learned.   There are more than 47K people aged 100 or older in Japan, but only about 60 have what is called superlongevity -- having achieved age 110 or older.   Led by university lecturers Nobuyoshi Hirose and Shinsuke Yuasa, the Keio team took blood from 13 men and women with super-longevity, and made iPS cells from the samples of 4 of them, the team said...   It has been learned that people with superlongevity are less susceptible to such problems as hardening of the arteries and the development of cancer.   Their cells may have a stronger defense mechanism against illness than those of ordinary people, but the details have yet to be clarified...   the Keio University team plans to create cells of such organs and tissues as veins, cardiac muscle and nerves.   It will examine the cells' proliferation capabilities, ability to recover from injuries, tolerance for stress and the speed at which they age, and compare the data with that for ordinary people.   The team also plans to analyze the genome of the people with super-longevity, in an attempt to clarify the secret of a long life, the researchers said...   iPS cells were first created by Kyoto University Professor Shinya Yamanaka and his colleagues, who announced their achievement in 2006.   Just like fertilized eggs, iPS cells taken from human skin cells or other somatic cells can transform into any kind of organ or tissue and can reproduce indefinitely."

2011-11-28
Zayida Baker _Tea Party Patriots_
US Chamber of Communists is more crony socialist than supporters of rights to life, liberty, property and privacy
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-29

2011-11-29 15:59PST (18:59EST) (23:59GMT) (2011-11-30 01:59 Jerusalem)
Jim Abrams, Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee _‎Hindu Business Line_/_First Post_/_AP_/_Tree Hugger_/_Zoe Lofgren_/_Lamar Smith_/_Immigration Direct_/_ILW_/_Filipino Global Nation_/_Philippine Daily Inquirer_/_Cebu Philippines Sun-Star_/_San Francisco CA Examiner_
US House vote to remove per-country cap on green cards is regressive
News Max
The US House of Representatives' vote to remove per country caps for permanent residence visas or Green Cards will benefit Indian and Chinese tech workers, harm highly-skilled US STEM workers, and have an effect equivalent to greatly increasing the numbers of H-1B and L-1 visas.   The legislation, which passed 389-15, was a rare example of bipartisan accord among the forces of evil on immigration, an issue that largely has been avoided during the current session of Congress because of the political sensitivities involved.   The measure would eliminate the current law that says employment-based visas to any one country can't exceed 7% of the total number of such visas given out.   The change would allow high numbers of co-nationals from a single or small number of countries to obtain green cards in a single year and have a disproportionate effect on the culture, economy, and politics.   Currently, the State Department issues in the neighborhood of a vastly, horrendously excessive 140K such green cards per year to foreign nationals working in the United States, often after getting US tax-victim subsidized degrees from US universities.   The bill also changes family-based visa limits from 7% per country to 15% per country.   Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association lobbying group praised the measure, saying that it demonstrates "that Congress can do something on immigration, however small" to make things worse.

2011-11-29
Lincoln Mullen _Chronicle of Higher Education_
GitHub for Mac: an easy entre to today's atavistic source code management

2011-11-29
Kim Hughes _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
canine teaching aid helps outlier students
"For Kemp, the biggest benefit to having Coral in the classroom: motivating the students...   'She has been such a motivation for the kids to sit and focus.   They work very hard to spend time with her.'   Opportunities for the students to interact with Coral include brushing, reading and singing to her and playing fetch outdoors with her during regularly scheduled breaks.   Coral's presence also has helped some students improve their speech.   Kemp explained that for some students, 'speech and language is extremely difficult, but all of a sudden they start talking to the dog'."

2011-11-29
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
Importing poverty: Recent immigrants are even poorer than we thought
"The official definition, in use for about 50 years, counts as 'poor' anyone living in a household in which household cash income falls below a certain level.   Those threshold incomes were set at 3 times the cost of a minimum diet, to reflect the minimum income deemed necessary to pay for non-food expenses.   The thresholds vary with household size and ages.   This classic poverty measure has long been criticized.   It ignores non-cash benefits that low income families receive in the form of food stamps, housing subsidies, school lunches, and home energy assistance.   Similarly, it ignores the Earned Income Tax Credit—the most expensive means-tested cash benefit.   On the other side of the ledger, the official poverty measure does not subtract pay-roll, income, and sales taxes paid by poor families, nor does it adjust for regional variations in the cost of living.   And it does not take into account out-of-pocket medical costs, which have skyrocketed for insured and uninsured workers as well for retirees, or job-related costs such as transportation and child care.   In November the Census Bureau released a new 'Supplemental Poverty Measure' meant to capture the missing pieces. [See America's Poor: Why a New Measure Shows More People are Living in Poverty Than we Thought by Barbara Kiviat, TIME.com, 2011 November 21]   The results: the foreign-born population in general -- and naturalized immigrants in particular -- are far more likely to be counted as poor under the new poverty definition...   Under the new poverty definition, the share of native-born persons living in poverty increases by 1.4%, while the comparable share of the foreign-born (which includes illegal aliens) rises by 27.5%.   Poverty among naturalized citizens explodes by 47.4% -- nearly 34 times the rise in native-born poverty under the new calculation.   The poverty rate for naturalized citizens goes from 21% below that of the native-born under the current poverty definition to 14% above under the new.   Non-citizens are the poorest under both poverty calculations."

2011-11-29
William L. Anderson
drowning in Keynesian fallacies

2011-11-29
Mark J. Perry
Canada will end some tariffs on imports in the hope that it will help open markets for their manufactured goods

2011-11-29
Mark J. Perry
Barney Frank: My job here is done (cartoon)

2011-11-29
Mark J. Perry
US natural gas production hit new record in September

2011-11-29
Mark J. Perry
The Great Job Massacre (cartoon)

2011-11-29
Mark J. Perry
While US economy struggles, one state is doing well

2011-11-29 (5772 Kislev 03)
Jina Moore _Jewish World Review_
Leadership: Rethinking mavericks

2011-11-29 (5772 Kislev 03)
Marjorie Kehe _Jewish World Review_
How did Margaret Marcus -- a middle-class Jew from Larchmont, NY -- become Islamic ideologue Maryam Jameelah?

2011-11-29 (5772 Kislev 03)
Mary Carole McCauley _Jewish World Review_
In hoarding the junk is just a symptom
"Jack Samuels, associate professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is the go-to guy nationwide for researchers seeking to understand the biological basis of hoarding -- an intense, irrational drive to collect items in vast quantities, coupled with an inability to discard objects that are worthless or broken...   hoarding occurs in approximately 5% of the population -- a far larger number than was previously suspected -- and linked compulsive hoarding in some patients to chromosome 14...   30% of those with OCD also hoard.   But more than half of those with a pathological collecting habit lack the intrusive thoughts and repetitive rituals that are the defining characteristics of an OCD diagnosis...   People who hoard are preoccupied with details and have difficulty making decisions.   On the positive side, many are creative and artistic... a malfunction of their so-called 'executive functions' -- the cognitive and regulatory processes carried out in the brain's anterior cingulate cortex."

2011-11-29 (5772 Kislev 03)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Newt Gingrich and illegal immigration
"Let's go back to square one.   The purpose of American immigration laws and policies is not to be either humane or inhumane to illegal immigrants.   The purpose of immigration laws and policies is to serve the national interest of this country.   There is no inherent right to come live in the United States, in disregard of whether the American people want you here.   Nor does the passage of time confer any such right retroactively...   Cities that openly proclaim themselves 'sanctuaries' for [illegal aliens] put their own policemen under strict orders not to report [illegal aliens] to the federal authorities, with the result that [illegal aliens] who have committed crime after crime are free to stay here and commit more crimes, including murder.   You don't have to launch a 'man-hunt' when a known criminal is also a known illegal alien.   What many local policies have done has been to virtually put illegal aliens in a witness protection program...   Why do people want to come to America in the first place? Because America offers them something that their native countries do not.   This country has a culture which has produced a higher standard of living and a freer life than in many other countries.   When you import people, you import cultures, including cultures that have been far less successful in providing decent lives and decent livelihoods.   The American people have a right to decide for themselves whether they want unlimited imports of cultures from other countries.   At one time, immigrants came to America to become Americans...   European countries have learned the hard way how massive imports of a foreign culture can undermine your own culture, polarize your population and create internal dangers that are irreversible."
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011-11-30

2011-11-29 21:43PST (2011-11-30 00:43EST) (2011-11-30 05:43GMT) (2011-11-30 07:43 Jerusalem) Darshan Patel _Daily Illini_
U of IL board of trustees preparing yet another in series of excessive tuition and fee increases

2011-11-30
Anastasia Salter _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Program or Be Programmed?
"Stephen Ramsay started a debate when he argued that to be part of the digital humanities, at least in his program, you had to learn code.   At ProfHacker, we talk a lot about possibilities for digital projects—which may or may not involve working with code.   Many of these echo the desire Brian Croxall described to teach kids (of all ages!) to 'make'.   We've also addressed coding itself: Ryan offered pointers for learning Ruby, and Jason suggested Codecademy for getting started with code-literacy.   I teach many courses labeled as computer science, yet many of my students don't identify as 'technical'.   As the students are interested in game design, some are more motivated to pursue art, or writing, or design and concept work—but they all have to learn some programming.   When they ask why, I have the standard industry answer ready: despite their own specialties, they'll be on teams with programmers, and they need to understand what programming can do and how to frame their projects and discourse."

2011-11-30
_Daily Illini_
"Internet black-list" would be impossible to enforce... we hope

2011-11-30
Dean Harvey _Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein_
status of high-tech workers class-action law-suit against apparent conspiracy to fix pay
"Judge Koh also set a litigation schedule, culminating in a jury trial date set for 2013 June 10."

2011-11-30
Michael Cutler _Californians for Population Stabilization_
Green cards lead to pink slips for Americans

2011-11-30
Mark J. Perry
Center for Automotive Research predicting 167K new auto jobs by 2015 thanks to 2-tier pay (lower for newbies) that is deflating wages
"The industry group, the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, MI, said it expected the Detroit auto-makers to hire 14,750 hourly employees in the next 4 years.   They would receive entry-level wages of $16 to $19 an hour.   Workers hired before 2007 earn about $29 an hour.   The group projected that about 15% of the new jobs would be at Detroit auto-makers, and nearly 80% would be at suppliers.   Foreign auto-makers would account for the rest."

2011-11-30
Mark J. Perry
dissolving "organic" soap fruit labels

2011-11-30
Mark J. Perry
NY, NY taxi medallion prices

2011-11-30
Mark J. Perry
15K abandoned wind-mills litter the USA landscape

2011-11-30
Mark J. Perry
Leftists ned to re-think their notions about energy policy

2011-11-30
Robert Moore _Cenantua_
Men of the Shenandoah Valley... at the Crater and Ft. Fisher!?

2011-11-30 (5772 Kislev 04)
Glenn Garvin _Jewish World Review_
Giving bullies a veto on the 1st and 4th amendments
"When a [corrupt, oath-breaking] federal judge, James Ware, in San Francisco ruled earlier this month that school administrators in a California town had the right to kick out kids for wearing American flag T-shirts because they were offending Mexican-American students, the silence among First Amendment activists and the media was deafening.   This sad story of multi-culturalism run amok begins in Morgan Hill, CA, a small town south of San Jose previously notorious only for its hellishly efficient speed traps, during last year's Cinco de Mayo celebration.   (Cinco de Mayo, May 5, is the anniversary of an 1862 battle between the Mexican and French armies; curiously, it isn't celebrated in Mexico at all.)"

2011-11-30 (5772 Kislev 04)
Nick Pandolfo _Jewish World Review_
In some US schools, librarians are no longer insisting on quiet

2011-11-30 (5772 Kislev 04)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Ending income inequality and other insanely evil pursuits
"Joanne Rowling was a welfare mother in Edinburgh, Scotland.   All that has changed.   As the writer of the _Harry Potter_ novels, having a net worth of $1G, she is the world's wealthiest author.   More importantly, she's one of those dastardly 1-percenters condemned by the [occupiers] and other leftists.   How did Rowling become so wealthy and unequal to the rest of us?   The entire blame for this social injustice lies at the feet of the world's children and their enabling parents.   Rowling's wealth is a direct result of more than 500M _Harry Potter_ book sales and movie receipts grossing more than $5G...   Who's putting all the money in the hands of the few, and what do you think ought to be done to stop millions, perhaps billions, of people from using their money in ways that lead to high income and wealth concentration?"

2011-11-30 (5772 Kislev 04)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Lessons of history?
 
Proposed Bills 2011
 
 

2011 November
top 500 fastest super-computers

2011 November
Eric A. Ruark & Matthew Graham _FAIR US_
the myth of a skilled worker shortage: less than 33% of science & engineering degree-holders are working in a field closely related to their degrees

 
Proposed Bills 2011

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

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