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45 dead in eastern Libya bombings, Islamic extremists claim responsibility
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 6: Politix
1 13:48 Bobby [3] 
6 19:25 JosephMendiola [7] 
10 23:34 mossomo [10] 
6 14:40 rjschwarz [7] 
2 07:26 Glenmore [3] 
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Page 4: Opinion
5 23:39 Elmerert Hupens2660 [5]
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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
N.J. assemblywoman's husband sought help from Habitat for Humanity in rebuilding $465K shore home
[NJ] State Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Union) tonight acknowledged that her husband got help from a non-profit group that assists low-income homeowners in demolishing a shore home severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy that records show had been purchased for nearly a half-million dollars.

The owner of the Manasquan home -- identified in public records as Richard Stender, the assemblywoman's husband -- applied to Monmouth County-based Coastal Habitat for Humanity for help, said Maureen Mulligan, the group's executive director.
Posted by: Fred || 02/20/2015 12:17 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, you can't blame a fella for tryin'. In North Texas, activist politician John Wiley Price has been charged with corruption (D) and wanted to have the taxpayers fund his defense. Until he discovered he'd have to reveal his finances.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/20/2015 13:48 Comments || Top||


-Land of the Free
Judge Rules Christian Florists Guilty Of Discrimination For Refusing To Sell Flowers For Gay Wedding
A small business is a very personal thing to an entrepreneur.

Advice to "Conservative" retailers and service providers. Do what your marketing says you do. But you may occasionally consider, owing to circumstances beyond your control,doing it in a discouragingly sub-optimal manner.
Posted by: Hupineger Glomomp15048 || 02/20/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Christians the new Jews?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/20/2015 7:31 Comments || Top||

#2  ..except the census keeps showing they're in the majority. Welcome to the Oligarchy.

The old Catholic Church used to sustain power by selling sin. The new Communists Progressives sustain power by selling guilt.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/20/2015 8:29 Comments || Top||

#3  The new dhimmis, perhaps.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/20/2015 9:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Luckily, when Sharia is instituted in the US, this will no longer be an issue. /sarcasm
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 02/20/2015 10:11 Comments || Top||

#5  Christian businesses should know that there are those that will seek them out hoping to be denied services.

Also that it is possible to love the player (gays) and hate the game (gay marriage). Sell them the flowers and don't fall into the trap. Let them spend money supporting Christian businesses and soon they'll tire of the game.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/20/2015 14:39 Comments || Top||

#6  Having said that, "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" is apparantly a meaningless slogan these days.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/20/2015 14:40 Comments || Top||


Economy
H1B is a lie - the truth comes out
New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program

The principal reason that firms use H-1Bs to replace American workers is because H-1B nonimmigrant workers are much cheaper than locally recruited and hired U.S. workers. Tata and Infosys are getting a 36 to 41 percent savings on labor costs‐or saving about $40,000 to $45,000 per worker per year.
No mention made of H-1B's little sister, the young lady on the other end of the phone in Rawalpindi, assisting you with your flight to Omaha.
The proponents for H-1B expansion claim that the H-1B program is a stepping-stone to permanent immigration. But the vast majority of H-1B workers at Infosys and Tata never get on path to legal permanent residence (often referred to as getting a “green card”) and citizenship: In FY13, Infosys only sponsored seven H-1B workers for permanent residence, and Tata sponsored ZERO H-1B workers, while the U.S. government approved 12,432 H-1B visa petitions for these two companies alone. (See Table 2) In other words, the H-1B workers Infosys and Tata hire are being used as temporary, cheaper, disposable labor, not as a way to permanently introduce talent and innovation into the American labor market

If American workers are training their foreign replacements before they get laid off, then it is quite obvious that it’s the American trainers‐not the H-1B trainees‐who have the superior skills. Are H-1B workers being brought in because they have extensive formal training, like an advanced degree? The answer to that is a definitive no. The vast majority of Infosys and Tata’s imported H-1B workers hold no more than a Bachelor’s degree.

All of the evidence makes it abundantly clear that the H-1B visa is being used to displace U.S. workers employed in decent-paying middle class STEM jobs. U.S. immigration laws are supposed to protect U.S. workers from being displaced, and they grant the Secretary of Labor ample authority to investigate egregious abuses of the H-1B program like the one at SCE, which is why EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey has called on Sec. Perez to investigate. Thanks to the reporting by Computerworld and the L.A. Times, there is now clear and credible evidence to justify the Secretary’s attention in this case.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/20/2015 02:49 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If we don't export the jobs we import serf labor, until the only paying jobs left are in government, and if you don't vote for the incumbents, you lose your government job.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/20/2015 7:24 Comments || Top||

#2  H-1B nonimmigrant workers are much cheaper than locally recruited and hired U.S. workers.

Well, if this is the whole of the problem, you can fix it very easily. Just pass a law equating salaries. Me, I'm skeptical.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/20/2015 7:47 Comments || Top||

#3  My employer keeps trying to use offshore labor to develop software -- the hourly cost is cheaper, and that's all the justification they need. These projects are universally failures -- the cash expended still remains unbelievable, there is no working software, and local employees have to clean up the mess. In one case one guy wrote a temporary solution in his spare time, accomplishing what a hundred or so Indians weren't able to do.

It's not (necessarily) that Indians aren't good workers or intelligent. The problems come from language and cultural differences, the time zone difference, and a different work ethic. Many times a task is allocated N "hours", and after N hours, the Indian developer says they're done and moves on -- working or not. A US developer knows that "hours" in this context are abstract, and that what matters is working software.

Plus there are "new" software development practices (just about 20 years old, but...) that don't seem to be making in-roads in Indian software mills. They appear to have a factory-worker mentality (do the time, perform the motions, job is done) versus a craftsman mentality (complete the task, do what needs to be done, satisfy the customer).
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 02/20/2015 8:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Same story here, more or less. My company made digital maps for cars in teh days before it was universally accepted. Anyway they laid off all the cartographers and shipped everything to India. They got lower quality work (they don't have overpasses in India and there are other structural differences to road networks that caused confusion). Eventually the company was bought out and went away.

The real problem was management. The plan was to match the maps to photos (which could take a week per map) and then send the results to field teams to verify and add in addresses and no right turn type info. The field could do a map in a day. But impatient managers sent the maps out early because they had high paid field people sitting around waiting. The result was it took weeks to finish a map in the field and then weeks to align the results to the photos in the confusion afterwards. The managers of course blamed everyone but themselves and gave themselves raises and such. Really sad.

My boss, who came up with the plan initially, got me and one other cartographer to do one map the proper way. We finished it with no errors in incredible time, but nobody paid attention. It was just cheaper to offshore the work and figure how much worse could it all be after all?
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/20/2015 9:59 Comments || Top||

#5  Of course it is. Why else are both parties so eager to keep importing slave labor?

Big Business loves it, therefore so does Washington.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/20/2015 10:18 Comments || Top||

#6  "Just pass a law equating salaries."

That is already part of the law. If H1-B's are being abused, then prosecute the abusers. The concept of importing highly skilled labor (as opposed to human offal) does not bother me. What is the alternative, after all? If you can't import the heads then you ship the work itself offshore.
Posted by: Vernal Prince of the Heathen Rus1608 || 02/20/2015 10:48 Comments || Top||

#7  There might be a law that says H1B workers have to be paid the same as citizens but I think we all know that's not going to happen. If anything the companies will end up paying everybody less. H1B workers and outsourcing are both excellent ways to discourage American kids from becoming programmers. They don't believe there will be any jobs for them so they don't even bother to study it in school. Then you have a nation of computer illiterate lawyers and various other types of English majors who think you can solve all of the world's problems by using DreamWeaver to set up a website. You get politicians who believe the vendors when they say it will cost half a billion dollars to implement healthcare.gov and then when the government pays the money the site still doesn't work.

The United States is the country where modern CPUs and operating systems were invented but these days all of the computers are manufactured in China and all of the support is handled by call centers in Bombay. We're just pissing it away.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/20/2015 12:31 Comments || Top||

#8  It is not cheaper to off-shore the work. Not in the long run or the entire life-cycle of a project.

Even importing them here isn't cheaper. Sure, they work for a lower rate, but take three times as long to complete anything. And, what does get completed has to be 'fixed' to work correctly.

Currently working at a company that sends work to India and gets crap back along with having an army of 'contractors' in-house turning the crap into lesser crap that the American developers then turn into workable applications. Damn stupid.
Posted by: Woozle Scourge of the Wee Folk4194 || 02/20/2015 14:25 Comments || Top||

#9  The problem isnt that the H1B exists, its that it is being used not to get needed talent, but to displace US talent and force lower wages. And the way it does that is especially egregious: if an H1B gets fired, he is shopped back home. So he is virtually an indentured servant to the company that holds his visa: so they work them at lower wages, worse conditions and far more hours. The H1b becomes an indentured servant - not free to seek proper wages, and subject to the whims of his masters.

If the H1B were able to compete freely go between jobs, this wage cutting and other bullshittery would not be possible.

Thats why we should do away with the H1B completely. Either give them a green card (ending the employers ability to control the workers life), if we need them, or dont give them anything other than a temporary, non-renewable, 90 day work permit (enough to let a true expert or specialist in and get a problem on its way to being solved)
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/20/2015 17:02 Comments || Top||

#10  Southern California Edison IT workers 'beyond furious' over H-1B replacements.

The H-1B program "was supposed to be for projects and jobs that American workers could not fill," this worker said. "But we're doing our job. It's not like they are bringing in these guys for new positions that nobody can fill.

"Not one of these jobs being filled by India was a job that an Edison employee wasn't already performing," he said.
Posted by: mossomo || 02/20/2015 23:34 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Ron Paul: 'Good News' That Secession Is Happening
[BUZZFEED] Former Republican presidential candidate and congressman Ron Paul says secession is happening and it's "good news." Paul later predicted the states would stop listening to federal laws.
Y'kinda gotta agreewith him. We've reached a point where the Feds don't obey the laws. Why should they apply to the states? Next step would be for states to restrict the movements of Feds within their territory.
"I would like to start off by talking about the subject and the subject is secession and, uh, nullification, the breaking up of government, and the good news is it's gonna happen. It's happening," Paul, the father of potential Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul, told a gathering at the libertarian Mises Institute in late January. The event Paul was speaking at was titled "Breaking Away: The Case for Secession."

Paul said secession would not be legislated by Congress, but would be de facto, predicting "when conditions break down...there's gonna be an alternative."

"And it's not gonna be because there will be enough people in the U.S. Congress to legislate it. It won't happen. It will be de facto. You know, you'll have a gold standard when the paper standard fails, and we're getting awfully close to that. And people will have to resort to taking care of themselves. So when conditions break down, you know, there's gonna be an alternative. And I think that's what we're witnessing."

Posted by: Fred || 02/20/2015 12:03 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What if 50 states seceeded together in unison...
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/20/2015 14:41 Comments || Top||

#2  The seven left would be o's
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 02/20/2015 15:59 Comments || Top||

#3  DC would only have its manufacturing industry to fall back on.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/20/2015 16:01 Comments || Top||

#4  First state that breaks away, I'm moving there. Then buying guns.
Posted by: Chunky Glaviper2392 || 02/20/2015 16:05 Comments || Top||

#5  Lemme know when states stop taking Federal funds. That'll be real secession.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/20/2015 16:07 Comments || Top||

#6  Ah yes, the 1960's-70's = 1980's NOSTRADAMUS CONFEDERACY/CSA versus "SILENT LUCIDITY'S QUEENSRYCHE, aka SS "TOTENKOPF", THE "D **** ED YANKEES" DIVISION.

Again, the OWG Globies include Anti-US US Globalists have NOT answered the question as to HOW MUCH OR HOW FAR IS AMERIKA SUPPOSED TO UNILATER GIVE UP OR FALL BACK ACROSS THE WORLD SO THAT ITS GLOBALIST CO-SUPERPOWER SIBLING CAN RISE TO POWER-N-AUTHORITY, ETC. IN LIEU OF THE US???

How much is "too much" for the US to unilaterally give up, how far is "too far" for the US to unilaterally fall back towards CONUS???

Iff the above-same truly did not have to fear anything from the rise of RUSSIA, CHINA, IRAN, + NUCLEAR ISLAM, ETAL. as "Co-Superpowers" per their own agenda, THEN WHY HAVE TO DESTROY OR SINK GUAM + OTHER STRATEGIC PACIFIC ISLES IN ORDER TO DENY THEIR MILPOL UTILITY TO CHINA ANDOR OTHER - what went wrong between now + then???

"WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG"?, THAT DID GO WRONG???

Its their plan, not mine, so let them explain their plan.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/20/2015 19:25 Comments || Top||


Government
LIAR! Brand New Veterans Administration Chief Gave American People Fake "Firing" Numbers

Posted by: Hupineger Glomomp15048 || 02/20/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  As deep seated as this corruption is, I am willing to give this guy a pass. when you are at the top and hundreds below you are conducting a cover up, a lot of the information you are given is probably "cooked"

I bet now that this article has hit his desk the number fired is probably 9 instead of 8...and rising.

He's got a real problem and he can trust NO ONE
Posted by: Mystic || 02/20/2015 0:24 Comments || Top||

#2  He's got a real problem and he can trust NO ONE

We all have a problem, and can trust no one.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/20/2015 7:26 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2015-02-20
  45 dead in eastern Libya bombings, Islamic extremists claim responsibility
Thu 2015-02-19
  Rebels report death of 195 pro-Assad fighters in Aleppo
Wed 2015-02-18
  IS launches attack to regain Yazidi city of Shingal
Tue 2015-02-17
  Islamic State militants 'burn to death 45 in Iraq'
Mon 2015-02-16
  Egypt launches air strikes against IS militias in Libya
Sun 2015-02-15
  SECOND Copenhagen shooting at synagogue
Sat 2015-02-14
  21 Coptic Christians slaughtered in Libya
Fri 2015-02-13
  Thousands expected at funeral for 3 Muslims killed in US
Thu 2015-02-12
  France says it has dismantled 15 terrorist networks
Wed 2015-02-11
  4 Qaida Suspects Dead in Yemen Drone Strike
Tue 2015-02-10
  Obama, Family Confirm Death of IS Hostage Kayla Mueller
Mon 2015-02-09
  Top Pakistani Taliban leader injured in Afghanistan
Sun 2015-02-08
  '109 Boko Haram Fighters Dead' after First Attack on Niger Friday
Sat 2015-02-07
  Yemen rebels dissolve parliament, assume power
Fri 2015-02-06
  Al-Qaeda holy man killed in Yemen drone strike, AQAP says


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