Deafening Silence

Quote of the Week

_{"I am a Jew when synagogues are attacked. I am a Christian when Christians are persecuted for example in Iraq. And I am a Muslim when firebombs are thrown at their places of worship."}

Aiman Mazyek,  chairperson of the Central Muslim Council, Germany

Story link here.

The central council of Muslims has also condemned recent fundamentalist activities, accusing them of "perverting the name of [Islam]." Earlier this month, a number of civilians calling themselves the"Sharia police" began patrolling the streets of the western city of Wuppertal, located roughly 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Cologne.

"The action day should be a sign of accord in society," Mazyek stressed.

Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich and Bielefeld, along with roughly 2,000 other cities are to hold events on Friday. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere is to attend the demonstration in Hanover, according to the central council.

911's Unucky 13

I decided years ago to make a special post every 911.

So here I am, posting on a dying blog even as blogging itself dies, the victim of spit-it-out-quick technologies like Twitter and Tumblr.

I suspect these new "communication" formats, which promote unthinking blurts and smother long-term memory, are masking something important:

As the War on Terror drags into it's 14th year, we are living out some of the naysayers' dire predictions.

We were warned that profiling Arab men in airports would eventually let non-Arab jihadis slip through.

Looks like that may well be the case.

We were warned that the paranoia of endless war could lead to the creation of a Security State that would threaten our basic rights of free speech and privacy.

That warning seems less and less like a theory and more and more like a fact.

The warnings about "endless war" also seem more and more like a new reality.

Consider:

We invaded Afghanistan for it's role in hosting and protecting the violent fanatics who attacked us on 911.

Afghanistan is still a mess and still hosts violent fanatics.

We invaded Iraq and deposed its dictator.

Iraq is a mess and now under assault by violent fanatics.

And now, over a decade later, a different president is again declaring that he doesn't need the approval of congress and will put together a 'coalition of the willing' to attack- violent fanatics.

What was that definition of insanity again?

I will admit I once believed in the WOT. I wanted our country to be safe from violent, regressive fanatics. I wanted women and religious minorities to enjoy the same security and freedom I take  for granted.

I still want those things.

But I look around me and I see a generation of servicemen and women who are disabled or permanently traumatized by multiple tours of duty.

I'm discouraged by flaws in these societies that no amount of military intervention can correct:

Emirates who speak soothing words to the west while silently sending money to violent fanatics.

A concept of "freedom" that does not include women or religious minorities.

A constant desire to blame the west for these ills, even while begging the west to rescue the societies that cling to them.

I still want a better life for the innocent victims of violent fanatics.

But I want a better life for this country, too.

I cant help wondering: our armed forces are strictly volunteer. What happens when they can no longer attract sufficient recruits to feed the WoT?

Too many Americans can no longer find jobs that will support their families. How long will it be before some smart politician decides to reinstate the draft?

After all, the easiest way to reduce unemployment is to simply ship masses of the unemployed overseas.

Viola!

That said, I still love this country. I love it for the magical mix of people who are born here or who are drawn here. I love it for the miracles that crazy mix oftens creates.  I love it for our never-ending struggle to make our founding ideals a reality.

I guess that's all I have to say for this 911. I love my country. And that changes how I see certain things, 13 years on.

Not very uplifting this year. Sorry.

Some previous 911 posts can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

 

 

 

Two Religions, One Human Race

A talk-show host in Iraq breaks down in tears as he describes the persecution of Christians as ISIS rapes Mosul.

His compatriot describes Iraqi Christians as "the petals of the rose" that is Iraq, and praise their "honorable" moral culture:

 

"Good" and "Bad" are not defined by race, religion, sexual preference or nationality. Prayers and blessings for the good people of Iraq, who feel instinctively that their 'bouquet' of diverse worship is what makes them strong and whole.

 

Ok, This is Just Stupid and Racist

Saw a real jaw-dropper this morning from Randa Jarrar at Salon:

Google the term “belly dance” and the first images the search engine offers are of white women in flowing, diaphanous skirts, playing at brownness. How did this become acceptable?

I guess she means images like this:

This, according to Jarrar, is unforgiveable:

One of the most awkward occurrences for me when I go out to an Arabic restaurant is the portion of the evening when the white belly dancer comes out. This usually happens on weekends, and I’ve learned to avoid those spaces then, but sometimes I forget. The last time I forgot, a white woman came out in Arab drag — because that’s what that is, when a person who’s not Arab wears genie pants and a bra and heavy eye makeup and Arabic jewelry, or jewelry that is meant to read as “Arabic” because it’s metallic and shiny and has squiggles of some kind —

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“It’s Arab face,” my friend Nadine once said, pointing at an invitation from a white acquaintance of hers. The invitation was printed on card stock and featured the woman and a dozen of her white friends dressed in Orientalist garb with eye makeup caked on for full kohl effect and glittery accessories. We wanted to call these women up and say, “How is this OK? Would you wear a dashiki and rock waspafarian dreads and take up African dance publicly? Wait,” we’d probably say, “don’t answer that.”

Well, if a white woman wearing a dashiki and dreads is not ok, than neither is this, I guess:

That is Misty Copeland, the first African-American soloist with American Ballet theatre.

Given classical ballet's European roots, is Ms. Copeland doing "white face"? Is she dancing "in drag"?

Maybe she shouldn't be allowed to perform with one of America's top ballet companies.  Maybe she should be publicly shamed.

Of course, if you're going to do that, you had better start with original, evil "white face" promoter-

Arthur Mitchell, founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem.

OMG- the horror!

After all, authentic ballet should always look like this:

And never this:

That's the Tokyo Ballet shamelessly "appropriating" that icon of White European Culture: Swan Lake.

Or as Jarrar puts it in her essay:

These women are more interested in their investment in belly dancing [or ballet] than in questioning and examining how their appropriation of the art causes others harm. To them, I can only say, I’m sure there are people who have been unwittingly racist for 15 years. It’s not too late. Find another form of self-expression. Make sure you’re not appropriating someone else’s.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a white woman who studied classic dance for over 20 years, I feel so, so- HARMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At Last-- It's Finally OK(for liberal cheerleaders) to Admit Obamacare is a Train Wreck

Even liberal pundits are admitting that the ACA emporer has been naked for some time:

It's getting difficult and slinking toward impossible to defend the Affordable Care Act. The latest blow to Democratic candidates, liberal activists, and naïve columnists like me came Monday from the White House, which announced yet another delay in the Obamacare implementation.

 I'm not a conservative, and I'll never be a Republican.  But the ACA was one of the few times I agreed with Republican doomsayers. Ron Fournier's op-ed reads like a laundry list of all the problems Republicans were pointing out from the beginning:

The win-at-all-cost mentality helped create a culture in which a partisan-line vote was deemed sufficient for passing transcendent legislation.

 Anybody remember the photos of Nacy Pelosi laughing loudly while she paraded down the street carrying an outsize gavel, on her way to passing the bill?  Anybody remember Deem and Pass? Anybody remember the President saying the American people "don't care about the process" used to ram the legislation down our throats?

The entire legislative process was down. right. creepy. 

For the second time in a year, certain businesses were given more time before being forced to offer health insurance to most of their full-time workers.

 Meanwhile, ordinary Joes and Janes have to buy insurance- or else. Premiums sky high, gov't subsidies too low? Too bad, J. Q. Citizen. Pay up.  Oh, but you, Mr. Businessman- you who sit on cash, refuse to create jobs, and threaten to replace workers with robots- you, dear Businessman, can avoid paying. 

Maybe indefinitely.

 It spurred advisers to develop a dishonest talking point—"If you like your health plan, you'll be able to keep your health plan." And political expediency led Obama to repeat the line, over and over and over again, when he knew, or should have known, it was false.

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Then officials started fudging numbers and massaging facts to promote implementation, nothing illegal or even extraordinary for this era of spin. But they did more damage to the credibility of ACA advocates.

Republicans predicted from the first that Obamacare would cause layoffs, reductions in worker hours and force plans and physicians to dump patients.

And they were absolutely right.

Defending the ACA became painfully harder when online insurance markets were launched from a multi-million-dollar website that didn't work, when autopsies on the administration's actions revealed an epidemic of incompetence that began in the Oval Office and ended with no accountability.

 In a era when 20-something kids can put together massively successful products like Facebook- or bring the NSA to it's knees using "off the shelf" technology to steal secrets- this is inexcusable.

The ACA does not work because it cannot work. And it cannot work because it was junk policy to start with.Any law that purports to give all Americans access to health care purely by forcibly extending health insurance is destined to fail.

Health insurance is not the problem.  It's just a symptom.

Time to start looking at the actual problem.

(Some of my other thoughts on Obamacare can be found here, here and here.)

 

 

Quote of the Week

From Peter  Morici writing commentary for UPI.com:

 

The defining difference between the recent two disappointing economic recoveries and the strong record of the 1980s has been the predisposition of presidents from both parties to champion politically expedient remedies -- bailouts and entitlements that steal money from promising research and development, public infrastructure and private investment to bolster inefficient hospitals, abusive financial houses and decadent universities.

When the best incomes are to be earned gaming regulators, dodging prosecutors and fielding gladiators for Saturday spectacles, no wonder the economy doesn't grow and one out of every six adult men is jobless and likely to stay that way.

Decadence begets decay.

 

 

You HAVE to Watch This- Even If You Don't Like Ping-Pong.

This amazing footage comes to us from the 2014 Men's Table Tennis Championships.

Watch as these two guys go from being opponents to co-conspirators.

If Jackie Chan and Danny Kaye ever decided to play table tennis, it would look like this:

 

More Fairy Tales about the Predatory Poor

N.C. governor Pat McCrory stokes conservative fantasies about the sneaky, slimy, migratory poor:

"We had the ninth-most-generous unemployment compensation in the country," McCrory said. We were having a lot of people move here, frankly, from other areas to get unemployment ... People were moving here because of our very generous benefits, and then, of course, we had more debt."

 

WRAL.com fact-checked this statement and found nothing in it- expect maybe some stormy weather emerging from the governor's bum:

The call: North Carolina's own rules prohibit people who have not worked in the state from tapping the state's unemployment insurance system, and economists say there's scant evidence for people moving across state lines for any work-related reason, much less because they're comparison shopping for unemployment insurance.

WRAL.com puts it in simple language for the governor:

... the easiest way to think about this is someone would have had to work in the state for around six of the last 15 months in order to be eligible for benefits. The amount of someone's benefit is governed by how long they worked and how much they made. Although the recently passed unemployment insurance reform bill changed the amount of benefits paid, it did not significantly change the five-quarter base period definition. 

In other words, you can't simply move to North Carolina, announce that you're unemployed, and sign up for lavish weekly unemployment checks. This is the kind of fever-swamp nonsense imagined by people who have never had to accept unemployment compensation.

Governor McCrory is apparently ignorant of his own state's laws.

 

 

 

 

Invasion of the BodyShoppers

It's all fun and games until they come after your job.

This is a story about jobs lost.  Not lost because "greedy unions" drove production overseas or because "lazy, uneducated workers" demanded high wages for unskilled work.

No, this is a story about highly-educated, hard-working Americans losing good jobs so companies can fatten their bottom lines.

Ever hear of the B-1 visa? Read on:

In general, B-1 visas are granted to business visitors coming to the  United States for short stays to attend meetings, conferences or  training sessions, or to install specialized equipment. Visitors may not  be employed for contract work like H-1B workers, nor can they be paid  salaries in this country. There is no annual limit on business visitor  visas, whereas H-1B visas are restricted to 85,000 a year.

 According to more and more reports, the B-1 visa is now being used as a cover to import low-paid tech workers from 3rd-world countries who will replace American IT workers. When H-1B visas couldn't supply enough cheap labor, offshore recruiting firms (known as "body shoppers") began abusing the B-1 visa:

The events began with Mr. Palmer, 43, a  project manager from Alabama who was hired by the company in 2008. In a  sworn affidavit he submitted to the federal court, Mr. Palmer said his  differences with Infosys management began after he was summoned to a  meeting in Bangalore in March 2010. Top executives, he said, discussed  ways to “creatively” get around H-1B visa limitations “to fulfill the  high demand for its customers at lower cost.”

When Palmer refused to play along, things got ugly:

 Following his refusal, Palmer contends that he was threatened and harassed, receiving telephone "calls just hoping he'd die, 'you need to keep your mouth shut and leave us alone' - stuff of that nature," said his attorney, Kenneth Mendelsohn, who's based in Montgomery, Ala. The lawsuit also says he has had to "endure racial taunts or slurs, including being called 'a stupid American' and criticized for being a Christian."

 There were also issues with pay, expense reimbursement and hours alleged in the lawsuit. Palmer also charged that the company failed to act on his complaint to its internal whistleblower team.

This particular case, which revolved around the actions of bodyshopper company Infosys, was settled in October. If you've been following the shenanigans surrounding banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, the outlines of the settlement will look nauseatingly familiar:

Tech services giant Infosys Ltd agreed on Wednesday to pay $34 million to end a US investigation related to the widespread practice by Indian firms of flying workers to client sites in the United States on temporary visas.

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Infosys, India's second-largest IT services exporter, agreed in the settlement that it committed civil violations of US employment law, but it was not required to admit and did not admit widespread further wrongdoing.

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"Infosys denies and disputes any claims of systemic visa fraud, misuse of visas for competitive advantage or immigration abuse. Those claims are untrue and are assertions that remain unproven," Infosys said in a statement.

The company emphasized that the allegations were not criminal, and that there would be no limitations on its eligibility for US federal contracts or access to US visa programs as a result of the settlement.

Yes, that's right: yet another large international firm that has made a pretty penny screwing Americans gets to write an impressive check (while remaining quite profitable), deny any wrongdoing, and, like so many big banks, keep their place at the U.S. goverment trough.

Let's take a look at an example of who loses their jobs when bodyshoppers like Infosys enter the picture:

 Northeast Utilities in Connecticut Tuesday confirmed that it plans to turn over part of its IT operations to two India-based outsourcing firms, despite a recent push by state lawmakers to keep it from doing so.

NU says it employs some 400 IT workers, and "will retain about half of those employees" after turning some operations over to outsourcers Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, two of India's largest IT firms.

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 Utility jobs had been considered among the more stable in Connecticut, at least until NU merged last year with Boston-based utility NStar.

 Company officials at the time told regulators and lawmakers that the merger would lead to savings.

  Oh, there will be savings, all right- savings built on the backs of 200 or so highly-educated professionals that will no longer have jobs.

That's 200 positions abruptly converted into "jobs Americans won't do."

It's also taxes Uncle Sam won't get (IIRC, B-1 worker earnings are not taxed). And it's money that won't stimulate the U.S. economy, as much of it will leave the country in remittances to family abroad.

And that's to say nothing of the downward pressure on what used to be respectable professional wages, and the deliberate shrinking of the job pool by earmarking thousands of positions for visa workers only.

It will probably have a generational effect:

If Congress does take action on an immigration overhaul, an increase in the cap on H-1B visas would be part of it. And the prospect of a big jump in the temporary work visas is worrisome to some academics, who say it will have consequences for students.

The nexus of H-1B visas and higher education came up Friday during a policy forum for U.S. House staff members focused on H-1B visas.

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Hal Salzman, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University, said that the U.S. produces enough graduates to satisfy the demands of the labor market. But if the cap increase goes through, the market will be flooded with workers, and people under the age of 30 would be especially hard hit by the increased competition for jobs.

Neeraj Gupta, the CEO of Systems in Motion, a U.S.-based provider of IT services, said the purpose of the visa program should be to supply workers needed for important jobs that are hard to fill -- not as source of low-cost labor.

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"If you stop the flow of H-1Bs, it will encourage businesses like us" and "it will encourage the offshore businesses to start investing in local workforces," Gupta told the audience of House policy analysts. "Today, they have no incentive to hire an American workforce."

When outfits like Microsoft and Facebook plead and whimper about "immigration reform," they are using public pressure to fatten their own bank accounts. Ditto for the constantly-repeated nonsense about the STEM-worker shortage.

These days, there is only one worker shortage- a shortage of workers willing to accept subsistence pay and a complete lack of benefits or security in exchange for highly-skilled work.

 

Who's Looting Who?

(Image Credit: Flickr/Mike Fisher)

 

The Wall Street Journal is crying big tears for JPMorgan:

Trying to keep an accurate tally of the government investigations of J.P. Morgan has become a full-time job. This week the New York Times counted investigations in at least seven federal agencies, while the Journal counted seven investigations in the Justice Department alone, plus inquiries at other agencies.

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Mr. Dimon's worst sin in Washington's eyes may be that J.P. Morgan earned record profits last year despite the Whale losses.

Um, no. Ironically, the same same WSJ editorial lists of few of JPMorgan's "sins":

Now each day seems to bring details of another government investigation—about mortgage underwriting, mortgage-backed securities, energy markets, credit cards, other Whale-related cases and more. Since 2008 J.P. Morgan has spent more than $18 billion on legal expenses.

Let's take a look at just a few of these "sins"- otherwise known to the legal profession as fraud, market manipulation and money laundering:

In July, JPMorgan Ventures Energy agreed to pay the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission $410 million in fines. Why? Because in JPMVEC used Enron-style market manipulations to bilk ratepayers in California and the Midwest out of at least $124 million dollars.

From qz.com:

The manipulating of heavily regulated energy markets through creative price-setting is analogous to what Enron did in the early part of the century with strategies named “Fat Boy,” “Ricochet,” and the always popular “Death Star.”

In August the Commodities Futures Trading Commission subpoened JPMorgan for documents relating to allegations of price-fixing in the aluminum market. The CFTC investigation was in addition to at least 4 class action lawsuits filed by individuals and companies in New York, Florida, Louisiana and Michigan.

From a NYT report:

Wall Street’s maneuverings in the commodities markets have added many billions to the coffers of investment banks like Goldman, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, while forcing consumers to pay more for gasoline, electricity and a wide range of products, from cars to cellphones.

Not content with squeezing money from consumers for electricity, soda cans and cell phones, JPMorgan looked abroad for bigger profits, and wound up paying the Treasury Department $88.3 million dollars in August 2011 for money laundering in prohibited transactions with Cuba and Iran.

The WST is also wringing its hands over the plight of the poor, defenseless shareholders of JPMorgan:

And now the feds are making Morgan's shareholders pay for this embarrassment. Morgan investors recently had to pay another $920 million to settle U.S. and U.K. charges related to the Whale.

I have a brief message for the phony free-marketeers at the Wall Street Journal:

Nobody held a gun to the heads of JPMorgan shareholders when they purchased their shares, and nobody is holding a gun to their heads now.

They were free to dump their shares and walk away after the first settlements began. Or later, when multiple settlements showed that share prices were inflated by ill-gotten gains.

But they didn't. Now they're paying the price.

Maybe, just maybe, if more shareholders dumped their shares when repeated settlements made the news, JPMorgan would simply fail due to its own shoddy management.

Happy Thanksgiving. Or maybe JPMorgan calls it "Thankstaking."