Friday, February 27, 2009

Choo-Choo Ch'Boogie!

(Click here to listen to the fabulous Louis Jordan)

Too Kewl for Gruel
-Obama tells us to go to School-

...and then tells educated Americans to eat cake


After a brief glimpse of Obama’s address to Congress earlier this week, the only impressive note I can make on the president’s engaging, smooth delivery (as I had noted during the primaries here) is that the man could sell ice to Eskimos. Unlike a certain former leader with a penchant for stumbling over words and bleachers at the China Olympics, Obama deservedly scores points for his ability to read the teleprompter from L to R in such a sweeping fashion as to not look like he is actually reading it.

In her recent post entitled Obama Wants Us To Go To School, Economic blog diva journalist Elaine Meinel Supkis at Culture of Life News writes about Obama’s ominous statement during his address to Congress earlier this week that Americans should ALL go back to school! Ominous, in that he offered no explanation or suggestion as to what millions of us who hold degrees from the World’s finest universities in America should learn or how this would make greedy corporations start hiring Americans instead of cheap, imported workers. No, no, not only did he not elaborate on why the growing millions of unemployed educated Americans would go to school when many already hold advanced degrees, he also pledged to sell out more jobs to the third world.

With a flick of Let Them Eat Cake-ism and sheer disregard for American workers, Obama revealed without remorse his intention to put America’s workers out of high paying jobs -- or any jobs at all. Like some shady magician’s trick, is the buzzword “school” meant to lull the plebes into some false sense of security on their way to slaughter? Or did he reveal (wittingly or unwittingly) some stealth “industry of privately held educational enterprises” as Citizen Carrie describes in her post One World School Policies lurking in the tech lobby backed Obie plan that are designed to educate foreign labor on the American taxpayer’s dime?

Ominous, in that during Obama’s address, he pledged more military budget spending and also, most disturbing of all, trumpeted free trade during this economic depression, confirming his “declaration of war against American workers” which had Congress applauding wildly. Elaine explains:


“He disarmed all possible ways we could improve our basic industrial situation and made it clear to all the creditor nations who happen to be also the biggest export-profit centers, that we will do absolutely nothing to stop this. We will not protect ourselves. Period. Congress, being corrupt and in the pay of foreign powers, applauded this declaration of war against American workers.


With such blatant disregard for the citizens of this country, it would appear that the Neo-Frat Boy Fascist State of America, led by President Obama and his cronies have now officially declared war on America’s white collar middle class.

Obama also talked about “rebuilding” this country with “alternative energy systems”, but, as Elaine points out, this would be great if we – not imported workers from third world countries but our own citizens -- were the ones chartered to do the building:


“Putting up many alternative energy systems is a wonderful thing. But ONLY if we produce the energy systems we buy to install. This is where the rest of the world comes in: our trade rivals do not want us to build systems here, they want us to consume their imported systems. The Chinese and Japanese have been very intent on building solar energy factories, for example. Putting up many alternative energy systems is a wonderful thing. But ONLY if we produce the energy systems we buy to install. This is where the rest of the world comes in: our trade rivals do not want us to build systems here, they want us to consume their imported systems. The Chinese and Japanese have been very intent on building solar energy factories, for example.


This country’s underutilized, underemployed and unemployed smart Americans want to rebuild this nation’s corporate and civic infrastructures up and all he can tell them is “go to school” as he pledges to sell out their jobs to foreign workers?

Why does Obama not want to support white collar middle class citizens? He has signed up for the job of The Great Leveler. As evinced from his speech, our insulated and out of touch president, beholden to the Neo-Frat Boy, Have and Have-Not Society committed to the extermination of this country’s thriving middle class, apparently sees educated Americans in the same gruel lines as the peasants of third world countries, some who happen to be floating our debt.


-2Truthy


Zombie Banks

(Special thanks to Mark Fiore)
-Click here to watch Mark Fiore's Zombie Bank-

The Zombie Banks


Paul Krugman says that it looks as if we’re headed for the decade of the living dead in his article All the President’s Zombies.

The comments are the best part. Here is one to ponder:


“It’s safe to say that this is intentional.
The people in the administration must know that their pursuing the Japanification of our financial system, and the subsequent concrete-filled sunken frigate that places in the way of economic recovery.
I’m unwilling to chalk this up to incompetence, and there’s simply no wiggle room left for plausible deniability.
So, the question becomes. Knowing full well that this is an incredibly bad plan that is going to completely undermine the efficacy of any movement toward recovery, why are they pursuing it?”
— Nathan Aschbacher

As long as the Goldman Sachs foxes & Obama’s private sector Economic Advisory Board are acting in their personal best interest as judge, jury and executioner of taxpayer funds get to keep guarding the Henhouse, how long will Americans be content with such rampant socialism for the Plutocracy?

Patrice Ayme wonders why The People continue to allow themselves to pay for the hyper rich to fleece them in this excellent article. Ayme describes how America’s “thick, plutocratic layer” has established for themselves “fiscal paradises, places where their money was channeled to escape the IRS” and suggests that those “geniuses”, the “outstanding” friends of Obama’s advisers who contrived the greatest Ponzi scheme of all times (the derivative system) be held accountable by pushing for RICO (The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.)

When it comes to making them accountable, it is crystal clear that any talk of “transparency” coming from the private sector Economic advisory board and the Obama administration is first filtered and distilled to make it palatable for select Pigs at the Trough.

Party on, plebes!

-2Truthy


Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Pilot Sully Has No Pension, Pay Cut by 40%

National Hero, Pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger

Suspected Terrorist Geese

More (Possible) Bird Striking News

Weeks after LWOH reported how our own hero, U.S. Airways Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger expertly ditched an Airbus A-320 into the Hudson River after both its engines were knocked out by two suspected flocks of Canada Geese and saved the lives of all 155 passengers onboard, another possible bird strike and engine failure may have also caused a Turkish Airlines jet to crash in Amersterdam today, killing at least nine people and injuring 50.

Before we describe today’s Turkish Air crash, Pilot Sully has testified today (click on above video) that his pay has been cut by 40% in recent years and his pension plan has been terminated. Given the outcome of his masterful and miraculous crash landing, Pilot Sully deserves a lifetime of compensation and benefits. Plus, he has done a great service for the promotion of the Airline.

Surely, the marketers at U.S. Airways can’t argue with the expert product placement.

But with the airlines’ corporate push for profits over people potentially jeopardizing passenger and civilian safety, shouldn’t this be the nation’s wake-up call to reform the airline industry? Pilot Sully explains how the skimping has gotten so bad that he and his peers would not recommend the profession of “pilot” for their children:


“…the terms of our employment have changed dramatically from when I began my career, leading to an untenable financial situation for pilots and their families. When my company offered pilots who had been laid off the chance to return to work, 60% refused. Members, I attempt to speak accurately and plainly, so please do not think I exaggerate when I say that I do not know a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps.”

Since 1993, under the greatest assault against educated Americans when the H-1B visa spigot flooded the tech industry, millions of American computer scientists and engineers are now unemployed and vastly underemployed, without benefits and pensions, too. Many now have kids in college who are not in the CS and Engineering departments for the same reason: Corporate greed directed against middle class Americans.

Although Pilot Sully saved the lives of 155 passengers and crew, some onboard today’s Amsterdam crash met no such fate. Airport authorities said the plane, Turkish Airlines Flight 1951, left Istanbul at about 8:20 a.m. and made a crash landing near the airport with 128 passengers and 7 crew members on board. Although the cause of the crash has yet to be confirmed, bird strikes have not been ruled out.


The 737-800, part of Boeing's "next generation" family of aircraft, was introduced in 1998 and is powered by CFM engines produced by General Electric and the French manufacturer Snecma. Turkish officials said the plane was built in 2002. It last underwent maintenance checks in December.


Low-cost airlines including Europe’s Ryanair has an entire fleet of 737-800 models and it along with Southwest Airlines both have outstanding orders for more. The 737-800 could be referred to as the People’s Plane. According to one aviation consultant in Barcelona:


"This is the Ford or Volkswagen of the skies - it is the equivalent of the Airbus A320 - the real workhorse of the current generation of aircraft.”


The fear is that as airlines continue to cut services (Southwest now has the passengers cleaning up the planes, among other things) outsource maintenance and lose their best and brightest pilots, passenger and civilian safety will be increasingly jeopardized.


Let’s hope that these low-cost airlines add mechanical safeguards against the potential for bird strikes and compensate their pilots to reward the best and brightest stewards of the skies.

-2Truthy

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

How the Economy Was Lost: Casting Off America

Slumdog Millionaire actors visit Disneyland
-Casting Off America-
"If truth be known, the "banking problem" is the least of our worries.
Our economy faces two much more serious problems. One is that offshoring
and H-1b visas have stopped the growth of family incomes, except, of
course, for the super rich."
-Paul Craig Roberts


“It’s not the Economy, Stupid. It’s YOUR JOB!”
-2Truthy


Why are American citizens allowing elites to hand over jobs to India? The stimulus bill has U.S. citizens, not Indians, picking up the tab, too! Why don’t the failing banks get their bailout from India, instead? From the white collar job sectors of technology to medicine to finance to journalism, corporate elites in this country are rejoicing in selling out American jobs. We can’t even seem to appreciate our own movies anymore, either. Unless you troll the trough of the hubris diseased, “ordinary” educated Americans are no longer deemed eligible to partake in corporate and local community building. Oh Hell. Even Hollywood can’t stop itself from succumbing to the hubris opiate, slumming and skimping on quality as evinced by the Academy’s all out political promotion not of at least two Oscar worthy Hollywood films (IMHO Milk and Frost/Nixon) but an unarguably mediocre film to instead hand over eight Oscars to, one for Best Film. But that’s OK. We have a reputation as being a great, gracious nation - only these days, just not to each other. Have the disastrous Bush years so thoroughly eroded our collective sense of national pride and camaraderie to warrant this “kick me please” sign on the backs of our own citizens?


In his article entitled How the Economy Was Lost, Paul Craig Roberts summarizes what yours truly has been writing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again about the distinct, hate thy neighbor brand of hubris and greed in this War on America’s white collar middle class that has been led by America’s corporate elites and their fawning “new media” sycophants.
Roberts reports that while U.S. financial regulators abandoned integrity and “fled their posts” while MSM and “New Media” outlets drummed the lie of an American “skilled labor shortage” to promote H-1B visa workers to replace Americans, outsourcing’s “inner circle” has deep roots in GE and McKinsey, among others that have promoted the sell out of America’s white collar middle class. After all, citizens can afford a Depression only if they have jobs. But that is not part of the blueprint by a few CEOs and elites in this war on America’s white collar middle class:

“The pressure of jobs offshoring, together with vast imports, has destroyed the economic prospects for all Americans, except the CEOs who receive “performance” bonuses for moving American jobs offshore or giving them to H-1b work visa holders. Lowly paid offshored employees, together with H-1b visas, have curtailed employment for older and more experienced American workers. Older workers traditionally receive higher pay. However, when the determining factor is minimizing labor costs for the sake of shareholder returns and management bonuses, older workers are unaffordable. Doing a good job, providing a good service, is no longer the corporation’s function. Instead, the goal is to minimize labor costs at all cost.”

So far, that goal appears to be working out just great. With a little help from a few trough slopping “New Media” hacks to pick up where the Old Media left off, Meet the New Boss Same as the Old Boss has never sounded so good for a few greedy corporate elites and their “leading a movement” sycophants.

Party on, plebs!


-2Truthy

Sean Penn May Play Joe Wilson: Sing along to The Plame Game

-Sean Penn Takes on Plame Game, May Play Joe Wilson-
(Congratulations Sean, Best Actor 2009 in Milk)


Breaking News


No deal has closed yet, but Variety reports that Oscar winner Sean Penn (yay!) is in negotiations to play the role of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame in director Doug Liman’s retelling of Plame’s story, currently known in deal-making circles as “Fair Game.”


Before you read further, click here, turn up the volume, and sing along to the lyrics of THE PLAME GAME which yours truly provided in February, 2007 when the buzz was that Scooter Libby could do the time for the crime in the Bush administration’s despicable hand in outing covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame.

Fast forward to June, 2007 and click here to sing along to “Scooter Libby Gets his Prison Number.”

And who are the other rumored casting picks?

Click here for 2Truthy’s casting picks (updated to include Sean Penn as Dennis Quaid was the original pick – Sean is perfect!)

-2Truthy

Friday, February 20, 2009

IBM Seeks Stimulus Funds


IBM Seeks Stimulus Funds, People Seek Jobs and Homes


(Heart)Breaking News

Armonk, NY Mega-behemoth American white collar job outsourcer IBM says it wants federal stimulus money to make the intertubes available for an estimated 200,000 “rural” people. Unconfirmed and anonymous sources reveal that the stealth program “Operation Homeless Hillbilly” will provide a souped up, yet barely “C” class brand of internet services that will run over power lines – a connection that’s dubiously faster than dial-up but painfully slower than the traditional fiber connections that guys like Tim Geithner get to use.



Although broadband over power lines isn’t a new technology, “it’s been around for the better part of this decade and has yet to gain much traction” which may explain why IBM seeks the “rural” population to load it off on AND get Joe Taxpayer to keep them in Prada loafers at the same time!


So what if the connections are slow? Who’s in a hurry these days, anyway? Especially when pro- labor arbitrage/outsourcing corporations like IBM have gone so far as to want their employees to offshore themselves to India through Project Match, as LWOH previously reported here.


President Obama’s plan includes $2.5 billion that will go toward enhancing Internet services in rural areas, despite the fact that the unemployed and homeless usually don’t typically come across money (via legal means, anyway) to pay for such wired extravagances.



“IBM didn’t say how much money stimulus money it is seeking for its $9.6 million deal with IBEC, which initially will provide broadband services to co-ops in Alabama, Indiana, Michigan and Virginia. But the project will move forward even if the company doesn’t get stimulus funding, a statement says.”



-2Truthy


The Gay Swami Times: Stimulus Saves Microsoft Billionaire Hundreds of Millions

“The noble soul drinks poison with a smile, detached and desireless, he needs no fame or recognition.” –Lord Shiva

“Everyone smiles when they are offered Sees Candy, but what happens when people throw eggs at their avatars?” –The Gay Swami

Welcome to The Gay Swami Times, Vol. 1, Issue 6. Click here for prior issues.

This week brings victorious news that Billionaire Paul Allen, a Microsoft cofounder and owner of both the NFL's Seattle Seahawks and the NBA's Portland Trailblazers is going to be about ONE BILLION DOLLARS RICHER thanks to President Obama’s stimulus bill!

As the ancient, tantric-wealth saying goes,

“when the ego becomes completely insipid, even if the Self becomes complete, the bank account becomes horribly dry.”


But as most CEOs and executives in-the-know embrace the Gay Swami’s celestial message “spiritual progress is made possible by opening your hearts to others, and getting them to open their wallets even wider” at the deepest, most intimate levels, true enlightenment and success can only be achieved by a one-time income windfall to fall in your lap.


Don’t forget to sign up for The Gay Swami’s upcoming, stimulating seminar in the Financial District:


-DEEP DHARMA – CEOs EXPLOITING ETERNAL BLISS-

The Master’s Narrative: 8 Moves towards CEO transnational positioning to bring you closer to your dreamy H-1B.

-2Truthy

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Google Investor Sits on Obama's Economic Advisory Board

-First Step: Gore, Doerr, Powell, and the Back Door: Who Owns Obama?-

Millions of newly minted and old unemployed plebs alike across the country can now breathe a sigh of relief as Obama’s first ever, ominous broadcast of “first steps” is available to all captive American taxpayers who have questions about which wealthy private citizens are getting their American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money. (The video above was made by (Americans United for Change.)

One of the leading corporations (Google) which will receive over $20 billion plus in subsidies for privacy invasive e-health plan development approved in the Stimulus Bill has one of its lead investors on Obama’s economic advisory board, just to make sure Joe Taxpayer’s money is being spent the right way. The Washington Post’s Cecelia Kang reports that President Obama's newly formed economic advisory board includes some high-tech heavyweights who will have a “direct line of communication” to the new administration as it races to stem the worsening economic crisis.

The members include Silicon Valley venture capital veteran and Google funder John Doerr, and Chuck Phillips, president of database software giant Oracle. The Obama administration said that there will be 15 advisers to “regularly provide direct advice” to Obama "to jump-start economic growth and facilitate economic stability." The announcement states that this also includes specific advice for “immediate solutions to the crisis.”

Kang observes that John Doerr’s significant investment in Google (he is a partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers venture capital firm, which also includes Al Gore and Colin Powell) “only widens the pool of executives and other employees of the Internet search firm who are working for or advising the Obama administration.”


The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, in his article Feeling Good About What You’ve Bought, describes Obama’s “first step” video:


“One calls to mind Charles Grodin's character in Dave, wondering why the country needed to spend money making Americans feel good about cars they already bought? The answer, I think, lies in two words: "first step." They were used by President Obama today at the bill signing. They're used by Obama in an e-mail to his presidential campaign list. And they're in the new ad. The goal, I think, is to condition elites, and then the American people, to see the economic recovery act as one of several significant, expensive, complicated (or, to keep the metaphor, high, risky and precarious) steps that the government needs to take in order to right the economy.”


Change we can use or more corporate welfare, labor arbitrage and outsourcing? The ARRA mentions nothing about taxpayer money appropriations for single payer healthcare, but instead offers subsidies to corporations like Google whose investors and executives stand to prosper from. With all of these wealthy private industry experts advising Obama on how to spend our taxpayer money and which corporations to spend it on - *shock* like their own -- it’s a safe bet that we will be treated to more ominous, brief videos from Our Leader to keep us posted of the next steps in this finely tuned, corporate welfare, middle class wealth redistribution agenda-pitch.


-2Truthy

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day

“Love makes the world go ‘round, and if you’re in a hole, keep digging to bury white collar jobs for your middle class in.”
-Obama’s Tech Czar-

Bush Bails Out Bankers, Obama Bails Out Ditchdiggers: America’s White Collar Middle Class Prepares to “Get Over Itself”, Get "Shovel Ready"

Stimulus Bill Update: “What” middle class? I see that all those bank and hedge fund executive level jobs are already taken, but there are shovel ready jobs, galore for all those pink-slipped white collar professionals. Slam dunk for tech lobby, financial elites, and “shovel ready” laborers, disaster for America's middle class. Below is a breakdown by subcommittee which of course, omits pesky details so don’t worry - it’s a quick read.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mathematicians Discover the Largest Integer So Far...

(Reprint in entirety below/Special thanks to commenter “Gary” and Elaine Meinel Supkis at Culture of Life News)

PALO ALTO, CA - An international mathematics research team announced today that they had discovered a new integer that surpasses any previously known value “by a totally mindblowing shitload.” Project director Yujin Xiao of Stanford University said the theoretical number, dubbed a “stimulus,” could lead to breakthroughs in fields as diverse as astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and Chicago asphalt contracting.

“Unlike previous large numbers like the Googleplex or the Bazillionty, the Stimulus has no static numerical definition,” said Xiao. “It keeps growing and growing, compounding factorially, eating up all zeros in its path. It moves freely across Cartesian dimensions and has the power to make any other number irrational.”

Jean-Luc Brossard, a researcher with the European consortium CERN, said the number is so staggeringly large that it is difficult for even mathematicians to grasp, let alone lay people.

“The number itself is incomprehensible by human minds, and can only be theoretically understood in a fractional parallel universe which we refer to as the DC dimension,” said Brossard. “The best way to understand a stimulus is to imagine a dollar sign followed by a packed string of hexidecimal nanodigits, wound into a triple helix, woven into a dodecahedron, and stacked on top of one another. Now imagine you were a black hole on the far edge of the universe, trying to escape the stimulus at 30 times the speed of light. The stimulus would still catch up to you and ram your black hole with such furious, repeated force that it would cause your entire reality itself to collapse.”

Xiao said the team discovered the number with the help of an international network of 24 nitrogen-cooled Cray Ultracluster supercomputers, the CERN particle accelerator, and “three pounds of Humboldt County Chronic.”

“The exciting news is that with more powerful computers and drugs, we believe we are on the verge of discovering an even larger number, which we refer to as a ’stimulusconferencebill,’” said Xiao. “Speaker Pelosi has already promised us the funding.”

Comment by Gary — February 13, 2009 #

-2Truthy

Thursday, February 12, 2009

U.S. Stimulus Bill Pushes E-Health Records

(Very special thanks to the Doors)
-Happy Birthday Ray Manzarek-


The Stimulus Bill: E-Health Plan Benefits CEOs and Investors, Not the Public
-When the Music’s Over-


Keep moving, folks...nothing to see, here…except a further divide between rich and poor in these United States of Goldman Sa$hs. The music may be sweet to the ears of Friends of Obama, but the e-health plan is not your special friend, dear pleb.


For those who keep wondering why Obama has aggressively pushed billions of dollars of Stimulus Bill money on “investment in an e-health plan”, the answer is simple. Obama has friends and big plate campaign donors in the tech lobby who all will profit wildly off such a venture. Obama’s national health records system is costly, and he would like it very much if the plebs - instead of his venture capitalist pals and executives at Google Inc. and Microsoft, to name a few front row players - who would love nothing more than to get the government to pick up the tab for development costs.


Microsoft launched its Healthvault beta program in 2007 and has now partnered with Kaiser Permanente and the American Heart Association, among others, to create a database accessible by patients and authorized care providers. Earlier this year Google launched its own health records beta, Google Health.


But what will this daunting, on the down-low (DL) privacy invasive IT technology proposal with uncapped costs north of $25 billion do for Joe Taxpayer? Will it cure cancer? For all of these billions being shelled out to fund the lives of tech lobby elites in the private sector, wouldn’t Joe T. be better off with those funds applied to a national health care program instead?


Does Obama’s proposed e-health plan clearly outline how it will or if it will put the millions of unemployed and underemployed American IT and other technology professionals back to work? No. The bill as is benefits only CEOs and investors but has neither provisions to stop the practice of recruiting H-1B workers nor any mandate to hire American technology professionals for the jobs it states it will create. The tech lobby is one of Obama’s biggest fans and financial donors, so it comes as no surprise that they are all over the Stimulus Bill to get Joe Taxpayer to pick up the tab for privacy invasive health records technology. While Congress seems to be settling on $20 billion to $25 billion of stimulus money to “ improve health care technology”, it is estimated that this amount is only one half or a third of what a transition to e-health records would actually even cost. Once it is passed, Joe Taxpayer gets to cough up even more money to line the personal profits and pockets of this caste of Neo-Frat Boy elites while middle class Americans continue to lose jobs, access to healthcare and homes.


Under the guise of “improving healthcare” by developing poorly defined and convoluted, over-complicated snoopware referred to as a “health database” with all of your personal medical data, in actuality


“this databases will, "at a minimum," include information on every American's race and ethnicity. They will be used for "biosurveillance and public health" and "medical and clinical research," both of which raise privacy questions. They will become part of a "nationwide system for the electronic use and exchange of health information."

As yours truly has reported here and here, a few corporate fat-cats seek a large, super-size-me feed at the bailout trough for dubious technologies designed to increase the health of their personal bank accounts as opposed to the health of the taxpaying public. These corporate welfare queens want you, dear pleb, to pick up the tab for their output instead of the private sector, which claims that IT jobs will be created - but jobs for whom? This is the same pro-white collar job outsourcing lobby and their political enablers that are fighting to displace American white collar citizens and replace them with foreign H-1B visa workers. Despite the symbolic Grassley/Sanders proposal (S 306) to demand TARP fund recipients hire Americans, that effort is now under attack by the AILA and Chamber of Commerce. (h/t Rob Sanchez at zazona.com)


Declan McCullagh at CNet News also reports that one section of the e-health record’s “convoluted legislation” is touted to “radically reshape the nation's medical system by having the government establish computerized medical records that would follow each American from birth to death.”


Make no mistake – this stealth legislation that Obama has been aggressively pushing throughout his campaign but did not discuss at his press conference, is a payday giveaway to his tech lobby pals. McCullagh reports that billions will be given to corporations to create databases and to universities to incorporate patient databases "into the initial and ongoing training of health professionals." Remember, these are the same corporations and university think tanks who have decided that middle class white collar professionals should be labor arbitraged and replaced by cheap foreign labor.


With Obama’s e-health plan, privacy issues abound, and yet nowhere in the 140-page portion of the legislation does the government even remotely anticipate that some Americans might not want their medical histories electronically stored, shared, or searched. Although a single paragraph promises that data-sharing will "be voluntary," there's no obvious way to opt out.


Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom, a nonprofit group that advocates health care privacy, explains


"Without those protections, Americans' electronic health records could be shared--without their consent--with over 600,000 covered entities through the forthcoming nationally linked electronic health records network."


Also noted is the full bore sales pitch by “ambitious” Democrats who have a job description all ready for their anticipated, yet to be designated Health Czar to preside over your shorts:



“The Democratic politicians pushing this bill have far-reaching ambitions. The legislation (PDF) (on page 244, for the curious) hands to a still-to-be-named health care bureaucrat the "goal of utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014." Selecting official standards will be left to the Department of Health and Human Services (page 265). Plus, the federal government will use its vast purchasing power--think Medicare and Medicaid--to compel adoption of e-records that meet government "standards and implementation specifications."


Sounds good? So where is Obama’s e-health plan anti-outsourcing provision in the Stimulus Bill that will protect American white collar professionals? So far, the Stimulus Bill looks like a grand slam for this administration’s “shovel ready” promise to turn our nation of white collar professionals into ditch diggers.

When the music’s over, turn out the light.

-2Truthy

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Gay Swami Times U.S. Stimulus Bill Special Report

(click on graphic to enlarge)
-U.S. Stimulus Bill Includes H-1B Pleasure Trysts with Your Brother, First Cousins and Perhaps Barnyard Animals, too-


Welcome back to The Gay Swami Times, Vol. 1, Issue 5. (Or whatever our new numbering convention is.)
Click here for previous releases.

In exciting news this week, the Stimulus Bill has passed, releasing with it a distinctly bovine, gassy odor not unlike last week’s forgotten lamb biryani takeout still in the trunk of your car.

With so much odious, bad karma thrown into the “Stimulus Bill” by “incestuous” hustlers selected by the Obama administration to “advise” them, corporate water boy investment bankers like Tim Geithner from Goldman Sachs have a new, intimate caste of characters from Citigroup’s Alternative Investment division to help sodomize America’s white collar middle class. This arousing report reveals that recent appointees include Mark A. Patterson, a former lobbyist at Goldman Sachs, who is now the chief of staff to the Treasury secretary:


“It seems to be an incestuous financial relationship situation here,” Mr. Shelby said at a Senate hearing last week, referring to senior Treasury executives, like Mr. Patterson, who once worked at investment banks. “And that’s very troubling not only to a lot of people on this committee but to the American people.”


and

“Michael Froman, another former chief financial officer at the Citigroup division, has joined the White House staff as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs. Both Mr. Lew and Mr. Froman are well respected in Washington for their extensive government experience, which includes work in the Clinton administration on budget matters, in Congress and on international financial affairs. But their shift to the Obama administration from Citigroup has raised questions about the potential for conflicts of interest, and about whether Mr. Obama’s own staff members benefited from the kinds of Wall Street excesses he has criticized.”

Quoth the Gay Swami:


“Hahahaha! Even the Grassley/Sanders H-1B amendment (SA306) that was supposed to be a “precedent” to stop giving away American jobs to India is in a bad position for white collar American workers, if you know what I mean, and won’t help them since the AILA and Chamber of Commerce are seeking to destroy it. More business for us, Tata and Wipro and our friends, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and good friends like Bill “Give Me Infinite H-1Bs” Gates and John “Do Me Like a Slumdog” Chambers to help us take the white collar jobs from Americans. Hahahahaha! That’s what I call a stimulus!”

The Gay Swami also wishes to inform our readers that the greedy corporate overlords like Bill Gates, to name one of several who have sold out America’s white collar middle class citizens to our beloved India in exchange for H-1B visas, are certain to come back in their next lives as mosquitoes. Or deer flies.

-2Truthy

Friday, February 6, 2009

"Bad Dog" Banks Put U.S. Education on Short Leash

-Disappearing Public Educational Funding vs. "Bad Dog" Banks-



When it comes to determining how our taxpayer money will be spent, it appears that the Senate prefers to throw American students out the window. Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times raises an excellent question in his article Throwing Schools Out the Window:


“Come on, senators, education is the best way to fight poverty, the best way to break the cycle of the underclass, the best way to ensure a broader distribution of opportunity in America, the best way to preserve our country’s economic competitiveness. And it’s just as good for stimulus purposes as repaving a road — and you still want to throw those school children out the window?”



The political and corporate elite establishment’s determination to slash the nation’s educational spending along with the simultaneous rise in exclusive school privatization catering to an international elites-only-crowd is a harbinger for what is to come in this war on America’s white collar middle class and their children. Read Citizen Carrie’s post entitled One-World School Policies and this post by yours truly Singularity University: “Silver Spoon U” Searches for Solutions for a better understanding of how this nation’s political and corporate elites are pulling up the educational drawbridge on the American public.


As Kristof correctly observes, the best way to improve America’s economic competiveness is to educate our children -- but that’s not the way this nation’s politicians and corporate elites see it.


Who and how are these stimulus bill/economic recovery decisions made? Here are some comforting words about how taxpayer money is being doled out:



“We are making this up as we go", said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).


That’s good to know. Meanwhile, a group of Senators met this week to strip $80 billion from the Obama Administration’s economic recovery plan. According to some press accounts, they are primarily targeting proposed spending cuts at education, ranging from Head Start programs to Pell grants for college students. When it comes to tough decisions on how taxpayer funds should be spent during this Depression, it appears we shouldn’t be lavishing them on American students. Greg Sargent over at the Plum Line blog draws some sharp commenter contributions addressing the Educational and NSF funding cuts which support computer science, math and social science:


“Half the cuts ($40B) are the 100% elimination of State stabilization funds? Can we let all the folks in the states that s/b recipients that the GOP is telling them to go to hell?And about $14B is the 100% elimination of added PELL Grant money, when community colleges and public universities are being swamped by people who suddenly are unemployable, have no income stream, and are serious enough to go back to school for new training and education?How shortsighted are these clowns? Oh, wait…they’re Republicans!!! I forgot. They don’t care about US (that’s U.S.) They only care about their corporate donors.”

And

“Did you see the percentage cuts to science? According to TPM: NASA exploration $750,000,000 = 50%NSF $1,402,000,000 = 100%NOAA $427,000,000 = 34.94%NIST $218,000,000 = 37.91%DOE energy efficiency & renewable energy $1,000,000,000 = 38%DOE office of science $100,000,000 = 100%
For those who are unfamiliar with the National Science Foundation:The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…” With an annual budget of about $6.06 billion, we are the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing.”

In other news from Capitol Hill, the Senate Banking Committee also heard testimony from the Chair of Congressional Oversight Panel’s Elizabeth Warren, who presented a sneak preview of its latest report containing estimates that, in its purchases of capital stakes in major banks, the Bush Treasury Department overpaid by $78 billion.

The billion dollar question, dear plebs: which group -- students or banks --- get to keep their $80 billion?

Warren cited a valuation study of a few specific banks that got federal infusions.


“Despite the assurances of then-Secretary Paulson, who said that the transactions were at par, Treasury paid substantially more for the assets purchased under the TARP than their then-current market value.”


Although Warren did say that the Treasury “may have overpaid as part of a deliberate policy to increase the amount of assistance being given to the banks to enhance the stabilization effort”, one can not dismiss this possibility. But if I were a betting woman – and I am --- I’d bet that the overpayment resulted from a smooth value transfer by corrupt officials with a certain savoir-faire at the “T” to their financial sector pals.

Obama’s aim at reducing executive pay is more happy talk to lull the plebes in advance of the next humongous bailout plan that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to announce next week -- a plan that may include the creation of a bad bank to allow financial institutions to “unload their toxic assets onto the taxpayers.” Reducing the compensation of bank executives who have already made their nut may placate the public, but it won’t stop the bleeding of yet another huge and poorly conceived bailout.

To this, I resort to a song with a slightly modified composition from one of my favorite performers, the Divine Ms. “M”.

Happy Friday, Loserettes!


-2Truthy

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Bill Gates Releases Mosquitoes, Spreads the Hubris Disease

(Photo credits James Duncan Davidson/TED)
Bill Gates Releases Mosquitoes, Spreads Hubris Disease


For Immediate Release


Long Beach, CA – Bill Gates knows something about bugs. Bill “Give Me Infinite H-1B Visas” Gates shocked a crowd of “technology kings” and other premiere “luminaries and visionaries” Wednesday at the annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference when he released mosquitoes into the audience.


One So. Cal LWOH stealth operative in attendance marveled over the ease with which Gates “released the hubris disease” on the pampered yet panicked audience who feared for their safety, “and possibly their lives.” Furiously scrambling for blackberries to contact their personal physicians to double check on their vaccination records, Gates assured the terrified crowd that


“these here, these are the healthy, elite mosquitos with access to healthcare” and that “only poor people from other countries who need our h$lp get the diseased, skanky ones.”


The King of Hubris Himself marveled over his concern for people from other countries instead of people from his own. His adamant hatred for American white collar professionals took center stage as he explained to the wildly applauding, insider audience his displeasure with the new Grassley/Sanders proposed amendment which would make businesses of TARP money hire only Americans for one year. (Yours truly has been reporting on such American white collar job hits for years, as in this 2007 Citibank announcement, along with others such as AT&T’s Randall Stephenson to name a few who have been slashing and burning American white collar jobs for sport since 1993.) Gushed an exultant Gates:



“Vista sucks, everybody knows it and I’ve got to do something with myself. As you all know, if I were a TARP recipient, I’d be damned to let that magnificent bastard and good friend Chuck Grassley and Bernie Sanders tell me I had to hire Americans for one year. Hehe, that’s why I laid a bunch of them off already! Our TARP player pals at the banks on Wall Street did the same thing, too, hehe. We know how to beat the street. And Americans. Cut American jobs, service and development for one year (who cares!) It’s so, so great to be King!”


Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist/Businessman and Beltway insider Al Gore was of course on hand to rip the coal industry a new one for their shocking claims that “coal is clean.” Meanwhile, Naturally 7 “recreated the sound of musical instruments with their voices” that sounded like a cross between “The Flight of the Bumblebees” meets “Slash.”


Don’t you, dear pleb reader, wish you could have been an insect amongst such esteemed blood suckers on the wall for this exclusive soiree, too?

-2Truthy

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

IBM Offers to Move Jobless Workers to India: The Gay Swami Times Vol.4, Issue 4

(click on graphic to enlarge)
IBM Offers to Move Jobless Workers to India… “Go Offshore Yourself !”


Welcome back to The Gay Swami Times, Vol. 4, Issue 4. (Pay no attention to the typo in the above cover graphic that reads “Vol. 6.” After contractor “Kevin” in Hyderabad promised to not ever send us typos again, he did anyway.)


Click here for previous releases.


Today, we report exciting news from this Information Week article by Paul McDougall on how IBM has almost one-upped Bill “I want Infinite H-1B Visas” Gates on this race to the bottom –for this nation’s CEOs seeking exhilirating H-1B pleasure trysts.



IBM has figured out a way to get its sacked and whiny American white collar workers off its back by shipping them the hell outta here to the most sophisticated and exotic place under the sun (you guessed our favorite place): INDIA!


One IBM spokesman said that “a lot of people want to live in India”, which might explain why a bunch of upscale American professionals would want to roam the hot, smelly and overcrowded, rat infested alleys of Bangalore with the cows and forego modern plumbing and their country club memberships.


But another spokesman for Alliance@IBM, a workers' group that's affiliated with the Communications Workers of America but which does not have official union status at IBM, slammed the program.



"IBM is not only offshoring IBM U.S. jobs but they want employees to offshore themselves through Project Match," said the spokesman.


Hmm. And what is Project Match? An ingenious invention of IBM to downsize white collar Americans to dung:


"IBM has established Project Match to help you locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where your skills are in demand," IBM says in an internal notice on the initiative. "Should you accept a position in one of these countries, IBM offers financial assistance to offset moving costs, provides immigration support, such as visa assistance, and other support to help ease the transition of an international move. Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings.”



Everyone knows that the “corporate globalization project” is code for “eat cow dung, American white collar worker!”



As The Gay Swami’s patented and trademarked mantra goes,

Americans are not like us, they are stupid fools who are stuck in the “rolling over like dog lotus position” and are giving away the store…HAHAHAHA!...their leader instructs them to sacrifice their jobs…HAHAHAHAHA! And they DO!”


America leads the world in white collar jobs being its number one export! Now that corporate overlords in America have "too many unemployed professionals hanging around", why not ship 'em to the 3rd world? "They won't use up precious yet deteriorating and neglected public services, they're not around to cause any trouble, and you can always hire 'em back when the economy improves."


Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…my Sweet Lord…

-2Truthy

Singularity University: "Silver Spoon U" Searches for Solutions



Silver Spoon University
“From slime, life. And still, after over 50 years, new ingredients for the potion.”
-Urbanhonking.com-


Singularity University announced its exciting launch yesterday, as Google, NASA and controversial futurist Ray Kurzweil unveiled plans for the elite global institution’s ten-week summer course to participants at Moffet Field in June. The best part is that participants get to orbit the exclusive course at a special 21st Century Depression discount of only $25,000 per person.

Will Singularity University put a carbon nanotube in every pot? Or not?

One glaring speck of moon dust that stands out about this stealth and exclusive “institution” is its patronage and affiliation by and for a selective group of global corporate elites who “want to use technology to solve the world’s problems.” Kurzweil adds that Singularity University is poised to "foster the leaders who will create a uniquely creative and productive future world." He is credited with devising the concept of the school in his 2005 book "The Singularity Is Near."


John Timmer at Ars Technica also takes a closer look at what the “Singular” is and wonders if the New Singularlity University may overpromise the infinite. Indeed, many questions surround the new “institution” for “international” elites who will pay $25,000 for a 9 or 10 week summer course which also offers a year round, three-day and 10-day program for a pre-selected group of CEOs and global corporate executives.


Many questions abound about Singularity University including its exclusive mission, with a few vague concepts to crack like “post-human future”… What does that mean?


Timmer elicted a number of great comments with excellent questions, two favorites of yours truly below:



"Those start at the top, with the very concept of a singularity. The effort owes a great debt to Ray Kurzweil, who speaks confidently of a period of exponential technological growth. But Kurzweil's perspective hasn't met with universal acceptance; by some measures, recent decades have seen technology developments slow down. The growth that has occurred has also been very unevenly distributed, making the idea of a general singularity seem a bit questionable."

“Uh, that's (the above) being charitable, JT. Kurzweil is a crank. His single greatest ability is self-promotion. I have no idea why anyone pays attention to him at all.
The whole concept of a Singularity University is ridiculous. Why on earth is NASA involved?” –divisionbyzero


And this


“Although I have doubts about this particular university, the probability of something looking like a singularity still may happen pretty much at any time:- Scientist may finally crack cold fusion, meaning an almost endless supply of cheap energy.- A process for making cheap Nanotubes may be discovered at any time, same thing for room temperature superconductors etc...The point is that there is research happening in all these fields, so all it takes is for one research group to make a breakthrough (or be extremely lucky and stumble on one). After all the discovery of semiconductors was only a lucky accident and look how it changed the world. It may happen again...” –Erlik


How many SU rocket scientists does it take to change the War on America’s White Collar Middle Class? As Jeanna Bryner reports in this excellent LiveScience article entitled American Dream and Middle Class in Jeopardy, “the middle class as we know it may go the way of the dodo.” Bryner digs deeply into the social and political ramifications of how an increasingly very large percentage of income and wealth is being recklessly concentrated in the hands of barely one percent of the American people in conjunction with the alarming decline in wealth distribution to America’s white collar middle class:


Such concentrated wealth was seen right before The Great Depression, said Richard Levins, professor emeritus in the department of applied economics at the University of Minnesota. "And then it gradually became spread out more during the 60s and 70s. "By the 70s, we had a very different distribution of income and wealth that, in my view, favored middle class."
But by 1980, Levins said, "that trend has gone back the other way to where we have a very large percentage of income and wealth in the hands of barely one percent of the people."
The average worth of someone on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans is currently $3.9 billion.
When you have that kind of wealth in very few hands, these people become politically and economically very, very powerful," Levins said.”

To date, SU has made no mention of any kind of boring course offering to address the startling, increased rate at which the corporate elite class is picking the pockets of America’s white collar middle class. As Levin explained to Bryner:


“you can gauge the robustness of the middle class by looking at how evenly distributed the income and wealth is in the nation. So a top-heavy distribution would favor the rich, not the middle class. If you accept that as a measure of how the middle class is doing, I think it's clear the middle class was growing through the first part of the 20th century and declining toward the latter part of the 20th century."


SU claims it is interested in incorporating the studies of “finance and political leadership.” Maybe they can invent an earth shattering solution to stop what our greedy corporate “leaders” and enabling politicians have done to the American middle class -- who have exchanged paying them money with loaning them money and replaced their jobs in favor of international, cheap workers.



With SU’s corporate mission statement and lofty goals of reaching beyond the stars for solutions to “address the world’s problems”, maybe this institution by and for the elite, upper one percent can add a class to start inventing ways to put the locals, first, back to work. They could call it “How to Stop Otherworldly Elites from Pick Pocketing Income from the American Middle Class.”


With millions of white collar Americans being non-stop pink-slipped into oblivion from Silicon Valley to Manhattan to Mars, perhaps the “best and brightest thought leaders” who wish to merge “finance and political leadership” with technology at Singularity University can develop an invention to scale their otherworldly, cost-prohibitive class down to solving challenges down to the local level.

Now that would truly be reaching for the stars.

-2Truthy

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Silver Spoon University

Silver Spoon University: By Elites, for Global Elites


“International” is all the rage. These days, American educational institutions are not exempt from the sudden competition of private international educational programs such as this Geneva, Switzerland headquartered International Baccalaureate Program (h/t Citizen Carrie) along with Silicon Valley’s newly launched Singularity University (Singularity “U”) that promise the precious cargo of global elites the Moon. These days, if you’re not “international”, you haven’t arrived.


So what happens when you combine a bunch of international student-elites with an enterprising entrepreneur, Google Inc. and NASA? Singularity-U. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that during these economic hard times when our public school district budgets are being slashed along with our jobs and the taxpayer base, attracting international investment in just about anything around here – including education-- has become the new black.


A brand new, stealth “institution” described as a very “hush-hush, carefully selected group of the tech world’s best and brightest” assembled to address the elite mission of Singularity-U’s “post-human future” preparations last year, prior to its stealth launch:



“It was all very hush-hush. On Saturday, September 20, 2008, a carefully selected group of the tech world’s best and brightest assembled in a windowless conference room at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley – barely a mile from the Googleplex as the rocket flies – to discuss preparations for our impending post-human future. This was the founding meeting of Singularity University, an academic institution whose mission, as founder Dr. Peter Diamandis told the elite audience, would be “to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies (bio, nano, info, etc); and to apply, focus and guide these to the best benefit of humanity and its environment.”


Singularity-U’s stated mission is to


“tackle the world's 'grand challenges' and the world's brightest young minds to come together to attack humankind's worst problems — things like climate change, poverty and disease” and “to harness the collective smarts of the world's brightest young scientists and entrepreneurs in fields like artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and genetics to help the planet.”


How much does it cost and how long does the program last? The founders expect tuition to be about $25,000 per student, but added that “aid would be available.”


Singularity University is less a traditional university and more an institution that will feature intensive 10-week, 10-day, or 3-day programs examining a set of 10 technologies and disciplines, such as future studies and forecasting; biotechnology and bioinformatics; nanotechnology; AI, robotics, and cognitive computing; and finance and entrepreneurship.”


The ten-week summer institute at Ames, to start in late June, 2009 with an initial class of 30 students, is expected to grow to 120 in future years. Singularity-U intends to recruit “people hungry to learn about other disciplines.” So what “other disciplines” does this elite program offer that our world-class higher private and public educational system apparently does not provide?





“Unlike many universities, the program would not conduct traditional research, but would aim to brainstorm "Team Projects" that would take on humanity's "grand challenges," according to the university's Web site. There would be an international as well as interdisciplinary focus, and one goal would be to develop a network of future leaders in government and science.”


For a whopping $25,000 per student to take a ten week program, if Singularity-U does not conduct “traditional research” but aims to “brainstorm Team Projects that would take on humanity’s grand challenges,” this begs the question: what exactly are our public educational institutions doing with our taxpayer money and why can’t the overwhelming majority of the public who can’t afford $25K per student/”business leader” for a ten week program demand such cutting edge, “post-human” and “Team Project” classroom innovation at the pleb level here?


Corporate sponsored and inspired Singularity-U is described as NOT being competitive with Stanford, Berkeley or MIT. Singularity-U also has its sights on adults, particularly those in the corporate world. Note below that “business leaders” will be “offered short courses” all year-round, too. How would that work? Corporations pay for pre-selected, global elite employees/candidates from Silicon Valley to Shanghai to take a class from Singularity-U on how the “post-human” world should run:


Singularity University, which will also offer short courses to business leaders year-round on the frontiers of technological change, will draw faculty from Google and other companies, as well as universities. Students would come from disciplines as divergent as robotics and genetics, for example, and would be expected to work together. "We don't see this as competition with Stanford or Berkeley or MIT," Diamandis said.
But just as those universities have spawned countless startups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, Diamandis predicts Singularity University will do the same, and the program would aim to connect students to the valley's venture capitalists to pitch their most promising ideas.
"We expect many of the students that are coming to Singularity University to have an entrepreneurial bent," Diamandis said, "and we expect companies to spin out of the university."




Is Warren Buffet also bankrolling Singular-U? And who will its instructors be? Daniel Terdiman of CNET describes the VIP lineup of leading futurists, thinkers and entrepreneurs primed to deliver its core payload:


"It's about learning the vocabulary" of the disciplines, Diamandis said, "the basic principles, so they can communicate better between themselves.”



Great to know that stealth educational organizations with an emphasis on "leadership" like Singularity-U are on the horizon. It is wonderful to read that Singularity-U may offer “aid” for those who can’t afford the pricey tab. But for $25 grand a pop, it had better -- in the unmistakably gruff words of one world-class, dead comedian --- it had better blank my blank, too.

-2Truthy