Buy a lobbyist.

I was reading a thread on netslaves.com that talked about sex at work. Someone posted a flippant response about how men and women join protest groups to get laid; people pay lobbyists to make change.

We should designate a group and take donations and find a lobbyist familiar with labor/offshoring/technology issues.

Check out the posting (scroll down a bit) from an anti-H1B poster.

Read www.rtmark.com to understand what this anti-corporate site is about. They set up 'funds' for anti-corporate projects that pay insiders to do appropriate screw ups to put corporations off (replace the boot up screen on computers with anti-Microsoft message, for example) and catch media attention.

I also have a question -- when do the right-wing hypocrites on this board; who cry for protectionism, more welfare & unemployment payments, etc; start admit to being "leftist?" ;-)

I agree with you that many unemployed ITers are now only feeling sorry about the current trends because it effects them.

I appreciate you shouting to the wind.

But you are alienating people and behaving like a troll.

I was Cassandra preaching true prophecies for ages, yet these hypocrites STILL blather the same Limbaugh-esque tripe even as they whine for protectionism and against globalization etc. It's these morons who are "alienating" themselves from reality!

why not NOT pay taxes?

http://www.ask.bm/template/devNewstemplatedetail.asp?ItemID=134&Lang=EN

Note that Stanley Works decided not to move to Barbados after pressure from Congress. But this is interesting:

"In 1989 Harken Energy - the company on which President Bush made an $850,000 killing by selling stock in a way that attracted the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission - set up an offshore unit to shield profits from a drilling project off Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.

Minutes show Mr Bush signed off on the plan - having opposed it initially not for the tax dodge, but for reasons of cost. "

There are several links as the one below.

However, I could swear I read or saw something about people not paying there taxes, and getting away with it, it was on 60 minutes not to long ago... I think......

How do you keep your skills sharp, Own a couple Routers ???

I finished the Network+ got the Cert.
Finishing up on the CCNA, I finish next week and start the "Test King" cram. I don't know how I'm going to remember all this stuff.....!!!!
And for the life of me cannot see how a bootcamp for CCNA would work....

I know, I know, all this stuff won't help me currently but its all the Unemployment office would Pay for, its free training to me.

Drop me a line or Yahoo address, I'll check if I still have one.

Even the people who agree with you can't stand to listen to you. Republicans are hypocrites and morons who are alienating themselves from reality?!? What the hell are you talking about?

<<Carl do you have any solutions?? Can you come up with something besides dittohead?>>
<<Tell us you don't like Bush (and why) tell us you don't like Gore (and why) but don't just up and call us bone heads.>>

This is a good letter from the Tampa Tribune. I haven't seen ANY yet in the Chicago Tribune, my major rag. I love the internet.

http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-tech12dec12001437,0,5300184.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dtechnology

<<I also have a question -- when do the right-wing hypocrites on this board; who cry for protectionism, more welfare & unemployment payments, etc; start admit to being "leftist?" ;-)>>

Woody Guthrie - the folk singer who wrote 'This land is your land' - was accused of being a communist (didn't pull punches back then with soft rhetoric like 'liberal').

He replied

"I am not a communist. But then I have never been out of the 'red' either..."

I also should add that a lot of folks blame minorities for their plight, too.

The time to get really up in arms about H1B was 10 years ago. About the best advice I can offer now is save your money and go to school in India. Why pay the high US fees ($40K+) when an Indian who paid US $1000 total for college or Oracle training is going to get the job?

I've been speaking out against this H1B/NAFTA crap for 8 years and pretty much nobody cared in IT since they thought the gravy train of the 90's was unlimited. The few (percentage-wise) who have been predicting this were basically Cassandra screeching out truthful predictions that everyone conveniently ignored.

As far as "what to do" -- I would suggest a career change into something else unless you're satisfied with remaining in a stagnant field where the salaries will remain artificially low for probably our lifetimes. Unless you think there's some way to make an AMA or ABA style union for computer geeks that will have $100 million of donations to pay off high-powered lobbyists, you may as well stick a fork in it.

Your welcome to prove me wrong, but here are some links that discuss various aspects of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Reagan & The Russians
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/reagrus.htm

It did not reward individual or collective effort; it absolved Soviet producers from the discipline of the market; and it gave power to officials who could not be held accountable by consumers. Consequently much of the investment that went into the civilian sector of the economy was wasted. The command economy pre-dated the Cold War and was not a response to American military spending. The Soviet Union lost the Cold War, but it was not defeated by American defense spending.

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/abstracts.htm#fall02

Explaining the End of the Cold War: A New Historical Consensus?
Jeremi Suri
Despite the many books and articles written on the end of the Cold War, scholars have not produced a truly international history of this seminal event. This article shows how some of the most important monographs on the end of the Cold War can be synthesized to yield a preliminary account. In particular, the article hints at a new consensus of interpretation that connects the immediate crisis of the early 1980s, long-term ideological and institutional trends, and transformational choices made from 1985 to 1991. No single decision or variable brought the Cold War to an end. Personalities, trends, and institutions interacted to create an outcome that few predicted.

The August Coup and Its Impact on Soviet Politics
John B. Dunlop
A book published by the author in 1993 contained a lengthy chapter on the August 1991 coup attempt in the Soviet Union. This article builds on and updates that chapter, making use of a trove of newly available documents and memoirs. The article discusses many aspects of the coup attempt, but it particularly seeks to explain why the coup failed and what the implications were for the Soviet Union. The events of December 1991 that culminated in the dissolution of the Soviet Union were the direct result of changes set in motion by the failed coup. The major state and party institutions that might ordinarily have tried to hold the country together – the Communist Party apparatus, the secret police, the military-industrial complex, the Ministry of Defense, and the state administrative organs – all were compromised by their participation in the coup. As a result, when events pushed the Soviet Union toward collapse, there was no way of staving off that outcome.

The Origins of the Reagan Administration’s Arms Control Policy
Rose McDermott
More than a thousand radio addresses drafted by Ronald Reagan in the 1970s, in between his terms as governor of California and president of the United States, were recently published. These addresses, along with related writings from 1951 to 1985, reveal long-standing, consistent beliefs about a wide variety of topics in international relations and foreign policy. In particular, the writings presage specific arms control policies that were implemented in his first term as president. This article reassesses some of these policies in light of the newly released addresses. The article draws on experimental psychology to discuss a specific judgmental bias, availability, which makes particular beliefs more accessible, and then examines the five specific beliefs that influenced Reagan in his approach to arms control negotiations. In each case, the article shows how these beliefs affected policy outcomes and choices.

Can you say that had no effect on ending the cold war?