Sunday, October 26, 2008

European Slowdown

Slowdown in Europe. Nearly a shutdown!

Volvo, Scania Miss Profit Estimates, Cut Truck Output (Update2)
By Chad Thomas and Marco Bertacche

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Volvo AB, the second-largest maker of heavy trucks, and Scania AB reported lower-than-anticipated earnings and said they'll cut production after industrywide European sales fell for a fifth straight month.

Volvo plunged the most in at least 19 years in Stockholm trading. The Gothenburg, Sweden-based company won just 115 European orders in the third quarter, down from 41,970 a year earlier. Soedertaelje, Sweden-based Scania slipped 8.9 percent to a four-year low. ...

Saturday, October 25, 2008

USA Constitution-Free Zones

The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This " Constitution-Free Zone" includes most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.

USA no-Constitutional rights zone map.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Security Theater

The Things He Carried

If I were a terrorist, and I’m not, but if I were a terrorist—a frosty, tough-like-Chuck-Norris terrorist, say a C-title jihadist with Hezbollah or, more likely, a donkey-work operative with the Judean People’s Front—I would not do what I did in the bathroom of the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, which was to place myself in front of a sink in open view of the male American flying public and ostentatiously rip up a sheaf of counterfeit boarding passes that had been created for me by a frenetic and acerbic security expert named Bruce Schnei­er.

...

I couldn’t believe that what Schneier was saying was true—in the national debate over the no-fly list, it is seldom, if ever, mentioned that the no-fly list doesn’t work. “It’s true,” he said. “The gap blows the whole system out of the water.”

...

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Visa Fraud

High Rate of H-1B Visa Fraud
A study finds that 13% of the visa petitions for U.S. employers to bring in skilled foreign workers are fraudulent

By Moira Herbst

A report released Oct. 8 by the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) reveals that 13% of petitions filed for H-1B visas on behalf of employers are fraudulent. Another 7% contain some sort of technical violations.
...

Critics say H-1Bs help U.S. companies replace American workers with less costly foreign workers. "The report makes it clear that the H-1B program is rife with abuse and misuse," says Ron Hira, assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. "It shows the desperate need for an auditing system." However, both Presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), have said they support expanding the program.

...