Sunday, May 22, 2011

NASSCOM Don on why the U.S. Technology Work Force Needs "Asian Influence"

Never waste a good comment, especially if it's from a NASSCOM sponsored blog like Mumbai NASSCOM Don Tennant's so-called 'IT Edge':
"Wow, Mumbai Don sinks to new lows for his NASSCOM employers:
 
1/ Whoring out his entire family on a shaky premise of 'Asian ethics'.. whatever that is.
 
2/ Considering Indians 'Asians' when they have more in common with Afghani Pashtuns than Chinese, Japanese or Koreans. INDIANS ARE NOT ASIANS. Figure it out, Donny Boy.
 
3/ Oh, and then there's the myth that Chinese and Indian universities & schools are 'superior'.. even Vivek Wadhwa can't make that pile of shit stand.
 
For being a general whore, I now dub you NASSCOM DON. Evermore. You can double down, try to promulgate this tripe, but no one is buying it.
 
Or forgetting this. Ever. Oh, and congratulations on besmirching whatever 'service' your sons did to this country by being an agent for a foreign power. Because that's what you are, Donny.Boy." 
(Via Why the U.S. Technology Work Force Needs the Asian Influence | Blogs | ITBusinessEdge.com.)
The last time we heard this tripe was when the Japanese were high on the yen-weak dollar 90s. Are memories really that short? Do we need to be resold our OWN management practices? Because that's what the Chinese & Japanese use: Peter Drucker etc.

I'm guessing that NASSCOM is about ready to fire Don Tennant, if he's willing to pull shit out of thin air and whore his own family on a public blog. But hey, that's what lobbyists inside the beltway DO EVERY DAY. Some a little more privately than others.

At least with the likes of Indian nationals like my favorite sahib or 'da Jewz' of AIPAC I understand. But Don Tennant? I have nary a clue.

Drunky out.

PS. On behalf of all the 'anti-antis' I'm sorry for slighting the good name of the city of Mumbai. Better to label the foreign agent by his sponsor: NASSCOM. So solly.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

"Don't Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses" Says Intelligence Squared US Immigration Debate Audience - Business - Press Releases - msnbc.com

Sometimes these blog entries just write themselves. After all, if we must grant blanket amnesty & citizens' rights to lawbreakers in the United States, what's the value of the rule of law?

If we just allow anyone in to lowball the locals in a time of really high unemployment, then what's the value of citizenship?

Like my favorite lobbyist Vivek Wadhwa, the 'immigration at any cost' folks on the panel trotted out their favorite talking points'... and didn't fare so well this time:

"With the first anniversary of Arizona's illegal immigrant law just behind us, last night's debate at Intelligence Squared US, 'Don't give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses', was a rousing, heated exchange on the nation's hottest issue. According to live audience voting, the Kobach/Tancredo team made the more convincing argument by moving the most audience votes to their side at the end of the evening although the Castro/Jacoby team carried 52% of the final vote."

(Via "Don't Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses" Says Intelligence Squared US Immigration Debate Audience - Business - Press Releases - msnbc.com.)

Despite the encouraging signs among the undecided of the audience in a real sample, I fear that it's too late for anyone seeking work over the age of 45. So maybe the Boomers will have no choice but to be cast aside --as they did to the youngs of our country.

If you ARE a young, no matter where you stand, I encourage you to see this debate. This is what the older lobbyists & politicos are debating in the back rooms of DC. And what, in 3-5 years you'll have to live through when you enter the job market to pay off the sins of the (Boomer) past.

Drunky out.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Survey Finds 77% Of IT Staff Say Their Outsourcers Invent Work For Profit - Darkreading

Bearing in mind that "India is the Outsourcing Leader," this comes as no surprise. At all:

"May 11, 2011 - A new survey from Lieberman Software Corporation, taken at the recent Infosecurity Europe 2011 event in London and mirrored at RSA Conference 2011 in San Francisco, shows that the relationship between many outsourcing companies and their clients is at a breaking point. According to the survey, an astonishing 77% of IT professionals who work in organisations that use outsourcing say their outsourcers have ‘...made up...’ work in order to earn extra money."

..

“Given that the advice came from a ‘credible source’ these executives were able to achieve remarkable reductions in cost and liability for a while, until business challenges began to appear that required flexibility, corporate knowledge, and dedication to the company. The experts never considered dedication and loyalty as elements in their ‘process reengineering’ - it was deemed as not quantifiable.”

(Via Survey Finds 77% Of IT Staff Say Their Outsourcers Invent Work For Profit - Darkreading.)

American tech workers have learned that 'loyalty' has been 'out of the equation' or 'not quantifiable' for a long time now.

-Drunky out.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Special Comment on Osama Bin Laden Assassination & Pakistan from KGS NightWatch 20110509 #ITM

So kids, it's your Uncle Drunky again. I found this gem in the early morning, from one of my favorite GOV/Mil/Infosec lists, KGS NIGHTWATCH. If you want REAL NEWS ala Cryptogon, Public Intelligence, or Wikileaks you NEED to be on this list!

Any apologies to KForce Gov or the NIGHTWATCH admin for length of passages.. but the kids need to be introduced to your list, as they will be assuming the debt/running the place in the next few years. Information is power and all that.

Now to the special comment about Osama bin Laden, the guy we've been dealing with, sometimes as a friend, since early Afghanistan-Russia days:

"Special comment: In American jurisprudence, the best evidence rule requires attorneys to provide direct evidence of the commission of an act, civil or criminal. This rule requires, for example, a properly executed deed as the best evidence of real estate ownership. Ownership of an automobile is established by the title. Best evidence of a dead man is always his corpse.

Unidentified US officials chose to sacrifice the best evidence for the sake of honoring Islamic 'burial' practices. That choice put the US in a difficult position because the US has produced no 'proof' of bin Laden's death - just words, also known as testimony. Moreover, since 1 May US officials have stated no less than five variations of the story of bin Laden's death. Pakistanis have issued three versons; Saudi news media have issued an entirely separate version of the death and al Qaida's general command has issued still another.

Without the corpse, it is entirely reasonable to believe that bin Laden could be still alive and in US custody. All of the evidence of his death is testimonial, not demonstrative. Even the acknowledgement by the al Qaida general command is suspect because of the al Watan version of the story that bin Laden was betrayed by his own people in a leadership split. Bin Laden's successors have a motive for declaring him dead quickly, much more quickly than the Pakistani Taliban acknowledged the death of Baitullah Mehsud, for example.

Testimonial evidence - words - is always weaker than demonstrative evidence. No amount of testimony about a person's death can equal the probative value of a dead body. Photos of a corpse, especially digital photos, always are weaker than the corpse itself, in proving death. That is why the best evidence rule exists in US law.

Thus the US has disadvantaged itself by its own choices. Administration luminaries have insisted the US did everything it could to ensure that the world would believe that bin Laden was dead. Nevertheless, they failed. They did everything except honor the best evidence rule which every lawyer in training learns in Evidence class.

(Via NightWatch 20110509 - KGS.)

Long story short: Gee, the 'People who can think for themselves & this kinda sounds like BULLSHIT to me'-ers, uh, 'deathers' may have a point. Why throw jurisprudence out the window? And, WHY should even the American people trust the word of a government that over the course of three presidential terms & two administrations has committed questionable acts, taken away our rights, and put restrictions on our travel? Bueller? Bueller?

But hey, this is how the Boomsters roll. Don't worry your pretty little head about the details. (hat tip to DSquare Digest, who also picked up on this 'deathers' thing).

Now on to the REAL and juicy (hi)story of Pakistan:

As for Pakistan, the US must decide about its relationship. The latest alliance with Pakistan, in a long and often broken line since World War II, is only eleven years old. It is based on coercion of a resisting General Musharraf to work with the inconstant Americans in late 2001, in the Pakistani view.

 

Pakistani memories are long and mostly unfavorable. For example, older Readers will remember that Pakistan was an alliance partner in CENTO, between 1955 and 1979. Membership in CENTO, also known as The Baghdad Pact, did not benefit Pakistan during the 1965 war with India.

Close ties to the US did not prevent Pakistan's loss of East Pakistan and defeat by the Indian Army in 1971 or in the Kargil war in 1999. A virtual alliance with the US seems to have encouraged the US in making a surprise commando raid against bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad this month.

The US relationship with Pakistan has shallow roots for another reason. An entire generation of Pakistani military officers have received no training in US military schools and courses because International Military Education and Training (IMET) was cut off in 1990. Chinese military authorities know more about the next generation of Pakistani military leaders than the US.

Long after the US withdraws soldiers from Afghanistan, Pakistan will be important to the US because it has nuclear weapons that can be used against India and proliferated to Arab states. Secondly, it has close security relations with China that are not congruent with US interests in South Asia and the Middle East."

(Via NightWatch 20110509 - KGS.)

And this, kids, is why your Uncle Drunky just doesn't buy all the 'Pakistan divorce' crazy talk by that Foreign Policy douchebag Tom Ricks. At all. This is also why I value lower-profile under-the-radar mailing lists over peacock-strutty pro-war buh-logs like Foreign Policy.

The drums of war are beating again. Will you heed the call by the former peacniks in our government? AGAIN?? Fool me twice.....

Drunky out.

Saturday, May 07, 2011

Vivek Wadhwa: Strangely 'Right' on Education? A Nice Guy? This time, Yes!

So kids, it's your Uncle Drunky. Yes, THIS is my 'advice to you about education and going to a foreign country' post. Having done it a number of times. The education thing too. This is a loooong one so bear with me.

I'm kinda scratching my head about my favorite little sahib, Vivek Wadhwa. Who'da thunk? He's actually a nice if harmless academic 'in real life' if you go by these tweets (reversed, of course):

.@auerswald I would readily invest my life savings in providing my children best possible education also. Am talking about them taking debt

@qohort Everyone should get education. But if you can't afford $50K/year from Stanford, why not go to Berkeley or SF State?

For the record, I would go into debt to get the best education I could--or my children could get. Even though this isn't cost justified.
via TweetDeck

How is that for contradicting myself real-time? I'm speaking about economics vs. lifetime value.
via TweetDeck

All my usual sarcasm aside, I recommend my younger readers to seriously look at this part of his timeline on Twitter. It's one of the few times we see Vivek Wadhwa the Professor, and not the lobbyist for India, Inc.

When I read these tweets I see the same 'parental calculus' (fancy words for 'oh shit, I don't want to tell the kids that, because it's a trap I faced') that I got from my own elders when I started off. So let me relate what I know, bearing in mind that YOU have to "make up your own damn minds."

There's ONE 'school of thought' that you SHOULD go into debt as soon as possible, because you'll be paying off that debt later with 'cheaper' inflated money. You know how things were cheaper just 3 years ago? Gas? Starbucks? What if you could pay those debts off with 'today's money?' Sounds GREAT, doesn't it? No!

Now I'll tell you why that model falls flat: It's called 'compound interest', boys and girls. Your debt is not 'linear' like owing your friends a bit extra on a loan. They're COMPOUND in that they accumulate every day, POUNDING you into the ground when you don't pay them off, and they grow at an exponential rate. Learn the difference between SIMPLE (linear) and COMPOUND (exponential) interest, and you'll see why anyone with a brain does NOT hold credit card debt. That the US Debt is compounded at US$14T every day should boggle your mind.

Compound interest is how the banks make money out of air off your young backs. It's also how & why American Universities have no problem having an AMEX or VISA rep in front of EVERY college bookstore without fail. "Easy monthly payments" as they're called here in the US. Anything but!

The other thing is that colleges are now strapped for funds (too many perks for useless administrators, no salary for teachers, etc) so your tuition & book prices are hyper-inflated. Last time I went to a small town campus bookstore they were selling a classic programming book from 1988, Kernighan & Richie ANSI C for over $50. I've seen it on Amazon for 10 times less. Other books that were $40 in my time are now $150-- or, generous them, the college will RENT the book to you for $50. It's a scam.

Now I don't want to discourage you from pursuing your dream. But what I *DO* want to say is that this dream better be your obsession. It better keep you up at night.

It *should* be something that can help you and your family achieve growth in the LONG TERM. And that's not some "innovative" Facebook clone or another way to scrape the web of data.

What you are doing in going to college is learning how to think. I agree with Vivek in that you should get a bachelor's degree, or even an associate's. But these degrees are a start to your life. MAYBE after a few years with some practical experience under your belt you may opt for a Master's degree. But mostly you're learning how to re-tool yourself to the new things that are coming.

Personally, I studied East Asian Languages and Economics from a smaller college as Vivek suggests. Some 15 years later I have a solid background in Infosec, some Unix programming, and web development. The rest of that, I learned myself. And college was the start of that. If you have a fire or drive to really be something: a journalist, a programmer, then by all means GO FOR IT!! Many folks do not have the drive and should.. stop and reconsider.

But if you're JUST doing it 'for the money' you're setting yourself up for big time FAIL. There are a number of displaced Americans working off over US$100,000 to $200,000 of compounding debt, never 'getting ahead'. It may take them DECADES to work it off, or they may default on the debt. They'll NEVER have the 'American Dream' of a house because.. um, if you default, you do not get a loan. No loan, no house. Or even car. I know a number of folks back east in this situation.

If you do emigrate to another country, even the United States, expect flack from the locals. This is true in your country, right? Americans are really no different, EVEN IF they behave 'nicely' on the surface. In that we are all the same. As a shining example I give you the mobs that celebrated what's looking like the execution of Usama (Osama, yeah right) bin Laden. Maybe if they were more educated they would not approve. In fact, some do not, and have seen past US globalist deceit when it's SO OBVIOUS to anyone paying attention.

The globalists are intensely lazy. They do not want to spend money going to the 'emerging markets' --they want YOU to COME to THEM -- accumulate debt, and become a wage slave at a fraction the cost of a local. You cannot hop jobs. But you CAN displace a local whether you can do the job or not. This serves NO ONE except the employer.

Whether you get a green card or not? They do not care. THAT is why there are folks here who have been in 'limbo' for years. Some decades.

That is why there is so much H1B and other VISA fraud, including this new StartUp VISA. It will be abused just like the rest at YOUR expense.

That is why the fraudulent 'body shops' ply their trade.

That is why corporations indenture youngs like you because a 'visa' is considered a perk.

And THAT is why I am so much down on this 'nice Professor' whose agenda became leading young from overseas down a primrose path of VISA slavery.

If you could read to the end of this looooooooong screed, you should continue your education. But take the advice of a nice old professor and a drunk uncle-- and more importantly that of your elders: be pragmatic and have some common sense when you go about continuing your education.

Make your dream happen. Help your family, your friends, your town. That's all that really matters in the end.

That's it, kids. Your Uncle Drunky is out!

Long-Prized Tech Visas Lose Cachet - WSJ.com

What with the stagnant economy among other things, it looks like the worm is starting to turn for beleaguered geeks and other victims of H1B slavery. Ron Hira, of the Rochester Institute of Technology, finally getting some press:

At the House Subcommittee on Immigration, a critic of the program, Ronil Hira, highlighted that Indian companies operating in the U.S., such as Infosys, Tata and Wipro, are among the biggest H-1B users, and that they're bringing in foreigners with ordinary skills.

In an interview, Mr. Hira, a professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, said that 'because of loopholes, employers can bring in cheaper foreign workers to substitute for American workers and undercut their wages.'

His research indicates only about a third of all H-1B visa holders are 'really highly skilled or graduates of U.S. universities who would be eventually sponsored for green cards,' or permanent U.S. residency, by their employers. Employers have said that the program enables them to tap top talent, whom they seek to hire permanently down the road."

(Via Long-Prized Tech Visas Lose Cachet - WSJ.com.)

Of course, my little sahib Vivek '#Fraudhwa' Wadhwa had his day in the sun. But he didn't say anything we don't already know.

It's a shame. Wadhwa the academic seems to be a nice guy. Fraudhwa the NASSCOM lobbyist? That's another matter.

Drunky out.

Friday, May 06, 2011

Obama murdered bin Laden for a fistful of votes - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Looks like someone over at Haaretz in Israel is paying attention:

"The president, who came to power with liberal slogans and a pose of reconciliation with the Muslim world, speaks like Martin Luther King but operates in the international area like a right-wing/conservative outlaw from Alabama. He may defeat the Republicans at the polls, but he has adopted their ideological path."

(Via Obama murdered bin Laden for a fistful of votes - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.)

He gets some things a bit wrong, let's see if they publish my comment:

You have a couple things wrong. The 'outlaw' didn't come from Alabama but from Maine via Texas. That, of course was the Boomer fratboy WhiteBush.

Now you have another Bush of another color from the same immature cohort of Baby Boomers.. aka, the hippys, aka 'those who lead from behind' aka chickenhawks.

Look back into the history of the Big Gov, Big Corp "Neo Conservatives" and you'll see that they are mis-named. They were KICKED OUT of the Democratic Party, and took over the once reasonable Repubs like a parasite. They are, in fact by philosophy 'Neo-Liberals' -- which is why they mesh so well with Obama and his ilk.

What's happening in the USA is a demographic war on the world waged by the Worst Generation- The Baby Boomers.

The casualties are anyone under 40, anywhere in the world.

And that's EVERYONE, including our young soldiers & citizens coming back from the Middle East. Forever changed.

The fact that our Constitution has been shredded by two successive Bushes, the recent 'OBusha' one a Professor of Constitutional Law, is the least of our worries.

Drunky out.

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