Saturday, January 19, 2019
Virginia House Panel Smacks Down Democrat Governor's Gun Control Bills
Of course, politicians usually think their measures are going to pass. Otherwise, why bother proposing most of them, right?
Well, Gov. Ralph Northam has got to be disappointed. It seems a GOP-majority subcommittee smacked down each gun control bill brought before it.
A Republican-led subcommittee in the Virginia House of Delegates voted down more than a dozen Democratic gun control bills Thursday, including a red-flag proposal endorsed by President Donald Trump’s school safety committee.
In a packed hearing room, Republicans on a House Militia, Police and Public Safety subcommittee used their 4-2 majority to methodically defeat the gun bills over the course of more than two hours.
For the first time, the panel heard arguments about a bill to create extreme risk protection orders, which would allow authorities to take guns from people whose behavior gives law enforcement reason to believe they may hurt others or themselves.
The idea gained bipartisan support after last year’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., but Thursday’s vote indicates Virginia won’t join the 13 states that have risk protection laws.
“I had hoped that this bill would show itself as one that could break the partisan logjam that we seem to be stuck in when it comes to gun safety bills,” said Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, the bill’s sponsor. “This is a bill that Republicans all across the country support.”
It’s not a gun safety bill. It’s a gun confiscation bill.
As it stands, they’re looking at taking guns from a few people, but when the barriers are so low to get an order issued and no penalties for doing so falsely, only a fool would support...
President Trump Releases a Video on the Border Crisis
“Everybody knows by now that our Southern border is a humanitarian crisis. It’s also a national security crisis,” he began.
He continued: “Things are happening there, and they have been for many years, decades,” he continued. “But it only gets worse with time because a lot of people want to come into our country, and there are a lot of people that we don’t want.”
The President noted the criminals and gangs are among the invaders [my word, not his].
The timing of BuzzFeed exposed as fake news is perfect for the President’s announcement. He proceeds with more credibility.
Watch:
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2019
About 40% of H-1B Jobs Give Employers a Tidy $40,000/Year Discount
No wonder many employers use this program and shoulder aside citizen and green-card workers! My sense is that between half a million and a full million resident college grads have lost decent jobs to alien workers as a result of H-1B.
The comprehensive and damning report, "Reforming US' High-Skilled Guestworker Program", is by one of America's leading experts on the H-1B program, Professor Ron Hira of Howard University, and Bharath Gopalaswamy, director of the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center. It was published by the Atlantic Council, a distinguished Washington think tank whose chairman is Jon Huntsman Jr., the former GOP governor of Utah, and currently our ambassador to Russia.
The 14-page document carefully describes the complex inner workings of the H-1B program and its impact on U.S. workers. The best of many such articles I have read on the subject over the years, it highlights these points:
- Most H-1B employers do not have to make any effort to recruit U.S. workers before they are eligible to use the program;
- Most of the H-1 B workers have, at best, average credentials and most are doing run-of-the mill work;
- The program design itself is deeply flawed, and it is important to address that issue rather than overemphasizing the behavior of certain "bad actors" within the program; and
- The program needs an assertive, well-designed enforcement program rather than just responding to individual complaints.
Perhaps the strongest part of the article is its analysis of the weak, complex, and (to many) the easy-to-misunderstand wage regulations set by the U.S. Department of Labor. In a context of actual wages paid in the industry in question, the Department sets four wage levels for H-1B hiring purposes:
The employer then chooses which level to pay the specific alien worker. Level One is for entry workers, while Level Four is for supervisors, with gradations in between.
Were the system to be fair to both aliens and competing U.S. workers, the pay choices of the employers would be about 25 percent in each of the levels. This does not happen.
Instead, in 2017 employers used wage Level One for 41 percent of the jobs, and Level Two for 37 percent, leaving only 12 percent of the jobs at the average wage or above. It is in wage Level One that employers are getting the $40,000 a year discount mentioned earlier. The discount for wage Level Two is about $20,000 a year.
Hira comes to these comparisons (on page 10 of his article) by quoting the Labor Department’s own statistics (from the Office of Foreign Labor Certification) which show, for 2017, that the Level One wage for computer systems analysts in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA was $76,918, while the mean wage in the same occupation was $116,522 per year, a difference of $39,604 per year.
Employers and their lobbyists talk about the program as being designed to bring America the "best and the brightest" of the...
| Wage Level | Wage Percentile |
| 1 | 17th |
| 2 | 33rd |
| 3 | Median (i.e., 50th) |
| 4 | 66th |
Were the system to be fair to both aliens and competing U.S. workers, the pay choices of the employers would be about 25 percent in each of the levels. This does not happen.
Instead, in 2017 employers used wage Level One for 41 percent of the jobs, and Level Two for 37 percent, leaving only 12 percent of the jobs at the average wage or above. It is in wage Level One that employers are getting the $40,000 a year discount mentioned earlier. The discount for wage Level Two is about $20,000 a year.
Hira comes to these comparisons (on page 10 of his article) by quoting the Labor Department’s own statistics (from the Office of Foreign Labor Certification) which show, for 2017, that the Level One wage for computer systems analysts in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA was $76,918, while the mean wage in the same occupation was $116,522 per year, a difference of $39,604 per year.
Employers and their lobbyists talk about the program as being designed to bring America the "best and the brightest" of the...
10 Offbeat Stories You Might Have Missed This Week (1/19/19)
With another week in the history books, it is time to check the headlines. Morris’s list covers all the crucial stuff going on in the world, while we focus more on the strange and wacky here.
We step into the world of music this week with tales about feuding neighbors, an unusual art installation, and a prime minister’s doppelganger. Also, spiders are floating in the sky in Brazil. And it should be noted that the Devil made an appearance in Spain.
If you ever find yourself wandering the Namib Desert, and you start hearing “Africa” by Toto, don’t worry. You haven’t gone insane yet. You just stumbled upon a new art installation.Namibian artist Max Siedentopf has set up a sound system that will play the iconic song on a loop forever. It consists of an MP3 player and six speakers placed on white pillars and connected to solar batteries.
The location of the installation is a secret, but it is somewhere within the 81,000 square kilometers (31,000 sq mi) of the Namib Desert.Siedentopf says he wanted to pay the song the “ultimate homage” by having “Africa” playing in Africa for all eternity.[1] However, he remains realistic about the chances of his art exhibit surviving the sands of time. While most parts were chosen to be as durable as possible, he realizes that the harsh desert will eventually “devour” his artwork.
Photo credit: Dmitry Sadovnikov, Avda
We are staying in the world of music and looking at a neighbor feud between Robbie Williams and Jimmy Page.Williams lives in London’s Holland Park district in a Grade II-listed building. The former Led Zeppelin guitarist lives next to him in a Grade I-listed building. That means that both structures have been designated as heritage assets, and therefore, any kind of alterations or demolitions require a whole lot of paperwork. The source of the feud between the two musicians seems to be Williams’s desire to extend his basement and add a gym and a pool. Page doesn’t want to cooperate out of fear that construction works might damage his 1875 mansion. Williams submitted the original plans five years ago, and it wasn’t until last month that he finally received conditional approval.
The two have filed complaints against each other with the local council, but it seems Williams prefers alternative modes of revenge. According to a letter to the council from another neighbor simply named “Johnny,” the former Take That singer likes to play music at loud volumes to upset Page. He chooses rivals of Led Zeppelin such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Pink Floyd.[2] He even dresses up on occasion as Led Zeppelin front man Robert Plant. A representative for Robbie Williams denies this, calling it a “complete fabrication.”
Over the past few weeks, museums across the world have engaged in a Twitter battle to show off their top duck pics.It all started innocently enough on January 4, when the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) in Reading, Berkshire, England, tweeted a photo of a duckling from 1934. It then sent a message to the British Museum asking it to show its “best ducks.” Not to be outdone, the museum posted a photo of a 3,300-year-old ancient Egyptian cosmetics container in the shape of a duck.This could have been the end of it, but other institutions wanted in on the action. The Natural History Museum in London, the Norfolk Museum, the Royal Academy, the British Library, and even the Science Museum tweeted their own ducks.[3]
After a day or two, the challenge went international. The Getty Museum in California, the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, the Met in New York, and the Spadina Museum in Toronto all shared the best ducks they had in their collections. Some tweeted photographs, others sculptures, or paintings. The National Railway Museum showed off its Mallard steam locomotive, while the National Army Museum in London presented a 1943 DUKW amphibious vehicle.Even this week, some museums which were late to the party were still tweeting their fowl contributions. Already, MERL has set a date for the second-ever International Solicited Duck Pic Day on January 5, 2020.
Many places around the world have been hit by severe weather. No matter how bad it gets where you are, though, at least you can take solace in the fact that it is not raining spiders.The same thing can’t be said for Southern Brazil. Residents from the state of Minas Gerais have reported hundreds of spiders filling their skies. Their webs are incredibly fine and almost impossible to detect by the human eye, so it looks like the arachnids are just floating in midair. One species called Parawixia bistriata is to blame for this unsettling behavior.
These spiders are more social than your typical arachnid and band together in hot, humid weather to build large webs and catch more prey. They come out in the early evening and stay overnight. At dawn, they feast on whatever they caught and then go back into the vegetation again.[4]Although people are understandably freaked out by this phenomenon, arachnology expert Professor Adalberto dos Santos from the Federal University of Minas Gerais stresses that the spiders do more good than harm—they regulate insect and mosquito populations, and their bite is not harmful to humans. Still, that’s unlikely to comfort the unlucky people who will walk into one of these webs.
We step into the world of music this week with tales about feuding neighbors, an unusual art installation, and a prime minister’s doppelganger. Also, spiders are floating in the sky in Brazil. And it should be noted that the Devil made an appearance in Spain.
10Bless The Rains
If you ever find yourself wandering the Namib Desert, and you start hearing “Africa” by Toto, don’t worry. You haven’t gone insane yet. You just stumbled upon a new art installation.Namibian artist Max Siedentopf has set up a sound system that will play the iconic song on a loop forever. It consists of an MP3 player and six speakers placed on white pillars and connected to solar batteries.
The location of the installation is a secret, but it is somewhere within the 81,000 square kilometers (31,000 sq mi) of the Namib Desert.Siedentopf says he wanted to pay the song the “ultimate homage” by having “Africa” playing in Africa for all eternity.[1] However, he remains realistic about the chances of his art exhibit surviving the sands of time. While most parts were chosen to be as durable as possible, he realizes that the harsh desert will eventually “devour” his artwork.
9Neighbors From Hell
Photo credit: Dmitry Sadovnikov, Avda
We are staying in the world of music and looking at a neighbor feud between Robbie Williams and Jimmy Page.Williams lives in London’s Holland Park district in a Grade II-listed building. The former Led Zeppelin guitarist lives next to him in a Grade I-listed building. That means that both structures have been designated as heritage assets, and therefore, any kind of alterations or demolitions require a whole lot of paperwork. The source of the feud between the two musicians seems to be Williams’s desire to extend his basement and add a gym and a pool. Page doesn’t want to cooperate out of fear that construction works might damage his 1875 mansion. Williams submitted the original plans five years ago, and it wasn’t until last month that he finally received conditional approval.
The two have filed complaints against each other with the local council, but it seems Williams prefers alternative modes of revenge. According to a letter to the council from another neighbor simply named “Johnny,” the former Take That singer likes to play music at loud volumes to upset Page. He chooses rivals of Led Zeppelin such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Pink Floyd.[2] He even dresses up on occasion as Led Zeppelin front man Robert Plant. A representative for Robbie Williams denies this, calling it a “complete fabrication.”
8The Duck Pic Challenge
Over the past few weeks, museums across the world have engaged in a Twitter battle to show off their top duck pics.It all started innocently enough on January 4, when the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) in Reading, Berkshire, England, tweeted a photo of a duckling from 1934. It then sent a message to the British Museum asking it to show its “best ducks.” Not to be outdone, the museum posted a photo of a 3,300-year-old ancient Egyptian cosmetics container in the shape of a duck.This could have been the end of it, but other institutions wanted in on the action. The Natural History Museum in London, the Norfolk Museum, the Royal Academy, the British Library, and even the Science Museum tweeted their own ducks.[3]
After a day or two, the challenge went international. The Getty Museum in California, the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, the Met in New York, and the Spadina Museum in Toronto all shared the best ducks they had in their collections. Some tweeted photographs, others sculptures, or paintings. The National Railway Museum showed off its Mallard steam locomotive, while the National Army Museum in London presented a 1943 DUKW amphibious vehicle.Even this week, some museums which were late to the party were still tweeting their fowl contributions. Already, MERL has set a date for the second-ever International Solicited Duck Pic Day on January 5, 2020.
7Spiders In The Sky
Many places around the world have been hit by severe weather. No matter how bad it gets where you are, though, at least you can take solace in the fact that it is not raining spiders.The same thing can’t be said for Southern Brazil. Residents from the state of Minas Gerais have reported hundreds of spiders filling their skies. Their webs are incredibly fine and almost impossible to detect by the human eye, so it looks like the arachnids are just floating in midair. One species called Parawixia bistriata is to blame for this unsettling behavior.
These spiders are more social than your typical arachnid and band together in hot, humid weather to build large webs and catch more prey. They come out in the early evening and stay overnight. At dawn, they feast on whatever they caught and then go back into the vegetation again.[4]Although people are understandably freaked out by this phenomenon, arachnology expert Professor Adalberto dos Santos from the Federal University of Minas Gerais stresses that the spiders do more good than harm—they regulate insect and mosquito populations, and their bite is not harmful to humans. Still, that’s unlikely to comfort the unlucky people who will walk into one of these webs.
6The Devil Takes Selfies
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