Category Archives: Intelligence

‘Generation Jobless’

Business, Economy, Education, Intelligence, Labor, Outsourcing, Race, Racism, Science, Technology

I wonder about those who claim our math and science students are first rank, and blame the high-tech sector and its greed for the “importation” of South and East Asian talent. Sure, there is an abundance of greed (not necessarily harmful in one of the freer sectors of the economy). There is also a requirement to display diversity, even if imported, so as to comport with the diabolic diversity policies peddled by all companies as zealously as do the state and CNN’s Soledad O’Brien. But neither are there any shortages of unskilled Americans in the sciences. Have the reductionists, who refuse to recognize this dumbing down, ever spoken to senior and serious high-tech talent; people who are employed and always overworked, because there are so few of them?

“Although the number of college graduates increased about 29% between 2001 and 2009,” reports the WSJ, “the number graduating with engineering degrees only increased 19%, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Dept. of Education. The number with computer and information-sciences degrees decreased 14%. Since students typically set their majors during their sophomore year, the first class that chose their major in the midst of the recession graduated this year.

Students who drop out of science majors and professors who study the phenomenon say that introductory courses are often difficult and abstract. Some students, like Ms. Zhou, say their high schools didn’t prepare them for the level of rigor in the introductory courses. [She’s more honest than the professors. “My ability level was just not there,” says Ms. Zhou of her decision” to drop out from electrical and computer engineering.]

Overall, only 45% of 2011 U.S. high-school graduates who took the ACT test were prepared for college-level math and only 30% of ACT-tested high-school graduates were ready for college-level science, according to a 2011 report by ACT Inc.”

Science classes may also require more time—something U.S. college students may not be willing to commit. In a recent study, sociologists Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia found that the average U.S. student in their sample spent only about 12 to 13 hours a week studying, about half the time spent by students in 1960. They found that math and science—though not engineering—students study on average about three hours more per week than their non-science-major counterparts.

UPDATED: Rick Perry Infarct (He Strokes AGAIN)

Elections, Intelligence, Republicans

He says he’s not a great debater. Rick Perry flatters himself. Here the presidential contender appears to be “stroking” mid-speech.

UPDATE: CNBC promised a “Live Blog” of the debate. They must have hired a Millennial, who hasn’t yet begun substantive reporting; nothing but atmospherics. The moron is Mark Koba. In any case, Perry stroked again. He mentioned three government departments he’d eliminate, but was unable to come up with the third. Commerce and Education were the first two.

Perry just remembered the department he’d axe: Energy.

UPDATED: Timing Iran Offensive for Nov. 2012? (FB Cyber-ejaculate)

Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Iran, Israel, War

“Four Iranian missiles can destroy tiny Israel,” blared Fars, The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) news agency. DEBKAFile counters as follows:

[these] sources point [to the fact] that the experiences of the Gulf war show that this number of ordinary missiles could not cause anything like the damage calculated by the writer. What Zarey may be referring to are the stubborn rumors going around Western intelligence circles since early 2005 that during the breakup of the Soviet Union, Tehran laid hands on black market nuclear cruise missiles form the Ukraine and 3 to 5 more from Belarus.

THE SAME SOURCE cites “Western intelligence as suspecting that Tehran obtained those warheads from Belarus or from unconventional arms traffickers based in the Muslim Republics which were part of the USSR up until the 1990s. And indeed the Fars report did not specify what warheads the ‘conventional’ missiles would carry.”

Equally disconcerting: War president extraordinaire Barack Hussein Obama knows too well that his waning popularity rises when he kills people abroad. DEBKAFile predicts that “Obama is set to attack Iran’s nuclear sites by the fall of 2012.”

Indeed, Iran apologists have framed Iran’s nuclear belligerence as the “ultimate safeguard against an American attack.” The reference is, presumably, to Iran’s legitimate quest to defend against an American army that advanced on a neighbor—Iraq—and conquered it in the absence of provocation. I agree. But this is not Iran’s sole reason for arming itself with nuclear capability.

Iran’s leaders have made no bones about the need to solve the Jewish Question for once and for all. (In case you’re a public school graduate, this is code for liquidation.)

That Iran fears an out-of-control, aggressive U.S. is likely—and understandable. However, Iran’s madman-in-chief hasn’t threatened the United States; he has threatened Israel. Yet Iranophiles seldom depict Israel’s nuclear program as an equally legitimate, last-ditch defense. Instead, they contort like Cirque du Soleil contortionists to downplay the real threat Iran poses to Israel.

UPDATE: Via PBS’s FrontLine: “At the same time, it is not just Israel that may attack Iran. The Guardian reported on Wednesday that the British military is rapidly developing contingency plans to aid the United States in case it attacks Iran, based on the belief that “the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities.” Efforts are evidently underway to determine the optimal location for deployment of the Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles to participate in such strikes.

Apparently, Iran’s resilience in the face of economic sanctions, as well as the cyberspace attacks on its nuclear facilities last year, has surprised Western observers. They believe that within a year, Iran will be moving all of its nuclear materials and more advanced centrifuges to the Fordow enrichment facility, built under a mountain near Qom. There they will be protected from most missiles and bombs, even though the Obama administration has quietly supplied Israel with bunker-buster bombs, something that even the George W. Bush administration refused to do.”

Read more.: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/11/news-rhetoric-suggesting-potential-israeli-attack-on-iran-escalates.html#ixzz1czfsz4Dp

As I pointed out in 2002/2003, when Bush was circling Saddam Hussein like a shark his prey: bluster has been a large part of the Islamic culture. It is possibly that Iran’s regime is putting on a show. But if Iran doesn’t intend to attack Israel, why does A-Jad (short for Ahmadinejad) not stop the threats? The Iranian leadership has never allayed Israel’s legitimate fears.

UPDATE II (Nov. 7): FACEBOOK CYBER-EJACULATE. I am interrupting this frivolous topic with news of the most “urgent” of facebook posts. I have been forced to post the following in response to “The white noise, the inability and unwillingness of Facebook participants to focus the mind on the topic of a post—their shameless habit of posting about every bowel movement experienced during the day to my Wall; the utter cyber-ejaculate spewed with confidence. I am expected (I have a life) to “moderate” what amounts to a meaningless stream of, “I hate Israel; I love Israel; Israelis should die; Israelis may live.”

What does it say about debate (at least on my FB thread)? I’m clearly permitting the wrong “friends” on the Wall, although FB has now made it near-impossible to be more selective in the posts allowed on a Wall.

I hinted at it before, here, but the more I am forced to interact online in the course of doing my thankless job; the more it repulses me. (And after experiencing this Cesspool of anti-Semitism and irrationality, my “professional” day of reckoning is closer.)

If you have a half a brain, you won’t enjoy this.

UPDATED: Steve Jobs Was With Liberty

Barack Obama, Business, Capitalism, Celebrity, Economy, Intelligence, Technology, The State

As is to be expected with so private and guarded a person, the curtain on Steve Jobs’ inner life is being pulled back slowly, but surely. In the process, Jobs’ natural affinity for freedom is being revealed. The man who gave us Apple Inc. was obviously too smart to misunderstand the essence of liberty and how at odds BHO is with it. Jobs was on to the idiot Obama (and to racist and statist Bill Gates). Reports the HuffPo:

“Jobs, who was known for his prickly, stubborn personality, almost missed meeting President Obama in the fall of 2010 because he insisted that the president personally ask him for a meeting. Though his wife told him that Obama ‘was really psyched to meet with you,’ Jobs insisted on the personal invitation, and the standoff lasted for five days. When he finally relented and they met at the Westin San Francisco Airport, Jobs was characteristically blunt. He seemed to have transformed from a liberal into a conservative.

‘You’re headed for a one-term presidency,’ he told Obama at the start of their meeting, insisting that the administration needed to be more business-friendly. As an example, Jobs described the ease with which companies can build factories in China compared to the United States, where ‘regulations and unnecessary costs’ make it difficult for them.

Jobs also criticized America’s education system, saying it was ‘crippled by union work rules,’ noted Isaacson. ‘Until the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.’ Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year.”

Jobs’ spot-on assessment of Bill Gates has to be my favorite revelation:

“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

So true.

UPDATE (1/3/2016): Alex Gibney, at CNN, trashes Steve Jobs, posthumously, in a one-sided, banal, “Why Can’t He Be More Like Bill Gates” bit of yellow journalism.