Category Archives: Technology

UPDATE II: Priority Mail International To South Africa (5 Weeks & Counting)

Affirmative Action, Africa, Government, Human Accomplishment, South-Africa, Technology, The West

Will I ever learn? I’ve written a book about the New South Africa, yet I still attempt to get a priority envelope to my father (at a cost of $53.50), who lives in that country. Accepted in the US on Feb. 6, with a promise of a 5 to 7 day delivery, the item is currently STILL in transit to the destination. It is being stalled in South Africa.

Although the USPS has more or less completed its part of the deal, the onus is on the USPS stateside not to offer a “Priority Mail International Parcels” service to South Africa. I use the Mail-Clinic interface, which although more pleasant than the toxic USPS, is, nevertheless, still beholden to it.

Here is the USPS tracking data, beginning from the bottom:

7. PROCESSED THROUGH SORT FACILITY ON FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 3:51 PM, SOUTH AFRICA: THE ITEM IS CURRENTLY STILL IN TRANSIT TO THE DESTINATION.

6. Processed Through Sort Facility February 10, 2012, 12:58 pm, ISC LOS ANGELES CA (USPS)

5. Arrived at Sort Facility, February 10, 2012, 12:58 pm, ISC LOS ANGELES CA (USPS)

4. Electronic Shipping Info Received, February 07, 2012

3. Processed through USPS Sort Facility, February 06, 2012, 8:20 pm, WA

2. Dispatched to Sort Facility

1. Acceptance, February 06, 2012, 6:42 pm

[SNIP]

I’ve been through this many times. As a Pope once said, hope springs eternal in the human breast.

UPDATE: Mail and parcel theft is rampant in SA. It’s not so much political, as criminal. These are the things one takes for granted in the West. However horrid and monopolistic is the USPS, it does get a thing from A to B, generally “honoring” the contract with the American forced to purchase the service.

UPDATE II (March 15): JP, I thought the ANC was too much of a disorganized criminal syndicate to compile a list of subversives and chase the listed down. Do you honestly believe they have one such list and are capable of flagging “suspect” material?

My, My America Has Lots of Unemployed Engineers

Economy, Education, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Outsourcing, Technology, The State

Government has skewed the job market royally. In anticipation of the windfall from Obamacare, an enormous, probably artificial, expansion of the health-care sector is underway. This could explain the fact that biomedical engineers are so sought after; the specialty is among the best career choices for 2012. Computer software engineers are also in demand.

High unemployed and contracting wages in a well-educated population should make it much more viable to do in America engineering work that was previously done offshore.

Alas, there is another state-orchestrated central plan that impedes the employment of “25,000 unemployed U.S.-born individuals with engineering degrees who have a Master’s or PhD and another 68,000 with advanced degrees not in the labor force. There were also 489,000 U.S.-born individuals with graduate degrees who were working, but not as engineers.” (The Center for Immigration Studies)

• “In 2010, there were 25,000 unemployed U.S.-born individuals with engineering degrees who have a Master’s or PhD and another 68,000 with advanced degrees not in the labor force. There were also 489,000 U.S.-born individuals with graduate degrees who were working, but not as engineers.

• There are 101,000 U.S.-born individuals with an engineering degree who are unemployed.

• There are an additional 244,000 U.S.-born individuals under age 65 who have a degree in engineering but who are not in the labor market. This means they are not working nor are they looking for work, and are therefore not counted as unemployed.

• In addition to those unemployed and out of the labor force, there are an additional 1.47 million U.S.-born individuals who report they have an engineering degree and have a job, but do not work as engineers.

• Relatively low pay and perhaps a strong bias on the part of some employers to hire foreign workers seems to have pushed many American engineers out their profession.

• There are many different types of engineering degrees. But unemployment, non-work, or working outside of your field is common for Americans with many different types of engineering degrees. (Detailed employment figures for specific types of engineers are provided” at The Center for Immigration Studies.)

UPDATED: Here Comes The Bomb (Casus Belli)

Barack Obama, Homeland Security, Iran, Journalism, Media, Military, Technology, Terrorism, War

More war is on its way—and sooner than you think.

For the last week or so, the president’s most loyal lap dogs—America’s brain-dead broadcasters—have been beating the drum for an urgent need, identified by- and acted on by the Pentagon: “to develop its largest bomb because officials believe [the current arsenal] is not capable of destroying Iran’s fortified underground facilities.”

That acts of war and elections often coincide should come as no surprise. It’s unfortunate, but electability in fin de siècle America still hinges on projecting bully power around the world—an American leader has to aspire to “protect” borders and people not his own, and if they refuse his advances, he should be prepared to bomb them to kingdom come.

Having used the American military to particularly great political effect—the barefaced Barack Obama is preparing to blast Iranians with something even “better” than the BLU-82.

This flaccid, coward of a politician is intent on shoring up his commander-in-chief credentials so as to seduce a militarist America for the second time. The Pentagon, under the president who has perfected the art of state assassination, is working on a “13.6 ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP).” It “is the deepest penetrating ‘bunker buster’ currently in the U.S. arsenal, designed to take out fortifications built by Iran to hide their alleged nuclear weapons. (Via The DailyMail Online.)

UPDATE (Feb. 1): “Spy Chief Sees Iran Threats in U.S”:

The U.S., “spy chief James Clapper” “has concluded that some Iranian officials, probably including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ‘are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States as a response to real or perceived actions that threaten the regime,’ according to an assessment provided by Mr. Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence.”

Clapper’s claptrap evidence is here, detailed in my “Is A-Jad (Ahmadinejad) The Fall Guy For The AG (Attorney General)?”

[It’s]…the kind of cloak-and-dagger that belongs in an episode of “The Unit,” not in the courts of a civilized country. To entrap the two defendants, Mansour Arbabsiar and Ali Gholam Shakuri, assistant US attorneys relied on Title 18 of the United States Code. Sections in this “versatile” law were used to ensnare domestic diva Martha Stewart (for fibbing to the Feds about a recipe, not for insider trading).

UPDATED: The Year of the Killer Drone

Barack Obama, Criminal Injustice, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Technology, War

A drone can be “an idle person who lives off others; a loafer, a drudge,” also known as Barack Obama. A drone is also “a pilotless aircraft operated by remote control,” frequently utilized by the aforementioned “idle person who lives of others” to kill others.

“When Obama was sworn into office in 2009, the nation’s clandestine drone war was confined to a single country, Pakistan, where 44 strikes over five years had left about 400 people dead, according to the New America Foundation. The number of strikes has since soared to nearly 240, and the number of those killed, according to conservative estimates, has more than quadrupled.” (WaPo)

The New America Foundation breaks it down in a table. Between 2004 and 2007, when Genghis Bush reigned supreme, we killed 112 Pakistanis. The total number of Pakistanis eliminated by drone between 2004 and 2011 was 2,680.

Do the math. Obama is the killer drone.

UPDATED (Jan 1. 012): STARSHIP TROOPERS USA.