4/29/2007:   What happened:

1. Al Qaeda bombs the WTC.
2. The U.S. invades Afghanistan and chases the primary Al Qaeda source, the Taliban out, missing Osama bin Laden in the process.
3. Bush lies to Congress to make the case that Iraq needs invading.
4. The U.S. invades Iraq, which has no connection to Al Qaeda and no terrorists.
5. Al Qaeda begins trickling into Iraq to foment religious unrest and support resistance to occupying U.S. troops.
6. The Taliban reinvades Afghanistan.
7. Iran is discovered funding and supplying resistance troops in Iraq.

What could have happened:

1. Bush could have listened to outgoing Clinton advisors and taken the threat of Osama Bin Laden seriously, possibly even taking him out prior to the 9/11 attack.

Wow. That suddenly turned into a really short list, one where on U.S. troops were killed. But that's probably too fantastic. How about this instead:

1. Al Qaeda bombs the WTC.
2. The U.S. invades Afghanistan and chases the primary Al Qaeda source, the Taliban out, and even manages to caputre Osama Bin Laden.

No, that's probably still asking too much. Okay, let's allow for a certain amount of hubris while still filtering out the insanity:

1. Al Qaeda bombs the WTC.
2. The U.S. invades Afghanistan and chases the primary Al Qaeda source, the Taliban out, missing Osama bin Laden in the process.
3. Bush focuses on retrieving Osama bin Laden, applying all necessary pressure to Pakistan and invading Pakistani airspace until Osama bin Laden is apprehended or bombed. 4. The United Nations continues suppressing the Iraqi military and Saddam Hussein.

Now, come on, was that asking too much? Of course not. It just requires sanity and a minimum amount of respect for our armed forces. They aren't pawns on a f****ing chess board.

4/27/2007:   The following people had a golden opportunity to make history and take a stand against the out-of-control Bush cabal and chose instead to cut and run. The Vermont legislature narrowly voted down a resolution to force the federal Congress to consider articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. These people turned their backs on the American people and spit on the sacrifice of those that have fought in Iraq:

Citizens of the 31 towns in Vermont that passed resolutions calling for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, when the next election comes around, send these traitors packing. They ignored their constituency. They broke their vows to the people, violated their oaths of office, and have shown their true colors. Sniveling dogs...

4/22/2007:   So "60 Minutes" had an article on hip-hop culture preaching against "snitching," making police work harder as murders go unsolved.

I don't know, I guess I just don't see a problem here.

If you are too stupid to enlist the police in catching someone who has killed another human being, then you don't deserve the safety the police provide. You've got someone running around your neighborhood that is willing and able to kill someone. You're not brave enough to stand up for the safety of yourself, your family, and your neighbors, even to the extent of helping someone able to stop that individual. You deserve the hell you live in, period.

Act stupid, live stupid, die stupid.

4/22/2007:   I wonder if the samurai culture was one of the few to get it right? You didn't join the samurais for education funds or discipline or health benefits or to see the world. You left your old way of life and you became something else. You killed for whatever reason, but you lived a life that counterbalanced that killing. A life of artistic expression and introspection into which the warrior could pour the darkness, wash it away, deal with it and leave it.

One of the greatest problems that returning soldiers have is in dealing with the horror placed in their minds, switching gears from killing to functioning as a productive member of society. They are programmed from the bones outward to be killing machines when they go in, but they are not retrained to let go of the war and return to the normal world.

Perhaps we should provide veterans with a lifestyle that allows them to rid themselves of the darkness, to pour it out, let it go, and become normal people again. I am convinced that, by not doing so, we do them a grave injustice, a deep and personal insult.

4/22/2007:   You ever wonder what we will reap from the seeds we are sowing in Iraq? The horrors of war that we brought to Iraq, what will the surviving relatives, the children, the brothers, what will they do to us? How will we protect ourselves besides killing them all? Killing the ones that hate us and the ones that don't simpily because we can't tell them apart. Killing the ones that don't hate us because by the time we kill the ones that do, there won't be any that don't hate us.

George Bush is evil, he's a murderer, and he has made our country evil. He used our troops, the greatest patriots we have, to murder indiscriminately. We will reap the wind, and a terrible great wind it will be.

4/22/2007:   I watched some really great movies over the weekend. Well, okay, some of them weren't as good as others, but they were all very informative. I recommend them:

4/20/2007:   Remember Sam Fox? He financed the Swift Boat Traitors Against Kerry, then had to stand before Kerry as part of this confirmation process when Bush nominated him for the role of U.S. Ambassador. Faced with the fruit of his past sins, his partisonship, his treason against his country, he found his appointment denied. So of course, once again, Bush waited until Congress recessed then appointed Fox after all.

That's right. Just like that John Bolton jerk, Fox got his ambassadorship. Y'know, if nothing else, Bush sure pays his political bills, doesn't he? We can only hope that Fox follows Bolton's example and just walks away when his appointment is over rather than embarrassing himself by fighting to keep his bought and paid for job.

But more importantly, Bush has further cemented his stance that he finds Congress as irrelevant as he finds the United Nations. Remember that? Back when he was trying to sell the Iraq war and the U.N. wasn't buying the crap he was dishing? Yeah, back when we had credibility, diplomatic relations, allies, friends, and a good reputation. Back when the United States was still the leader of the free world. Y'know, back before Bush crapped all over us....

4/20/2007:   Alberto Gonzales, soon-to-be-former U.S. Attorney General and human pinata was being grilled by the U.S. Senate, and he started off the day by being a smartass to Senator Arlen Specter. Arlen snapped his butt right back into line.

Senator Arlen Specter: I know you've been preparing for this hearing...

Alberto Gonzales: (interrupting, with a superior tone) I prepare for every hearing, Senator.

Specter: (half second pause, then angry) Do you prepare for all your press conferences? Were you prepared for the press conference where you said there weren't any discussions involving you?

Gonzales: (now with an "uh oh" tone) Senator I've already said that I mispoke, it was my mistake...

Specter: (nailing him to the wall) I'm asking you if you were prepared? You interjected that you were always prepared. Were you prepared for that press conference?

Gonzales:(voice higher, tremulous) Sir, I didn't say I was always prepared...

Can you say, "Smack down?" Don't piss off Arlen. Don't interrupt, don't interject, just shut the **** up and be respectful of the fact that your ass is on the hot seat. Yow... Little Alberto got spanked...

But when you get down to it, Alberto spanked himself. He used the phrase "I don't recall" like some magic mantra that would make it all go away.

Well, golly, little Alberto doesn't recall. He doesn't remember what he did or didn't do. We can't really hold him responsible if he can't even remember what he did, can we? Gosh, poor little Alberto is not sure what happened, when, or why. I feel so bad for him. Let's just drop the whole thing and tell him not to do it again, what do you say?

YEAH, RIGHT!!

4/20/2007:   Kim Basinger, ex-wife from hell, as released a tape on which Alec Baldwin can be heard telling his daughter that she's a thoughtless pig because she didn't pick up the phone for a planned phone call.

I'm not Alec Baldwin, and I don't know what he's gone through with his daughter in conjunction with his divorce from Ms. Air-Your-Dirty-Laundry-In-Public Basinger, but I have a 12 year old daughter that occasionally drives me right around the bend. 11 is the age at which girls suddenly think they're 16, especially if the mothers encourage age-inappropriate behaviour, including adopting an irreverant and disrespectful attitude towards their fathers. I know this from experience.

It's deplorable that Ms. Basinger thinks it's okay to air such a tape. I think that, as a public figure, and as a man calling into his worst enemy's house, Mr. Baldwin would have better self-preservation skills. But the hurt a daughter can cause in her father with her barbs is limitless, and a daughter in the hands of a manipulative ex-wife is a tragically powerful weapon for evil.

I feel for him. Hey, Alec! Cool off, pal. Don't scream at your daughter about the phone. It's okay to tell her that she is acting badly and that it affects you. Take a deep breath, then take the long view. Good luck.

4/19/2007:   So some foaming at the mouth NeoCon had the stupidity to give utterance to the idea that there were no "men" at Virginia Tech because no one jumped the shooter.

(long pause)

Wow.

(longer pause)

Well, crap. What do you say to that? I'm not going to give the ass that said that the publicity he's obviously asking for. Don Imus beat him to the punch with racism and sexism, so this jerk is going to attack the character of dead college students. If I'm not going to name the shooter or repeat any of his insane and insipid rants in order to deny him his place in history, why would I give credit to the ass that would stand on the bodies of the dead and pound his own chest while disparaging the spinal fortitude of the victims?

...

Geez frikkin' louise... Nevermind. ... No, nevermind... Forget it...

4/19/2007:   I preached long and loud about a number of U.S. Congressmen that were up for election in California in 2006. There were two in particular, Richard Pombo and John Doolittle, that were particularly corrupt that I focused the most of my energy on. One failed miserably, and his loss can be directly attributed to his overwhelming greed. The other managed to squeak back into office, but now that one looks like his past sins will take him down after all.

Richard Pombo's desire to expand his reach while using his position as the chairman of the House Resources Committee to sell off our nation's natural resources rather than protect them led to his demise. I just happen to live in his former district, and I was as vocal in the local papers as I was on this site. I'm proud of my contribution to his failed bid to continue raping this country.

But Doolittle, as corrupt as everyone knew he was, represented an intensely Republican crevice of California, El Dorado Hills just outside of Sacramento. The schools in El Dorado Hills clearly need more funding. If we could round up the people that voted for Doolittle and force them into some college courses on international political science and U.S. Government, the the overall intelligence quotient of California would double right there on the spot. It's a sad testament to how people can be misled when a man as corrupt as John Doolittle can maintain his grip on power.

Ah, the wheels of natural justice may grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine, it would appear. And their mincing is eventual, inevitable, isn't it?

Seems John's wife is as corrupt as he is, and while he's already under investigation for corruption, she too has been drug down. Her company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, is a consulting firm with Julie Doolittle as the sole employee. Through the company, she has worked for disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a lobbying firm and as a fund-raiser for the congressman, according to media reports.

Following an FBI raid on her offices, I guess John was pressured into finally stepping down from his committee posts. Congressman John Boehner (rhymes with "loner") from Ohio declared that Doolittle was "courageous" for stepping down as the head of the appropriations committee. Yeah, right... The GOP vanguard, still reeling from the November smackdown that gave Democrats both houses of Congress, have pried the reins of power from Johnny's filthy little fingers. Johnny was heard to say, "Precioussssssss...."

Now if he could just be thrown in prison, that would be a fine slap back to the morons of El Dorado County that voted him back into office while ignoring the FBI probe into bribery and corruption charges.

4/19/2007:   I heard another guy on the radio today actually expressing the idea that if you don't support the war, you don't support the troops. What an absolute moron. I'm sitting here watching videos on YouTube of veterans, some of whom are about to be shipped back to Iraq as part of that jackass George Bush's "surge", and I can't understand for the life of me how people can be so stupid as to marry the individual troops to the war, whatever war, no matter how wrongheaded the war or how over the war is in spite of the command in chief's sick desire to continue waging it. The troops are not the war. The troops are people, unquestionably patriotic people, and we are wasting their lives -- yeah, I said it, WASTING THEIR LIVES -- fighting a war in which we should never have been engaged.

4/19/2007:   The worst finalist in "American Idol" history, Sanjaya Malakar, living proof that it's *not* a singing competition but a popularity contest, was finally voted off the show. The novelty of supporting someone that bad while real talent walked away wore off. The parents of the 12 year old girls that kept calling in to vote for Sanjaya got the phone bills and cut off his voting base.

Good riddance.

4/19/2007:   I think that, following the deaths of Virginia Tech students and professors at the hands of a nut job wielding legally purchased firearms, it's time we reviewed exactly why this guy was armed in the first place.

He was, at one point in the past, declared a danger to society by a judge. That's not a crime, and in and of itself shouldn't be. On the other hand, had he been declared, as part of a legally defined condition, mentally unstable and an imminent and immediate threat to the lives of members of our society ,and therefore housed and treated, I would be okay with that. I would think that, until such time as he was then diagnosed as being stable and no longer a threat to the lives of members of society, he should be legally prevented from purchasing, owning, or being in possession of any kind of firearm, explosive, any other implement whose primary purpose is as a weapon, or any collection of items that comprise a kit whose primary purpose could be as a weapon.

Combine that with legislation that forces school officials to notify administrators of students that demonstrate violent and/or unstable tendencies and that forces administrators to recommend those students for legal processing into treatment programs, and we might be able to stop the next school-age mass murdering scumbag.

I would applaud the Congressman that authored such a bill.

4/19/2007:   For those of you not following the news closely, including those right wing hacks and stickin'-with-mah-homey whack jobs, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had a number of U.S. Attorneys fired for not following orders to torpedo Democratic candidates for Congress during the 2006 election campaigns. And now, much to the chagrin of the likes of Ruben Navarrette, Alberto has even gone so far as to apologize, albeit without admission of guilt to abusing the powers of his office for political reasons. His apology makes a lovely preamble to his upcoming testimony in front of a Congressional committee.

He will forced at some point to reconcile his statements against those of his chief of staff Kyle Sampson, that he was intimately involved in the firings of former U.S. Attorneys Bogden, Charlton, Chiara, Cummins, Iglesias, Lam, McKay, and Ryan. Those firings were, according to Sampson and other members of Gonzales staff, for partison political purposes, and the orders to purge the attorneys and stack the roll with attorneys loyal to Rove and Bush and who would be willing to begin spurious investigations of Democratic Congressional candidates came from the White House itself. Apparently right wing whack jobs like Navarrette haven't been keeping up with news reports lately and missed such minor details...

Here's hoping I get to hear the screeching protests of Navarrette as Gonzales prematurely leaves office. I'm so looking forward to that...

4/18/2007:   Fear, lust, and greed have one thing in common: they turn otherwise upstanding, empathizing, and deeply insightful people into complete asses. And following the horrible Virginia Tech massacre, fear has the far right and NRA nut jobs foaming at the mouth and wanting to arm everyone attending a university just in case.

I actually heard people on the Glenn Beck Show -- not typically a bastion of reason in the best of times -- screeching hysterically that, if the students at Virginia Tech were armed, the entire tragedy would have been averted. One said that the killer wouldn't have dared to attempt a massacre there, while another said that even if he had, he would have been taken out immediately with little or no loss of life besides his own.

So let's review, shall we?

I can't believe this is even a question anyone would dare to raise. Well, except the NRA that is. Bunch of whack jobs...

4/16/2007:   Where's the fire? Where's the urgency? Where did it go? Lately my life seems to consist of nothing but external fires, those I did not create and that I feel no passion for, yet I'm expected to fight them. And perhaps I've been fighting those so long that the fires I started have all burned out, because I feel no urgency, no ambition, no drive. The projects I started have all gone cold.

I attend to my career, which has degraded to putting in my 40 hours (actually 50 on an average week), then making dinner and feeding my kids, checking their homework (which can take hours when they aren't motivated to do it right even after the third pass), and then getting them and their rooms cleaned and getting them off to bed. I spend all of five minutes with my wife, and then it's out to the garage to work out, then shower, then go to bed myself. Repeat for 5 days, then spend the entire weekend trying to get to various home improvement projects. I do what I can, work around my kids' play dates, and then all too quickly the weekend is done and it's time to start over.

And no where in all that is there any real "Todd Time" except for the workouts. At one point I had a schedule that actually had designated hours for "Todd Time," but I now spend those hours on my kids' homework. I don't watch TV unless it's a few minutes of Disney Channel with my kids or CSI Wherever with my wife, but those bore me and I end up leaving halfway through.

My career seems flat, my job satisfaction at a low, and my future is stagnant. With corporations bucking for H1B visas and offshoring jobs, my career prospects are bleak without a major retraining and shifting.

Y'know, I remember when I first got started in programming, and I'd see old guys getting into it and having a hard time with it, and thinking to myself that they thought they were getting an easy ride but that programming was a lot harder than it looked from the outside. They would typically wash out, and I felt bad for them, but I also felt that they didn't belong there. I guess that still applies if you think programming is some kickback job one step above playing video games.

But now I picture myself switching careers. I'd probably put in poor showing as a construction worker. I don't want to be an electrician (it's personal, don't ask), but carpentry would probably beat my old joints to death. I'd like to be a real estate agent, but my wife always scoffs at that. I think I'd make a great agent, and it would give me a chance to find properties I could flip. I've always wanted to try my hand at that anyway.

But the point is, either I'm not drinking enough coffee, or I'm having trouble getting excited about my life every day. Dunno. Maybe I'm headed towards a mid-life crisis? I know motorcycles are starting to look really good to me again.

Anyway... back to work...

4/16/2007:   The War President has demanded unlimited financing or he'll move every last man and woman in the military into harm's way, extended tours indefinitely and shipping new troops untrained into battle. Congress has bilaterally passed a bill that provides more money that Bush has said he needs but with a deadline for moving troops out of the hyper-civil war that is currently occurring.

I would urge the Congress to stand strong, to push back, to give Bush nothing more than the bill you've already passed. He has finally met the only opposition he cannot overcome, and it is the natural checks and balances built into our system of government. The last GOP-led Congress' cowtowing was not patriotism, it was corruption and weakness. The bill awaiting the President's pen is the right law, albeit a bit late. Thank you for supporting our troops. Thank you for protecting U.S. interests. Thank you for helping us to have a military left to fight terrrorism with.

For the sake of your country and its people, do not waiver in your resolve.

4/13/2007:   The Roots, a hip hop/rap group on Geffen records has a video for their tune, "Don't Feel Right," in which there is a scene of a guy holding a sign that reads, "65% of prisoners are minority."

The immediate response is, "Yeah, so?"

But the point that I take from it isn't that there is an unreasonable number of minorities in prison -- hey, you do the crime, you do the time -- but rather why there is still a disparity in cultures. There are poor people of every race, creed, and religion, so why does it seem like rap, an artform "claimed" by "Black" culture, spends an inordinate amount of time glorifying criminal behaviour? Because, I have to tell you, I've seen spectacularly successful people of all races, but there seems to be a lingering impression that black people have a higher bar to clear before they can realize the American Dream.

And if there's a solution to be had, and I think it behooves us as Americans to spend a little time and resources on finding one if there is one to be had, then why does Bush seem to be so determined instead to throw open the border to Mexico, offshore all the jobs, and gut the educational system? Rather than try to lift up the poor and dispossessed, he's just going to make sure everyone except the uber-rich joins them.

4/13/2007:   After innumerable attempts at career suicide, Don Imus, the mysogynistic, racist, NeoCon, warmongering moron has finally succeeded in blowing himself completely out of the water and off the air by calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team a bunch of "nappy-headed hos". How he managed to stay on the air all these years is a bit of a puzzle anyway, but now he's nuked himself completely. A dinosaur of shock radio has finally fallen into the tar pit of racism and sexism and drowned. Maybe it was the combination? Plus the timing? Maybe it's such a sensitive topic anyway right now. Maybe it was saying something so stupidly assinine about such a fantastic group of young women? The truth probably lies somewhere in all of that.

Either way, he was old enough to know better. I'm sure he can get a government job or something with more security. Have a nice forced retirement, Donny.

4/13/2007:   The news article started with, "Bush condemns attack". And my response, probably much like billions of others around the globe, is simply, "Oh really?"

What credibility could Bush possibly have? Bush condemned an attack in which innocent people were killed? Isn't that like a bank robber calling the police after he's been mugged?

4/8/2007:   Enough crap. Here're the facts. This is a partial list and will grow as I have time to update it:

More to come...

4/8/2007:   How does a man call himself a Democrat and then become the lapdog to the worst President in history who, just coincidentally, happens to be Republican? For the answer to that, you'd have to ask Joe Lieberman.

Whiner Liebby is the one Democrat that stedfastly supports the Iraq war in spite of the fact that the case for war was a pack of lies and twisted or fabricated intel. Whiner Liebby was the man who argued in favor of Sam Fox as a U.S. ambassador, the man who was the major financier for the Swift Boat Veterans For Lies, the lying sacks of crap that attempted to torpedo John Kerry, ostensibly a fellow Democrat, in his bid to unseat the power mad and maniacal incumbent, George Monkey-Faced-Frat-Boy (MFFB) Bush. Fox, in appreciation, supported Whiner Liebby after he lost his party's nomination in 2006 and split off as an "Independent Democrat" to steal the vote from a deserving, upright, patriotic American candidate.

Not only does Whiner Liebby support an illegal war (and yeah, if it was authorized in response to fabrications, it is, by nature, illegal even in the U.S.), but he's on the MFFB's side in waging war on the world by denouncing global warming. Nevermind that 11 of the last 12 years have been the warmest on record, glaciers are melting all over the globe, crops are being destroyed as the climate destabilizes, etc. (More on this later.)

Whiner supports, without question or consideration, any move by Israel. I'm sorry, I just can't do that. Israel is a perfect example of what happens when you use tanks before talks. They can't get a minute's rest, they have to be vigilant at all times, and their borders are some of the toughest in the world, and still they have people blowing up buses and marketplaces.

But anyway. Whiner is a Republican's Democrat, and he supports the very worst that Bush has to offer. Bush is destabilizing the Middle East, and Whiner is all for it. He supports killing more soldiers for no good reason. He supports sending troops in with insufficient training and armament. He supports putting your loved ones in harms way and leaving them there underfunded. He prefers the instruction of a president that was never in touch with anyone except himself over the voice of the American people. He is a traitor.

Can you believe he was once Al Gore's pick for Vice President? Scary, huh? I'm just dying to ask Al what he thinks of him now.

4/6/2007:   Sanjaya sucks. Bad. But I guess he's proof that American Idol isn't so much about talent as popularity.

4/6/2007:   "I think it is, in fact, bad behavior on her part. I wish she hadn't done it." Dick Cheney commenting on Nancy Pelosi's diplomatic visit to Syria, ignoring Hastert's visits to the Middle East.

"I was glad that she went. When there is a crisis, the best way to help resolve the crisis is to deal with the people who are instrumental in the problem." That's Jimmy Carter. Cheney would do well to accept a little advice from his better.

4/6/2007:   Iran has released the 15 sailors they captured in Iraqi waters, bullied, paraded in front of cameras, and finally tired of. Bush is probably fuming that Tony Blair didn't put in a request for a nuclear bombing. Whatever.

And even so, the president of Iran still looks like an actual leader next to Bush. A little backward, but still a leader. We just need to find a way to put that man at a table and have him sign on to the Geneva Conventions to avoid this kind of ugliness in the future.

Y'know, the one person that came out really smelling like a rose in this was Tony Blair. He exercised restraint and the classic British resolve, and got the hostages released without firing a shot. When you get him away from the Bush cabal, he's actually a pretty decent guy.

What do you know?

4/6/2007:  
"The active Army is about broken."

4/6/2007:   I guess a number of high ranking GOP officials have, in the past month, extolled Cheney's virtues should he decide to run for President in 2008, naming primarily his foreign policy and economic records.

Are you [censored] kidding me?

There is no way in hell he could win. I realize that the Republicans are desperate for better choices than they've been presented with thus far, but Darth Cheney ain't it. Oh... my... God...

And I thought they were crazy for mulling over a Newt Gingrich campaign. Wow. Dark days for the GOP indeed.

4/6/2007:   U.S. tech companies, in a scramble to hire super cheap overseas labor, scarfed through 150,000 H1B visa applications in about 4 hours. Now they're screaming that they need more. Microsoft, which employs over 15,000 foreign workers all by itself, has been pouting and stamping its little feet about how it can't seem to find enough qualified programmers here in the states.

People, let me fill you in. There are hundreds of thousands of programmers here in the States, but they can't make enough money to pay their mortgages because medium to large firms here in the States have switched to using overseas contract firms. One company I know of uses 3 offshore programmers for every one domestic programmer they hire, and they do it through a contracting firm that they've gone to great pains to develop a working relationship with, and a third of their domestic programming staff are here on work visas. There are scads of qualified programmers out there, but a large number of them have switched careers because the pay has dropped through the floor.

What has really happened is that American corporations have screwed the U.S. tech workers so badly that they've had to seek employment in other fields, and now it's biting them in the butt because they refuse to pay enough to support a U.S. programmer. There is no doubt, given the overwhelming number of business cases showing horrific results to over-outsourced projects, that using off-shore resources exclusively results in nearly guaranteed project failure. Now the larger companies are attempting to mix local talent with cheap off-shore talent, with mixed results, and they're finding that the pay they offer is practically an insult to the years of training and experience a good programmer has to have and the quality of life they can expect when trying apply that meager paycheck against our current cost of living.

Now they're pressuring Congress to raise the cap. Some are trying to get it eliminated entirely. Complete America, a traitorous organization chartered with eliminating tech jobs in America, made up of Micro$oft, Oracle, Intel, and other large firms that have no excuse for trying to make even more billions than they already do at the expense of the American people, are among those that want the floodgates not just opened but torn down. They want to flood the market with foreign tech workers. They want to see you poor, homeless, and destitute, so long as it puts all your money in their pockets.

Did you know that one of America's biggest exports is money? It's true. Something like an estimated $162 billion dollars* floods out of this country and into other countries in the form of payment to foreign workers. That's not trade deficit or loan payments, that's paychecks. What kind of technological and industrial edge would we be able to maintain if those dollars stayed here in a sane, self-sustaining economic structure? And can you guess where the majority of that money goes? Need I actually say it? India, home of the off-shore programmer industry itself, takes in a whopping $50 billion alone. China is next, and then, not surprisingly, Mexico. I say not surprisingly because the U.S. has a tacit welfare program going, propping up the utterly failed Mexican economy, although those jobs tend to be farm and textile jobs, not high tech.

So I say, Hey, you companies that have profited from offshoring jobs. Screw you. Now you can pony up some of those profits to get good talent or you can kiss your competitive edge goodbye as your product quality fades to trash.