Religious ads on Religulous website!!

Religulous is a new movie by Bill Maher that discusses the futility of organized religion.

And guess what?? Google has just the right ads for this website - see below!

Interesting McCain fact...

In part due to the strong leadership(sic) displayed by John McCain in the past few days, not a single Congressman from his home state of Arizona voted for the rescue package.

McCain = Mc Came!

Thank you George W Bush

What is the cost of $700bn to me and my family is the question I am trying to get answered.

Simple math tells me it will be $2333 per person, if you consider the population of 300 million. Assuming that 10% of the population does not pay taxes, this number goes upto $2500 or more per individual.

For a family of four this is about $10K.

And if you are part of the upper part of the middle-class, then your share will obviously be much higher - let's say by 25% - which brings the number to $12500 to an average family.

Wow!

Now, that's like 2 good vacations to Hawaii, or many short vacations to Southern California, or 2 weeks in Florida in an all-inclusive resort, or...

Thank you George W Bush - Asshole.

Does my kid go to a madrasa?

I was at my son's back to school night the other day, and something his science teacher said made me think about the kind of school system we are building in California.

She was describing the life sciences syllabus for the year, and on the topic of Evolution she told the parents that if they would like their kids to not study it, that would be fine with the school too.

All these years I have not cared too much about this debate about Evolution, but now that it has struck home, I felt there was a scary similarity in how religious schools in Islamic countries are run - madrasas - and where our school system is being forced to go by the religious conservatives.

Why don't we let our schools teach Science as it is supposed to be, and let the religious interpretation be confined to the churches, temples, mosques and wherever else people go to do their "religious" stuff.

E.D. Hill is Illiterate

My dad use to classify people into the ones who were educated and the ones who were literate.  It was hard for me to distinguish the difference between the two when I was younger, but E.D. Hill is a prime example of somebody who maybe highly educated, but still illiterate.

As you may or may not know, Fox anchorwoman E.D. Hill was forced to apologize after referring to Obama's fist jab with his wife as some kind of a terrorist action. You can find kids doing such fist jabs on Disney channel all the time - maybe in E.D. Hill's view, we are raising a nation of terrorists.

Unfortunately it took 4 days for the apology to come through, and only after several groups and "literate" people started campaigning for it. Ultimately, I do not think that E.D. Hill really understood why she had to give the apology - she just did it because Fox asked her to. Now, that's what makes her illiterate!

Watch Ms Hill apologize here:

Obama - Clinton(err Daniels) ticket

At some level a Obama-Clinton ticket sounds like a Wayne Palmer-Daniels ticket - fans of 24 season 6 would know exactly what I am saying here.

In the show Daniels was a white vice-president of a black US president.

Daniels came around as a vice-president who did not have respect for the president, was always looking over the president's shoulder and conspiring to take his job. And he even commits perjury to eventually get the job.

While 24 is obviously very dramatic, I could not but help avoid this comparison!

half ass immigration policies....

I am really tired of politicians, lawyers and business people trying to push open the H1B floodgates without understanding how the system is currently working and how badly it is being misused - primarily by Indian software companies.

The primary motivation behind H1B is that a company can get a foreign worker to work for them in the US, if they cannot find a suitable candidate locally. But that is not the way the system is being used today. 75% of H1B applications are by the American offices of Indian software companies, and not American corporations! So, is this really benefiting American businesses?

Companies that have outsourced to India find it equally hard staffing positions in India as it is in the US. In fact, the entire globe is suffering from a shortage of skilled workers due to a surge in demand from growing world economies. So, the company CEOs who complain about shortage of skilled workers here in the US also know that their Indian and Chinese operations or affiliates or partners are going through the same tough situation back there.

Frankly, in the global economy, where getting the job done right and on time matters more than who does it and where, I would hire a person wherever in the world they are, if they are suitable for the job.

But I am prevented from doing so as these bodyshops would have "choked" the system with a pool of bodies even before there was any real demand for their skills?

Here's what I mean - these bodyshops apply for a huge number (tens of thousands) of H1B visas in April, which are only granted in October, and consume the full quota of allowed H1B visas.

So, when a real company has a real position and is seeking a person with a specified skill, it's options are limited to only to the people that these outsourcing companies have gotten a visa for - instead of being able to search the global market and get the best candidate for the job.

What's the solution?
* Should the outsourcing companies be prevented from applying for these H1B visas?
* Should the cap be unlimited such that an American corporation can get the person it needs for the job without being held hostage by the outsourcing companies?

Some may argue that opening the floodgates will ensure that American businesses will no longer be dependent on these outsourcing companies and the net result will be less demand for the people they are holding onto with H1B visas - effectively normalizing the system.

I do not know what the right answer is, but we certainly need somebody with a full brain to help solve this problem at the top, not the current incumbents!

maybe it's all made up....

I fail to understand as to why it is a big issue to have a woman or a black man(or for that matter any other minority) run or be elected to the President's office. America is a great country and some of the biggest advances in science and technology have happened here, but it seems a lot of people's minds are still stuck in the dark ages when it comes to issue of somebody running the country.

You only have to visit some of the offices of Silicon Valley companies to understand that being a minority is an asset rather than a handicap to accomplishing a job.

Anyways, here are examples of some democratically elected countries where women and minorities have ruled in the past few years...

* Great Britain
* India
* Israel may get a woman Prime Minister soon
* Germany
* France
* Indonesia
* the list goes on an on...

Sometimes, though, after watching CNN and other news channels blabbering about the race/gender issues endlessly, it does seem that this issue may all be made up by the media to attract more viewers. And to the general population it may not matter at all!

Isn't it time to start focusing on what's relevant to the country - Jobs, Health care, Iraq, Education......

Full disclosure: I support Barack Obama.