Monday, November 15, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Dead Goldfish, Dead Planet - A Warning ?
This morning I discovered the remaining goldfish in the aquarium lifeless, eyes bulging, lying on the bottom of the tank. Inspection discovered that the filter had become clogged with toxic waste - but it was too late for Mr. Goldfish. The toxins had killed him (His identical roommate fared better. A couple weeks ago he was sent to a pond for being too fat for the tank -- where he is now either swimming freely or has become protein for a cat or raccoon in the food chain).
But the Aquarium Goldfish story could be our story - that 6 billion humans discover too late that we have fouled our own planetary tank with billions in fossil fuel emissions and brought life as we know it to an end. Scientists have discovered that the water temperature under the arctic ice is 40 degrees - way above freezing! This speeds up the ice melt even faster.
By the time we realize that our own greenhouse gas emissions have passed 'fail safe' on the path towards killing us by overheating the planet into a Venus-type hothouse atmosphere, it will be too late to fix it. At that time it will be too late for your grandkids to do anything about it. Their future is in our hands.
Denials that millions of our global industries which are pumping billions of tons of emissions into the atmosphere are not having an effect compared to 800,000 years of a few cavemen sitting around a campfire is not logical, or smart on our part.
The world the goldfish lived in wasn't the entire planet. So if we get it wrong and fail to address imbalances in our world's carbon system, there is no suburb we can move to to escape the inevitable. I've heard that the moon Titan has potential as a second home for humans, but it would be smarter to fix our own planet first -- before we kill our grandchildrens' future. The oceans are already predicted to rise several feet this century. Even our military has warned about the disaster of human induced climate change.
If I'm wrong, we end up with Green energy jobs and cleaner air and water. If the skeptics are wrong, we end up with a Venus climate for Earth, a dead world where neither people nor goldfish can survive.
Which is worse?
And consider this. Scientists think that there is another "Goldilocks Planet" like EARTH in our solar system. The Bad News: With our current space technology, it would take 380,000 years to reach it! Ummm, so if we mess up this one, it's a LONG way to the next Earth folks...
But the Aquarium Goldfish story could be our story - that 6 billion humans discover too late that we have fouled our own planetary tank with billions in fossil fuel emissions and brought life as we know it to an end. Scientists have discovered that the water temperature under the arctic ice is 40 degrees - way above freezing! This speeds up the ice melt even faster.
By the time we realize that our own greenhouse gas emissions have passed 'fail safe' on the path towards killing us by overheating the planet into a Venus-type hothouse atmosphere, it will be too late to fix it. At that time it will be too late for your grandkids to do anything about it. Their future is in our hands.
Denials that millions of our global industries which are pumping billions of tons of emissions into the atmosphere are not having an effect compared to 800,000 years of a few cavemen sitting around a campfire is not logical, or smart on our part.
The world the goldfish lived in wasn't the entire planet. So if we get it wrong and fail to address imbalances in our world's carbon system, there is no suburb we can move to to escape the inevitable. I've heard that the moon Titan has potential as a second home for humans, but it would be smarter to fix our own planet first -- before we kill our grandchildrens' future. The oceans are already predicted to rise several feet this century. Even our military has warned about the disaster of human induced climate change.
If I'm wrong, we end up with Green energy jobs and cleaner air and water. If the skeptics are wrong, we end up with a Venus climate for Earth, a dead world where neither people nor goldfish can survive.
Which is worse?
And consider this. Scientists think that there is another "Goldilocks Planet" like EARTH in our solar system. The Bad News: With our current space technology, it would take 380,000 years to reach it! Ummm, so if we mess up this one, it's a LONG way to the next Earth folks...
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Our Immigration Problem is Simple: Lack of a System
Our Immigration Problem is Simple: We Lack an Immigration System.
We have set it up so that human smuggling has been big business because we push people to go "around the gate" instead of "through the gate" to enter the U.S.
The talk about not having a secure border is nonsense. We have built a Berlin Wall along our border. Its forced people to cross in the desert and given the drug gangs a whole new business - people smuggling.
When people say "get control of the border" I have to say that we have control of our border. The real problem is we have a non-functioning system for immigration --which is like trying to run a jet on 5 gallons of gas.
Our system only allows 5,000 unskilled laborers a year to come into the U.S. to do millions of jobs Americans won't do, like work in meat plants and pick lettuce or housekeep for Meg Whitman. You REALLY want to be a meat packer? Your kids? Get real.
Then on the high skill end we shot ourselves in the foot limit the number of those even when Americans don't have those skills, so our companies that need those skills ot stay on top of a global economy lose out. Of course, they SHOULD have those skills but don't because everyone wants to be a lawyer or hedge fund manager and not a tech geek. We should be retraining people to have those skills but we aren't even doing that.
So we end up with people jumping the fence for the low skills and keeping out the high skill people we need to stay on top of the global economic technology race - in other words we have a stupid system; and a dysfunctional one. So we are screwing ourselves twice over.
If we revised our system to let in those we need and have them identified with a card, biometrics, and background check we end up with a better system instead of the present chaos.
Actually the fall off of over 1 million illegals in the U.S. in the last two years has been largely because of the lousy economy -they aren't here for welfare, they want WORK. So some of them are now going to Europe instead --for jobs. They certainly don't want to sit around with nothing to do - they can do that back home.
To find out more about how we can fix our system, tune in to today's Global American radio program on Illegal Immigration, where we talk about how it is and how we can fix it. On Business 1110 AM, streamed on www.Business1110KTEK.com and available 24/7 under "favorite programs" at www.GlobalAmerican.org
We have set it up so that human smuggling has been big business because we push people to go "around the gate" instead of "through the gate" to enter the U.S.
The talk about not having a secure border is nonsense. We have built a Berlin Wall along our border. Its forced people to cross in the desert and given the drug gangs a whole new business - people smuggling.
When people say "get control of the border" I have to say that we have control of our border. The real problem is we have a non-functioning system for immigration --which is like trying to run a jet on 5 gallons of gas.
Our system only allows 5,000 unskilled laborers a year to come into the U.S. to do millions of jobs Americans won't do, like work in meat plants and pick lettuce or housekeep for Meg Whitman. You REALLY want to be a meat packer? Your kids? Get real.
Then on the high skill end we shot ourselves in the foot limit the number of those even when Americans don't have those skills, so our companies that need those skills ot stay on top of a global economy lose out. Of course, they SHOULD have those skills but don't because everyone wants to be a lawyer or hedge fund manager and not a tech geek. We should be retraining people to have those skills but we aren't even doing that.
So we end up with people jumping the fence for the low skills and keeping out the high skill people we need to stay on top of the global economic technology race - in other words we have a stupid system; and a dysfunctional one. So we are screwing ourselves twice over.
If we revised our system to let in those we need and have them identified with a card, biometrics, and background check we end up with a better system instead of the present chaos.
Actually the fall off of over 1 million illegals in the U.S. in the last two years has been largely because of the lousy economy -they aren't here for welfare, they want WORK. So some of them are now going to Europe instead --for jobs. They certainly don't want to sit around with nothing to do - they can do that back home.
To find out more about how we can fix our system, tune in to today's Global American radio program on Illegal Immigration, where we talk about how it is and how we can fix it. On Business 1110 AM, streamed on www.Business1110KTEK.com and available 24/7 under "favorite programs" at www.GlobalAmerican.org
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Did you Know: Illegal Immigration is DOWN by 1 Million since 2008!?
Did you Know: Illegal Immigration is DOWN by 1 Million since 2008!?
Facts & Myths
Global American Series
12 Nov. 2010
Did you know that Illegal immigration is actually DOWN by 1 million in the last
two years?
Did you know that the Obama administration is deporting more people than were
deported during the Bush administration? (True!)
Are there really hordes of illegal border crossers swooping out of Mexico -- or
fact-less fear mongering? (I just returned from a trip to the Mexico border and
saw it up close and personal).
Did you know that after giving foreign students Ph.D's, we show them the exit
door – so they can make the next great invention for companies in China or India
instead of giving them a Green Card to stay in America to pay taxes and help
U.S. companies compete on the cutting edge in the global market?
Did you know we have a shortage of highly skilled people that can't fill $80,000
jobs in American companies–and only allow in 5,000 unskilled workers to do farm
work and meat packing most Americans won't?
What is the real solution to the immigration issue –our present non-system -- or
something better? If something better, what should it look like?
This Saturday on Global American Radio we give Americans some real FACTS and
TRUTH about illegal immigration – what is happening and potential solutions. My
guest is 30-plus year Houston immigration attorney , Charles Foster, who has
served as policy advisor for both Presidents Bush and Obama and currently leads
the Greater Houston Partnership Task Force on Immigration Reform, a nationwide
effort to make our non-working immigration system to work for business, families
and our economy. Charles once helped a Chinese ballet dancer defect to stay in
America back in the early 80's (Li Cunxin, a Chinese national, was forcibly
detained inside the Chinese Consulate in Houston after informing Chinese
authorities that he intended to remain in the United States—Charles got him out
and got him his freedom).
Did you know that our present focus is on deporting criminals and repeat
lawbreakers?
You don't know any of this if you have been listening to the other radio guys
who are either (1) not giving Americans the truth about our border situation
either because they don't know any better or (2) they are being dishonest for a
political purposes that includes not giving Americans the truth about the
current situation. Why can't they give you the true facts instead of making them
up? (Remember, Limbaugh claiming the President's trip cost $200 million/day plus
1/3 of our navy – even the military laughed at that figure because it was so
bizarre).
Global American radio trusts Americans will make the right decisions if given
Truth and Honest Facts instead of false, phony ones. A country whose people
decide issues based on false facts run the same risk as an aircraft or ship with
a faulty compass that takes it off course where it can run aground, or worse.
Check out "Illegal Immigration and America's Future" on Global American Radio,
Saturday Nov. 13 at 9 am Central time on Business 1110 AM, streamed on
www.Business1110KTEK.com and then available 24/7 on www.GlobalAmerican.org
(Click on Favorite Programs, then the program name).
Next week we meet a man who was just in North Korea and Iran -- and lived to
tell about it. (Did he really have to do THAT in front of Kim's statue!?)
Michael Fjetland
Global American Series
Opt-out/In
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GlobalAmerican/
Global American Radio: www.GlobalAmerican.org
Facts & Myths
Global American Series
12 Nov. 2010
Did you know that Illegal immigration is actually DOWN by 1 million in the last
two years?
Did you know that the Obama administration is deporting more people than were
deported during the Bush administration? (True!)
Are there really hordes of illegal border crossers swooping out of Mexico -- or
fact-less fear mongering? (I just returned from a trip to the Mexico border and
saw it up close and personal).
Did you know that after giving foreign students Ph.D's, we show them the exit
door – so they can make the next great invention for companies in China or India
instead of giving them a Green Card to stay in America to pay taxes and help
U.S. companies compete on the cutting edge in the global market?
Did you know we have a shortage of highly skilled people that can't fill $80,000
jobs in American companies–and only allow in 5,000 unskilled workers to do farm
work and meat packing most Americans won't?
What is the real solution to the immigration issue –our present non-system -- or
something better? If something better, what should it look like?
This Saturday on Global American Radio we give Americans some real FACTS and
TRUTH about illegal immigration – what is happening and potential solutions. My
guest is 30-plus year Houston immigration attorney , Charles Foster, who has
served as policy advisor for both Presidents Bush and Obama and currently leads
the Greater Houston Partnership Task Force on Immigration Reform, a nationwide
effort to make our non-working immigration system to work for business, families
and our economy. Charles once helped a Chinese ballet dancer defect to stay in
America back in the early 80's (Li Cunxin, a Chinese national, was forcibly
detained inside the Chinese Consulate in Houston after informing Chinese
authorities that he intended to remain in the United States—Charles got him out
and got him his freedom).
Did you know that our present focus is on deporting criminals and repeat
lawbreakers?
You don't know any of this if you have been listening to the other radio guys
who are either (1) not giving Americans the truth about our border situation
either because they don't know any better or (2) they are being dishonest for a
political purposes that includes not giving Americans the truth about the
current situation. Why can't they give you the true facts instead of making them
up? (Remember, Limbaugh claiming the President's trip cost $200 million/day plus
1/3 of our navy – even the military laughed at that figure because it was so
bizarre).
Global American radio trusts Americans will make the right decisions if given
Truth and Honest Facts instead of false, phony ones. A country whose people
decide issues based on false facts run the same risk as an aircraft or ship with
a faulty compass that takes it off course where it can run aground, or worse.
Check out "Illegal Immigration and America's Future" on Global American Radio,
Saturday Nov. 13 at 9 am Central time on Business 1110 AM, streamed on
www.Business1110KTEK.com and then available 24/7 on www.GlobalAmerican.org
(Click on Favorite Programs, then the program name).
Next week we meet a man who was just in North Korea and Iran -- and lived to
tell about it. (Did he really have to do THAT in front of Kim's statue!?)
Michael Fjetland
Global American Series
Opt-out/In
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GlobalAmerican/
Global American Radio: www.GlobalAmerican.org
Monday, November 8, 2010
Heading to McAllen, Just Across the Border from 1930's Chicago
Growth is GREEN JObs folks. My green company keeps growing - got to go to McAllen today for a job, just across from where drug gangs closed the international bridge at one point last week.
While illegal immigration has dropped dramatically under the Obama administration, our drug policy the last 40 years has failed...even after 8 years of Bush admin control over border issues, it has become more dangerous...
Only a change in strategy has the potential of turning this situation around. There are no jobs for young people in Mexico, other than being a police officer (and those are risky) or a drug mule for a gang.
And they are getting their heavy weapons from AMERICAN GUN DEALERS. If I hear gunfire from across the border, it will be American weapons killing innocent civilians and police...and I bet they sleep very well knowing that.
While illegal immigration has dropped dramatically under the Obama administration, our drug policy the last 40 years has failed...even after 8 years of Bush admin control over border issues, it has become more dangerous...
Only a change in strategy has the potential of turning this situation around. There are no jobs for young people in Mexico, other than being a police officer (and those are risky) or a drug mule for a gang.
And they are getting their heavy weapons from AMERICAN GUN DEALERS. If I hear gunfire from across the border, it will be American weapons killing innocent civilians and police...and I bet they sleep very well knowing that.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
India and American Jobs - How to get back to No. 1
When I was a young Fortune 500 attorney-negotiator, I was sent to India - and stayed at the same Taj Mahal hotel the President is on this trip. But it was before terrorists stormed the hotel and killed over 160 people. When I went India was still a stagnant economy, but no more.
India is the largest democracy in the world, and once it unleashed its private sector and free market system in the 90's it has become a global powerhouse along with China. It was not like that in the 1970's when I first arrived - but the stark constant between wealth and poverty was. There weren't billion dollar skyscrapers for six people next to slums when I was there in the 80's.
The President's trip will yield 50,000 American jobs. Our ties with them are vital for our future.
India and China are leading the U.S. because they have so many students interested in-- and graduating from -- engineering and science programs. That is why America has a competitive problem - we can't even fill aircraft machinist jobs that pay $80,000 because the plants can't find people with the skills to do the job.
Any politician who has not been to India and China is clueless, and unqualified to make decisions about American policy, since our future depends on knowledge of our global competitors, not ignorance. As a business negotiator you see it from the ground level -- the REAL world you don't see as a Congressman, Senator or President.
India and China are the two key countries in our future. Every member of Congress should have already been there - yet many do not even have a Passport! How to we lead a world our own Congress reps are ignorant about?
In Saturday's Global American radio, I talked about where the U.S. ranks in the world in education etc (sorry, we are not No. 1 or even close), and WHAT we have to do to become No. 1 again. Look for it under "favorite programs" under "The Gathering Storm"...at www.GlobalAmerican.org
If you want America back in the game, pass this to a friend.
India is the largest democracy in the world, and once it unleashed its private sector and free market system in the 90's it has become a global powerhouse along with China. It was not like that in the 1970's when I first arrived - but the stark constant between wealth and poverty was. There weren't billion dollar skyscrapers for six people next to slums when I was there in the 80's.
The President's trip will yield 50,000 American jobs. Our ties with them are vital for our future.
India and China are leading the U.S. because they have so many students interested in-- and graduating from -- engineering and science programs. That is why America has a competitive problem - we can't even fill aircraft machinist jobs that pay $80,000 because the plants can't find people with the skills to do the job.
Any politician who has not been to India and China is clueless, and unqualified to make decisions about American policy, since our future depends on knowledge of our global competitors, not ignorance. As a business negotiator you see it from the ground level -- the REAL world you don't see as a Congressman, Senator or President.
India and China are the two key countries in our future. Every member of Congress should have already been there - yet many do not even have a Passport! How to we lead a world our own Congress reps are ignorant about?
In Saturday's Global American radio, I talked about where the U.S. ranks in the world in education etc (sorry, we are not No. 1 or even close), and WHAT we have to do to become No. 1 again. Look for it under "favorite programs" under "The Gathering Storm"...at www.GlobalAmerican.org
If you want America back in the game, pass this to a friend.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Gathering Storm: CATEGORY 5 Global Threat to America’s Success
The Gathering Storm: CATEGORY 5 Global Threat to America’s Success
Most Americans assume that we are No. 1 where it counts, but according to a study made during the Bush administration in 2005 and recently updated in 2010, the U.S. ranks No. 11 in the number of people with a high school degree, 16th in college completion, 24th in life expectancy, 48th in quality of K-12 math and science education, and 27th in the number of college students holding science and engineering degrees. Shocked?
We face a GLOBAL threat that cannot be addressed by Washington DC focusing solely on inter-party rivalry instead of an American national strategy.
Have you heard about the 2005 study, recently updated in 2010, called “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing America for a Brighter Economic Future”? If you read it you will find the above rankings and realize that no politician, from either party, has leveled with the American people on our nation’s true status in the world –from education to technology—and what we need to do to fix it.
How do we get back to No. 1? This Saturday, on Global American Radio, we look at how America’s success is threatened by a rapidly approaching Category 5 of global competition that we are not prepared for – and some of the real world SOLUTIONS that you aren’t hearing from the politicians.
And there is a significant danger that the politicians will cut the one thing needed to put us back into the game. The last thing we need to do is eat our seed corn! You don’t lighten an aircraft by removing an engine. Deficit cutting in the wrong area will spell doom for America, which went from the world’s No. 1 creditor nation in 2000 to the No. 1 debtor nation today. We have to make some important changes that go beyond the usual “tax and spend” debates swirling about.
Find out details of this global Tsunami heading our way and how we fix it on Global American radio, Saturday at 9 am Central time, on Houston Business 1110 AM, which is streamed on www.Business1110KTEK.com and archived 24/7 at www.GlobalAmerican.org
Global American Radio puts American interests ahead of any party or ideology. I believe it is best to tell Americans the facts and the truth, so they can make up their minds with honest information instead of the smoke and mirrors agenda of either party.
Most Americans assume that we are No. 1 where it counts, but according to a study made during the Bush administration in 2005 and recently updated in 2010, the U.S. ranks No. 11 in the number of people with a high school degree, 16th in college completion, 24th in life expectancy, 48th in quality of K-12 math and science education, and 27th in the number of college students holding science and engineering degrees. Shocked?
We face a GLOBAL threat that cannot be addressed by Washington DC focusing solely on inter-party rivalry instead of an American national strategy.
Have you heard about the 2005 study, recently updated in 2010, called “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing America for a Brighter Economic Future”? If you read it you will find the above rankings and realize that no politician, from either party, has leveled with the American people on our nation’s true status in the world –from education to technology—and what we need to do to fix it.
How do we get back to No. 1? This Saturday, on Global American Radio, we look at how America’s success is threatened by a rapidly approaching Category 5 of global competition that we are not prepared for – and some of the real world SOLUTIONS that you aren’t hearing from the politicians.
And there is a significant danger that the politicians will cut the one thing needed to put us back into the game. The last thing we need to do is eat our seed corn! You don’t lighten an aircraft by removing an engine. Deficit cutting in the wrong area will spell doom for America, which went from the world’s No. 1 creditor nation in 2000 to the No. 1 debtor nation today. We have to make some important changes that go beyond the usual “tax and spend” debates swirling about.
Find out details of this global Tsunami heading our way and how we fix it on Global American radio, Saturday at 9 am Central time, on Houston Business 1110 AM, which is streamed on www.Business1110KTEK.com and archived 24/7 at www.GlobalAmerican.org
Global American Radio puts American interests ahead of any party or ideology. I believe it is best to tell Americans the facts and the truth, so they can make up their minds with honest information instead of the smoke and mirrors agenda of either party.
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