1. - Anonymous - Monday, Mar 31, 08 @ 9:40 am:

   The headline ‘Rezko laywers ask judge to bar call’ sounds as if the lawyers asked the judge to go to a tavern and join them in hoisting a few…




2. - Ghost - Monday, Mar 31, 08 @ 10:03 am:

   Instead of spending money during a fiscal crisis on a hate crimes panel, lets abolish the whole thing, recover the salaries, expense accounts, rent, overhead etc.

   Its a small amount, but these are the types of cuts we should have made last year. This thing does need staffing, it needs laid to rest.




3. - Napoleon has left the building - Monday, Mar 31, 08 @ 10:07 am:

   As if Wyvetter Younge’s life isn’t hard enough, she gets robbed at gunpoint for $7 and then prays for the man who did it. She’s a remarkably strong person.




4. - Rob_N - Monday, Mar 31, 08 @ 11:27 am:

   Completely OT –

   Kevin, you did a great job while Rich was out!

   Rich, give that man a raise! ;)




5. - Kevin Fanning - Monday, Mar 31, 08 @ 11:28 am:

   haha thanks. I second that.




6. - Annon - Monday, Mar 31, 08 @ 10:45 pm:

   Kevin did do a great job! Thanks, Kevin!

   Regarding the “Engineering” thing: I don’t get it. I worked for a healthcare company that recruited engineers. I get that.

   However, I don’t get companies that are VERY far removed from Engineering going out and recruiting our Engineering students because they’re “the best of the best” for roles outside of Engineering.

   Everyone’s obviously entitled to take on any career they want, but when e.g., Econ and Finance students are considered secondary and get passed up for a job in a pure business role over a Mechanical Engineer who signs up to perform business analyses and develop processes, there seems to be some sort of a disconnect there.

   Again, it’s not where your in-depth knowledge based on studies and experience are; it’s who went to the “best” school and completed the “toughest” course of studies who qualifies for any job in any field.

   Therefore, any great Engineering school can tout how many “Engineers” they manage to graduate, but if the majority of the those trained as Engineers are looking for and finding jobs completely out of their field, something’s going wrong with their perception of the field for which they were originally studying to drive them so far away from it.




7. - Annon - Monday, Mar 31, 08 @ 10:50 pm:

   …and/or there’s something generally wrong with our recruitment and hiring practices.




8. - Craziness at UIUC - Tuesday, Apr 1, 08 @ 7:39 am:

   As a MBA student at U of Illinois and a lifelong state resident, I personally can’t believe how many international students are in my graduate program. Here’s the best part - when asked how much $ is being spent on recruiting prospective students MBA administrators told that 100% is spent on admissions officer trips to (ad recruiting in) Seoul, Delhi, Beijing, Taipei, and Tokyo, etc. with the remaining ($0) being spent to recruit students in Illinois and the rest of the US. These figures are ridiculous. I can’t believe that state taxpayer dollars are being spent to exclusively recruit people who will never return value to the Illinois economy (international students find it extremely difficult to get visa sponsorship from US corporations). This translates into next fall’s incoming class of MBA’s being 70% international. In fact, Indian students are going to outnumber all US students. Someone needs to take a serious look at some of the insanity going on down here…..is this taxpayer fraud?




9. - Annon - Tuesday, Apr 1, 08 @ 8:51 pm:

   Interesting. Other countries are shamelessly practicing protectionsim and have developed solid government-sponsored strategies and programs to take our jobs away. Not only are they employing their older population that way (how can one discriminate against an 85 year old grandmother who just completed “job retraining in IT after sitting at home for a few decades” when you can’t even see her let alone touch her employment records?), but they’re also positioning their younger workforce to do more damage. All the way down to a simple practice of purposefully reducing their workforce availability so that they’re youngsters can work “full time” (and pull full-time salaries) while they’re studying to continue their education WHILE employing an additional body (or two) for each student to pick up the slack–and we’re gladly paying for it.

   They’re demoralizing our workforce by conning (or charming) our middle management teams to expect poor performance from them, while expecting us to be peak performers while having to take on a double workload–or we’ll get RIF’d (just like the last bunch). All that requires for our mid-management to “give it all away” is a “free” trip to their country where they’re wined and dined like CEOS. In the meantime, our email systems are being flooded with .pdfs of Harvard Biz Review articles from our “team members overseas” stating that we work too hard and are therefore burnt out and ineffective (simply becauase they’re “concerned” about us, of course). Their healthcare is paid for, and all of them are budgeted to visit the US for a few months to learn about “our culture” and of course, our businesses.

   Their costs of education are nothing compared to ours. Their government researches the next “booming” industry and profession and then pull their kids into their universities–and keep them focused in their fields while they negotiate for the jobs they want through subsidies. They develop bogus methodologies that they call “frameworks”, which are updated every two months with additional piles of paper that make no sense, and develop websites to accept “edits” from us that improve what they use to learn about our methodologies and operations so that they can have the full competitive advantage. If we refuse, we’re labeled as “not being team players”. If we ask to see our Systems manuals back which are the backbone of our core businesses (that they supposedly spent tens of thousands of dollars improving), they conveniently lose them or politely refuse–and we never see them again here in the US. However, that’s OK and not even considered in our disaster recovery or business continuity plans. (Guess who has the leg-up on later re-negotiations for lower wages when the subsidies disappear under those circumstances?)

   Now we’re recruiting their youngsters to pursue degrees in our schools so that they can use our laws as a convenient excuse to take their knowledge back home to compete against us (while Suzie and Joey go to work in the booming US “service industry” because they couldn’t go to college). In the Engineering School, where kids from overseas “live and breathe math and science”, our kids are probably intimidated to the point where they can’t wait to pursue a job OUT of their field because of their perception of how fierce the competition really is.

   I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: wars are no longer restricted to the battlefield and we’re getting hit from all sides. And, if you listen to some in this country, you’d think that we deserve it because “we have so much” and therefore need to share.

   The flames have already started, most don’t realize (or care) that the fire has been lit, and won’t until it’s too late.




10. - Annon - Tuesday, Apr 1, 08 @ 8:58 pm:

    One of my associates (a wonderful woman from the former Soviet Union who has become a US Citizen as soon as she was able and is raising a beautiful family here) said it best:

    If we refuse to fight for our jobs and lifestyle, what do we think is going to happen to the way we live?




11. - Annon - Tuesday, Apr 1, 08 @ 9:05 pm:

    Oh, and don’t forget that “our” banks are hiring “customer service” people overseas to “service us” because they can’t find “qualified people” in the US. So, guess who has the details of the financial aspect of our lives now, too.




12. - Annon - Tuesday, Apr 1, 08 @ 9:12 pm:

    One should also remember that Engineers are the backbone of not only healthcare, but Aerospace & Defense, too.

    Thanks heavens that we still have a crop of MBAs, Econ majors, and Poli Sci folks who will probably get “squeezed” into the public sector where we’re going to need them.

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