OK, you made me snort. This is really quite funny.

I provided the hard to get set.

Look up the non H1-B yourself here:
http://www.glassdoor.com/

Won't someone PLEASE, THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?

Oh wait. I can spell. Miner != minor. There are no minors under pressure here.

Never mind.

Back to your regularly scheduled Bitcoin rants to benefit the Winklevi...

PS: The other benefit to the 6 month break is that contractors don't get reclassified as employees by the IRS.

Sources, which you could have found yourself by picking 3 of the numbers and "H1B" and putting them into Google:

http://www.myvisajobs.com/Repo...

The 25,000 that Microsoft laid off were largely *not* Americans, they were (mostly) Nokia people who had been involved in building the Nokia phones that were not selling, and were very low margin, and mostly desired only in the third world, as Nokia tanked enough that Microsoft could buy them (very cheaply, in fact).

Those numbers are from the U.S. Department of Labor, which obtained them from the IRS. And they are comparable, or higher than what an American worker would get for the same job.

I personally interviewed some of the Apple and Google H1-B's.

This is false. Here are average tarting salaries for H1-B workers for some companies:

Amazon: $109,440
Apple: $130,690
Google: $126,565
Microsoft: $113,408
Qualcomm: $105,169
Intel: $102,883
Oracle: $113,065
JP Morgan Chase: $105,751
NTT Data: $100,889
CVS RX Services: $120,435
Goldman Sachs: $107,429
BofA: $105,173
Citibank: $109,327
EMC: $103,245
Capgemini: $114,785
EBay: $119,224
Randstad: $103,303
Facebook: $123,142
Walmart: $113,238

Tell me again how they are underpaid?

Naw, all they have to do is hang around in Dunsinane till great Birnam wood remove to it... The UK kids tend to eat that stuff up.

A couple of moons to build bases and way-stations on for asteroid mining, and whose escape velocity is so close to nothing that a spring-loaded catapult would be enough to launch spacecraft without burning a lot of expensive reaction mass.

Too bad they don't just go ahead with the original DC-X plans; then they'd have a launch vehicle, an orbital transfer vehicle, a fuel tanker, and a lunar lander.

Oh, that's right; Boeing *ATE* McDonnell Douglas and cancelled it.

Well, they could have always finished off the National Aerospace Plane (the X-30), and separately developed a lander.

Oh, that's right, Boeing *ATE* Rockwell and cancelled it.
 
...I'm sensing a pattern here...

I don't think "good grades" means what he thinks it means.

If you've got actual good grades, this program is unnecessary, because you're already getting a scholarship. If you aren't already getting an academic scholarship, then your grades aren't actually "good", they are some amount less than that.

I didn't see in any of the articles covering this story exactly what the president believes constitute "good grades", but I'd wager they're at about the level that might get you the switch, out behind the woodshed, in a number of Southern red states, should you come home with them on your report card.

I'm not opposed to the idea, but I really see this as no different than "another two years of high school so you can put off working and making a decision about your future for another two years", unless there's going to be a requirement that they pursue an associates degree of some kind. An associates degree will largely transfer towards a bachelors degree - and will completely transfer, if it's the right one, and the local 4 year college has a matriculation agreement with the community college for that field of study. Four years of dinking around, however, will get you at best 6 moths to a year of your general studies requirements out of the way.

Technically, you can pretty much come out of high school with high scores on 4 or 5 AP tests, and then CLEP for 3-12 credits per $80 exam for one of 5 subject areas covered by 33 tests, and pretty much have an associates degree the day you enter college, if you are willing to test out locally of a small additional number of additional general subjects.

It think that in this case, he's probably referring to "C+ and above students".

Let NOAA do that; it's *their* job. It's *not* NASAs job.

Note that one of those articles I linked to had the NOAA administrator pissed off that NASA instruments were taking up space on his orbital platforms, and disrupting his people's ability to do their job, which, among other things, includes monitoring climate and climate change.

Please tell me that these include being faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!

Laptop day
See you there
Turbo boost
Turboing

Want to say
Why a game machine
But I'm just
Mumbling

With my freeze spray
I will stop the heat

With my freeze spray
I will install a CPU
A much too big CPU

Tell you how
Jam it in
Make it work
A laptop case

Like a fool
Kind of sick
Special needs
Anyways

With my freeze spray
I will stop the heat
It's not some heat paste or a big fan
That's all Ars Technica

I just think you need time to know
That I just want a gaming machine
I'm finally going to come clean
I'll say what I actually mean
Play games on a company machine

That's the plan
Halo 2
You and me
Any day

Why a game machine
("What?")
"No I . . I, uh . . . compiling's ... keen"
Anyway

With my freeze spray I will stop ?

Per the Snopes Article:

"The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the "9/11 Commission") investigated these rumors and found that although some unusual (and initially seemingly suspicious) trading activity did occur in the days prior to September 11, it was all coincidentally innocuous and not the result of insider trading by parties with foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks."

We aren't debating whether the puts occurred, we are merely debating the reason for the puts. See also:

http://www.sfgate.com/business...

Yes, I can document NASA's task change.

Under the auspices of the White House OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy), the NTSC (National Science and Technology Council) created CENRS (Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability) as a response to a presidential mandate in 1989 (in case you were wondering, this was under president George H.W. Bush).

The CENRS created as part of itself the SGCR (Subcommittee on Global Change Research), which is the steering committee for the USGCRP (U.S. Global Change Research Program), which consists of 13 organizations:

- Department of Health and Human Services
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Department of the Interior
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense (Acting)
- Smithsonian Institution
- Department of Agriculture
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration http://www.globalchange.gov/ab...
From their web site.

As part of this, as a result of a presidential budgetary mandate by President Obama that an additional $1.8B (for a total of $2.4B) be earmarked for the Earth Observation Satellites (effectively canceling the asteroid capture mission - this i a redirection of existing budget, not an increase of funds):

http://www.nasa.gov/about/obam...
Obama's April 15th 2010 speech at Kennedy:

"We will increase Earth-based observation to improve our understanding of our climate and our world -- science that will garner tangible benefits, helping us to protect our environment for future generations."

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...

"NASA’s about to lend a heavier hand in the fight against climate change. The news that President Obama would be rearranging NASA’s budget to focus more on what can be done to stop global warming was met with some opposition, but we’re elated that he’s bringing some of that cash down to Earth."

See also:

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...
http://spectator.org/blog/5978...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-...
http://inhabitat.com/new-nasa-...

Meanwhile, actual NASA budgets have remained flat, so these monies have come from actual space and aeronautics programs, rather than new budget:

http://www.behindmyback.org/20...
"NASA’s investment in the 13-AGENCY CCSP is 58% of the total amount of the President’s 2009 Budget Request for CCSP."
= most of the money is coming from NASA.

See also this report, which indicates that 37% of the 2014 NASA budget went to the Earth science program, supporting climate change research - and NOT space or aeronautics research:
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/m...

But you know... feel free to argue with the congressional record, newspapers, NASA itself, and President Obama's speech at Kennedy.