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Friday, December 2, 2011

Chinese workers building American bridges

China Builds World's Longest Bridge - Over 26 Miles Long


Dear John,




It is hard for Americans to build bridges when The Republican Party is busy burning them.

Clearly, Obama wants federally funded construction jobs to go to Americans.

If unemployment dips to 8% next November, he’s a shoe-in.

I'm also sure state officials want to employ American workers.

However – as the California honcho points out (in different words) – the nation’s foremost technical skill is operating “the remote.”
Tell me.



Do you – or any family-members/friend – know a crackerjack welder younger than 50?

Didn’t think so... (I know one welder who’s 50 and another who’s 60.)

Back when I worked for Orange County Schools, I argued (as my sister Janet long did) that Public Instruction suffers from the delusion that it is possible -- and desirable -- to create a society with “all chiefs and no Indians.”

Which is to say, all "white collar," no "blue."

Europeans do not suffer this crazy ideation.

Instead, they have crafted educational systems that produce plenty of high-quality technicians.

Are you aware of the widespread observation that Finland has the best educational system in the world?





Pax vobiscum

Alan

PS Your conservative friends will argue that Finland has a population of only 5 million. Remind The Nopesters that just three years ago they were wet-dream hot to pump Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential bid because she “had the experience” of “actually governing” an “entire state”... unlike “The Community Organizer.” Never mind that the population of Alaska was 675,000 whereas the population of Illinois was nearly 13 million, and the population of Chicago, around 2.7 million.
PPS Did you see the time-lapse video of a Chinese skyscraper being built -- start to finish -- in just 6 days? Wow. http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/01/45-more-buildings-to-follow-15-story.html

From: John Tarantino
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 4:41 PM
To: Alan Archibald
Subject: Fw: Check out U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms.
----- Original Message -----
From:
To: @NONE>
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 3:16 PM
Subject: Fw: Check out U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms.



------Original Message-------
Subject: Fwd: Check out U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms.
Subject: Fwd: Check out U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms.


This will frost you.


A 3 minute ABC national news report.

Check out U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms Some of these are shovel ready, but it is the Chinese who are manning the shovels.

How embarrassing and outrageous is this?

***



Political and Economic Reading List:

1.) “The American Dream” by foul-mouthed (but brilliant) George Carlin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q 

2.) Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, "Of the 1%, by the 1%, and for the 1%" -http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105 

3.) "Our Banana Republic" by Nicholas Kristof - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html 

4.) "A Hedge Fund Republic" by Nicholas Kristof - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/opinion/18kristof.html 

5.) "How to End the Great Recession" by Robert Reich -http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03reich.html 

6.) “A Dogma to Wreck the Country” by Thatcherite conservative, Niall Ferguson - http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/24/gop-antitax-dogma-endangers-the-country.html


8.) Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director David Stockman on America's inconceivable wealth inequality -http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009217n

9.) “War is a Racket,” by Smedley Butler - http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm

10.) Benjamin Franklin “on Property and Taxes” - http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html


"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  ”Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander” -  http://alanarchibald.homestead.com/ThomasMerton.html 




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