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Can you just imagine the absolute horror of transparency with elected officials having to disclose their donations to keep special interests out of the political process? Egads man! That’s just un-American. Or so says Fox News. Amending the Constitution is just not done – except for all the times it was — except for all the times Republicans want/wanted to amend the Constitution — a few examples; to repeal the 17th Amendment, Repealing the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint and Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra have introduced a “Parental Rights Amendment” designed to stem the gathering threat of the government raising children and they’ve considered just rewriting the gosh darned Constitution to rid America of Roe vs. Wade.

Here’s my favorite:

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is sponsoring an amendment that would restrict the president’s power to negotiate treaties. She’s apparently worried that the president will try to replace the U.S. dollar with a foreign currency. Seriously.

But, now they’re horrified.


After taking the high road by insulting Nancy Pelosi’s dress, the host and guests delved into the sheer audacity of Pelosi for calling out Republicans after refusing to hold a hearing on the DISCLOSE Act, the campaign finance reform bill.

Balderdash! We can’t fix this broken system, so let’s fuck it up more – right Fox? That would just leave ‘we the people’ to actually vote.

The Occupy Amendment introduced by Rep. Ted Deutch and Senator Bernie Sanders is on the table. One of the motivating forces behind the influx of supporters, was the Occupy movement which raged against money being funneled into politics, thus negating their voice and vote. If the Amendment passes, the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision could be overturned.

Big thanks to Media Matters.


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Tagged with Amend, Citizens United, fox news, Move to Amend.

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By Anomaly – April 21, 2012

WASHINGTON - The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor's degrees.

Opportunities for college graduates vary widely.

While there's strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor's degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.

Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor's degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.

"I don't even know what I'm looking for," says Michael Bledsoe, who described months of fruitless job searches as he served customers at a Seattle coffeehouse. The 23-year-old graduated in 2010 with a creative writing degree.

Initially hopeful that his college education would create opportunities, Bledsoe languished for three months before finally taking a job as a barista, a position he has held for the last two years. In the beginning he sent three or four resumes day. But, Bledsoe said, employers questioned his lack of experience or the practical worth of his major. Now he sends a resume once every two weeks or so.

Bledsoe, currently making just above minimum wage, says he got financial help from his parents to help pay off student loans. He is now mulling whether to go to graduate school, seeing few other options to advance his career. "There is not much out there, it seems," he said.

His situation highlights a widening but little-discussed labor problem. Perhaps more than ever, the choices that young adults make earlier in life — level of schooling, academic field and training, where to attend college, how to pay for it — are having long-lasting financial impact.

"You can make more money on average if you go to college, but it's not true for everybody," says Harvard economist Richard Freeman, noting the growing risk of a debt bubble with total U.S. student loan debt surpassing $1 trillion. "If you're not sure what you're going to be doing, it probably bodes well to take some job, if you can get one, and get a sense first of what you want from college."

Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University who analyzed the numbers, said many people with a bachelor's degree face a double whammy of rising tuition and poor job outcomes. "Simply put, we're failing kids coming out of college," he said, emphasizing that when it comes to jobs, a college major can make all the difference. "We're going to need a lot better job growth and connections to the labor market, otherwise college debt will grow."

By region, the Mountain West was most likely to have young college graduates jobless or underemployed — roughly 3 in 5. It was followed by the more rural southeastern U.S., including Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. The Pacific region, including Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, also was high on the list.

On the other end of the scale, the southern U.S., anchored by Texas, was most likely to have young college graduates in higher-skill jobs.

The figures are based on an analysis of 2011 Current Population Survey data by Northeastern University researchers and supplemented with material from Paul Harrington, an economist at Drexel University, and the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. They rely on Labor Department assessments of the level of education required to do the job in 900-plus U.S. occupations, which were used to calculate the shares of young adults with bachelor's degrees who were "underemployed."

About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor's degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years. In 2000, the share was at a low of 41 percent, before the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields.

Out of the 1.5 million who languished in the job market, about half were underemployed, an increase from the previous year.

Broken down by occupation, young college graduates were heavily represented in jobs that require a high school diploma or less.

In the last year, they were more likely to be employed as waiters, waitresses, bartenders and food-service helpers than as engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians combined (100,000 versus 90,000). There were more working in office-related jobs such as receptionist or payroll clerk than in all computer professional jobs (163,000 versus 100,000). More also were employed as cashiers, retail clerks and customer representatives than engineers (125,000 versus 80,000).

According to government projections released last month, only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of job openings by 2020 will require a bachelor's degree or higher to fill the position — teachers, college professors and accountants. Most job openings are in professions such as retail sales, fast food and truck driving, jobs which aren't easily replaced by computers.

College graduates who majored in zoology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and humanities were among the least likely to find jobs appropriate to their education level; those with nursing, teaching, accounting or computer science degrees were among the most likely.

In Nevada, where unemployment is the highest in the nation, Class of 2012 college seniors recently expressed feelings ranging from anxiety and fear to cautious optimism about what lies ahead.

With the state's economy languishing in an extended housing bust, a lot of young graduates have shown up at job placement centers in tears. Many have been squeezed out of jobs by more experienced workers, job counselors said, and are now having to explain to prospective employers the time gaps in their resumes.

"It's kind of scary," said Cameron Bawden, 22, who is graduating from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in December with a business degree. His family has warned him for years about the job market, so he has been building his resume by working part time on the Las Vegas Strip as a food runner and doing a marketing internship with a local airline.

Bawden said his friends who have graduated are either unemployed or working along the Vegas Strip in service jobs that don't require degrees. "There are so few jobs and it's a small city," he said. "It's all about who you know."

Any job gains are going mostly to workers at the top and bottom of the wage scale, at the expense of middle-income jobs commonly held by bachelor's degree holders. By some studies, up to 95 percent of positions lost during the economic recovery occurred in middle-income occupations such as bank tellers, the type of job not expected to return in a more high-tech age.

David Neumark, an economist at the University of California-Irvine, said a bachelor's degree can have benefits that aren't fully reflected in the government's labor data. He said even for lower-skilled jobs such as waitress or cashier, employers tend to value bachelor's degree-holders more highly than high-school graduates, paying them more for the same work and offering promotions.

In addition, U.S. workers increasingly may need to consider their position in a global economy, where they must compete with educated foreign-born residents for jobs. Longer-term government projections also may fail to consider "degree inflation," a growing ubiquity of bachelor's degrees that could make them more commonplace in lower-wage jobs but inadequate for higher-wage ones.

That future may be now for Kelman Edwards Jr., 24, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., who is waiting to see the returns on his college education.

After earning a biology degree last May, the only job he could find was as a construction worker for five months before he quit to focus on finding a job in his academic field. He applied for positions in laboratories but was told they were looking for people with specialized certifications.

"I thought that me having a biology degree was a gold ticket for me getting into places, but every other job wants you to have previous history in the field," he said. Edwards, who has about $5,500 in student debt, recently met with a career counselor at Middle Tennessee State University. The counselor's main advice: Pursue further education.

"Everyone is always telling you, 'Go to college,'" Edwards said. "But when you graduate, it's kind of an empty cliff."

___

Associated Press writers Manuel Valdes in Seattle; Travis Loller in Nashville, Tenn.; Cristina Silva in Las Vegas; and Sandra Chereb in Carson City, Nev., contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Nearly twice as many emperor penguins inhabit Antarctica as was thought.

UK, US and Australian scientists used satellite technology to trace and count the iconic birds, finding them to number almost 600,000.

Their census technique relies in the first instance on locating individual colonies, which is done by looking for big brown patches of guano (penguin poo) on the white ice.

High resolution imagery is then used to work out the number of birds present.

It is expected that the satellite mapping approach will provide the means to monitor the long-term health of the emperor population.

Climate modelling has suggested their numbers could fall in the decades ahead if warming around Antarctica erodes the sea ice on which the animals nest and launch their forays for seafood.

The big brown patches of guano are unmistakeable on the white landscape

"If we want to understand whether emperor penguins are endangered by climate change, we have to know first how many birds there are currently and have a methodology to monitor them year on year," said Peter Fretwell from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

"This study gives us that baseline population, which is quite surprising because it's twice as many as we thought, but it also gives us the ability to follow their progress to see if that population is changing over time," he told BBC News.

The scientists have reported their work in the journal PLoS One.

Their survey identified 44 key penguin colonies on the White Continent, including seven that had not previously been recognised.

Although finding a great splurge of penguin poo on the ice is a fairly straightforward - if laborious - process, counting individual birds in a group huddle is not, even in the highest resolution satellite pictures.

This means the team therefore had to calibrate their analysis of the colonies by using ground counts and aerial photography at some select sites.

Peter Fretwell explains how his team counted penguins

Fretwell and colleagues totted 595,000 penguins, which is almost double the previous estimates of 270,000-350,000 emperors. The count is thought to be the first comprehensive census of a species taken from space.

Co-author Michelle LaRue from the University of Minnesota said the monitoring method provided "an enormous step forward in Antarctic ecology".

The emperor breeds in the coldest environment of any bird species on Earth

"We can conduct research safely and efficiently with little environmental impact," she explained.

"The implications for this study are far-reaching. We now have a cost-effective way to apply our methods to other poorly understood species in the Antarctic."

The extent of sea ice in the Antarctic has been relatively stable in recent years (unlike in the Arctic), although this picture hides some fairly large regional variations.

Nonetheless, computer modelling suggests a warming of the climate around Antarctica could result in the loss of more northern ice floes later this century.

If that happens, it might present problems for some emperor colonies if the seasonal ice starts to break up before fledglings have had a chance to acquire their full adult, waterproof plumage.

And given that the krill (tiny crustaceans) that penguins feed on are also dependent on the ice for their own existence (they feed on algae on the ice) - some colonies affected by eroded floes could face a double-whammy of high fledgling mortality and restricted food resources. But this can all now be tested by the methodology outlined in the PLoS paper.

"The emperor penguin has evolved into a very narrow ecological niche; it's an animal that breeds in the coldest environment in the world," explained Peter Fretwell.

"It currently has an advantage in that environment because there are no predators and no competition for its food.

"If Antarctica warms so that predators and competitors can move in, then their ecological niche no longer exists; and that spells bad news for the emperor penguin."

As is usually the case with media portrayals, particularly with controversial figures such as Ms. Palin, viewers will see the film through their own lenses, says John Pitney, professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College in California. “To Palin haters, it confirms that she’s a dolt. To Palin supporters, it confirms that Hollywood is biased against Republicans in general, conservative Republicans in particular, and Sarah Palin most of all,” he says via e-mail.

Still, he outlines a way in which the film could have an impact. He writes, “It serves as a reminder of the trouble that Palin encountered in 2008. So when the eventual GOP nominee – probably Mitt Romney – picks his running mate, he’s going to be extra careful to find someone who is fluent in public policy issues.”

If he considers someone with only limited experience, such as Gov. Susana Martinez (R) of New Mexico, or Sen. Marco Rubio (R) of Florida, he says, “his team will subject that person to the political version of ‘Jeopardy.’ ”

The devastating grilling over issues like Palin’s wardrobe and verbal gaffes sends a chilling message to the next generation, says Barbara O’Connor, director emeritus of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento. “This absolutely sends the message, ‘Do not run,’ to young women,” she says, adding, “This shows them they will be treated differently.”

The professor says she has noticed a growing reluctance among her female students “to even consider” political involvement. They see many women politicians subjected to a double standard when it comes to family and clothing issues, she says.

A film like “Game Change,” portraying the behind-the-scenes pain the then-governor went through as she moved from the wilds of Alaska into the national spotlight, will only serve to reinforce young women’s doubts and misgivings about participating in the body politic, she adds.

But perhaps the most unexpected potential result of replaying the 2008 campaign is the message it could send to the independent, undecided voter in the current presidential election. This is the group that both Republicans and Democrats most desire to sway as the election nears.

A film like this, detailing the inner workings of the GOP campaign that helped usher Barack Obama into office four years ago, “could serve to remind some voters who cast their ballot for him back then that they made the right decision,” says Republican strategist David Johnson, who worked on Sen. Bob Dole’s 1988 presidential campaign.

“Game Change” reveals, in particular, the doubts that GOP candidate John McCain had during the campaign – not to mention the conflicts and disarray within his ranks over the growing problems ushered in by Palin’s spot on the ticket.

“They may well realize that they made a choice for the safer candidate back then,” says Mr. Johnson, “and in some slight but important way, that could serve to reinforce the idea that continuing with Obama is still the safer choice.”

Noblesville, IN (PRWEB) March 11, 2012

BlueSky Technology Partners, a consulting firm delivering eCommerce solutions to mid-sized and enterprise markets has entered into a new strategic partnership with e-Spirit to address the need for a content integration platform in the eCommerce marketplace. e-Spirit, headquartered in Dortmund, Germany and with US offices in Boston, MA, is the manufacturer of the content integration platform FirstSpirit. With its new partnership, BlueSky looks to add content integration as a core competency while driving further expansion of their eCommerce solutions in the US market. BlueSky is an IBM Premier Business Partner with legacy as a top-tier consultancy specializing in solutions involving IBM’s WebSphere Commerce for strategic eCommerce implementations. BlueSky has created a solid foundation with experience as e-Spirit’s principal “trained partner” in the US who has a solution integrating FirstSpirit with WebSphere Commerce at a well-known retail chain.

FirstSpirit as a Content Integration Platform for successful online merchants

Integrated with FirstSpirit as a content integration platform, companies can quickly transform their international web strategies, efficiently manage website content, intranets and extranets, as well as distribute content through different channels or integrate in complex portal structures like IBM WebSphere Portal, SAP, SharePoint and others. Thereby FirstSpirit is much more than a Content Management System (CMS). FirstSpirit is the central content integration platform permitting quick and easy expansion of data from client applications with editorial and social content, as well as integration of marketing instruments. This ensures the optimized editing processes and the quick time to market.

Synergy of BlueSky and e-Spirit

The goal of the new partnership is to bring together two focused organizations to fill a gap in the market. The strength of BlueSky’s eCommerce consulting practice and e-Spirit’s world-class CMS creates a combined technological solution for content integration within the eCommerce environment. “We are very happy to have in BlueSky another strategic partner in the USA, which has recognized the unique selling characteristic of FirstSpirit as a real Content Integration Platform and wants to establish it together on the US market”, says Robert Bredlau, COO North America. “BlueSky has a long and wide experience in the implementation of eCommerce projects on the basis of IBM WebSphere Commerce and also has excellent access to the retail sector.” In parallel to the first project in operation at a large US retail chain, BlueSky has already trained additional consultants to work with FirstSpirit. “The strategic partnership we’ve created puts us in position to offer a best in class solution that didn’t exist prior”, says Todd Irwin, CEO, BlueSky. “Additionally the roadmap we’ve put together with e-Spirit will open up new opportunities for both parties in the US retail market and we’re very excited about that”.

About e-Spirit
As the manufacturer of the content management system FirstSpirit™, e-Spirit is a technological leader in the field of web content management (WCM). Well-known customers from all business sectors rely on FirstSpirit™ for implementing successful web strategies worldwide and for the creation, management and publication of content in highly diverse channels (Internet, intranet, extranet, mobile channels, PDF, email newsletters, portals, DTP, technical documentation). The content management system impresses with its outstanding integratability and its consistent best-of-breed strategy: It integrates seamlessly into complex system landscapes and portals (SAP NetWeaver, IBM WebSphere, Microsoft SharePoint, Liferay), and with FirstSpirit™ AppCenter, e-Spirit offers the unique opportunity in the market for interface integration of any web applications directly into the CMS. As a Content Integration Platform, FirstSpirit™ meets the highest demands for usability, performance and investment security.

e-Spirit was founded in 1999. It is a part of the adesso Group and is represented with 11 locations in Germany, the United States, Great Britain, Austria and Switzerland. http://www.e-Spirit.com

About BlueSky Technology Partners
BlueSky Technology Partners (BlueSky) is a highly skilled consultancy that delivers eCommerce solutions to mid-market, general business and enterprise organizations. As an IBM Premier Business Partner, BlueSky specializes in IBM’s Smarter Commerce Portfolio for B2C and B2B Solutions. BlueSky’s CodeBlue Frameworks combined with WebSphere Commerce and IBM’s Smarter Commerce platform help create seamless multi-channel eCommerce implementations as seen by our clients in retail, food and beverage, manufacturing/CPG, distribution and life sciences industries. BlueSky’s consultancy focuses entirely on IBM Smarter Commerce solutions and related technologies that interface with eCommerce. For more information about BlueSky Technology Partners, visit http://www.blueskytp.com.


For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/3/prweb9270641.htm

Today the Digital Marketer newsletter talks about setting up a business Facebook account in the "Wondering How To Get Your Business On Facebook?" article.

Austin, TX. (PRWEB) March 11, 2012

Many people are wondering how to use Facebook for their business, so the Digital Marketer newsletter explores that subject today in the article "Wondering How To Get Your Business On Facebook?" The newsletter article says to start by creating the business page, or a business ad, along with all the information requested. People may have multiple business pages the newsletter goes on to report, however, do not try to have multiple accounts because it is a violation of Facebook's terms of service. The newsletter advises to make sure and understand all the Facebook's terms of service when learning how to use Facebook for businesses.

A business page can be handled by multiple administrators, today's article in the Digital Marketer newsletter explains, which all of the administrators will need to have their own accounts on Facebook. The administrators will be able to m`nage the business page from their own account, by using the application called the page manager the newsletter goes on to add, which is in the upper left hand column in the applications section.

An administrator should understand all the features of how can a business use Facebook, so reading all the help sections on Facebook is a key first step the Digital Marketer newsletter article advises. The administrator has the ability to edit all the pages they are an administrator of, the Digital Marketer newsletter goes on to say, along with any ads associated with the business page. The Digital Marketer newsletter article explains that an administrator can edit, add photos, events, and videos to the business page. An administrator will also have access to the statistics for the business page and its ads, the newsletter says is an important feature to use. The Digital Marketer newsletter states that users will not be able to see who any of the administrators are, which is a privacy feature.

The "Partnering with Facebook" eBook was created by the Digital Marketer Labs experienced Internet marketing team, to help people learn how to get their business on Facebook. The eBook is available for download, so get a copy of the eBook "Partnering with Facebook" and get started now.

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prwebGet-Business-On-Facebook/Digital-Marketer/prweb9271971.htm