June 2007 Archives

More resumes:

To Dr. Plastic,

I am not quite through with getting Associate Degree in Health Administration now. Will finish October 25, 2007. I feel I would be a good asset to your office thank you

No, thank you!

Attached please find a copy of my resume, i would like to take this opportunity to apply for the medical front desk position. I have 3 years experience as a Registrar, along with medical billing and collection.

I look forward to hearing from you soon

But you won't, because that would require you to send your resume to the correct address.

Update:

Another good one:

Dear Sirs, I am writing to you in regard to the position for a Medical Front Office which was advertised on ajc web site. I have enclosed a copy of my resume to provide you with an overview of my skills and experience. I believe I am capable of performing the duties that is required. My most recent position has developed my communication and organization skills I wish to build on my career and I believe that this position is bale to offer that. I am ready to take on more responsibilities and I am very eager to learn new tasks.

Better keep developing those skills....

The ongoing cat-fight between Google and Microsoft is a perfect illustration of what happens when an economy becomes over-regulated: participants stop competing in the marketplace and start competing in the courtroom.

Google on Monday called on a judge to extend part of the US government’s four-year anti-trust oversight of Microsoft, intensifying a lobbying battle that has seen the arch-rivals turn to anti-trust enforcement machinery to try to limit each other’s power.

The intervention came in an unusual legal manoeuvre, as Google went over the heads of the Department of Justice and US state regulators to appeal directly to a Federal judge to impose greater restrictions on the software giant.

However, Microsoft’s legal camp claimed that the approach was part of an untested procedure that falls outside the bounds of US oversight of its operations.

Google’s intervention follows Microsoft’s appeal to anti-trust regulators to block its rival’s planned purchase of advertising technology company DoubleClick, a deal which is before the Federal Trade Commission.

Blah blah blah. The real problem underlying this case is that Google and Microsoft are fighting their battle with lawyers instead of products and services. Consumers should pick winners, not judges or juries, but the companies in this case have a strong incentive to litigate their differences because it's cheaper than actually competing. Unfortunately, the outcome of a legal battle won't always benefit consumers the way marketplace competition will.

Zoila Meyer is in a tough position because she (apparently) didn't know she wasn't an American citizen. It is important to remember, though, that she is a legal resident of the United States. Her family came to America as refugees from Cuba when she was one year old, so it's easy enough to see why she might have been confused as to her status. (Or willfully ignorant, perhaps.)

After Meyer was elected to the council in Adelanto in 2004, someone told officials that she was born in Cuba, prompting an investigation.

Eventually, "the police came to me and said, 'Zoila, you're not a citizen. You're a legal resident but you're not a citizen,'" said Meyer, who now lives in the San Bernardino County desert town of Apple Valley, near Adelanto. ...

Meyer, whose story was first reported in the Victorville Daily Press, applied to become a naturalized citizen and continued with her life: raising her children and attending two local colleges to earn degrees toward her goal of working in the justice system as a forensic nurse.

However, because she was not a citizen, Meyer faced a felony charge of illegally voting in the 2004 election.

In April 2006, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent voting and was placed on probation, fined and ordered to pay restitution.

What Meyer didn't realize is that fraudulently voting is a deportable offense.

Meyer is facing deportation, but in this case I think extenuating circumstances should mitigate her crime of voting illegally. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for illegal behavior, but Meyer wasn't ignorant of the law, only of her own status. If the immigration judge is satisfied that she really wasn't aware of her lack of citizenship, then I think it would be appropriate for him to allow her to complete the naturalization process.

A different question, perhaps even more thorny, is what to do with illegal immigrants who were brought to America as children. There are hoards of people living in America who were born elsewhere and are here illegally but have grown up here and never known any other home. That's a tough situation, and the parents who brought those people here as children bear the responsibility for the difficulty now. I see a couple of scenarios:

1. Anyone who came here as an adult should be denied permanent residency and should return to their country of origin. They should be required to take any minor children home with them.

2. Anyone who was brought here by their parents as a young child (pick some age) and has subsequently grown up in America should be allowed to stay and gain citizenship. It would be cruel to expel a man to a foreign land he has never known because of the crimes of his parents. This solution isn't fair to American citizens and is especially unfair to the millions of people who came here and played by the rules, but I just don't see any other humane possibility.

You'll enjoy the demotivational posters at despair.com if you've never seen them before. My current favorite:

Also:

Here's an article about how Best Buy implemented its results-only work environment (ROWE), and it makes for interesting reading despite being a bit too early to judge the results enterprise-wide. It appears that some organizations within the company are thriving -- and I'm optimistic that this approach will spread -- but let's see ROWE perform for a few years before we cheer too loudly.

Best Buy did not invent the post-geographic office. Tech companies have been going bedouin for several years. At IBM (IBM ), 40% of the workforce has no official office; at AT&T, a third of managers are untethered. Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW ) calculates that it's saved $400 million over six years in real estate costs by allowing nearly half of all employees to work anywhere they want. And this trend seems to have legs. A recent Boston Consulting Group study found that 85% of executives expect a big rise in the number of unleashed workers over the next five years. In fact, at many companies the most innovative new product may be the structure of the workplace itself.

But arguably no big business has smashed the clock quite so resolutely as Best Buy. The official policy for this post-face-time, location-agnostic way of working is that people are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done. "This is like TiVo (TIVO ) for your work," says the program's co-founder, Jody Thompson. By the end of 2007, all 4,000 staffers working at corporate will be on ROWE. Starting in February, the new work environment will become an official part of Best Buy's recruiting pitch as well as its orientation for new hires. And the company plans to take its clockless campaign to its stores--a high-stakes challenge that no company has tried before in a retail environment.

It seems to me (having never worked retail) that salesmen working on commission would be an ideal environment for ROWE. If salesmen make money by selling, they'll arrange their hours and schedules to maximize their income. That selfishness should result in optimal allocation of salesmen across the work-week, and if the current employees aren't covering the required time then the company could simply hire more. What's more, if a salesman finds a way to sell products without being in the store at all then everyone wins!

America's idle elite's fascination with Communism is repugnant, and maybe they'll listen when that message is delivered by a third-world human rights activist instead of a right-wing capitalist like me. Cameron Diaz vacationing in Peru:

While she explored the Inca city of Machu Picchu high in Peru's Andes, Diaz wore over her shoulder an olive green messenger bag emblazoned with a red star and the words 'Serve the People' printed in Chinese on the flap, perhaps Chinese Communist leader Mao's most famous political slogan.

While the bags are marketed as trendy fashion accessories in some world capitals, the phrase has particular resonance in Peru.

The Maoist Shining Path insurgency took Peru to the edge of chaos in the 1980s and early 1990s with a campaign of massacres, assassinations and bombings.

Nearly 70,000 people were killed during the insurgency.

A prominent Peruvian human rights activist said the star of There's Something About Mary should have been a little more aware of local sensitivities when picking her accessories.

"It alludes to a concept that did so much damage to Peru, that brought about so many victims," said Pablo Rojas about the bag's slogan.

"I don't think she should have used that bag where the followers of that ideology" did so much damage.

Which would be... pretty much everywhere in the world. If you want to go purely by the number of murders, the Communists have the Nazis beat hands-down.

The mega-engineering projects in Dubai fascinate me (as you can tell from the quantity of posts on the topic), and if you're like me you might be curious about what it's like to live in the UAE. The Emirates Network site has numerous articles, not all government-friendly, and here are a few interesting excerpts.

Becoming A Citizen Becoming a citizen of a western country can take between three to five years, while becoming a citizen of the UAE, similar to all the GCC countries, is practically impossible even if you have stayed there for fifty years.

Transportation In the west, the modes of transportation very from walking, biking, rollerblading, skateboarding, cars, buses, subways, and trains. In the United Arab Emirates, the most used means of transport is by car. One of the factors for this is because of the weather. Biking is rarely seen as you are not allowed to ride on sidewalks and the streets don't have sufficient regions which could be used to ride safely. Transport by train is not possible and most likely will not be any time soon. In Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, you will find public buses.

Stopped by the Police In the United Arab Emirates when you are pulled over by the police, you need to get out of your car and speak to them. It is the opposite from what happens elsewhere.

Public Affection It is not permitted for individuals to kiss publically, and you will not find any nude beaches or communities in the United Arab Emirates.

Walking At Night Young males, and occationaly young females, found wondering the streets at night are sometimes picked up by the police and spend a night in jail. This is done to reduce the amount of crimes that happen at night and after the night in jail, they are released the next morning after being finger printed.

There's lots more, including information about how to start your own business in the UAE and what to watch out for it you're looking for a job in the UAE.

Secondly we will talk about work timings. For many people, work is life. That this means is that for many people working from 8am to 1pm and again from 4pm to 8pm, there is not much time to do other things. Many people driving to work spend 2 to 4 hours in traffic getting to and from work. And at the end of it all, the whole day is spend either going to work, at work, or coming from work, which leaves very little time for anything else but eating, and sleeping. So if you get a chance to work a straight shift, that is the best way to go.

Thirdly we will discuss nationality and appearance. In the UAE, where you come from also affects the salary you get. For example, there was an American working the exact same job as an Indian and the American received Dhs. 3,000 (US$ 822) while the Indian received Dhs. 1,500 (US $411). The nationality and appearance factor will normally start from your resume, as many companies require you to send a picture with your resume. After that when you come down for a interview, many people, though highly qualified, don't get the job because of their looks. I know this is discrimination, but it happens in the UAE.

MSNBC has published an article about journalists who make political donations but they bury the lead: 90% of journalist contributions were to leftist politicians or causes.

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

That's a pretty incredible ratio, and the leftist journalists quoted explicitly admit to biased reporting.

The openness didn't extend, however, to telling the public about the donations. Apparently none of the journalists disclosed the donations to readers, viewers or listeners. Few told their bosses, either.

Several of the donating journalists said they had no regrets, whatever the ethical concerns.

"Probably there should be a rule against it," said New Yorker writer Mark Singer, who wrote the magazine's profile of Howard Dean during the 2004 campaign, then gave $250 to America Coming Together and its get-out-the-vote campaign to defeat President Bush. "But there's a rule against murder. If someone had murdered Hitler — a journalist interviewing him had murdered him — the world would be a better place. I only feel good, as a citizen, about getting rid of George Bush, who has been the most destructive president in my lifetime. I certainly don't regret it."

Gee, no conflict of interest there!

Guy Raz does work for a news organization.

As the Jerusalem correspondent for CNN, he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq in June 2004, when he gave $500 to John Kerry.

He didn't supply his occupation or employer to the Kerry campaign, so his donation is listed in federal records with only his name and London address. Now he covers the Pentagon for NPR. Both CNN and NPR forbid political activity.

"I covered international news and European Union stories. I did not cover U.S. news or politics," Raz said in an e-mail to MSNBC.com. When asked how one could define U.S. news so it excludes the U.S. war in Iraq, Raz didn't reply.

Anyway, there are numerous other examples in the article and I won't bother quoting them all.

The Conservative Alternative points out that journalism can be a crusade -- if you're transparent about it.

This is typical of the mindset of journalists who see their jobs as a crusade as opposed to just reporting the news. Journalism can be a crusade, but if you are on a crusade you need to let the reader/viewer know that upfront instead of pretending to be objective.

Does this mean that journalists should be required to publicly display their political tendencies? I think yes. All these journalists have professional biographies on their employers' websites, so why not include a section on which causes and politicians each journalist contributes to and votes for? Then, at the end of each article, include a short sentence such as "So-and-so votes for and contributes to XYZ." Why shouldn't journalists have their motivations examined as closely as they examine those of politicians?

Here's the list of contributions by journalists compiled by MSNBC. Kudos to them for doing the research.

Despite the 20+ resumes I've received in the past few days, I am not a medical front office and I don't need to hire a receptionist. I can only assume that "doctor plastic" is hiring, and that the, uh, less qualified applicants are spamming my email address by mistake.

Should I post excerpts from some of the funniest? I'm so conflicted....

(All formatting, spelling, et cetera as per originals.)

This one Capitalizes like she's Writing the Declaration of Independence:

My impeccable track record in a fast paced Medical facility makes me an idea candidate for your Medical Receptionist position! ...

My Employers, as well as Patients have recognized my Customer Service skills, communication and leadership abilities and personal initiative.

This next one can't be fully appreciated without the ten different fonts used, but here's a sample:

Objective:To obtain a position as a certified nursing assistant or a medical assistant, in a medical office or hospital setting and provide quality care for my patients. ...

Patient Accts Rep/Collections 1999-2006
XXX Hospital
Responsibilities were as follows, but not limited to: filing monitoring patient accts, posting patient payments, maintaining the highest level of customer service. coding and some billing scheduling appointments, managing the front and back office. verification of all insurance, admissions, customer service, medical records.

And customer service! But most importantly, filing.

At least this one has enthusiasm:

I'm looking forward in working with your company and bringing the best of my work.

Bring it!

Funnier each time.

I've been on the phone with the customer service operators of various companies all morning, and Delta Airlines' is by far the worst. Their website threw an error and refused to give me my account number when I signed up for a SkyMiles account, and that's all I want to find out from the phone rep. After sitting on hold for 10 minutes, then talking to a rep, then getting put back on hold for 15 minutes, then disconnected, I'm now waiting on hold to talk to someone else. The rep barely speaks English and can't understand what I'm asking her. This is possibly the most frustrating customer service call I've made in months. All I want is my account number!

What's more, I hate talking to the stupid computer systems! Hate hate hate it. I'd rather push buttons to navigate the menus, but I'd rather just talk directly to a human who speaks English. That's what Southwest does, and that's a big reason why I always fly Southwest when I can. Here's a new motto for SWA: "We won't make you want to strangle some poor foreigner every time you call!"

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's experimental program to pay poor people to make good decisions is intriguing and I look forward to seeing the result. It's especially laudable that the project is being funded privately rather than with public funds. One of the most interesting bits of that article, though, is the perspective of a former Clinton Administration official who thinks poor people are somehow inherently incapable of bettering themselves.

But some critics have raised questions about cash reward programs, saying they promote the misguided idea that poor people could be successful if they just made better choices.

"It just reinforces the impression that if everybody would just work hard enough and change their personal behavior we could solve poverty in this country, and that's not reflected in the facts," said Margy Waller, co-founder of Inclusion, a research and policy group in Washington.

Waller, who served as a domestic policy adviser in the Clinton administration, said it would be more effective to focus on labor issues, such as making sure wage laws are enforced and improving benefits for working people.

How insulting, not only to the poor but to the American Dream itself! I hope this dehumanizing attitude isn't as common among leftists as I fear.

As distressing as the first part of this article is, the end points out that arson and violence on the Mexican border is actually a sign that we're finally bringing large swaths of the badlands under American control.

U.S. Border Patrol agents seeking to secure the nation's border in some of the country's most pristine national forests are being targeted by illegal aliens, who are using intentionally set fires to burn agents out of observation posts and patrol routes.

The wildfires have destroyed valuable natural and cultural resources in the National Forest System and pose an ongoing threat to visitors, residents and responding firefighters, according to federal law-enforcement authorities and others. ...

Wildfires are being set by alien and drug smugglers, authorities said, to create a diversion in an attempt to gain undetected access across the border. The fires correspond to a dramatic rise in assaults against Border Patrol agents -- up more than 100 percent over last year. ...

Authorities said agents are being targeted by illegal aliens and their smugglers for rock attacks -- including grapefruit-size rocks wrapped in rags, dipped in gasoline and set on fire.

"As larger areas of the border come under operational control, we can expect violence to increase as smuggling operations can no longer operate with impunity and do not have unfettered access to the border for their criminal activities," Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar told a Homeland Security subcommittee this year.

"This explosion of aggression is an indicator how desperate and angry drug and human traffickers are at the increasing disruption of their smuggling routes," he said.

We should be incredibly proud of the dangerous job being done by our Border Patrol officers. I only hope our politicians can back them up with a wall and laws that reduce the incentive for these criminals to keep crossing.

I'm not always on the same page as Peggy Noonan, but I think she has struck the right tone on the illegal immigration debate and she's found the perfect words to communicate how most Americans think about our politicians.

We assume that when senators are together, if someone says, "But what about America?" everyone laughs, and then the top senator says, dryly, "Your concern is duly noted. Next."

I'm 99% sure that this is the case.

Anthony Watts is investigating the quality of NOAA weather stations and discovering that many of the once-rural stations used to "confirm" global warming have actually been encroached upon by development over the past century and that their data is therefore corrupted.

To assure accuracy, stations (essentially older thermometers in little four-legged wooden sheds or digital thermometers mounted on poles) should be 100 feet from buildings, not placed on hot concrete, etc. But as photos on Watts' site show, the station in Forest Grove, Ore., stands 10 feet from an air-conditioning exhaust vent. In Roseburg, Ore., it's on a rooftop near an AC unit. In Tahoe, Calif., it's next to a drum where trash is burned.

Watts, who says he's a man of facts and science, isn't jumping to any rash conclusions based on the 40-some weather stations his volunteers have checked so far. But he said Tuesday that what he's finding raises doubts about NOAA's past and current temperature reports.

"I believe we will be able to demonstrate that some of the global warming increase is not from CO2 but from localized changes in the temperature-measurement environment."

His website, surfacestations.org, has some compelling pictures of the weather stations under discussion.

Here is a well maintained and well sited USHCN station:

Here is a not-so-well maintained or well sited USHCN station:

This site in Marysville, CA has been around for about the same amount of time, but has been encroached upon by growth in a most serious way by micro-site effects.

Despite "scientific consensus" on anthropogenic global warming, there might be more going on than can be explained purely by the graphs.

Have you ever wondered where is the largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island? Now you know. (On earth, anyway.)

One interesting feature of this recursion is that it appears that deeper levels of recursion are most likely to be found in the same branches as shallower levels.

If we represent the "largest ___ in the" relation with "*", then the largest island in the largest lake in the largest island would be (island*lake*island). If (island*lake)^10 exists, is likely contained within (island*lake)^2. (Assuming larger lakes are more likely to have islands than smaller lakes.)

Of course man-made structures could quickly break the neatness of the recursion.

(HT: Reader JV.)

This story from the UK makes me shudder: apparently the eurocrats are planning to force the European Union constitution on their citizens subjects and bypass the required referendum altogether. If the plebeians won't vote how you want, then why bother with voting at all?

TONY Blair wants to hand the European Union radical new powers in his last act as Prime Minister, it emerged today.

The Prime Minister has welcomed controversial plans to bring back the troubled EU constitution by the back door - totally bypassing the need for public referendums on sweeping new powers for Brussels.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has suggested ditching the name "constitution" from the title and instead calling it an "amending treaty" - to avoid having to seek the approval of voters.

French and Dutch voters rejected the original plan - which would hand Brussels the power to represent individual countries at the UN and change national laws - two years ago.

I'm sure American Democrats are salivating.

I've been saying we shouldn't trust china for years now, and the new reports that China is arming terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq confirm it.

Some arms were sent by aircraft directly from Chinese factories to Afghanistan and included large-caliber sniper rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs, as well as other small arms.

The Washington Times reported June 5 that Chinese-made HN-5 anti-aircraft missiles were being used by the Taliban.

According to the officials, the Iranians, in buying the arms, asked Chinese state-run suppliers to expedite the transfers and to remove serial numbers to prevent tracing their origin. China, for its part, offered to transport the weapons in order to prevent the weapons from being interdicted.

The weapons were described as "late-model" arms that have not been seen in the field before and were not left over from Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq.

U.S. Army specialists suspect the weapons were transferred within the past three months.

The Bush administration has been trying to hide or downplay the intelligence reports to protect its pro-business policies toward China, and to continue to claim that China is helping the United States in the war on terrorism. U.S. officials have openly criticized Iran for the arms transfers but so far there has been no mention that China is a main supplier.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that the flow of Iranian arms to Afghanistan is "fairly substantial" and that it is likely taking place with the help of the Iranian government.

Defense officials are upset that Chinese weapons are being used to kill Americans. "Americans are being killed by Chinese-supplied weapons, with the full knowledge and understanding of Beijing where these weapons are going," one official said.

The arms shipments show that the idea that China is helping the United States in the war on terrorism is "utter nonsense," the official said.

This collusion between one of our major trading partners and our avowed enemies is the direct result of the left's pathetic weakness in the international arena. The Chinese know that the terrorists can't defeat us, but they don't mind killing Americans (and Iraqis and Afghanis) to drag the conflict out, embarrass America, and weaken us further. If we had projected strength rather than weakness to the world post-9/11 we wouldn't have to face this death by a thousand cuts.

The Chinese depend on our trade to survive, and they wouldn't dare supply our enemies if the Democrats and the far left hadn't completely emasculated America on the world stage. The Chinese know that we won't do a damn thing to them in response to this affront, because the only option the Democrats have left us is to bend over and take it. It's humiliating and ultimately disastrous to America when our enemies don't fear us and our supposed partners line up to stab us in the back.