This one is quite funny! Where's the one for San Francisco?

Subject: NEW CALIFORNIA DMV TEST

For those of you who are not "fortunate" enough to live in California,
here is a copy of the California Driver's Exam, and for those of you who
do, study real hard. This is a new exam. Since driving conditions (and
culture) are unique in Los Angeles, you may not have realized that the
California Department of Motor Vehicles has now issued a special
application and driver's test solely for the Los Angeles Metropolitan
Area.

GREATER LOS ANGELES AREA DRIVER'S LICENSE APPLICATION:

Name:___________________ Stage name: ____________________

Agent:___________________

Attorney:______________________

Therapist name:_________________

Sex: ___male ___female* ___formerly male ___formerly female ____both *If
female, indicate breast implant size: _______

Will the size of your implants hinder your ability to safely operate a
motor vehicle in any way? Yes___ No ___

Please list brand of cell phone: ________.
*If you don't own a cell phone, please explain:________________________

Please check hair color:
Females: [ ] Blonde [ ] Platinum Blonde
Teenagers: [ ] Red [ ] Orange [ ] Green [ ] Purple [ ] Blue [ ] Skinhead

Please check activities you perform while driving: (Check all that
apply)
[ ] Eating
[ ] Drinking Starbucks coffee
[ ] Applying make-up
[ ] Shaving (male or female)
[ ] Talking on the phone
[ ] Slapping kids in the back-seat
[ ] Applying cellulite treatment to thighs
[ ] Tanning
[ ] Snorting cocaine (already checked for your convenience)
[ ] Watching TV
[ ] Reading Variety
[ ] Surfing the net via laptop
[ ] Discharging firearms / Reloading

Please indicate how many times
a) you expect to shoot at other drivers _____
b) how many times you expect to be shot at while driving _____

If you are the victim of a carjacking, you should immediately:
a) Call the police to report the crime.
b) Call Channel 9 News to report the crime, then watch your car on the
news in a high-speed chase.
c) Call your attorney and discuss lawsuit against cellular phone company
for 911 call not going through.
d) Call your therapist.

In the event of an earthquake, you should :
a) stop your car
b) keep driving and hope for the best.
c) immediately use your cell phone to call all loved ones.
d) pull out your video camera and obtain footage for Channel 9.

In the instance of rain, you should:
a) never drive over 5 MPH.
b) drive twice as fast as usual.
c) you're not sure what "rain" is.

Please indicate number of therapy sessions per week: ______.

Are you presently taking any of the following medications?
a) Prozac
b) Zovirax
c) Lithium
d) Zanax
e) Valium
f) Zoloft
g) All of the above
h) None of the above
*If none, please explain: __________________.

Length of daily commute:
a) Less than 1 hour
b) 1 hour
c) 2 hours
d) 3 hours
e) 4 hours or more
* If less than 1 hour, please explain:____________________.

When stopped by police, you should:
a) pull over and have your driver's license and insurance form ready. b)
try to outrun them by driving the wrong way on the 405 Freeway. c) have
your video camera ready and provoke them to attack, thus ensuring
yourself of a hefty lawsuit.

When turning, you should always signal your intentions by: a) using your
directional signals.
b) what is a "directional signal"?

Which part of your car will wear out most often?
a) the wiper blades
b) the belts
c) the horn

The "bright" setting on your headlights is for:
a) dark, poorly lit roads
b) flashing to get the car ahead to move out of the way
c) revenge!

Your rear view mirror is for:
a) watching for approaching cars
b) watching for approaching police cars
c) checking your hair

Here's a fun link - US Drought Monitor. The map is updated every Thursday.

Another related effect of the drought - Drought has U.S. ranchers facing a harsh winter. I wonder if this will mean an increase in prices for meat and meat related products. Maybe I should be glad that I'm a semi-vegeterian and hardly ever eat meat. I never buy meat to cook. When I do eat it, it's usually at a restaurant, in take-out food, or in a packaged prepared frozen food.

Here's an interesitng link on the H1B controversy Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage. This is a paper from Dr. Norman Matloff from UC Davis, who testified for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration.

I think he's right. Two years ago, I worked for the CIO in an international shipping firm. During my time there, I produced a presentation for my boss to give to the Singapore Board of Development. My company had wanted to open a major IT office in Singapore, because the government of Singapore gives businesses tax credits. This means they're basically paying for the development cost of half your office. It's a good deal for companies, and business like Compaq have taken advantage of Singapore's generosity.

Part of my presentation focused on the fact that we would be outsourcing over 50% of our software development to Singapore. Singapore would benefit because my company would train these budding Singaporean software developers. Software development in Singapore would be cheaper overall despite the initial expense of training, because my company could hire developers for dirt cheap, compared to hiring costs for US contractors and full-time employees. My boss said it was such a good deal, and would benefit our company because we could save so much money, and also benefit Singapore because their people would be trained for free. The presentation went really well, but I left before the deal with Singapore was finalized.

I sort of thought at the time I was creating the presentation, that it would be bad for US workers, but at the same time it would be great for my company's coffers, and therefore indirectly benefitting me since the company was traded on Nasdaq. Is it bad for companies to do this? I don't know. Wall Street always rewards companies with lower operating costs by an increase in stock price.

It's a slippery slope for any company. You need to lower costs for your share prices to rise, and one way to lower costs is to move work overseas. What's a company to do? The employees benefit when the stock prices go up. The other way to get your share price to go up is to increase revenue, but that's much harder to do compared to lowering operating costs. Either way they go, companies lose. And most companies prefer to do things the easy way, and like that their stock prices are high.

Is it any wonder that H1B's are so popular, and that IT software development jobs are slowly being shifted out of the US?