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From Computerworld:
Cantor, a reliable ‘yes’ vote for raising the H-1B visa cap, is unseated
GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor supported the H-1B visa; his challenger did notBy Patrick Thibodeau
June 11, 2014 05:44 PM ETComputerworld – WASHINGTON — Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House majority leader who lost a primary bid Tuesday for re-election, was a reliable “yes” vote for increasing the H-1B visa cap.
Cantor lost to challenger David Brat, a professor at Randolph-Macon College with a Ph.D. in economics — and an opponent of the H-1B visa.
Brat’s victory doesn’t signal a reversal in bipartisan support in Congress for increasing the number of H-1B visas. Cantor saw the visa program as an area for bipartisan agreement, and he was on solid ground in saying so.
The Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill, approved last year, would more than double the H-1B cap, increasing it from 85,000 to 180,000 annually. … Few candidates in either party draw attention to the H-1B visa in their races. But Brat used the H-1B against Cantor.
In one statement, Brat wrote: “The Chamber wants low-skilled cheap labor; Mark Zuckerberg wants high-skilled cheap labor, but, at the end of the day, what they have in common is that they all want cheap labor and Eric Cantor wants to give it to them.”
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Test comment.
In one statement, Brat wrote: “The Chamber wants low-skilled cheap labor; Mark Zuckerberg wants high-skilled cheap labor, but, at the end of the day, what they have in common is that they all want cheap labor and Eric Cantor wants to give it to them.”
Brat has identified the primary reason the Republican Party supports “immigration reform.” The Chambers of Commerce are the engine of funding and moral support for “immigration reform” within the Party.
Reposting below in case anyone missed the comment on the the Ann Coulter thread. I wonder if a bunch of potential constituents started hitting Wehby for her H1B position, if she’d “grow” in her position. I doubt she’s thought about it all that deeply. I’m sure she’s been shoulder to shoulder with Chamber of Commerce types since day one of her campaign and so is defaulting to whatever their position is, especially if it means raising campaign money. However, has she heard anything besides the pro-H1B cliches? I rather doubt it.
My comment on the Coulter thread:
I sent a note to the Republican challenger for Oregon’s senate seat pointing out Ann’s article.
Time will tell if she heeds the advice. It doesn’t look good though. She’s proudly pro-H1B and an MD (ie. oblivious to the screw job tech workers’ get from big businesses). She’s made anti-Obamacare center-piece of her campaign. Meh. The costs are all backend loaded in 2014. Right now it’s still the honeymoon “mend it, don’t end it,” and liberals in Portland still love the concept even if they are mad about the rocky roll-out.
Without a doubt, the tech industry lost one vote for an H-1B cap increase with Cantor’s defeat, and Brat’s win may kill any chance of immigration reform in this Congress. But Brat’s attack on the H-1B program doesn’t necessarily mean that other Republicans, who have backed a cap increase, will reconsider their support for the temporary work visa, and abandon the tech industry on what may be its top issue.
I don’t read this magazine. But that quoted paragraph seems to imply that the magazine’s writers and staff favor Zuck and his fwd.us movement. However the comments, presumably by tech workers, seem to favor Brat’s position.
Steve, I’m doing my damnedest to send people to this new site of yours. Now that I’m used to it, I think it’s a better venue. Here’s my latest attempt:
Steve Sailer’s writing is better, if anything, since his move to The Unz Review.
Off-topic Steve, but TNC is still pushing the reparations bit quite hard. Seems that Eric Holder and Colin Powell need reparations:
“A lot of people think they are equipped to have this conversation and they are not. I just want to be really clear about this: Anyone who has read Colin Powell’s biography—there’s an entire section where he talks about experiencing segregation. Colin Powell did not appear when he became head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That’s not how it happened. Eric Holder? Eric Holder’s family? You’re right, his lineage is Caribbean. But his family was here in the 1960s and he 1950s. They were here. Eric Holder didn’t appear as … what was his position … assistant attorney general or whatever he was in the Clinton [administration]. He didn’t just suddenly appear.
It’s very, very important … it’s really, really important that, you know, if we’re going to have this fight, that folks educate themselves on the history. You can oppose reparations all you want, but you got to know the facts. You really, really do.
I don’t want to single anybody out in that but I’m just going to say: We don’t understand how much we don’t understand.
And it’s quite a bit. It’s really, really quite a bit.
And I think, when people say, oh, you’re just advocating another study because you’re punting. No, you just have no idea how much you don’t know. You know? We just don’t. It’s quite a bit.”
(http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/watch-the-atlantics-ta-nehisi-coates-discuss-reparations/372700/)
I love the new “comments” at the bottom of the post. Much faster. Thanks.
BTW, the guy expected to be voted in to take Cantor’s place is a rep. from a district encompassing Tulare, Kern (he’s from Bakersfield) and part of LA County. Kevin Mitchell is as much for immigration as was Cantor. The GOP is just as bought and paid for on this issue as the Dems, as you well know.
I have read just about every single word that Steve Sailer has published for many years now. The conversion to this new site has been quite difficult to get used to.
Part of it, I think, is the fact that the new site is so “busy.” It’s hard enough to keep up with Steve’s writing, but when I see all of the featured work by other writers, it just ends up feeling overwhelming. I can’t read it all.
I feel that way about Taki’s Mag as well, but at least Taki’s has a cleaner, less oppressive look.
Steve’s old Blogger site has a nice, simple layout. It’s easy to navigate. It makes it easy to concentrate on his work.
Since the blog migration, I have not only felt less inclined to read what Steve is writing (something about which I feel bad), but also less inclined to comment. If there has been a fall-off in comments here, I suspect that some of it is the result of long-time readers like me just trying to get used to a jarringly new format.
I very much appreciate the Unz Review’s efforts to respond to readers and improve things. I think a lighter, “airier” look would improve things tremendously. For example, there are too many words in the title banner across the top. It gets tiring to look at that all the time.
I think letting everyone above a certain level in is good business. Bryan Caplan is correct if you limit your view to PhD economists and those making over $100k/year. So, I think there are two issues here, letting in elites who create wealth and hang out together, and letting in low-wage workers who temporarily work hard but end up generating big problems in terms of educational priorities (no more gifted programs, a bigger gap that is now the first educational priority), more Democrats, more affirmative action, and more ethnic factionalism in general.
I think a lighter, “airier” look would improve things tremendously
Same. It’s awfully cluttered. And I say that from a functional, reading comprehension perspective and not a snobby aesthetic one.
Not sure if it’s just something new and requiring an adjustment period or…
It’s very, very important … it’s really, really important that, you know, . . .You really, really do. . . . .And it’s quite a bit. It’s really, really quite a bit. . . . No, you just have no idea how much you don’t know. You know? We just don’t. It’s quite a bit.
Is TNC shamelessly padding his word count? Because that’s incredibly flabby writing.
Harry Baldwin:”Is TNC shamelessly padding his word count? Because that’s incredibly flabby writing.”
It’s from an interview.
More like brat vs real brat.
Uh, PhD economists are petit rentiers, not wealth-creators. Same as Elon Musk, on a smaller scale. What is Paypal (and later Tesla) but rent-extraction and hustling tax dollars for personal gain rather than generating new wealth?
The world needs a few middle-men, but it would be nice if people would let go of the myth that welfarism is ok as long as you’re a whit(ish) nerd.
I like the new site.
I think letting everyone above a certain level in is good business.
I’m not even sure that is true, but here we have the rub of the problem.
A nation isn’t a business.
What’s good for business isn’t necessarily good for a nation. Killing our grandparents to sell their body’s chemicals would not be good, even though it might be good for business.
But that quoted paragraph seems to imply that the magazine’s writers and staff favor Zuck and his fwd.us movement. However the comments, presumably by tech workers, seem to favor Brat’s position.
Patrick Thibodeau has been writing for years from a pro-H1b and immigration position. The trade rag he writes for is a typical industry supported operation, so he probably has to… Originally writing from a “but of course only racists would be against it” position, he has lately written articles that seem a bit more balanced. The comments section on his articles (by techie insiders) run heavily (maybe 90%) against H1Bs. It’s obvious that most of the pro-H1bs are Indian people. He has to have learned something. Well, I’d hope.
Here’s one of his latest articles, “This IT worker had to train an H-1B replacement: U.S. workers protested job losses to foreign workers by displaying American flags in their cubicles”, Computerworld, Patrick Thibodeau, June 10, 2014.
But that quoted paragraph seems to imply that the magazine’s writers and staff favor Zuck and his fwd.us movement.
Patrick Thibodeau has been writing from a pro-H1Bs position for years. He probably has to, the trade rag he works for is a typical industry supported (and access-dependent) operation. Originally a typical “but of course only racists would be against it”, he lately seems to have become more objective. Perhaps because probably at least 90% of the comments (by tech insiders) are against it and it’s obvious that the only people for it are Indians.
Here’s a recent article reflection the negative impacts:
“This IT worker had to train an H-1B replacement: U.S. workers protested job losses to foreign workers by displaying American flags in their cubicles”, Computerworld, Patrick Thibodeau, June 10, 20.
I agree with Olav. I’ve been reading Steve for over a decade, back into the isteve.com days, and his transition to blogger was a lot easier for me as a reader than this one. More white space on the home page would be a big help. The numerous dark blue headline backgrounds are one of the elements that bother me most, particularly the right side of the screen. The LA Times recently revised their website and added a lot of white space. It’s been relatively easy to get used to.
….
I love Mr. Sailer’s new Ron Unz site home.
First, when I click on “Comments,” they’re listed from the top of their list – not from the bottom as was the default fault at Mr. Sailer’s old site.
Second, at this new site the comments are numbered, a most thoughtful amenity for which I feel grateful. Numbered comments mean that at a second, third, and fourth visit to read the comments on one of Mr. Sailer’s posts, I can now scroll directly to the number of the post following the numbered post I’d read at my last visit, and this spares me the hell of lot of up-&-down scrolling that the former site’s un-unmbered comments forced me & my mouse to perform.
Third, I do not find the new site to be crowded by “clutter” – what I do not wish to read at the site, I simply ignore, which is the same elegantly simple function of choice I exercise when I peruse the TV Guide, and exercise further with my television’s remote. I also appreciate that the new site affords opportunity to read offerings from the site’s other authors.
Very classy this new site, I like everything about it.
Mr. Sailer: “You did good, Pilgrim.”
I could imagine bumping the font size up one or maybe half a point to make the text larger for presbytopic eyes, narrowing the column width a little, and adding some leading between lines for a more spacious, luxurious look. Readers would have to scroll down more often, however. What do you think of that tradeoff?
Give people H-1B visas on one condition. That they make annual contributions to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ reparations fund.
What about the row of badges near the top for Facebook, Twitter, etc that take a few seconds to pop up one at a time — are those distracting?
Those of you commenting about wanting to bypass the main page of this site could simply bookmark this URL
https://www.unz.com/isteve/
and not have to read anything else.
Some of the other bloggers here are worth checking out though.
Re: row of badges loading slow…
Hadn’t noticed.
Re: font size and scrolling…
Probably depends on the sophistication of a user’s browsing technique. Easy to zoom-in and out by holding CTRL with left pinky and spinning mouse wheel. Same with scrolling the page– mouse wheel or keyboard arrows (or page up/page down). However, if someone scrolls by actually click-and-holding the scroll bar arrow… well, that’s going to suck.
I dunno, like any sensible mellienial I use Adblock Plus and Ghostery. I do find the header cluttered — and I’m a daily hacker news reader.
Steve, it’s indicative of little, but I browse with Pale Moon (Firefox clone) and have a plugin called Ghostery installed. It blocks all of that social media shit. It’s currently blocking AddThis, Facebook Connect, and Twitter Button. I have Ghostery set to allow only two of the elements it normally blocks, so far: Disqus and some other commenting widget I don’t remember. I also normally browse with images and Javascript off. I don’t see any of the stuff you mentioned, though I couldn’t tell you which of the settings I mentioned is blocking which element.
A nation isn’t a business.
Thank you, sir.
What’s good for business isn’t necessarily good for a nation. Killing our grandparents to sell their body’s chemicals would not be good, even though it might be good for business.
Right. Selling your children is good business. Child labor and sweatshops are good business. Pimping your wife out is good business. Heroin is good business. I’m sure there’s a private demand for main battle tanks, ICBMs, and nerve gas.
I think letting everyone above a certain level in is good business. Bryan Caplan is correct if you limit your view to PhD economists and those making over $100k/year.
Listen up, you pussy: Our men are capable of the job.
Steve, an aside, I love that you and Unz care so much that you are working so hard to listen to us and make your blog more user friendly here. Thank you. These are important time we live in. I, too, am having some trouble with the transition. I don’t know what to suggest–how about fading the blue and shrinking the font on some of the items in the right column?
Thank you for all that you do.
Flamethrowers. I’d like to buy a flamethrower.
1% vs 99%
Steve, just FYI, web usability studies show that having to scroll vertically in one direction (down, down, down–rather than down, up, down, up) is an almost insignificant task. People hardly notice doing it. That’s why Twitter and Facebook can get away with the infinite vertical scroll. (Scrolling horizontally, on the other hand, is much more annoying.)
Commenters requesting more white space have a point. While Unz.com isn’t by any means a terribly designed site from a visual perspective, it is a tad on the noisy side.
The biggest improvement would be cleaning up the links section on the right. A simple list with just a few high-level categories (“Columnists”, “Archives”, “Bloggers”, etc.) would be much better than the eyesore that’s there now.
The dark blue boxes are an eye strain. The creative titles given to each writer are pointless, confusing, and cluttering. And, contra the conventional wisdom of 1994 web design, nobody cares which ones are “New!”
More advice: My guess is that those drop-down menus inside the blue box at the top (next to “iSteve Blog”) probably almost never get used. The Unz.com people can, if they want to, look and see if I’m right. In general, they can see which actionable UI elements are almost never getting clicked on, and then they should remove them.
I don’t use Facebook or Twitter, but I think all those links and buttons should probably be moved to the bottom of the post. I’ll only know I want to share something until after I’ve read it, right?
I’ll keep giving more free UX consultation as I think of it. 🙂
I don’t think “distracting” is a legitimate complaint. One has to be skilled in ignoring or tolerating a lot of fluff and spam on most sites. I’ve moved almost completely to using a tablet, which greatly enhances reading (and makes commenting using the virtual keyboard agonizing, which is probably a blessing for everyone). I prefer the standard layout, but the mobile version is very nice for regular readers, because it’s easier to determine what content is new and unread. I don’t know what happened to the web1.0 system of highlighting previously read content, but I don’t see how anyone can bitch about something that is completely free, especially troubles with commenting. Sheesh! If you don’t like it, feel free to go back to the Huffington post; many, many whiners to keep you company, over there.
I don’t know if you need to be concerned about font size too much. The ability to easily zoom to fit is what converted me the tablet as soon as I tried it. The talent that Ron has assembled is so good, it wouldn’t matter if the presentation was drudge-level poor.
PS – please snipe Larrison and Lind from amcon; it’s fork time. And Dennis Dale, please.
“Kevin Mitchell is as much for immigration as was Cantor. ”
I meant “McCarthy,” not “Mitchell.”
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. It’s Brat v. Trammell in the upcoming election.
Interesting, both are profs. at Randolph Macon, although it appears that Trammell is more of a diversicrat than an actual professor. He’s kind of a hippie leftie. I wonder if some of his & his wife’s 7 kids are transracial adoptees:
http://tinyurl.com/kvzf9ot
P.S. I like the new site. All you have to do is bookmark it and voila. Talk about the problems of people who have no problems!
Re: #6, I wonder if the reparations propaganda has ramped up in part because black leaders have figured out that they’ve lost their status as progressives’ preferred dependency class, in favor of the ragamuffin “Dreamers” President Obama has embraced as America’s future. They want to grab all the money they can now because in a few more years they’ll have to fight Latinos in the streets for the scraps, and they know that the Latinos already outnumber them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhRk7ZicT58
Cleveland tv reports on a “possible” hate crime of a 10 year old white girl by a 13 year old black girl. The black girl was staring at the camera at the start, then attacked the girl on the bike as she drive by and kept hitting her over and over. Even the Cleveland tv media called it a possible hate crime, which is a big step up from ignoring it.
They were dumb enough to post the whole thing to YouTube which this tv report showed over and over. The grandma for the black family used the phrase, “it will all come out in court” so I am guessing this is not the family’s first brush with the law.
So, I think there are two issues here, letting in elites who create wealth and hang out together, …
Many foreign elites became “elite” by driving their countrymen like slaves. Once here, they’ll want to import their servants from the old country – Americans don’t take too well to working for food and being bitch-slapped – not yet at least.
“Eric says:
June 13, 2014 at 10:11 pm
I think letting everyone above a certain level in is good business. Bryan Caplan is correct if you limit your view to PhD economists and those making over $100k/year. So, I think there are two issues here, letting in elites who create wealth and hang out together, and letting in low-wage workers who temporarily work hard but end up generating big problems in terms of educational priorities…”
Most of the elite do not create wealth. They appropriate, manage, and live off the wealth created by others.
Steve Sailer:
“What about the row of badges near the top for Facebook, Twitter, etc that take a few seconds to pop up one at a time — are those distracting?”
Yes! Could they be at the bottom of your post rather than at the top, as on your old blog? I also find the word count and link to messages above the title distracting. 🙂
Eric:
if you limit your view to PhD economists and those making over $100k/year. So, I think there are two issues here, letting in elites who create wealth and hang out together
They will form a new elite, and this elite will have nothing in common with the traditional population. In some cases, it might be explicitly hostile to that population. But even if it won’t, it will nevertheless try to perpetuate its elite status through endogamy or any other means, that would not be beneficial to others than themselves. This will not be good even from a strict business point of view.
But of course, as others have also pointed out, a nation is not a business.
Only slightly OT: Salon.com I’ve been getting the daily e-mail updates from Salon since the days when Camille Paglia wrote a column for them, which was the reason for the sign-up in the first place. I very, very seldom head over to actually view the site. However, in the last year or so, they seem to have collectively lost their marbles. Everything has gotten very shrill. Elias Isquith’s take on Cantor’s loss is entitled: ” Tea Party’s whiny tantrum: How a small group’s rage explains Eric Cantor’s demise” and concludes with the following insightful graf: “Simply put, what Cantor’s defeat tells us is that the GOP base is out of touch and prone to throwing tantrums, which is nothing that we didn’t know already.”
Isquith looks to be about twelve years old.
Is this shrillness simply a reflection of an increasingly childish culture? Could it be motivated by the growing success of “ultra-right” parties in Europe, the way birds can sense earthquakes coming? Am I simply becoming increasingly crotchety in my dotage?