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About a year ago there were news about an American scientist Douglas Prasher whose work in biology led to discoveries worthy of the Nobel prize. He did not get the prize, but the three scientist who did acknowledged his work in their acceptance speeches.

As the story goes, it turned out that Mr. Prasher was not working as a scientist any more. He was driving a Toyota dealership's courtesy bus for $10 per hour.

Much was written about the U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff's decision on September 14, 2009 not to approve Bank of America settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the bank's purchase of Merrill Lynch.

In a nutshell, the judge said that the charges listed in the SEC complaint are too serious to be ignored and the settlement is "not fair, nor reasonable, nor just."

I was driving when President Obama was speaking to the joint session of the US Congress on 9/10 about the need for the health care reform. The radio reception was not very good and was tuning to different stations to hear what he was saying.

It is often said that generals fight old wars.

For example, after World War French had build the Maginot Line, as they relied on the old strategy of static defense. Germans used new weapons and tactics, and French defenses crumbled after two days. As the result French army was defeated and France was occupied.

It seems that the answer to many unemployed or underemployed Americans is that they don't have proper education.

In 2003 I was in the group of outsourced computer programmers who met with a Congressman from New Jersey (he still has that position). His answer to our question about outsourcing and importation of cheap foreign labor was to claim that there was a shortage of glass-cutters. Thus, he was effectively telling people with advanced college degrees and years of experience in the field to learn this trade.

There was much discussion recently over the resignation of Van Jones from the post of adviser to President Obama, over some statements he made about Republicans and his signature in quite inflammatory 9/11 petition.

However, the real questions about Mr. Jones should have come after this speech at the Power Shift conference. It is obvious that the "green technology" term is just a euphemism, which can mean different things to different people. To Van Jones it means "black power."

Or better.

While economy was tanking, while millions of people were loosing their jobs, while Wall Street companies were getting millions in taxpayer moneys to keep them afloat, top management in these companies was raking in millions and millions of dollars in compensation.

They stand to make even more this year, while official unemployment, as was recently reported, has reached 9.7 percent (the unofficial is way higher).

Just about everybody knows that outsourcing displaces American labor, destroys local industry, reduces quality of goods and services, and, in general, is not beneficial to the US.

I came across this video on CNN which addressed another side of this issue - its impact on education.

Not too long ago, the raging debate in this country was about tobacco. The negative effects of smoking were quite known, but the powerful tobacco lobby was able to resist any efforts to regulate the industry.

In 1994 heads of tobacco companies testified in Congress that cigarettes are not harmful, and that the tobacco companies are not trying to get people addicted to smoking.

The song "Changes!" was written by Russian poet-singer Victor Tsoi (Виктор Цой) who was the leader of the rock group "Cinema" in 1986 at the height of crisis in the former Soviet Union. The attached clip is from a movie "Dust" where the song is played during credits with a very dramatic translation to sign language.

Enjoy!