Help Wanted - Active DoD Top Secret Clearance Required

When reading through help-wanted ads sometimes I shake my head in wonder at the job requirements listed.

From an actual help-wanted ad:

(In hind sight I should have taken a screenshot of the help-wanted ad because the online link would eventually be replaced with current help-wanted ads. The best I could find now is an expired Google search result. "Expired" because the Google link went to the updated page where the ad had since been replaced. Oh, well. Blog and learn.)

"IT Specialist Position. Active DoD Top Secret Clearance with SCI Eligibility Required. US Citizens Only. EOE. Full Time Position, Immediate opening. Salary Range: Dependant [sic] on Capabilities and Exp. IT Specialist position requires a minimum of 5 years of experience in the following areas: A) Windows 2003/2008; Exchange 2007/2010 C) VM WARE; LINUX/UNIX E) Network Components F) DISA IA Compliance Abilities which are a plus: A) Former Military Experience B) CISSP; Security+ D) Training and other certifications..."

"Active DoD Top Secret Clearance" is required?

Really?

Why is a job that requires "Active DoD (Department of Defense) Top Secret Clearance" posted on a local rag's help-wanted page with all the less-than-top-secret job postings?

Wouldn't the "Active Department of Defense Top Secret Clearance" database contain, oh, I don't know, all conceivable and inconceivable background information (including job qualifications way beyond what are normally posted in help-wanted ads) on each and every person who is in the Active Department of Defense Top Secret Clearance database?

Why would some one even bother posting a help-wanted ad for any job that requires "Top Secret Clearance"? Just pick the job candidates from the Active DoD Top Secret Clearance list. Wouldn't people in the position of hiring top secret clearance personnel have access to such a list of prospective job candidates?

Given the job's "Active Department of Defense Top Secret Clearance" nature, wouldn't that sort of thing be something that's promoted from within those types of organizations? You know - a closed network of who's-who in the clandestine world of "on a need to know only basis" type of jobs.

Top secret clearance, eh?

Is there on-the-job training for that and does it come with a dental plan?



Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.


Related:
A screenshot of the Google search result. I was hoping Google had cached the page but that turns out to not be the case.

Eliminating Redundant Regulations and Job Growth

The Obama administration wants to eliminate redundant regulations to improve job creation.

Seems to be a bit of a long-shot to me.

Eliminating redundant regulations to spur job growth is sort of like the picking out a few grains of sand will turn the Sahara Desert into fertile farm land.

Eliminating redundant regulations is a good start in any bureaucracy but don't be so naive to think by eliminating some redundant regulations job growth will be greatly improved. The structural problems this country has are just too messed up.

Don't be fooled into believing the only reason businesses aren't hiring is because of too many regulations. Businesses may complain about regulations but the bottom line is that they just don't have enough customers. Whatever regulatory concerns businesses may have would be overcome if businesses were more worried about keeping up with customer demand and the resulting increased positive cash-flow.

(Below is a comment I posted on a related, Marketplace.org news article with a few, afterthought revisions)

Equating the elimination of redundant regulations to an increase in job creation is a stretch. Just like giving multinational corporations tax breaks for bringing their foreign profits back to the US was supposed to spur job growth. The corporations claimed they would use the repatriated money to create more jobs but instead they funneled most of the money back into their own company stock.

Setting that aside, eliminating redundant regulations to reduce paperwork and confusion is a good thing so long as it doesn't weaken the protections and safe guards those redundant regulations provide.

Redundant regulations were built into our property rights laws as fail-safe measures to ensure the protection of our property rights. The banks by-passed some of those redundant regulations resulting bank perpetrated foreclosure fraud and perjury, bank perpetrated mortgage fraud and perjury, and bank robo-signer scams (more bank perpetrated fraud and perjury).

Banks aren't the only guilty parties but they are among the biggest of the crooks.

Other redundant regulations that are involved with safety measures are also a good idea. Eliminating some redundant regulations may actually increase hazards and safety concerns.

Yes, common sense would prevent a lot of accidents but humans have proven too many times not to have common sense. As a former employer told me once, "You gotta make it idiot proof."

Eliminating the redundant regulations that require gas vapor valves on fuel pumps may work with modern cars but not everyone is driving a car made within the last five years, let alone the last fifty years. (Four-on-the-floor, suicide-doors, classic, hot-rod, muscle-cars come to mind.)

I originally come from fly-over country. There, twenty and thirty year old vehicles are not uncommon. (My dad just recently upgraded from a beat-up, 1984, straight-6, 4x4, F-150 with 2-50 air-conditioning - 2 windows rolled down while going 50mph - to a 1992, F350 diesel, 4x4, dually, flat-bed with real air-conditioning.)

Not all farm equipment is diesel powered; cars and trucks are not the only vehicles used. (Tricked-out, rider-lawn-mower races and dear ol' Dad frequents the local eateries by pulling into the parking lots on his gas powered, 1940's Farmall B tractor. They're a different breed out there in fly-over country.)

Not all fuel pumps are at convenience stores (500gal fuel tanks are not uncommon on farms) and not all things filled with gas have any equipment more sophisticated than a tank and a cap - and even a cap may be optional.

Here's a little secret. A lot of equipment "modifications" are made by the people who own or operate the equipment.

That vehicle, at one time, may have had a feature required by redundant regulations but that particular feature has long since been by-passed, cut out, torched off, smashed in, rerouted or re-purposed. Never underestimate the ingenuity of people with tools.

So even as redundant as it may seem to have a gas vapor valve on fuel pumps, those fuel pump valves are a safety precaution against un-safe (and all too frequent) "custom modifications". Sometimes redundant regulations are put in place to protect ourselves from ourselves. ("You gotta make it idiot proof.")

The Obama administration should eliminate regulation redundancies where it won't open up loop holes to be exploited and where no safety measures will be compromised. But don't be fooled into believing the BS that eliminating these redundant regulations will increase job growth by any significant amount. The structural problems of this country are too great and too unstable to create any real job growth anytime soon.



Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.



Related Links:

Marketplace.org: White House says removing redundant regulations will grow jobs

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/08/23/am-white-house-says-removing-redundant-regulations-will-grow-jobs/

TractorData.com - Farmall B

http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/2/8/286-farmall-b.html

Why is Gold the Standard for Money

Dollars. iPads. Gold.

You can't eat dollars or iPads and you can't eat gold.

Well, actually... some people do eat gold.

Huh. Maybe they also ate lead-based paint chips when they were kids.

Back to the post topic...

You can trade dollars for a hamburger at McDonalds.

You might be able to trade an iPad for several hamburgers at McDonalds (if you're trading with one of the better paid higher-ups).

You won't be able to trade gold for a hamburger at McDonalds. Most people working at McDonalds (and most people in America, for that matter) don't understand the value of gold as wealth protection nor the purchasing power of gold.

Why is gold worth anything anyway?

After all it's just another metal that's dug out of the ground. Right?

The answer lies in history.

Lots of history.

Over two thousand years of history.

I'm talking before the Bible, before the ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks.

For thousands of years gold has been accepted, all over the known, civilized world, as a form of currency; as a medium of trade.

I say "known, civilized world" because over thousands of years man discovered more and more unknown parts of the world (known versus the unknown and undiscovered) and because the less civilized parts of the world valued other things more highly than gold. (Imagine trading your iPad for fur pelts and a mate.)

No one, single, government, nation, or people made gold important or valuable. But, strangely enough, the majority of people in all the corners of the known, civilized world, considered gold to be important and valuable. Some traded with it; others fought wars over it.

So gold, a shiny yellow metal dug up from the ground, is valuable and universally accepted as currency just because that's the way it's been for thousands of years.

Now other things are considered valuable and are used in trade but none have had the universal acceptance for so many thousands of years as gold has.

Who knows, maybe in the future something else will become more valued than gold. What ever it is, gold already has a head start of a couple thousand years of proven acceptance.



Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.



Related Links:

Can You Eat Gold?

http://quezi.com/14485

Askville: Is Gold Toxic As a Heavy Metal?

http://askville.amazon.com/gold-toxic-heavy-metal/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=1526589

Fact-Checking Links Conundrum

I'm trying to figure out what would be the best way to include fact-checking links in posts.

One thought is to use the relevant words in the posts as the thing to click on to go to where ever I found the information I'm referring to. But I've noticed a lot of websites use this for ads instead of fact-checking.

(You know - you move your mouse pointer over the different colored words in the paragraph you are reading and up pops an ad for something that may or may not even be relevant. Those ads annoy me so I avoid them. Unless I'm fact-checking, then I'll hover over the link to see what happens.)

There are a couple web sites that I frequent that actually use the linked words for fact-checking or as links to other related posts on their web site. Because I frequent those web sites so often I know what to expect.

On the other hand, someone new to the web site (or blog in this case) may have the same aversion I have to the ad word links. They might not click on the link words to continue learning by reading the linked-to related posts, news articles or documents (pdf files, images, charts, graphs, etc).

Another thought is to just dump all the fact-checking links at the bottom of the page and have a number assigned to them that matches the numbers scattered throughout the blog post. Kind of like footnotes in a reference book.

I hate footnotes. I'm constantly going back and forth between what I was reading and the footnotes clear at the bottom of the page (or worse, at the back of the book). But then, other folks may prefer this.

Before I click on a link I check out it's URL to see where it comes from. If the URL has "wsj", or "reuters" in the beginning I know it comes from a big-name news source. If the URL begins with a web site or blog I frequent I'm even more likely to click-through (actually, open in another web browser tab for later).

Not everyone who uses the Internet may be savvy enough to know how to check the URL without actually clicking through. Having fact-checking and/or topic related links listed at the bottom, in full-length, may prove useful, maybe even desirable, to some because then they can see where that link may take them before clicking on it.

So a link dump at the bottom of the page could be useful to some.

Hmm...

Maybe... some combination of both ideas?

I could put a short message near the end of each post saying something like, "The colored words in the above post are links to related news articles, posts or documents. They are not ads.".

That would let new or infrequent visitors know, in general, what those colored words are linked to.

Instead of just dumping a bunch of links at the bottom I could put a meaningful description next to each one.

That might help folks determine if the link is interesting enough to investigate further or not.

Hmm...




Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.

The Fiscal Folly of Fools

Our future is not in good hands.

"A fool and his money are soon parted." This happens even faster and greater when the fool owns the money printing press.

The US debt ceiling deal was done and the shortly there after debunked as nothing but an utter joke by the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO came up with pretty much the same conclusion when Congress was farting around with the federal budget and risked a federal government shutdown earlier this spring.

Well, in a few short weeks the whole charade will begin again. September 30, 2011, is when the federal budget for 2012 is due and Congress hasn't even started on it yet. Like last year they will most likely pass a series of temporary resolutions instead of a real budget. The strategy will be to push the debate as close to next year's presidential election as possible; then make a big stink of it.

The way the US government is burning through money there is a good chance that the debt ceiling could be breached, again, sometime near the 2012 presidential election. Given the politicians' childish behavior so far, it is almost certain that the Republicans will do what ever they can to make sure the debt ceiling is breached during the next campaign cycle for their own petty, political gains - what's best for the country be damned.

S&P downgraded the US's credit rating to AA+ (with a negative outlook) less because of the fiscal policy and more because of the ludicrous behavior of the policy makers! The politicians' shenanigans got so bad that not only did the international community get fed up with the damn fools but so did Joe and Jane Sixpack-American. Losing international confidence is one thing; losing it at home is even worse.

In the last election cycle the voters were voicing a growing disdain for all incumbents. This next election cycle may see that anger come to fruition.

Last week the markets went through violent convulsions unlike any time before. Down 500 points one day, up 400 points the next, then down 600 points another day followed by another several-hundred point upswing. These were not flash-crashes.

Flash crashes have been occurring more frequently. In March of last year the markets crashed by 1,000 points instantly and then just as fast, instantly recovered. Flash crashes are caused by the computers that are running thousands of trades per second. "SkyNet", "H.A.L." and even "Johnny-5" are running the stock market now. But once in a while the humans reclaim control and override the computers.

That's what happened last week; the humans took control and proceeded to panic. The crashes and recoveries each took an entire day, from start to close of the markets, instead of the mere milliseconds that it would take for a computer algorithm to process.

What is curious is that the recoveries were greater than the typical market "dead-cat-bounce". There is speculation that the government stepped in and covertly manipulated the markets into a false recovery. The government openly manipulates markets every day through regulations, tariffs, and other, known regulatory policies but something about the rebounds of last week smells fishy.

Gold shot up more than $200 in two week's time to over $1,800 per ounce. Only a few years ago gold was priced around $500 per ounce. That was when the US economy and the dollar were strong and stable. The price movements of gold have long been an indicator of bigger things going on. Margin hikes have put a damper on the price of gold for the moment but the reasons for it's rapid price ascent are still very much present. Big moves in gold mean big problems - those, the world economies have in spades.

The Eurozone looks like it is on the verge of it's own "Lehman Brother's" moment. It's not the governments that are (directly) in trouble, it's the banks that are sinking; particularly German and French banks. All the big banks are interconnected through deals and credit default swaps. When the big banks go down they take everyone with them. The big banks are all interconnected - even the big American banks are tied to the European banks.

When Lehman Brother's went under in 2008 it was the main economic trigger for the cascading financial implosion that occurred across the globe (all big banks are interconnected). Since Lehman Brothers was an American-based bank, the US was at the epicenter of the 2008 collapse. Now it is big European banks that are putting the Eurozone at the epicenter of the next global banking crisis.

Or not...

Over on this side of the pond, one of the six, American mega-banks that could take down the entire country (and the rest of the global economy with it - things are that precarious around the globe), Bank of America might turnout to be the next Lehman Brothers.

Already $118 billion of Bank of America's toxic assets have been guaranteed by the US Government (read: bought by the US taxpayer) and now it looks like another $73 billion of Bank of America's toxic assets will be dumped into Fannie Mae (read again: bought and paid-for by the US taxpayer). If that doesn't work maybe JP Morgan-Chase will take over Bank of America. JP Morgan-Chase can afford to do this (even though they had to be bailed out too) because JP Morgan-Chase sits on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve. This grants JP Morgan-Chase direct access to the money-printing presses (read yet again: bought, paid-for and bailed-out by the US taxpayer).

It's a race to the bottom. Which to-big-to-fail bank will scuttle the global economy next?

Oh, and the $800 billion dollar TARP, bank bailout of 2008... seems not all of the money has been paid back... and during the same time period the Federal Reserve was quietly shoveling out trillions of US taxpayer dollars to foreign banks and foreign corporations.

Look at page 205 (page 218 in Adobe Reader page search) of the GAO (US Government Accountability Office) Fed Investigation Report. See that $10,057 total at the bottom of the table 24 and the upper left corner of the table state that the figures are "Dollars in billions"? That means the $10,057 isn't ten thousand, fifty-seven dollars... it means the amount is ten trillion, fifty-seven billion dollars! ($10,057 x 1 billion)

$10,057 dollars in billions?

No wonder the government can't figure out a budget! It sees $10,057 when the figure is really $10,057,000,000,000!

How many American taxpayers would think it's OK to bail out foreign banks with $10 trillion US taxpayer dollars while millions American taxpayers have lost their jobs and lost their homes? (Oh, and don't forget that America is in an additional $15 trillion dollars of debt.)

How many American taxpayers, jobless, homeless, or otherwise, would think it's OK to bail out the Central Bank of Libya with US taxpayer dollars? (Which the Federal Reserve did.)

A misallocation of US capital?

A misrepresentation of the American people's will?

A big mistake?

Oh, yeah. Definitely.



Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.



Related Links:
Zero Hedge - Bank Of America Continues Firesales To Shore Up Liquidity, Sells Canadian Credit Card Business To TD Group

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bank-america-continues-firesales-shore-liquidity-sells-canadian-credit-card-business-td-group

The Stock Market Watch - Bank of America is the 2011 Lehman Brothers (Debt Man Walking)

http://thestockmarketwatch.com/newsletters/2011/08/10/bank-of-america-is-the-2011-lehman-brothers-debt-man-walking/

Wikipedia - Troubled Asset Relief Program (T.A.R.P.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

Bernie Sanders, US Senator for Vermont (I) - The Fed Audit

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3

Wikipedia - Government Accountability Office (GAO)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Office

Bernie Sanders, US Senator for Vermont (I) - (pdf file of Fed Investigation) GAO Report to Congressional Addressees, FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Policies and Processes for Managing Emergency Assistance

http://sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GAO%20Fed%20Investigation.pdf

Bernie Sanders, US Senator for Vermont (I) - Release: Why Did the Fed Bail Out the Bank of Libya?

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=ece720e4-d5d6-4eff-937c-dcada784c3f9

Debt Ceiling, Downgrade, and Drunk Monkeys

A drunk monkey could do better.

The Obama Administration has said that S&P acted hastily when the credit rating agency downgraded the US's credit worthiness from AAA to AA+ (with a negative outlook to boot).

Hasty?

Really?

For the past year the credit rating agencies have been warning of downgrade potential if Washington didn't clean up its act.

Our illustrious United States Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, said of Standard & Poor's decision, "They've handled themselves very poorly. And they've shown a stunning lack of knowledge about the basic US fiscal budget math."

Right. As if the politicians in Washington DC have handled themselves so much better. Does anyone remember Representative Anthony Weiner's sexting escapade during all the debt ceiling negotiations? He was certainly "handling" himself. The rest of the lot in DC are no better.

If anyone has shown a stunning lack of knowledge about basic US fiscal math no one has proven themselves more incompetent than Congress itself. The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) debunked Congress' fantasy math last spring after the Federal Budget for 2011 was passed and yet again after the debt ceiling deal was done and signed off.

Most Americans who have been watching the news over the past decade have had a sense that something is really wrong with the way this country handles its finances. Just how badly mismanaged the nation's finances are and how ridiculously, ludicrously, incomprehensibly huge the national debt has become is finally coming to light for the average American.

The big investors who do their own homework figured out long ago that the US wasn't worth a AAA rating. These investors couldn't rely on the credit ratings agencies assessment of anything because it was the same ratings agencies that had been slapping solid gold seals of approval on all the toxic asset, sub-prime mortgages that had nuclear meltdowns in 2008.

Jim Rogers, American billionaire investor, said that the markets have priced things six months to a year in advance. If that's so, then the markets actions this past week would indicate a really crappy six to twelve months to come.

The big movers and shakers may have priced into the market the mess that's coming but a whole lot of smaller investors were probably needing a clean change of underwear several times a day this week.

So what are we to do if things are going to get much worse over the next six to 12 months? Trust that our leaders will do their jobs and fix things?

Those in charge have been lying, cheating and stealing openly.

Why delude ourselves into thinking they will do anything even remotely close to honestly clearing up this monumental mess?

According to recent polls, the majority of Americans want to throw the bums out, each and every one of them. No politician would be safe if elections were to be held right now, today.

Much of this angst can be attributed to the pathetic circus and clown show the politicians put on during the debt ceiling debate. The whole spectacle made it abundantly clear, to even Joe and Jane Six-pack, that a room full of drunk monkeys could have done a better job.

Losing the full faith and credibility of the United States government in the eyes of the international community is one thing, losing it at home is much worse.



Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.