Flashback: Obama Lauds Cisco Networking Academy

This is from July 14, 2009, almost two years to the day. The glorious administration of King Barack I was dumping $12 billion into a program to win the future or something.

On Tuesday, July 14th, President Obama announced his $12 billion American Graduation Initiative that focuses on using our community colleges to educate (and reeducate) workers for our future.

During his talk, he referred to Cisco as an example of a company partnering with schools to deliver programs that will train workers for new jobs.

I doubt he'll be mentioning Cisco much on the 2012 campaign stump. Flash forward exactly two years.

As Cisco looks to reduce costs, the once renowned company is now looking to cut 10,000 jobs. With 3,000 employees accepting early-retirement packages, another 7,000 are facing layoffs.

Cisco employees aren't the only ones shaking in their boots. Companies nationwide are also experiencing job cuts. From big international banks such as UBS to local school districts, employers are looking for ways to survive in an increasingly weakening economy.

Career strategist and author Julie Bauke can give your audience the advice they'll need whether they've already received a pink slip or fear one may be coming. She can reveal quick tips on what employees should and shouldn't do if they think they might on their company's layoff list.

Maybe they can get some job re-education.

Never Enough Money for Terrorists: Pali Conference Plans to Raise $1.5 Billion

When it comes to shaking down the dummies of the world for money, nobody does it quite like the Palis.

Not content with the $7.4 billion recently pledged to them, now the terror goons have a conference planned for next month where they hope to raise another $1.5 billion.

Surely, it will all go to peaceful purposes and to feed the malnourished children who throw rocks and march with weapons all day.

A Palestinian-hosted investment conference plans to raise $600 million for the Gaza Strip but delay projects in the territory while Hamas remains in control, organisers said on Wednesday.

"In Gaza, it is very difficult to do business now," said Hassan Abu Libdeh, chief executive officer of the Palestine Investment Conference opening in the West Bank city of Bethlehem next month.

"We want to show those participating that Gaza has a legacy ... what's happening in Gaza now is of a temporary nature," he said, referring to its takeover by Hamas in fighting against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction in June.

Abu Libdeh told reporters $900 million of the $1.5 billion expected to be raised by the conference would be spent on projects in the occupied West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem.

The other $600 million will be designated for the Gaza Strip where 1.5 million Palestinians live, many of them in poverty.

"We will remind the participants of the Gaza economy and the future of the Gaza economy ... and show some of the projects that will be available once things change," Abu Libdeh said.

Abu Libdeh said many of the planned "mega-projects" the conference hopes to promote would be slated for the Gaza Strip and 100 investors from the territory would attend the gathering.

Under pressure from the United States, which wants to see a deal on Palestinian statehood by year's end, Israel said this week it would ease access to Bethlehem for the conference.

Abu Libdeh said 1,200 foreign and Arab investors would also attend the May 21-23 meeting. Asked if Israel was invited to the conference, he said: "The whole world is invited."

Without Israel, they'd have collapsed already. They give more than enough, especially in lives.

One of the companies supporting this sham is Cisco Systems.

'At Cisco we are excited that businesses and government leaders in Palestine are increasingly appreciating the correlation between productivity, GDP growth and the need to build out the information technology infrastructure to position their economies, businesses and jobs for the future,' said Yvon Le Roux, Cisco's vice president for Africa and Levant Region.

What nonsense.