senthil1
12-20 04:22 PM
Everybody are blaming Bush for his failure in Iraq and Economy. But Bush had a big acheivement in his period. After 9/11 he successfully prevented Terrorist attacks. That was most important acheivement and that was overshadowed by other failures.
Yes, everybody, all senators, wanted to teach these terrorists a lesson after 9/11.
Afghan war is good and Iraq war is bad. Why, because Iraqis didn't leave WMDs a.k.a nukes behind.
(A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a weapon that can kill large numbers of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures (e.g. buildings), natural structures (e.g. mountains), or the biosphere in general. The term is often used to cover several weapon types, including nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC), and radiological weapons)
Now, Iraq war went bad, economy went bad (due to main street scamming the banks) and suddenly its all the fault of Mr. Bush.
Yes, everybody, all senators, wanted to teach these terrorists a lesson after 9/11.
Afghan war is good and Iraq war is bad. Why, because Iraqis didn't leave WMDs a.k.a nukes behind.
(A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a weapon that can kill large numbers of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures (e.g. buildings), natural structures (e.g. mountains), or the biosphere in general. The term is often used to cover several weapon types, including nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC), and radiological weapons)
Now, Iraq war went bad, economy went bad (due to main street scamming the banks) and suddenly its all the fault of Mr. Bush.
wallpaper and pronunciations Espaol
Marphad
12-17 01:52 PM
People like Antulay are real traitors of India. Who know they may be taking instructions from Pakistan ISI? Such people go unpunish is the main reason India was slave for 2000 years.
They need to be procecuted.
When I started this thread, I knew for sure that some terrorism supporting back stabbers will start giving me Red, and it happened :).
This is all they were taught from which ever the school (they call that junk yard as school - don't laugh) they went through to attack people from back.
They need to be procecuted.
When I started this thread, I knew for sure that some terrorism supporting back stabbers will start giving me Red, and it happened :).
This is all they were taught from which ever the school (they call that junk yard as school - don't laugh) they went through to attack people from back.
mariner5555
04-20 01:04 AM
since nothing much is happening - I thought that I would post this - seems like a worst case scenario -but who knows ..some of his predictions have already come true ..this was interview on mar 24.
---------
Q. Where are home prices going?
A. Two years ago, I predicted home prices would fall cumulatively 20%, but now I believe it will be at least 30%.
With a 20% fall in home prices, about 16 million households are under water. They have negative equity, which means the value of their homes is below the value of their mortgages. With a 30% drop in prices, you have 21 million households that are in negative equity. And since the mortgages are no-recourse loans, essentially they can walk away.
Even if only half of the 16 million households were to walk away, that alone could lead to losses for the financial system of $1 trillion. Even a 20% drop in home values may imply losses of $1 trillion that are not priced into the market today. So that's the floor. Again, it could be higher — as much as $2 trillion — if prices fall 30% and more people walk.
Q. You are predicting problems in commercial real estate, which we haven't seen yet. When do you expect the crisis to hit?
A. The same kind of reckless lending practices that occurred in subprime also occurred in commercial real estate — things like really high loan-to-value ratios and inflated estimations of how much rent would increase. If you look at the CMBX index (which tracks bonds backed by real estate loans), the spreads imply a huge number of defaults on existing commercial real estate loans. More important, the market for new commercial real estate loans is totally frozen, like the one for subprime new originations.
Q. But when will this happen?
A. That shoe has not dropped yet. But I expect the severe recession in residential housing will lead to a severe recession in commercial real estate. The reason is simple: If you go west, you have entire ghost towns outside of Phoenix, Las Vegas and throughout California. Who is going to be building new shopping centers, shopping malls, offices and stores where you have ghost towns? Also, there has been a lot of commercial real estate activity in the last couple of years, including a huge increase in retail capacity at a time of consumer-led recession. So, I expect [a commercial real estate] collapse will occur in the next few quarters.
Q. How bad will things get?
A. I would argue this is the worst financial crisis the U.S. has had since the Great Depression. We haven't seen this type of real financial turmoil for the last 70 years. Of course, it's not going to be as bad as the Great Depression. But this isn't your typical run-of-the-mill recession that in the last two episodes lasted only eight months with a minor contraction in output. This is going to last at least 12 months and more likely 18 months, which is something we haven't seen in decades.
Q. So you expect the economy to start turning around in mid-2009?
A. The real economic activity, yes. But some parts of the system are going to be in a severe contraction for much longer; home prices are going to keep falling for another three years, in my view. And the financial mess is going to take years to clean up.
-----------------------------
---------
Q. Where are home prices going?
A. Two years ago, I predicted home prices would fall cumulatively 20%, but now I believe it will be at least 30%.
With a 20% fall in home prices, about 16 million households are under water. They have negative equity, which means the value of their homes is below the value of their mortgages. With a 30% drop in prices, you have 21 million households that are in negative equity. And since the mortgages are no-recourse loans, essentially they can walk away.
Even if only half of the 16 million households were to walk away, that alone could lead to losses for the financial system of $1 trillion. Even a 20% drop in home values may imply losses of $1 trillion that are not priced into the market today. So that's the floor. Again, it could be higher — as much as $2 trillion — if prices fall 30% and more people walk.
Q. You are predicting problems in commercial real estate, which we haven't seen yet. When do you expect the crisis to hit?
A. The same kind of reckless lending practices that occurred in subprime also occurred in commercial real estate — things like really high loan-to-value ratios and inflated estimations of how much rent would increase. If you look at the CMBX index (which tracks bonds backed by real estate loans), the spreads imply a huge number of defaults on existing commercial real estate loans. More important, the market for new commercial real estate loans is totally frozen, like the one for subprime new originations.
Q. But when will this happen?
A. That shoe has not dropped yet. But I expect the severe recession in residential housing will lead to a severe recession in commercial real estate. The reason is simple: If you go west, you have entire ghost towns outside of Phoenix, Las Vegas and throughout California. Who is going to be building new shopping centers, shopping malls, offices and stores where you have ghost towns? Also, there has been a lot of commercial real estate activity in the last couple of years, including a huge increase in retail capacity at a time of consumer-led recession. So, I expect [a commercial real estate] collapse will occur in the next few quarters.
Q. How bad will things get?
A. I would argue this is the worst financial crisis the U.S. has had since the Great Depression. We haven't seen this type of real financial turmoil for the last 70 years. Of course, it's not going to be as bad as the Great Depression. But this isn't your typical run-of-the-mill recession that in the last two episodes lasted only eight months with a minor contraction in output. This is going to last at least 12 months and more likely 18 months, which is something we haven't seen in decades.
Q. So you expect the economy to start turning around in mid-2009?
A. The real economic activity, yes. But some parts of the system are going to be in a severe contraction for much longer; home prices are going to keep falling for another three years, in my view. And the financial mess is going to take years to clean up.
-----------------------------
2011 Home; Curriculum Vitae
jonty_11
07-13 05:51 PM
willwin - What we are essentially saying is to artificially retrogress EB2 than it otherwise would have so that an EB3 who is waiting for 7 years gets his GC first - thats really what the spillover break up will do. Similarly an argument can be made to artificially retrogress EB1 so that an EB2 who is waiting for 4 years gets his GC first.
Whether EB1 is presently retrogressed or not doesn't matter.
Let's think about this for a moment. We are trying to completely negate the category preference established by law and asking them to grant GC's based solely on PD regardless of category.
Ain't gonna happen - dont want to be a pessimist but at some point we have to call it as we see it.
Agreed.....the categories were made for a reasson.....and the same logic is being followed by the DOS to spillover unused VISAS. While I understand the frustration of EB3 folks, I would encourage those same folks to folllow IVs initiatives like - call campaigns for House bills...etc. As I have said before IV is working for one and all...w/o caring for their categories. It was not IV that created this spillover policy...however IV is the one that will fight for you irrespective of whether you are EB1, 2 or 3. The key is to post a united front and some level of participation from every member...I was sad to see Pappu publish low numbers for contributions and phone calls....and only wish we would come together as a group rather than breaking apart.
While I fear this will create an offshoot EB3 group within IV, I hope that goos senses will prevail.
FYI - EB2 is still retrogressed over 2 years.....it is not that it is current
Whether EB1 is presently retrogressed or not doesn't matter.
Let's think about this for a moment. We are trying to completely negate the category preference established by law and asking them to grant GC's based solely on PD regardless of category.
Ain't gonna happen - dont want to be a pessimist but at some point we have to call it as we see it.
Agreed.....the categories were made for a reasson.....and the same logic is being followed by the DOS to spillover unused VISAS. While I understand the frustration of EB3 folks, I would encourage those same folks to folllow IVs initiatives like - call campaigns for House bills...etc. As I have said before IV is working for one and all...w/o caring for their categories. It was not IV that created this spillover policy...however IV is the one that will fight for you irrespective of whether you are EB1, 2 or 3. The key is to post a united front and some level of participation from every member...I was sad to see Pappu publish low numbers for contributions and phone calls....and only wish we would come together as a group rather than breaking apart.
While I fear this will create an offshoot EB3 group within IV, I hope that goos senses will prevail.
FYI - EB2 is still retrogressed over 2 years.....it is not that it is current
more...
axp817
03-26 06:30 PM
here is the link.
Becausing of uploading issue: follow this link.
http://www.uscis.gov/uscis-ext-templating/uscis/jspoverride/errFrameset.jsp
from there click on a-1 certification; decisions issued in 2004; click on second decision from the top. If someone can download the pdf and attach then we can discuss.
The attachment upload fails for me as well but goddamn UN, you are unbelievable.
1. Your knowledge of the specifics and technicalities and access to information is very impressive
2. And you go out of your way to share it with others
That being said, I skimmed through the document real quick and the part that caught my eye was the AAOs point on the applicant never having resided/lived in the same state as the employer, which you had also mentioned in one of your earlier posts.
Wouldn't that be quite common in most consulting scenarios? What if the beneficiary/applicant has never lived in the same state as the petitioning employer but has lived in and worked for the employer (at client locations, offsite assignments) in nearby bordering states, from before the labor was filed and until long after the 485 was filed. Do you see the USCIS ever having issues with that?
Becausing of uploading issue: follow this link.
http://www.uscis.gov/uscis-ext-templating/uscis/jspoverride/errFrameset.jsp
from there click on a-1 certification; decisions issued in 2004; click on second decision from the top. If someone can download the pdf and attach then we can discuss.
The attachment upload fails for me as well but goddamn UN, you are unbelievable.
1. Your knowledge of the specifics and technicalities and access to information is very impressive
2. And you go out of your way to share it with others
That being said, I skimmed through the document real quick and the part that caught my eye was the AAOs point on the applicant never having resided/lived in the same state as the employer, which you had also mentioned in one of your earlier posts.
Wouldn't that be quite common in most consulting scenarios? What if the beneficiary/applicant has never lived in the same state as the petitioning employer but has lived in and worked for the employer (at client locations, offsite assignments) in nearby bordering states, from before the labor was filed and until long after the 485 was filed. Do you see the USCIS ever having issues with that?
jungalee43
09-28 12:39 PM
I am not US citizen and who becomes president or who the American people vote for is none of my business.
But I can't resist writing here because it is going to affect my life in a great way.
Sen. Obama's appeal of change is definitely attractive. But would he walk the talk?
He mentioned American values in the debate. All of us i.e. the EB immigrants came here on the invitation of American Employers to help American corporations and economy. I came here little over 8 years ago, not only on the invitation but on the insistence of the American employers. I paid taxes from day 1 and followed every law in letter and spirit.
My then colleagues, who were not invited, stayed back in India and have become Vice Presidents and Presidents of the companies. And they earn equal or more than what I earn here and have exactly same or better life style as I do, including the cars that I drive here. But I am stuck with the same job description and title that was assigned to me 8 years ago and all my retirement money in now with US government and none in India.
Then I've realized that once the EB immigrants, invited by the American employers, enter the GC loop, they are chosen by US immigration system to discriminate on the basis of their country of birth. People born in Timbuktu clear all the three stages of green card in 5 to 15 months. But for people born in India, this journey is simply put, 'endless'. I am myself in the last stage of green card for last five years for the only reason that I was born in India.
If Sen. Obama is really going to bring change, he’ll have to answer these core issues in the immigration system. What is broken is the respect for US values that he talked about. There is discrimination built in the system. There is no fairness, no equality and most of all no justice.
And if his fellow Sen. Durbin calls the shots in next senate then it is all over for us and may be for American employers also. If I am asked to write 100 reasons why CIR2007 failed, I would write Durbin-Grassley provisions on EB immigration from no.1 through 50. That would be followed by the disastrous points based system from position 51 through 75. (My former boss, a great maintenance manager in a huge company in India migrated to Australia under points based system. The last I heard of him was that he was a taxi driver at Sidney airport.)
If a scenario happens where Sen. Durbin calls shots in senate, Sen. Obama would be turning back on his promise of change. To bring change he may have to take the current senate democratic leadership head on. His best chances are with Republican Senate and Democratic House.
I am really really worried but still I wish all the very best to Sen. Obama.
But I can't resist writing here because it is going to affect my life in a great way.
Sen. Obama's appeal of change is definitely attractive. But would he walk the talk?
He mentioned American values in the debate. All of us i.e. the EB immigrants came here on the invitation of American Employers to help American corporations and economy. I came here little over 8 years ago, not only on the invitation but on the insistence of the American employers. I paid taxes from day 1 and followed every law in letter and spirit.
My then colleagues, who were not invited, stayed back in India and have become Vice Presidents and Presidents of the companies. And they earn equal or more than what I earn here and have exactly same or better life style as I do, including the cars that I drive here. But I am stuck with the same job description and title that was assigned to me 8 years ago and all my retirement money in now with US government and none in India.
Then I've realized that once the EB immigrants, invited by the American employers, enter the GC loop, they are chosen by US immigration system to discriminate on the basis of their country of birth. People born in Timbuktu clear all the three stages of green card in 5 to 15 months. But for people born in India, this journey is simply put, 'endless'. I am myself in the last stage of green card for last five years for the only reason that I was born in India.
If Sen. Obama is really going to bring change, he’ll have to answer these core issues in the immigration system. What is broken is the respect for US values that he talked about. There is discrimination built in the system. There is no fairness, no equality and most of all no justice.
And if his fellow Sen. Durbin calls the shots in next senate then it is all over for us and may be for American employers also. If I am asked to write 100 reasons why CIR2007 failed, I would write Durbin-Grassley provisions on EB immigration from no.1 through 50. That would be followed by the disastrous points based system from position 51 through 75. (My former boss, a great maintenance manager in a huge company in India migrated to Australia under points based system. The last I heard of him was that he was a taxi driver at Sidney airport.)
If a scenario happens where Sen. Durbin calls shots in senate, Sen. Obama would be turning back on his promise of change. To bring change he may have to take the current senate democratic leadership head on. His best chances are with Republican Senate and Democratic House.
I am really really worried but still I wish all the very best to Sen. Obama.
more...
ohpdfeb2003
06-27 11:11 AM
hpandey,
Excellent points!
Hirala/puddonhead,
You guys are still going by popular news article and media hype. You fail to understand the ground reality. I bought my house last year in a great school district. I used to pay $1,250 rent for a single bedroom condo of 800 sq ft. I could have as well flushed that money down the toilet. My house now is 1600 sq ft living area + completed basement + garage + deck, all for $2,500 (mortgage + insurance + tax). I'm in the 30% tax bracket and I know I'll get a huge tax benefit. My quality of life has been great with the addition of space in my dwelling.
I'll have to reiterate - do not generalize your opinions. What's happening in Detriot is NOT happening everywhere!
EDIT: The rent in my area for my home is of course not $2,500 but between $1,800 to $1,900. After tax deduction I'll be paying the same amount (or a tiny bit more) as a renter. If my home apprecites, I gain, if it doesn't, I DON'T lose anything. But I were a renter, my loss is guaranteed!
Its not logical to think of rent as money flushed down the toilet. It is the money you pay for a service aka for a service that provides shelter without any maintanance involved.
Is the money that you are paying as interest for mortgage money flushed down the toilet???:rolleyes:
Taxdeduction is overrated, remember everyone gets a standard deduction, so even if you
dont have mortgage you get a break.
Excellent points!
Hirala/puddonhead,
You guys are still going by popular news article and media hype. You fail to understand the ground reality. I bought my house last year in a great school district. I used to pay $1,250 rent for a single bedroom condo of 800 sq ft. I could have as well flushed that money down the toilet. My house now is 1600 sq ft living area + completed basement + garage + deck, all for $2,500 (mortgage + insurance + tax). I'm in the 30% tax bracket and I know I'll get a huge tax benefit. My quality of life has been great with the addition of space in my dwelling.
I'll have to reiterate - do not generalize your opinions. What's happening in Detriot is NOT happening everywhere!
EDIT: The rent in my area for my home is of course not $2,500 but between $1,800 to $1,900. After tax deduction I'll be paying the same amount (or a tiny bit more) as a renter. If my home apprecites, I gain, if it doesn't, I DON'T lose anything. But I were a renter, my loss is guaranteed!
Its not logical to think of rent as money flushed down the toilet. It is the money you pay for a service aka for a service that provides shelter without any maintanance involved.
Is the money that you are paying as interest for mortgage money flushed down the toilet???:rolleyes:
Taxdeduction is overrated, remember everyone gets a standard deduction, so even if you
dont have mortgage you get a break.
2010 profesora cv espanol
Macaca
05-27 05:39 PM
As Indian companies grow in the U.S., outsourcing comes home (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/as-indian-companies-grow-in-the-us-outsourcing-comes-home/2011/05/17/AFZbrp7G_story.html) By Paul Glade | The Washington Post
Ray Capuana paces the rows of cubicles in a haggard high-rise a stone�s throw from Wall Street as his people hustle the phones and hope for a bonus check.
His employees are not bond traders, though. They are call center workers. Many are African Americans without college degrees. Some lack high school diplomas. They work for a Mumbai-based company called Aegis Communications.
India�s outsourcing giants � faced with rising wages at home � have looked for growth opportunities in the United States. But with Washington crimping visas for visiting Indian workers, some companies such as Aegis are slowly hiring workers in North America, where their largest corporate customers are based. In this evolution, outsourcing has come home.
Capuana, a manager for Aegis in New York, motivates this U.S. office with dress-down days and the prospect that workers could, one day, earn a stint training call center workers in Goa, India. One of his tasks is to staff 176 cubicles, where workers make or take calls for customers of prescription drug plans or Medicare contracts and enter and verify information. The pay runs $12 to $14 an hour, with bonus checks of up to $730 a month.
�Our recruitment model is simple,� says Capuana, who played Division III college football, wears rosary beads on his wrist and has a picture of Jesus above his desk. �I don�t care if you come from Park Avenue or the park bench. If you can do the job, we want you.�
Aegis, a subsidiary of India�s Essar Group, an energy, telecom and metals conglomerate, says it�s pioneering the next generation of outsourcing: putting the work close to its global customers. Its executives call the practice �near-sourcing,� �diverse shoring� and, sometimes, �cross-shoring.�
Madhu Vuppuluri, chief executive and dealmaker for the Americas division of Essar Group, remembers watching outsourcing grow in India in the late 1990s and early 2000s and thinking that the decline of U.S. call centers was overdone. He persuaded the billionaire Ruia brothers, Essar�s Indian owners, to let him make a counterintuitive bet: In 2000, he bid on the bankrupt assets of Telequestion, a 500-person call center in Arlington, Tex., for $2.5 million.
That led to other acquisitions in the United States and abroad. Today, Aegis employs 50,000 of Essar�s 70,000 employees on several continents. About 5,000 people work at nine U.S. call centers. Aegis, which is on the hunt for more acquisitions, has said it aims to triple its U.S. head count, to more than 15,000.
The strategy is based on the old-fashioned idea of being close to your customers. It�s one embraced by companies such as credit card giant American Express, insurer Humana and government agencies, which sometimes prefer on-shore call centers to handle customer service for sensitive life insurance, financial or health-care products.
�The customer is the king,� Vuppuluri said. �Wherever the customer wants the services to be, we can provide.�
Visitors on visas
At its U.S. sites, Aegis says, 90 percent or more of its workers are American. In that way, Aegis is an exception to the rule. Until now, India-based outsourcing companies have largely brought Indian workers into the United States using H-1B visas and L-1 visas and have been the heaviest users of those programs.
In India�s $60 billion software-exporting industry (which employs roughly 4 million people worldwide), Aegis is competing with companies such as Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Genpact, WNS and Infosys. Most are expanding their outsourcing work � from call centers to high-tech consulting and financial services � to the United States. In many cases, it�s a key part of the companies� growth strategy. But political and economic forces in this country and India complicate things.
Some say the visa practice has hurt U.S. jobs and wages. These new visa categories were created by the Immigration Act of 1990, allowing foreigners to work in the country for up to six years. The aim was to lure high-tech talent. Tech America, an industry trade group, says that the visas are crucial to American innovation, future competitiveness and job creation.
But they have been abused, too. In a study released in 2008, the government found fraud and technical violations on 20.7 percent of H-1B applications. Violations ranged �from document fraud to deliberate misstatements regarding job locations, wages paid and duties performed,� said Donald Neufeld, of the Department of Homeland Security, at a March hearing.
Immigration officials and the State Department have worked to crack down on the fraud.
�There will be, in any situation, an effort to go around the law,� said David T. Donahue, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services. �Our job is to catch the companies doing that.�
:DSome lawmakers are looking to curb the practice and to encourage the India-based outsourcing firms to follow Aegis�s model of hiring Americans at U.S. sites.:D Issuance of regular H-1B visas � 10,200 so far this year � is down 43 percent percent from 2010, according to federal data. Last year, the Obama administration added a roughly $2,000 fee per H-1B visa for large companies, which could be curbing applications.
In the past, if, say, BNY Mellon inked an IT contract with Infosys, Infosys would handle 70 percent of the work in India and send 30 percent of its project staff to the United States on temporary work visas. These Indian workers often live in ethnic enclaves on the outskirts of a city, work long hours and earn less than an American would for the same work.
Companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Genpact and Infosys are the largest users of the H-1B visa program and have collectively brought as many as 30,000 workers into the country in a year on H-1B or other visas.
Critics of the visa programs, such as :DRonil Hira:D, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, say the work arrangements can amount to indentured servitude. The workers are often paid �home-country wages� in America. �That�s as low as $8,000 a year� with housing allowances, he says. The employers own the visas � so the workers can�t bargain for wages, and if they lose their job they have to leave the country.
Hira said Indian workers still make up more than 90 percent of most outsourcing companies� U.S. head counts. He and other critics argue that many of these workers are not more highly skilled than their American counterparts but are simply willing to work for less. �It�s harming American workers,� he said. �It�s taking away their job opportunities, bringing down their wages and harming their working conditions.�
The companies that use the visa programs have faced opposition from U.S. labor unions as well as age-discrimination lawsuits from American tech workers alleging that they were passed over by the hiring practices.
At the same time, as high unemployment lingers and the economic recovery lags, India-based companies have seized on an opportunity to improve their image and expand their U.S. businesses by taking over companies and hiring more U.S. talent.
Ray Capuana paces the rows of cubicles in a haggard high-rise a stone�s throw from Wall Street as his people hustle the phones and hope for a bonus check.
His employees are not bond traders, though. They are call center workers. Many are African Americans without college degrees. Some lack high school diplomas. They work for a Mumbai-based company called Aegis Communications.
India�s outsourcing giants � faced with rising wages at home � have looked for growth opportunities in the United States. But with Washington crimping visas for visiting Indian workers, some companies such as Aegis are slowly hiring workers in North America, where their largest corporate customers are based. In this evolution, outsourcing has come home.
Capuana, a manager for Aegis in New York, motivates this U.S. office with dress-down days and the prospect that workers could, one day, earn a stint training call center workers in Goa, India. One of his tasks is to staff 176 cubicles, where workers make or take calls for customers of prescription drug plans or Medicare contracts and enter and verify information. The pay runs $12 to $14 an hour, with bonus checks of up to $730 a month.
�Our recruitment model is simple,� says Capuana, who played Division III college football, wears rosary beads on his wrist and has a picture of Jesus above his desk. �I don�t care if you come from Park Avenue or the park bench. If you can do the job, we want you.�
Aegis, a subsidiary of India�s Essar Group, an energy, telecom and metals conglomerate, says it�s pioneering the next generation of outsourcing: putting the work close to its global customers. Its executives call the practice �near-sourcing,� �diverse shoring� and, sometimes, �cross-shoring.�
Madhu Vuppuluri, chief executive and dealmaker for the Americas division of Essar Group, remembers watching outsourcing grow in India in the late 1990s and early 2000s and thinking that the decline of U.S. call centers was overdone. He persuaded the billionaire Ruia brothers, Essar�s Indian owners, to let him make a counterintuitive bet: In 2000, he bid on the bankrupt assets of Telequestion, a 500-person call center in Arlington, Tex., for $2.5 million.
That led to other acquisitions in the United States and abroad. Today, Aegis employs 50,000 of Essar�s 70,000 employees on several continents. About 5,000 people work at nine U.S. call centers. Aegis, which is on the hunt for more acquisitions, has said it aims to triple its U.S. head count, to more than 15,000.
The strategy is based on the old-fashioned idea of being close to your customers. It�s one embraced by companies such as credit card giant American Express, insurer Humana and government agencies, which sometimes prefer on-shore call centers to handle customer service for sensitive life insurance, financial or health-care products.
�The customer is the king,� Vuppuluri said. �Wherever the customer wants the services to be, we can provide.�
Visitors on visas
At its U.S. sites, Aegis says, 90 percent or more of its workers are American. In that way, Aegis is an exception to the rule. Until now, India-based outsourcing companies have largely brought Indian workers into the United States using H-1B visas and L-1 visas and have been the heaviest users of those programs.
In India�s $60 billion software-exporting industry (which employs roughly 4 million people worldwide), Aegis is competing with companies such as Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Genpact, WNS and Infosys. Most are expanding their outsourcing work � from call centers to high-tech consulting and financial services � to the United States. In many cases, it�s a key part of the companies� growth strategy. But political and economic forces in this country and India complicate things.
Some say the visa practice has hurt U.S. jobs and wages. These new visa categories were created by the Immigration Act of 1990, allowing foreigners to work in the country for up to six years. The aim was to lure high-tech talent. Tech America, an industry trade group, says that the visas are crucial to American innovation, future competitiveness and job creation.
But they have been abused, too. In a study released in 2008, the government found fraud and technical violations on 20.7 percent of H-1B applications. Violations ranged �from document fraud to deliberate misstatements regarding job locations, wages paid and duties performed,� said Donald Neufeld, of the Department of Homeland Security, at a March hearing.
Immigration officials and the State Department have worked to crack down on the fraud.
�There will be, in any situation, an effort to go around the law,� said David T. Donahue, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services. �Our job is to catch the companies doing that.�
:DSome lawmakers are looking to curb the practice and to encourage the India-based outsourcing firms to follow Aegis�s model of hiring Americans at U.S. sites.:D Issuance of regular H-1B visas � 10,200 so far this year � is down 43 percent percent from 2010, according to federal data. Last year, the Obama administration added a roughly $2,000 fee per H-1B visa for large companies, which could be curbing applications.
In the past, if, say, BNY Mellon inked an IT contract with Infosys, Infosys would handle 70 percent of the work in India and send 30 percent of its project staff to the United States on temporary work visas. These Indian workers often live in ethnic enclaves on the outskirts of a city, work long hours and earn less than an American would for the same work.
Companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Genpact and Infosys are the largest users of the H-1B visa program and have collectively brought as many as 30,000 workers into the country in a year on H-1B or other visas.
Critics of the visa programs, such as :DRonil Hira:D, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, say the work arrangements can amount to indentured servitude. The workers are often paid �home-country wages� in America. �That�s as low as $8,000 a year� with housing allowances, he says. The employers own the visas � so the workers can�t bargain for wages, and if they lose their job they have to leave the country.
Hira said Indian workers still make up more than 90 percent of most outsourcing companies� U.S. head counts. He and other critics argue that many of these workers are not more highly skilled than their American counterparts but are simply willing to work for less. �It�s harming American workers,� he said. �It�s taking away their job opportunities, bringing down their wages and harming their working conditions.�
The companies that use the visa programs have faced opposition from U.S. labor unions as well as age-discrimination lawsuits from American tech workers alleging that they were passed over by the hiring practices.
At the same time, as high unemployment lingers and the economic recovery lags, India-based companies have seized on an opportunity to improve their image and expand their U.S. businesses by taking over companies and hiring more U.S. talent.
more...
smisachu
12-27 11:35 PM
As someone who comes from an army family and who has been trained as a reserve, I want to assure you guys who think that an Indo-Pak war will linger; that it will not. It will take Indian army 15-20 days to reach Islamabad if the full force is deployed and the army is in charge of the war and not our politicians.
Pak has nukes, but their delivery mechanism is not sound and before Pak launches any nukes, US will disarm them and even if a few are launched India had a very good anti missile shield which will intercept and destroy all warheads before it enters Indian air.
Now to actual strategies that India should follow-
1. The civilian government in Pak is not at fault, previously they were responsible for terrorist attacks on India but now they are suffering at the hands of a monster of their own making. Terrorism and ISI.
2. India should use air and missile power to strike out and wipe out a 500km radius around each terrorist camps while offering an olive branch to the Pak govt. What this does is it will kill with certainty all terrorists and will also wipe out surrounding villages.
3. These are casualties of war and are a necessary evil, it will strike fear in the hearts of villagers and when ever a terrorist camp is set up; the surrounding villagers will chase them out in fear of India's wrath.
4. India should send RAW analysts to assassinate all rouge ISI officers, if needed Mossad of Israel can help India.
5. Finally the only way to deal with the problem of Pakistan longtime is to either socially cleanse Pakistan for the civilian government and bring in more modernism or carve out pakistan into several independent states. This is a long term goal which has to be thought about.
If anyone is interested I can post the actual army strengths of India and Pak, its an interesting statistic and I am sure the Pak government knows about it in more detail than me. And it beats me that in spite of knowing the facts they are doing all this war posing. Just a tit bit from it, Indian army (only) is 1.3mil + 450K (reserves) strong. The combined Pak armed forces are 450K active + 500K reserves. India outnumbers Pak in almost every aspect 1:5 on an average. We have fought 4 wars and India has won all 4 times, why should the 5th time be any different? Lets finish this and move on, we have to become an economic superpower and we cannot be bothered by such trivial things like terrorism and pakistan. Lets take terror to the terrorists, like the song from the Hindi movie Arjun goes
" Dushman ko yeh dikadho dushmani hai kya...":cool:
Pak has nukes, but their delivery mechanism is not sound and before Pak launches any nukes, US will disarm them and even if a few are launched India had a very good anti missile shield which will intercept and destroy all warheads before it enters Indian air.
Now to actual strategies that India should follow-
1. The civilian government in Pak is not at fault, previously they were responsible for terrorist attacks on India but now they are suffering at the hands of a monster of their own making. Terrorism and ISI.
2. India should use air and missile power to strike out and wipe out a 500km radius around each terrorist camps while offering an olive branch to the Pak govt. What this does is it will kill with certainty all terrorists and will also wipe out surrounding villages.
3. These are casualties of war and are a necessary evil, it will strike fear in the hearts of villagers and when ever a terrorist camp is set up; the surrounding villagers will chase them out in fear of India's wrath.
4. India should send RAW analysts to assassinate all rouge ISI officers, if needed Mossad of Israel can help India.
5. Finally the only way to deal with the problem of Pakistan longtime is to either socially cleanse Pakistan for the civilian government and bring in more modernism or carve out pakistan into several independent states. This is a long term goal which has to be thought about.
If anyone is interested I can post the actual army strengths of India and Pak, its an interesting statistic and I am sure the Pak government knows about it in more detail than me. And it beats me that in spite of knowing the facts they are doing all this war posing. Just a tit bit from it, Indian army (only) is 1.3mil + 450K (reserves) strong. The combined Pak armed forces are 450K active + 500K reserves. India outnumbers Pak in almost every aspect 1:5 on an average. We have fought 4 wars and India has won all 4 times, why should the 5th time be any different? Lets finish this and move on, we have to become an economic superpower and we cannot be bothered by such trivial things like terrorism and pakistan. Lets take terror to the terrorists, like the song from the Hindi movie Arjun goes
" Dushman ko yeh dikadho dushmani hai kya...":cool:
hair CURRICULUM VITAE
sanju
05-16 11:10 PM
Infact pro immigrants and Corporations are arguing that shortage of skills and they are not displacing US workers. If that is true why cannot they accept the conditions that they will not displace US workers. If you accept that you do not mind replacing some american workers also then all of your points are valid. Then you can lobby for unlimited H1b and Unlimited greencards. You will never get American people support for that. But we all are lobbying based on the shortage of skills. So we should be ready to reduce H1b when demand goes down or accept the conditions for non displacement of US workers. Right now demand is more so US will absorb even 200K H1bs. But you need to look what happened between 2000 to 2003. So many layoffs. Part of reason was economy but other part was due to H1b and outsourcing
The greater danger in life is not that we set our aims too high and fail, but we set them too low and still do – Michelangelo
Your aim is to not get fired. You want to buy an insurance policy to a secure job as if you are the only one entitled to have a job. This is a lower aim so you are bound to fail i.e. lose your job.
And how do you define “replacing some American workers”. There is a plant in Yuma, AZ manufacturing aircrafts for Kingfisher airlines in India. Doesn’t this mean that someone in India is being replaced by American worker???? Maybe we should stop all trade and we should have all needs of one country fill within its borders. Maybe we should say – from now on no one is going to do any business, collaboration, partnership and place orders to companies outside of the borders of the country where you live.
Then you can lobby for unlimited H1b and Unlimited greencards.
The best argument of restrictionist is either talk about no H-1B or green cards or talk about unlimited H-1Bs and green cards as if the extremes make the only reality in this world. Have you ever seen numbers like 290,000 or maybe 450,000. These are called whole numbers in mathematics and reside somewhere between ZERO and INFINITY/UNLIMITED.
You will never get American people support for that.
Stop bickering in the name of American people. More than 99% Americans don’t even know what is H-1B visa or employment based green card. And one more thing, people’s opinion is the most foolish thing to look at when making a decision. Do you remember the % of people in favor of Iraq war in 2002? - More than 70%
Do you know how many people are in favor of pulling out of Iraq now, putting all the blame on the Administration? – around 70%
Do you know the % of “American people” saying that they screwed up by supporting the war in 2002? – 0%
No one would come out to say the nations and millions of people got screwed up due to "MY" twisted ideology in 2002. So let’s keep this argument of “American People” out of this debate.
I will accept that 25 year old H1b from India can work 15 to 18 hours a day but same kind of productivity cannot get with 40 year old person with family of 2 kids whether Indian or American. Is it right to replace those person with 25 year old person. If that is the case then you will be replaced by youger H1b person in future.
In free market and capitalist economy, the measure of productivity doesn’t come from some lawmaker who is out of sink with reality or from the ideology of orgs like IEEE-USA or from posters like you. The measure of productivity comes from the employers and the companies. If employees on H-1Bs were unproductive then why are employers asking for more H-1Bs. I am sure my employer is not in love with me to give me check every two weeks. And if that is how it works best for the competitiveness and for the economy, society and the nation, then so be it. That is the reason why this society is more advanced. You may be afraid of such a situations/competitions but I am not scared of a scenario where someone who can perform a better job, either a citizen or someone on H-1B, takes my job. And I assure you that I won't whine about it. But that is ok, your way of thinking is all based on the premises that every one out is going to get you and some how you have to eliminate this competition at the soonest.
My view is clear. There should be H1b numbers based on demand and supply. If they cannot come with correct numbers then restriction of non displacement of US workers should be there.
You have used the argument of abuse, productivity, economy, outsourcing, country of origin and the color of Dick Morris’ underwear - to argue against H-1B and against green card number increase. Time and again I have said that this is not about H-1B. We, the people on this forum, want to discuss about GREEN CARD BACKLOGS. But you want to keep the discussion away from green card backlog and want the discussion be in the arena of H-1B. I must share with you that I have received atleast 7 different private messages telling me to “not waste my time with idiot like yourself”.
Like you ass, you keep your views and your opinions with yourself. Don’t poke your ass and your views into a place where they don’t belong. And please stop worrying about being displaced by someone else on H-1B. You have not even gotten green card and you have already turned into a restrictionist. Please wait for sometime and there will be enough time and opportunity for you to join the ranks of IEEE-USA. This makes me to think that there are 2 possibilities:
1.) You have very low self esteem and you have a low opinion about yourself. Thus you are scared of the competition
2.) You are not capable enough or you are not technically sound to compete with others around you. And just like IEEE-USA, you are looking for ways to eliminate your future probable competition using words/phrases like “displacement of US workers”.
The greater danger in life is not that we set our aims too high and fail, but we set them too low and still do – Michelangelo
Your aim is to not get fired. You want to buy an insurance policy to a secure job as if you are the only one entitled to have a job. This is a lower aim so you are bound to fail i.e. lose your job.
And how do you define “replacing some American workers”. There is a plant in Yuma, AZ manufacturing aircrafts for Kingfisher airlines in India. Doesn’t this mean that someone in India is being replaced by American worker???? Maybe we should stop all trade and we should have all needs of one country fill within its borders. Maybe we should say – from now on no one is going to do any business, collaboration, partnership and place orders to companies outside of the borders of the country where you live.
Then you can lobby for unlimited H1b and Unlimited greencards.
The best argument of restrictionist is either talk about no H-1B or green cards or talk about unlimited H-1Bs and green cards as if the extremes make the only reality in this world. Have you ever seen numbers like 290,000 or maybe 450,000. These are called whole numbers in mathematics and reside somewhere between ZERO and INFINITY/UNLIMITED.
You will never get American people support for that.
Stop bickering in the name of American people. More than 99% Americans don’t even know what is H-1B visa or employment based green card. And one more thing, people’s opinion is the most foolish thing to look at when making a decision. Do you remember the % of people in favor of Iraq war in 2002? - More than 70%
Do you know how many people are in favor of pulling out of Iraq now, putting all the blame on the Administration? – around 70%
Do you know the % of “American people” saying that they screwed up by supporting the war in 2002? – 0%
No one would come out to say the nations and millions of people got screwed up due to "MY" twisted ideology in 2002. So let’s keep this argument of “American People” out of this debate.
I will accept that 25 year old H1b from India can work 15 to 18 hours a day but same kind of productivity cannot get with 40 year old person with family of 2 kids whether Indian or American. Is it right to replace those person with 25 year old person. If that is the case then you will be replaced by youger H1b person in future.
In free market and capitalist economy, the measure of productivity doesn’t come from some lawmaker who is out of sink with reality or from the ideology of orgs like IEEE-USA or from posters like you. The measure of productivity comes from the employers and the companies. If employees on H-1Bs were unproductive then why are employers asking for more H-1Bs. I am sure my employer is not in love with me to give me check every two weeks. And if that is how it works best for the competitiveness and for the economy, society and the nation, then so be it. That is the reason why this society is more advanced. You may be afraid of such a situations/competitions but I am not scared of a scenario where someone who can perform a better job, either a citizen or someone on H-1B, takes my job. And I assure you that I won't whine about it. But that is ok, your way of thinking is all based on the premises that every one out is going to get you and some how you have to eliminate this competition at the soonest.
My view is clear. There should be H1b numbers based on demand and supply. If they cannot come with correct numbers then restriction of non displacement of US workers should be there.
You have used the argument of abuse, productivity, economy, outsourcing, country of origin and the color of Dick Morris’ underwear - to argue against H-1B and against green card number increase. Time and again I have said that this is not about H-1B. We, the people on this forum, want to discuss about GREEN CARD BACKLOGS. But you want to keep the discussion away from green card backlog and want the discussion be in the arena of H-1B. I must share with you that I have received atleast 7 different private messages telling me to “not waste my time with idiot like yourself”.
Like you ass, you keep your views and your opinions with yourself. Don’t poke your ass and your views into a place where they don’t belong. And please stop worrying about being displaced by someone else on H-1B. You have not even gotten green card and you have already turned into a restrictionist. Please wait for sometime and there will be enough time and opportunity for you to join the ranks of IEEE-USA. This makes me to think that there are 2 possibilities:
1.) You have very low self esteem and you have a low opinion about yourself. Thus you are scared of the competition
2.) You are not capable enough or you are not technically sound to compete with others around you. And just like IEEE-USA, you are looking for ways to eliminate your future probable competition using words/phrases like “displacement of US workers”.
more...
sanju
12-28 01:10 AM
I hope so.
I agree with most of what you said. I just think that the expectation to shed the inertia built over two to three decades is a bit too much. It is going to take time, regardless of what anyone wants. Ironically, hostile relationships between India and Pakistan are only going to prolong the process.
I disagree, this is not the hostile relationship between two countries, we see this as one country and the international community applying pressure on Pakistan. Without this pressure, there is no way Pakistan will gather the "motivation" to dismantle the terror network. The terror network will get dismantled only if there are two choices, either Pakistan dismantles the terror network or we will dismantle it for Pakistan. Without a direct approach, nothing will change.
On a different note, there is only one outcome of over analysis by computer analyst or business application analyst, and that outcome is -war is too "expensive". What about the lives of those 200 people who were killed? Please don't expense those 200 lives and other 100,000 lives in last 10 years by your "over analytical" computer analyst Mircosoft projects approach calculating the "cost of the war". What if it is your father who is targated by the terrorist next, I want to know who all will still run the profit and loss statement if your father is killed by the next strike by the terrorist. Will you only agree to a war when your own family member is killed? Don't you think its time to put the bleeding innocent people ahead of this "over analysis".
We are peace loving people. But should we not respond to the war we did not start. We are not the aggressor, we are the victim here for christ sake.
Wars are decided by brave men, wars are faught by warriors, and wars are won by patriots. Over analysis at the time of war is a sign of weakness - message of Gita. I hope we agree that War is not like a lala shop to prepare a profit & loss statement before making a decision. We did not start this war, it is being forced on us. The question is - should we respond to the war that is forced on us, the war we did not start, but the war which we have the strength to end.
.
I agree with most of what you said. I just think that the expectation to shed the inertia built over two to three decades is a bit too much. It is going to take time, regardless of what anyone wants. Ironically, hostile relationships between India and Pakistan are only going to prolong the process.
I disagree, this is not the hostile relationship between two countries, we see this as one country and the international community applying pressure on Pakistan. Without this pressure, there is no way Pakistan will gather the "motivation" to dismantle the terror network. The terror network will get dismantled only if there are two choices, either Pakistan dismantles the terror network or we will dismantle it for Pakistan. Without a direct approach, nothing will change.
On a different note, there is only one outcome of over analysis by computer analyst or business application analyst, and that outcome is -war is too "expensive". What about the lives of those 200 people who were killed? Please don't expense those 200 lives and other 100,000 lives in last 10 years by your "over analytical" computer analyst Mircosoft projects approach calculating the "cost of the war". What if it is your father who is targated by the terrorist next, I want to know who all will still run the profit and loss statement if your father is killed by the next strike by the terrorist. Will you only agree to a war when your own family member is killed? Don't you think its time to put the bleeding innocent people ahead of this "over analysis".
We are peace loving people. But should we not respond to the war we did not start. We are not the aggressor, we are the victim here for christ sake.
Wars are decided by brave men, wars are faught by warriors, and wars are won by patriots. Over analysis at the time of war is a sign of weakness - message of Gita. I hope we agree that War is not like a lala shop to prepare a profit & loss statement before making a decision. We did not start this war, it is being forced on us. The question is - should we respond to the war that is forced on us, the war we did not start, but the war which we have the strength to end.
.
hot CV, español
Macaca
12-23 10:53 AM
Pelosi's first year as House speaker marked by little change on war (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/23/MNOUU26C5.DTL&tsp=1) By Zachary Coile | SF Chronicle, Dec 23, 2007
The last day of the House's 2007 session last week summed up the turbulence of Nancy Pelosi's history-making first year as House speaker.
In the morning, she beamed a wide smile as she stood beside President Bush while he signed an energy bill with the first major increase in fuel economy standards in 30 years.
But by Wednesday afternoon, her party was facing two of its biggest defeats. To keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million Americans next year, Democrats had to abandon their pledge not to pass any legislation that increased the deficit.
Then Pelosi, whose party took control of Congress pledging to change course in Iraq, watched the House approve $70 billion in war funding, part of a budget deal that avoided a government shutdown. Members of her own party denounced it as a capitulation to the White House.
"The war in Iraq is the biggest disappointment for us, the inability to stop the war," Pelosi told reporters in a group interview in her ceremonial office just hours before the war vote. She quickly pegged the blame on congressional Republicans.
The Democrats' failure to shift the war's direction, their No. 1 priority for the year, has eclipsed many of the party's successes on other issues, including raising the minimum wage for the first time in a decade and passing the strongest ethics and lobbying reforms since Watergate.
And Bush, despite his lame-duck status, outflanked Democrats in the end-of-year budget fight - forcing them to accept his number, $555 billion in domestic spending, and funding for Iraq - simply by refusing to yield.
Asked about the setbacks last week, Pelosi, as she has all year, flashed her most optimistic smile and refused to be drawn into the criticism.
"Almost everything we've done has been historic," she said.
But if Pelosi is smiling, so are Republicans. They began the year defeated and demoralized. But they have since shown surprising unity, backing the president on the war and finding new purpose in blocking Democrats' spending initiatives.
"We've stood up to them every step of the way," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said last week.
The tense mood among Democrats in the session's final weeks was a marked contrast from the festive first weeks of the new Congress, when Pelosi was sworn in as the nation's first female speaker, surrounded by children on the House floor. She promised to lead Congress in a new direction.
Democrats took off on a legislative sprint in which they quickly approved their "Six for '06" agenda including raising the minimum wage, cutting interest rates on student loans, backing federally funded embryonic stem cell research, and revoking tax breaks for oil companies.
But the bills bogged down in the Senate, where the Democrats' 51-49 majority is so thin it allowed Republicans to determine what would be passed. Democrats have struggled to get the 60 votes needed to overcome filibusters, which are now an almost daily experience in the Senate.
"Pelosi suffered the same ailment that (former Republican House Speaker) Newt Gingrich suffered from when he became speaker: Senate-itis," said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "A lot of what the House accomplished this year either sat in the Senate or got eviscerated by the Senate. What you are left with is not nearly as robust as what you started with."
Even the energy bill, the Democrats' crowning achievement, was stripped of a broad tax package and a renewable electricity standard that would have pushed the nation toward wind and solar power. Still, the fuel economy piece alone is expected to save 2.3 million barrels of oil a day by 2020 - more than the United States currently imports from the Persian Gulf.
Pelosi had to make some painful trade-offs. To get the minimum wage hike signed, Democrats had to attach it to a $120 billion war spending bill.
Other elements of her agenda fell victim to Bush's veto pen. Congress twice passed a bill with bipartisan support to expand the state children's health insurance program to cover 4 million more children. Bush twice vetoed it, forcing Democrats to settle for an 18-month extension of the current program.
Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., held countless votes on war measures setting timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and other restrictions on Bush's policy. But their strategy counted on Republicans switching sides - and very few did.
"I didn't foresee that," Pelosi acknowledged. "We thought they would reflect the wishes and views of their constituents."
Some critics called the assumption naive. Anti-war groups have urged her to use Congress' power of the purse to simply cut off funds for the war, but Pelosi opposes the move, which many Democrats fear would be seen as undermining the troops. Instead the party has pushed for a "responsible redeployment" - meaning funding the war, but with strings attached.
In October, Pelosi's ally and the House's top appropriator, David Obey, D-Wis., said Democrats would draw a line in the sand: They would refuse to pass any more war funding without a timeline for withdrawal. But by last week, with the budget impasse threatening to shut down the government, Democrats dropped the strategy.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, a founding member of the Out of Iraq Caucus, said the Democrats' mistake was not to force the threat to deny funds earlier in the year.
"I wish she could have been bolder," Woolsey said, while acknowledging that Pelosi had to mediate between competing views in the caucus. "If we had started that earlier, we could have built on it until it reached a crescendo, because it's what the American people want."
The Democrats were left in a weak bargaining position at the end of the year. They needed to pass 11 spending bills, but Republicans and Bush demanded the $70 billion for the war in return. The president also held firm on his spending limits. If the impasse led to a government shutdown, Pelosi knew her party would receive much of the blame. So she agreed to the deal, with the concession that Democrats were able to preserve money for their priorities, including home heating aid for the poor and health care for veterans.
"We made it very clear months ago we were not going to shut down the government," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, one of Pelosi's top lieutenants. "Tragically, that put the president in the driver's seat."
Miller said the fight over the war has obscured the progress Democrats made on other fronts, including cutting interest rates on loans for college students and passing a huge increase in veterans' benefits. He said Pelosi worked tirelessly to get the energy bill over the finish line.
"At the beginning of the year, people said we had no chance of getting an energy bill," Miller said. "This was a tour de force for her."
Pelosi also showed she was willing to buck some of her party's most powerful members to get her way. She went head-to-head with Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., Detroit automakers' top ally, over raising fuel economy standards - and won. She pushed through an ethics reform bill that her friend Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., called "total crap."
"Some of her colleagues when they took back Congress said, 'That reform message worked to get us elected, but now it's our turn.' " Ornstein said. "That has not been her attitude and her approach, and I give her credit for that."
Pelosi had clumsy moments, too. She pushed hard for a resolution denouncing Turkey's mass killings of Armenians during World War I as genocide, only to reverse course when it sparked a diplomatic fight, with Turkey threatening to reduce logistical support to U.S. troops in Iraq.
Republicans say she has reneged on a promise to run a more open House. Following a pattern set by the GOP when it ran the House for 12 years, Democrats have often rammed bills through, giving Republicans few opportunities to amend them.
"It's hard to work together when you're not even invited into the room," said Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas.
But Pelosi's supporters say Republicans haven't been willing to compromise and have mostly tried to block Democrats from racking up accomplishments.
"The Republicans have frustrated us because they want to run a negative campaign saying the Democrats didn't accomplish anything," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles.
The bickering in Congress, over the war and other issues, has taken a toll. When Democrats took power, Congress had an approval rating of 35 percent, but it's since dipped into the low 20s, according to the Gallup poll.
Pelosi is already crafting a strategy for next year, when the presidential race is likely to take some of the spotlight off Congress. With the war debate at an impasse, she's planning to push a series of measures on health care, the economy, the mortgage crisis and global warming.
If Democrats can't win on these issues, at the very least they can draw sharp distinctions with Republicans leading up to the fall elections, she said.
"One of the reasons we were able to be successful with the energy bill is that this is something we took to the American people," she said. "That is what we have to do next. We have to go public with many of these issues."
The last day of the House's 2007 session last week summed up the turbulence of Nancy Pelosi's history-making first year as House speaker.
In the morning, she beamed a wide smile as she stood beside President Bush while he signed an energy bill with the first major increase in fuel economy standards in 30 years.
But by Wednesday afternoon, her party was facing two of its biggest defeats. To keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million Americans next year, Democrats had to abandon their pledge not to pass any legislation that increased the deficit.
Then Pelosi, whose party took control of Congress pledging to change course in Iraq, watched the House approve $70 billion in war funding, part of a budget deal that avoided a government shutdown. Members of her own party denounced it as a capitulation to the White House.
"The war in Iraq is the biggest disappointment for us, the inability to stop the war," Pelosi told reporters in a group interview in her ceremonial office just hours before the war vote. She quickly pegged the blame on congressional Republicans.
The Democrats' failure to shift the war's direction, their No. 1 priority for the year, has eclipsed many of the party's successes on other issues, including raising the minimum wage for the first time in a decade and passing the strongest ethics and lobbying reforms since Watergate.
And Bush, despite his lame-duck status, outflanked Democrats in the end-of-year budget fight - forcing them to accept his number, $555 billion in domestic spending, and funding for Iraq - simply by refusing to yield.
Asked about the setbacks last week, Pelosi, as she has all year, flashed her most optimistic smile and refused to be drawn into the criticism.
"Almost everything we've done has been historic," she said.
But if Pelosi is smiling, so are Republicans. They began the year defeated and demoralized. But they have since shown surprising unity, backing the president on the war and finding new purpose in blocking Democrats' spending initiatives.
"We've stood up to them every step of the way," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said last week.
The tense mood among Democrats in the session's final weeks was a marked contrast from the festive first weeks of the new Congress, when Pelosi was sworn in as the nation's first female speaker, surrounded by children on the House floor. She promised to lead Congress in a new direction.
Democrats took off on a legislative sprint in which they quickly approved their "Six for '06" agenda including raising the minimum wage, cutting interest rates on student loans, backing federally funded embryonic stem cell research, and revoking tax breaks for oil companies.
But the bills bogged down in the Senate, where the Democrats' 51-49 majority is so thin it allowed Republicans to determine what would be passed. Democrats have struggled to get the 60 votes needed to overcome filibusters, which are now an almost daily experience in the Senate.
"Pelosi suffered the same ailment that (former Republican House Speaker) Newt Gingrich suffered from when he became speaker: Senate-itis," said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "A lot of what the House accomplished this year either sat in the Senate or got eviscerated by the Senate. What you are left with is not nearly as robust as what you started with."
Even the energy bill, the Democrats' crowning achievement, was stripped of a broad tax package and a renewable electricity standard that would have pushed the nation toward wind and solar power. Still, the fuel economy piece alone is expected to save 2.3 million barrels of oil a day by 2020 - more than the United States currently imports from the Persian Gulf.
Pelosi had to make some painful trade-offs. To get the minimum wage hike signed, Democrats had to attach it to a $120 billion war spending bill.
Other elements of her agenda fell victim to Bush's veto pen. Congress twice passed a bill with bipartisan support to expand the state children's health insurance program to cover 4 million more children. Bush twice vetoed it, forcing Democrats to settle for an 18-month extension of the current program.
Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., held countless votes on war measures setting timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and other restrictions on Bush's policy. But their strategy counted on Republicans switching sides - and very few did.
"I didn't foresee that," Pelosi acknowledged. "We thought they would reflect the wishes and views of their constituents."
Some critics called the assumption naive. Anti-war groups have urged her to use Congress' power of the purse to simply cut off funds for the war, but Pelosi opposes the move, which many Democrats fear would be seen as undermining the troops. Instead the party has pushed for a "responsible redeployment" - meaning funding the war, but with strings attached.
In October, Pelosi's ally and the House's top appropriator, David Obey, D-Wis., said Democrats would draw a line in the sand: They would refuse to pass any more war funding without a timeline for withdrawal. But by last week, with the budget impasse threatening to shut down the government, Democrats dropped the strategy.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, a founding member of the Out of Iraq Caucus, said the Democrats' mistake was not to force the threat to deny funds earlier in the year.
"I wish she could have been bolder," Woolsey said, while acknowledging that Pelosi had to mediate between competing views in the caucus. "If we had started that earlier, we could have built on it until it reached a crescendo, because it's what the American people want."
The Democrats were left in a weak bargaining position at the end of the year. They needed to pass 11 spending bills, but Republicans and Bush demanded the $70 billion for the war in return. The president also held firm on his spending limits. If the impasse led to a government shutdown, Pelosi knew her party would receive much of the blame. So she agreed to the deal, with the concession that Democrats were able to preserve money for their priorities, including home heating aid for the poor and health care for veterans.
"We made it very clear months ago we were not going to shut down the government," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, one of Pelosi's top lieutenants. "Tragically, that put the president in the driver's seat."
Miller said the fight over the war has obscured the progress Democrats made on other fronts, including cutting interest rates on loans for college students and passing a huge increase in veterans' benefits. He said Pelosi worked tirelessly to get the energy bill over the finish line.
"At the beginning of the year, people said we had no chance of getting an energy bill," Miller said. "This was a tour de force for her."
Pelosi also showed she was willing to buck some of her party's most powerful members to get her way. She went head-to-head with Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., Detroit automakers' top ally, over raising fuel economy standards - and won. She pushed through an ethics reform bill that her friend Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., called "total crap."
"Some of her colleagues when they took back Congress said, 'That reform message worked to get us elected, but now it's our turn.' " Ornstein said. "That has not been her attitude and her approach, and I give her credit for that."
Pelosi had clumsy moments, too. She pushed hard for a resolution denouncing Turkey's mass killings of Armenians during World War I as genocide, only to reverse course when it sparked a diplomatic fight, with Turkey threatening to reduce logistical support to U.S. troops in Iraq.
Republicans say she has reneged on a promise to run a more open House. Following a pattern set by the GOP when it ran the House for 12 years, Democrats have often rammed bills through, giving Republicans few opportunities to amend them.
"It's hard to work together when you're not even invited into the room," said Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas.
But Pelosi's supporters say Republicans haven't been willing to compromise and have mostly tried to block Democrats from racking up accomplishments.
"The Republicans have frustrated us because they want to run a negative campaign saying the Democrats didn't accomplish anything," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles.
The bickering in Congress, over the war and other issues, has taken a toll. When Democrats took power, Congress had an approval rating of 35 percent, but it's since dipped into the low 20s, according to the Gallup poll.
Pelosi is already crafting a strategy for next year, when the presidential race is likely to take some of the spotlight off Congress. With the war debate at an impasse, she's planning to push a series of measures on health care, the economy, the mortgage crisis and global warming.
If Democrats can't win on these issues, at the very least they can draw sharp distinctions with Republicans leading up to the fall elections, she said.
"One of the reasons we were able to be successful with the energy bill is that this is something we took to the American people," she said. "That is what we have to do next. We have to go public with many of these issues."
more...
house Curriculum Vitae middot; About me
Macaca
12-27 07:32 PM
But they got no answers out of me�a total failure. Officer Xu, while asking me questions, kept kicking my legs. I said, "Be a little more civilized!"
Then he said, "So what if I act like this, what can you do! In other matters I will actually still be afraid that someone might complain. But you here, you are an enemy. We can beat you and swear at you and if you complain, it will be useless even if you complain to the Ministry of Public Security!" I thought, this little police officer is younger than 30, how is he so well versed in the Maoist doctrine of the "contradiction between the enemy and us"?
A tall plainclothes officer was getting impatient and said loudly to Officer Xu: "Why waste words on this sort of person? Let's beat him to death and dig a hole to bury him in and be done with it. How lucky we've got a place to put him away here." Turning to me, he said, "Think your family can find you if you're disappeared? Tell me, what difference would it make if you vanished from Beijing?" Later he whispered to Officer Xu, "Put him away in the hotel!" I could not hear clear what hotel he meant, but from the context I assumed he was referring to that "place to bury you."
I knew they were not just joking, and I felt like a small ant that could be annihilated any moment without a trace. And yet I was not that scared. For one thing, I had already sent out a message on the Internet, and for another, they had by that time also taken my ID card out of my bag and realized that I was a teacher at the China University of Politics and Law.
This special status was the reason why I was not beaten more severely, and why they did not "dig a hole to bury me." And it is true: I had disclosed this information to the police officers, albeit half-consciously, to avoid being beaten more severely. If it had not been for my status as a teacher at CUPL, a doctor with a degree from Peking University, a famous human rights lawyer, a visiting scholar at Yale, could I still have shown as much courage? I very much doubt it.
I felt ashamed of my status and the differential treatment I was enjoying on account of them. I even felt that if the police didn't succeed in burying me they would vent their rage against some other disobedient person. Any pain that I was being spared was sure to be inflicted on another, more helpless victim at some point.
How much terror, humiliation and despair do ordinary people suffer who get locked up in police stations, re-education through labour camps, investigation detention cells, custody and repatriation cells, and black jails in the face of a bunch of police officers who regard a person's life like a blade of grass and treat ordinary people as foes? Police officers across the country threatening to "beat you to death and dig a hole to bury you," how many people do they actually beat to death or beat until they are disabled?
It was almost midnight when the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau sent round some officers who said they wanted to take me away. They returned my glasses, mobile phone and other things. I told them that I would only leave together with the friend who had been detained with me.
After some more argument, they led me and Mr. Zhang to a car. Someone called my name, and I immediately recognized some netizens. I could not get out of the car but I shook hands with them through the window. Later I learned that many others had also rushed to the scene. An unknown number of netizen friends had expressed support on the Internet and passed on the news. Maybe that is the main reason why we were so quickly released.
On the way back home, a Beijing state security officer complained to me, "If everybody fought with them using your methods, the police would have no way of continuing their work! How many fewer common thieves they'd be able to catch!"
I replied, "If the law-enforcers don't act in accordance with the law, what use are they really to citizens? Police should catch thieves, but can those who 'beat you to death and dig a hole for you' still be called 'police'? If people are fighting each other using my methods, maybe fewer common thieves will be caught, but fewer citizens will be beaten to death in police stations. In which of these two situations are society's losses greater?"
Mr. Teng is a professor of law at China University of Politics and Law
The Challenges China Faces (http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2892&Itemid=422) By John Berthelsen | Asia Sentinel
China�s Attitude toward Hard Power and Soft Power (http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/12_china_soft_power_jia.aspx) By Qingguo Jia | Peking University
Computing set to bolster China's industrial prowess (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20101227a1.html) Sentaku Magazine
Then he said, "So what if I act like this, what can you do! In other matters I will actually still be afraid that someone might complain. But you here, you are an enemy. We can beat you and swear at you and if you complain, it will be useless even if you complain to the Ministry of Public Security!" I thought, this little police officer is younger than 30, how is he so well versed in the Maoist doctrine of the "contradiction between the enemy and us"?
A tall plainclothes officer was getting impatient and said loudly to Officer Xu: "Why waste words on this sort of person? Let's beat him to death and dig a hole to bury him in and be done with it. How lucky we've got a place to put him away here." Turning to me, he said, "Think your family can find you if you're disappeared? Tell me, what difference would it make if you vanished from Beijing?" Later he whispered to Officer Xu, "Put him away in the hotel!" I could not hear clear what hotel he meant, but from the context I assumed he was referring to that "place to bury you."
I knew they were not just joking, and I felt like a small ant that could be annihilated any moment without a trace. And yet I was not that scared. For one thing, I had already sent out a message on the Internet, and for another, they had by that time also taken my ID card out of my bag and realized that I was a teacher at the China University of Politics and Law.
This special status was the reason why I was not beaten more severely, and why they did not "dig a hole to bury me." And it is true: I had disclosed this information to the police officers, albeit half-consciously, to avoid being beaten more severely. If it had not been for my status as a teacher at CUPL, a doctor with a degree from Peking University, a famous human rights lawyer, a visiting scholar at Yale, could I still have shown as much courage? I very much doubt it.
I felt ashamed of my status and the differential treatment I was enjoying on account of them. I even felt that if the police didn't succeed in burying me they would vent their rage against some other disobedient person. Any pain that I was being spared was sure to be inflicted on another, more helpless victim at some point.
How much terror, humiliation and despair do ordinary people suffer who get locked up in police stations, re-education through labour camps, investigation detention cells, custody and repatriation cells, and black jails in the face of a bunch of police officers who regard a person's life like a blade of grass and treat ordinary people as foes? Police officers across the country threatening to "beat you to death and dig a hole to bury you," how many people do they actually beat to death or beat until they are disabled?
It was almost midnight when the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau sent round some officers who said they wanted to take me away. They returned my glasses, mobile phone and other things. I told them that I would only leave together with the friend who had been detained with me.
After some more argument, they led me and Mr. Zhang to a car. Someone called my name, and I immediately recognized some netizens. I could not get out of the car but I shook hands with them through the window. Later I learned that many others had also rushed to the scene. An unknown number of netizen friends had expressed support on the Internet and passed on the news. Maybe that is the main reason why we were so quickly released.
On the way back home, a Beijing state security officer complained to me, "If everybody fought with them using your methods, the police would have no way of continuing their work! How many fewer common thieves they'd be able to catch!"
I replied, "If the law-enforcers don't act in accordance with the law, what use are they really to citizens? Police should catch thieves, but can those who 'beat you to death and dig a hole for you' still be called 'police'? If people are fighting each other using my methods, maybe fewer common thieves will be caught, but fewer citizens will be beaten to death in police stations. In which of these two situations are society's losses greater?"
Mr. Teng is a professor of law at China University of Politics and Law
The Challenges China Faces (http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2892&Itemid=422) By John Berthelsen | Asia Sentinel
China�s Attitude toward Hard Power and Soft Power (http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/12_china_soft_power_jia.aspx) By Qingguo Jia | Peking University
Computing set to bolster China's industrial prowess (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20101227a1.html) Sentaku Magazine
tattoo curriculum vitae ejemplos
jasmin45
06-05 08:13 PM
Do not take that snipet out of context.. Innovation, research and development, that you have talked about was in the past. Do you know that Boeing has a R & D Lab in bangalore? So does many globals.. They are already doing modelling and simulation at those centers :). When they made it difficult for innovators to get here.. jobs left US to go to innovators.. .Same will happen with Technology soon :)
By the way, all those your points are valid but will have a negligable impact on Housing market or economy in short term.. atleast until next cycle.. Unless US reform immigration policies for a 21st century knowledge revolution.. create well paid jobs for best and brightest in the world right here.. who can earn, spend and not borrow.. (EB category) ... Housing problem will also resolved... But US is lagging way behind. this is my opinion as Obama Administration has not thought so far beyond providing food coupons, housing rescue and medicare... Based on what is on the card, there will be lot of blue collar folks... nothing on innovation and technology and more Family based immigrants on welfare and low paid jobs... Do you still think, thing of past holds good now?
I couldn't agree more with you on this.
By the way, all those your points are valid but will have a negligable impact on Housing market or economy in short term.. atleast until next cycle.. Unless US reform immigration policies for a 21st century knowledge revolution.. create well paid jobs for best and brightest in the world right here.. who can earn, spend and not borrow.. (EB category) ... Housing problem will also resolved... But US is lagging way behind. this is my opinion as Obama Administration has not thought so far beyond providing food coupons, housing rescue and medicare... Based on what is on the card, there will be lot of blue collar folks... nothing on innovation and technology and more Family based immigrants on welfare and low paid jobs... Do you still think, thing of past holds good now?
I couldn't agree more with you on this.
more...
pictures C.V. Karel en espanol
pointlesswait
08-05 10:38 AM
here is another point:
if you want to remain a slave to the GC process and ristrict your career by staying with a company..just because you dont want to lose your PD...then..god save u and ur future..
the person who ports his PS was already in the line..he reclaimed his rightful place after going thru the due deligence...of restarting his GC process...in fact ppl.
i am sure ..after oct they will offer some relief to Eb3 category...
i think its a childish and selfish idea...i agree labor substitution was absolute nonsense...but not PD porting!
Why did they not take the employer to court? Why make the EB2 line suffer for these employer's faults?
If an employer wrongly files your case under EB3 instead of EB2 or EB1, then the onus is on you to challenge them and take them to court if need be.
if you want to remain a slave to the GC process and ristrict your career by staying with a company..just because you dont want to lose your PD...then..god save u and ur future..
the person who ports his PS was already in the line..he reclaimed his rightful place after going thru the due deligence...of restarting his GC process...in fact ppl.
i am sure ..after oct they will offer some relief to Eb3 category...
i think its a childish and selfish idea...i agree labor substitution was absolute nonsense...but not PD porting!
Why did they not take the employer to court? Why make the EB2 line suffer for these employer's faults?
If an employer wrongly files your case under EB3 instead of EB2 or EB1, then the onus is on you to challenge them and take them to court if need be.
dresses abraham maslow espa ol
ita
12-24 02:37 PM
I heard about Prithvi Raj killing Ghori and it's called Shbda Bhedi Bana Vidya.
They say that Prithvi raj knew Shabda Bhedi vidya.
Ghazni's best-kept secret - The Indian Express
S.C. Sharma ()
April 25, 1998
Title: Ghazni's best-kept secret
Author: S.C. Sharma
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: April 25, 1998
Provocative Ghauri was the title of an editorial that appeared
on this page earlier this month. Pakistan has named its missiles
Ghauri and Ghaznavi with the specific intention of taunting
India. These worthies' claims to fame and glorification, in the
perception of the Pakistanis, lies in the fact that they were
credited with plundering and devastating north-western India time
and time again in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
In their enthusiasm to score brownie points, the Pakistanis have
got mixed up on chronology, they have produced Ghauri before
Ghaznavi. Also, they have perversely sought to commemorate these
Afghan rulers of Turkish descent in utter disregard of the fact
that most of the territories they plundered are their own - the
North West Frontier Province, the Punjab and Sind. The men and
women they tortured, enslaved, ravished and put to the sword were
their own forebears.
If Pakistanis wish to revel in the inglorious misdeeds of
foreigners perpetrated on their own soil and on their own
ancestors, they are welcome to twirl their moustaches in euphoria
and say: " Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to he wise."
Indians may look forward to future generations of Pakistani IRBMs
and similar sophisticated weaponry named after the likes of
Changez Khan, Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali. Alexander the
Great and Harshavardhan also have strong claims, but they might
be disqualified for obvious reasons.
In the course of his many abortive forays into India, Mohammad
Ghori is said to have been captured once by the forces of Delhi.
But Prithviraj Chauhan, king of Delhi, magnanimously let him off.
Legend has it - and it is widely believed in India - that when
Ghori eventually succeeded in defeating Prithviraj Chauhan at the
Second Battle of Tarain in 1192, he blinded him and took him in
chains to Afghanistan along with his friend, the poet
Chandravardai.
Ghori held a grand durbar to celebrate his victory. His prize
catch, the king of Delhi, blind and a prisoner, was paraded and
publicly humiliated. Deeply incensed by the treatment meted out
to his monarch, Chandravardai took refuge to a subterfuge. He
announced that though completely blind, Prithviraj could still
hit a target guided solely by sound, and he asked for permission
for this feat to be performed.
Prithviraj Chauhan was handed a bow and arrow, and Chandravardai
sang a now-famous verse which told him of the elevation and
distance to Ghori's throne. And thus, guided solely by sound,
Prithviraj shot his arrow through Ghori.
The legend may not be entirely true, but it would be absolutely
accurate to say that even after eight centuries have elapsed,
Prithviraj is regularly subjected to indignity in the land where
he was taken as a captive. I have seen it at first hand.
Many years ago, while travelling by jeep from Kandahar to Kabul,
I had to make a night halt en route at Ghazni. At the hotel, I
learned that there was a grand mausoleum over the tomb of Sultan
Mahmud Ghaznavi near the town, and I determined to see it. A few
extra Afghanis (the local currency) helped my driver to
comprehend the necessity of making a small detour the next
morning.
The mausoleum was indeed grand -judging by local standards - with
a high, arched doorway like the Buland Darwaza. lie tomb proper
was in a cellar about four or five feet be low ground-level. It
intrigued me considerably to note that there were no steps
leading down into the tomb. Instead, a metal chain hung from the
ceiling of the cellar. I was told that I would have to hold the
chain and jump down.
I asked for the reason for this peculiar method of entry. The
caretaker was evasive at first. But after much persuasion, he
disclosed that there was another tomb at the exact spot where you
jumped down. There, the infidel king of Delhi, Prithviraj
Chauhan, lay buried.
================================================== =====================
Might I add, that the very Islam these Pakis seem to be proud of, was forced down upon them.
Most of these are descendents of forced converts to Islam!
They say that Prithvi raj knew Shabda Bhedi vidya.
Ghazni's best-kept secret - The Indian Express
S.C. Sharma ()
April 25, 1998
Title: Ghazni's best-kept secret
Author: S.C. Sharma
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: April 25, 1998
Provocative Ghauri was the title of an editorial that appeared
on this page earlier this month. Pakistan has named its missiles
Ghauri and Ghaznavi with the specific intention of taunting
India. These worthies' claims to fame and glorification, in the
perception of the Pakistanis, lies in the fact that they were
credited with plundering and devastating north-western India time
and time again in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
In their enthusiasm to score brownie points, the Pakistanis have
got mixed up on chronology, they have produced Ghauri before
Ghaznavi. Also, they have perversely sought to commemorate these
Afghan rulers of Turkish descent in utter disregard of the fact
that most of the territories they plundered are their own - the
North West Frontier Province, the Punjab and Sind. The men and
women they tortured, enslaved, ravished and put to the sword were
their own forebears.
If Pakistanis wish to revel in the inglorious misdeeds of
foreigners perpetrated on their own soil and on their own
ancestors, they are welcome to twirl their moustaches in euphoria
and say: " Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to he wise."
Indians may look forward to future generations of Pakistani IRBMs
and similar sophisticated weaponry named after the likes of
Changez Khan, Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali. Alexander the
Great and Harshavardhan also have strong claims, but they might
be disqualified for obvious reasons.
In the course of his many abortive forays into India, Mohammad
Ghori is said to have been captured once by the forces of Delhi.
But Prithviraj Chauhan, king of Delhi, magnanimously let him off.
Legend has it - and it is widely believed in India - that when
Ghori eventually succeeded in defeating Prithviraj Chauhan at the
Second Battle of Tarain in 1192, he blinded him and took him in
chains to Afghanistan along with his friend, the poet
Chandravardai.
Ghori held a grand durbar to celebrate his victory. His prize
catch, the king of Delhi, blind and a prisoner, was paraded and
publicly humiliated. Deeply incensed by the treatment meted out
to his monarch, Chandravardai took refuge to a subterfuge. He
announced that though completely blind, Prithviraj could still
hit a target guided solely by sound, and he asked for permission
for this feat to be performed.
Prithviraj Chauhan was handed a bow and arrow, and Chandravardai
sang a now-famous verse which told him of the elevation and
distance to Ghori's throne. And thus, guided solely by sound,
Prithviraj shot his arrow through Ghori.
The legend may not be entirely true, but it would be absolutely
accurate to say that even after eight centuries have elapsed,
Prithviraj is regularly subjected to indignity in the land where
he was taken as a captive. I have seen it at first hand.
Many years ago, while travelling by jeep from Kandahar to Kabul,
I had to make a night halt en route at Ghazni. At the hotel, I
learned that there was a grand mausoleum over the tomb of Sultan
Mahmud Ghaznavi near the town, and I determined to see it. A few
extra Afghanis (the local currency) helped my driver to
comprehend the necessity of making a small detour the next
morning.
The mausoleum was indeed grand -judging by local standards - with
a high, arched doorway like the Buland Darwaza. lie tomb proper
was in a cellar about four or five feet be low ground-level. It
intrigued me considerably to note that there were no steps
leading down into the tomb. Instead, a metal chain hung from the
ceiling of the cellar. I was told that I would have to hold the
chain and jump down.
I asked for the reason for this peculiar method of entry. The
caretaker was evasive at first. But after much persuasion, he
disclosed that there was another tomb at the exact spot where you
jumped down. There, the infidel king of Delhi, Prithviraj
Chauhan, lay buried.
================================================== =====================
Might I add, that the very Islam these Pakis seem to be proud of, was forced down upon them.
Most of these are descendents of forced converts to Islam!
more...
makeup Clients • Curriculum vitae
chanduv23
09-26 02:26 PM
OBAMA is for lesser H1B but more EB GC. He prefers workers who are entering the US to have intention to stay permanently than temporarily because it helps the economy.
That's the wisdom of Durbin amendment. Lesser H1B because you will get GC instead.
Everyone say "H1b is not good we want more GC". Then the whole thing moves towards a new points based system and everyone will support it saying - this will ensure US will have best and brightest. What happens to us???? We will be ignored
That's the wisdom of Durbin amendment. Lesser H1B because you will get GC instead.
Everyone say "H1b is not good we want more GC". Then the whole thing moves towards a new points based system and everyone will support it saying - this will ensure US will have best and brightest. What happens to us???? We will be ignored
girlfriend padre nuestro en ingles
Macaca
02-29 07:21 AM
In Defense of Lobbying (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022803232.html?hpid=opinionsbox1) By Charles Krauthammer | WP, Feb 29
Everyone knows the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. How many remember that, in addition, the First Amendment protects a fifth freedom -- to lobby?
Of course it doesn't use the word lobby. It calls it the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Lobbyists are people hired to do that for you, so that you can actually stay home with the kids and remain gainfully employed rather than spend your life in the corridors of Washington.
To hear the candidates in this presidential campaign, you'd think lobbying is just one notch below waterboarding, a black art practiced by the great malefactors of wealth to keep the middle class in a vise and loose upon the nation every manner of scourge: oil dependency, greenhouse gases, unpayable mortgages and those tiny entrees you get at French restaurants.
Lobbying is constitutionally protected, but that doesn't mean we have to like it all. Let's agree to frown upon bad lobbying, such as getting a tax break for a particular industry. Let's agree to welcome good lobbying -- the actual redress of a legitimate grievance -- such as protecting your home from being turned to dust to make way for some urban development project.
There is a defense of even bad lobbying. It goes like this: You wouldn't need to be seeking advantage if the federal government had not appropriated for itself in the 20th century all kinds of powers, regulations, intrusions and manipulations (often through the tax code) that had never been presumed in the 19th century and certainly were never imagined by the Founders. What appears to be rent-seeking is thus redress of a larger grievance -- insufferable government meddling in what had traditionally been considered an area of free enterprise.
Good lobbying, on the other hand, requires no such larger contextual explanation. It is a cherished First Amendment right -- necessary, like the others, to protect a free people against overbearing and potentially tyrannical government.
What would be an example of petitioning the government for a redress of a legitimate grievance? Let's say you're a media company wishing to acquire a television station in Pittsburgh. Because of the huge federal regulatory structure, you require the approval of a government agency. In this case it's called the Federal Communications Commission.
Now, one of the roles of Congress is to make sure that said bureaucrats are interpreting and enforcing Congress's laws with fairness and dispatch. All members of Congress, no matter how populist, no matter how much they rail against "special interests," zealously protect this right of oversight. Therefore, one of the jobs of the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is to ensure that the bureaucrats of the FCC are doing their job.
What would constitute not doing their job? A textbook example would be the FCC sitting two full years on a pending application to acquire a Pittsburgh TV station. There could hardly be a better case of a legitimate "petition for a redress" than that of the aforementioned private entity asking the chairman of the appropriate oversight committee to ask the tardy bureaucrats for a ruling. So the chairman does that, writing to the FCC demanding a ruling -- any ruling -- while explicitly stating that he is asking for no particular outcome.
This, of course, is precisely what John McCain did on behalf of Paxson Communications in writing two letters to the FCC in which he asked for a vote on the pending television-station acquisition. These two letters are the only remotely hard pieces of evidence in a 3,000-word front-page New York Times article casting doubt on John McCain's ethics.
Which is why what was intended to be an expos¿ turned into a farce, compounded by the fact that the other breathless revelation turned out to be thrice-removed rumors of an alleged affair nine years ago.
It must be said of McCain that he has invited such astonishingly thin charges against him because he has made a career of ostentatiously questioning the motives and ethics of those who have resisted his campaign finance reform and other measures that he imagines will render Congress influence-free.
Ostentatious self-righteousness may be a sin, but it is not a scandal. Nor is it a crime or a form of corruption. The Times's story is a classic example of sloppy gotcha journalism. But it is also an example of how the demagoguery about lobbying has so penetrated the popular consciousness that the mere mention of it next to a prominent senator is thought to be enough to sustain an otherwise vaporous hit piece.
Free advice to the K Street crowd: Consider a name change. Wynum, Dynum and Bindum: Redress Petitioners.
Everyone knows the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. How many remember that, in addition, the First Amendment protects a fifth freedom -- to lobby?
Of course it doesn't use the word lobby. It calls it the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Lobbyists are people hired to do that for you, so that you can actually stay home with the kids and remain gainfully employed rather than spend your life in the corridors of Washington.
To hear the candidates in this presidential campaign, you'd think lobbying is just one notch below waterboarding, a black art practiced by the great malefactors of wealth to keep the middle class in a vise and loose upon the nation every manner of scourge: oil dependency, greenhouse gases, unpayable mortgages and those tiny entrees you get at French restaurants.
Lobbying is constitutionally protected, but that doesn't mean we have to like it all. Let's agree to frown upon bad lobbying, such as getting a tax break for a particular industry. Let's agree to welcome good lobbying -- the actual redress of a legitimate grievance -- such as protecting your home from being turned to dust to make way for some urban development project.
There is a defense of even bad lobbying. It goes like this: You wouldn't need to be seeking advantage if the federal government had not appropriated for itself in the 20th century all kinds of powers, regulations, intrusions and manipulations (often through the tax code) that had never been presumed in the 19th century and certainly were never imagined by the Founders. What appears to be rent-seeking is thus redress of a larger grievance -- insufferable government meddling in what had traditionally been considered an area of free enterprise.
Good lobbying, on the other hand, requires no such larger contextual explanation. It is a cherished First Amendment right -- necessary, like the others, to protect a free people against overbearing and potentially tyrannical government.
What would be an example of petitioning the government for a redress of a legitimate grievance? Let's say you're a media company wishing to acquire a television station in Pittsburgh. Because of the huge federal regulatory structure, you require the approval of a government agency. In this case it's called the Federal Communications Commission.
Now, one of the roles of Congress is to make sure that said bureaucrats are interpreting and enforcing Congress's laws with fairness and dispatch. All members of Congress, no matter how populist, no matter how much they rail against "special interests," zealously protect this right of oversight. Therefore, one of the jobs of the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is to ensure that the bureaucrats of the FCC are doing their job.
What would constitute not doing their job? A textbook example would be the FCC sitting two full years on a pending application to acquire a Pittsburgh TV station. There could hardly be a better case of a legitimate "petition for a redress" than that of the aforementioned private entity asking the chairman of the appropriate oversight committee to ask the tardy bureaucrats for a ruling. So the chairman does that, writing to the FCC demanding a ruling -- any ruling -- while explicitly stating that he is asking for no particular outcome.
This, of course, is precisely what John McCain did on behalf of Paxson Communications in writing two letters to the FCC in which he asked for a vote on the pending television-station acquisition. These two letters are the only remotely hard pieces of evidence in a 3,000-word front-page New York Times article casting doubt on John McCain's ethics.
Which is why what was intended to be an expos¿ turned into a farce, compounded by the fact that the other breathless revelation turned out to be thrice-removed rumors of an alleged affair nine years ago.
It must be said of McCain that he has invited such astonishingly thin charges against him because he has made a career of ostentatiously questioning the motives and ethics of those who have resisted his campaign finance reform and other measures that he imagines will render Congress influence-free.
Ostentatious self-righteousness may be a sin, but it is not a scandal. Nor is it a crime or a form of corruption. The Times's story is a classic example of sloppy gotcha journalism. But it is also an example of how the demagoguery about lobbying has so penetrated the popular consciousness that the mere mention of it next to a prominent senator is thought to be enough to sustain an otherwise vaporous hit piece.
Free advice to the K Street crowd: Consider a name change. Wynum, Dynum and Bindum: Redress Petitioners.
hairstyles Curriculum Vitae
Administrator2
01-08 03:56 PM
I just copied and pasted the coward Refugee_New's msg to me. I'll be careful about 'quoting others' also!
Did you consider banning him?
CreatedToday,
We have not considered banning you or anyone else. Refugee_New has apologized for sending unfriendly messages.
We work hard to keep the forums civil, without any use of abusive language. We need your help to achieve this goal before we are successful with the bigger challenges ahead of us in 2009.
Thank you for your participation in the community effort.
Administrator2
Did you consider banning him?
CreatedToday,
We have not considered banning you or anyone else. Refugee_New has apologized for sending unfriendly messages.
We work hard to keep the forums civil, without any use of abusive language. We need your help to achieve this goal before we are successful with the bigger challenges ahead of us in 2009.
Thank you for your participation in the community effort.
Administrator2
Beemar
12-26 10:56 PM
Looks like India is employing a cold start strategy. In the first phase of operations, Indian Air force will strike LeT camps in Muridke and Muzaffarabad and then ask Pakistan to refrain from taking retaliatory action. The onus will be on Pakistan to take the decision regarding further escalation of hostilities.
Interesting to see how Pakistan will respond to such a move.
Interesting to see how Pakistan will respond to such a move.
suavesandeep
06-05 11:53 AM
Good analysis there dude!
While no one can predict future, the least we could do is prepare ourselves for good and bad times.
IMO people should look at purchasing only if these conditions apply:
1) Current rent payment is more than mortgage+prop tax+other monthly fees for new home
2) Homes in relatively stable areas (where unemployment is not too high, diversity of job opportunities)
3) Homes whose prices have not risen significantly in the past 5yrs (anything > 40% since 2001..please stay away)
4) Planning to stay in the house for a MIN 2yrs
One would argue why buy now if it might go lower...
if above conditions are met..it would be a relatively safe buy and above all...people remember... time does not wait for anyone...we grow older everyday..make a decision regarding what we need for us and our family within the reasonable limits...go for it and enjoy it..
an old friend of mine always says...live life..love life...be life
and i believe she is right..
I think we are in unprecedented times...Who would have thought real estate would ever crash ?. At least i never saw this coming and i guess most of those smart investors/economists did not see this coming.
My friend in bay area bought his house 3 years back in a decent school district and he is more than 150K under water. He is going to be stuck in the house now till his house appreciates to the original principal. If he wants to move out of the house he will have to pay the 150k difference from his pocket.
This is what scares the shit of me. I really don't care too much if the house i buy after doing all the valid calculations as described above does not appreciate for a long time. Also I am not buying the house for investment reasons. But i dont want to be in a situation where 5 years down the line after i bought the house i have lost money on the house and would need to shell out money from my pocket to move out like my friend is today. I am sure 2 years from now which will be 5 years for my friend he will still be under water.
Like most Americans i would like to buy a smaller home which i can afford now since we are a small family and may be 5 years from now may want to move to a bigger home in a better location.
But how things look currently it looks like i may be stuck in the house for a long long time and the standard advise of "buy a home if you plan to stay at least in the house for 5 years" may not apply. Imagine in the worst case being stuck in the same house for 30 years. May not be a big deal but just puts more pressure on you to buy that perfect house which you are sure you will be happy to live there for the next 30 years if needed.
This is what spooks me the most of the current housing market. Again this concern is due to unprecedented times we are in, I am sure 5 years back this would not concern me.
Any thoughts?
While no one can predict future, the least we could do is prepare ourselves for good and bad times.
IMO people should look at purchasing only if these conditions apply:
1) Current rent payment is more than mortgage+prop tax+other monthly fees for new home
2) Homes in relatively stable areas (where unemployment is not too high, diversity of job opportunities)
3) Homes whose prices have not risen significantly in the past 5yrs (anything > 40% since 2001..please stay away)
4) Planning to stay in the house for a MIN 2yrs
One would argue why buy now if it might go lower...
if above conditions are met..it would be a relatively safe buy and above all...people remember... time does not wait for anyone...we grow older everyday..make a decision regarding what we need for us and our family within the reasonable limits...go for it and enjoy it..
an old friend of mine always says...live life..love life...be life
and i believe she is right..
I think we are in unprecedented times...Who would have thought real estate would ever crash ?. At least i never saw this coming and i guess most of those smart investors/economists did not see this coming.
My friend in bay area bought his house 3 years back in a decent school district and he is more than 150K under water. He is going to be stuck in the house now till his house appreciates to the original principal. If he wants to move out of the house he will have to pay the 150k difference from his pocket.
This is what scares the shit of me. I really don't care too much if the house i buy after doing all the valid calculations as described above does not appreciate for a long time. Also I am not buying the house for investment reasons. But i dont want to be in a situation where 5 years down the line after i bought the house i have lost money on the house and would need to shell out money from my pocket to move out like my friend is today. I am sure 2 years from now which will be 5 years for my friend he will still be under water.
Like most Americans i would like to buy a smaller home which i can afford now since we are a small family and may be 5 years from now may want to move to a bigger home in a better location.
But how things look currently it looks like i may be stuck in the house for a long long time and the standard advise of "buy a home if you plan to stay at least in the house for 5 years" may not apply. Imagine in the worst case being stuck in the same house for 30 years. May not be a big deal but just puts more pressure on you to buy that perfect house which you are sure you will be happy to live there for the next 30 years if needed.
This is what spooks me the most of the current housing market. Again this concern is due to unprecedented times we are in, I am sure 5 years back this would not concern me.
Any thoughts?
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