Mike Tyson Tattoos

Again, IEEE went out of its way to get extra H1Bs for US-educated students. That alone wipes out your arguments because these H1Bs are for foreigners and these people sure will increase competition for people born here. IEEE is not only for meaningful reform, they have the power to do what they want.


Just because they have a position paper and a pdf file saying that they support US educated immigrants doesnt mean they do that.

If IEEE-USA really cared about US educated students, they would have put in a provision to raise the cap for US masters degree holders from 20,000 to 40,000. Did they do that in this bill? NO.

What created the 20,000 H1B visas for US educated students is lobbying by US universities. They saw a drop in student enrollment due to shortage of H1 visas in 2002 and 2003. Read the bureau of Immigration stats report to verify that drop in F1 visa demand from India and China in the early 2000s. Now its back up.

Ron Hira and IEEE-USA have systematically worked for nearly 10 years to eliminate H1B program. However, they are doing it in a way that makes them look like reasonable people and helps them mask their xenophobic and protectionist attitude.

This bill has been pretty much authored by xenophobes of IEEE-USA. If you look at the IEEE-USA website and what Sen. Grassley has been saying over the years, it has an uncanny similarity. Last year, IEEE-USA's insistence caused Sen. Grassley to put amendment in Jud committee to remove the provision of EAD for L1 spouses. Look at IEEE-USA's website and you will find remarkably similar material. Whether it was a justified and fair amendment, its a different issue.

Lately, IEEE-USA has been against H1B employees who go back to India and China. Some time ago, they were saying "When does temporary end and permenant begin"...meaning, what part of "Temporary" do H1B "temporary non-immigrant" workers do not understand. They were against H1B employees becoming permenant by seeking Greencards and wanted them to go back after 6 years.

Then they started opposing people who come here and go back because that is supposed to facilitate outsourcing. And IEEE-USA, like Lou Dobbs, hates outsourcing. So now they are unhappy even if H1B workers come here for 3-6 years and go back.

So in a nutshell, they(IEEE-USA) are against H1B employees if they :

1. Come here and stay here on GC.
2. Come here and go back.
3. Never come here but work for US companies and enable outsourcing.

So the people who oppose all 3 of the above...like RON HIRA of IEEE-USA basically does not want us to exist in hi-tech work. Probably they would want all Indian and Chinese engineers to work in fields and pick cotton.

Similary, Chuck Grassley has no problem with giving amnesty to illegals if they are agricultural workers. But in general he doesnt want too much immigration. So immigration is fine, as long as the brown people dont do white people's job. Immigration is good as long as brown people stick their brown asses in fieds picking cotton and stay away from that keyboard so that people like Ron Hira and his colleagues can get their 1990s back and write 4 lines of code per week and make $100,000 a year.

Rimzhim, this whole public policy thing is really not your cup of tea. You go and stick to whatever it is that you are doing and let the core group handle this issue. This elitist attitude of "I am masters, I am Ph.D" is splinting apart this organization and you are too obtuse to understand the twisted ways of IEEE-USA.

Land cannot be manufactured. The population is growing by the day and people need a place to live. So the space is at a premium here. The housing market maybe down because of the sub-prime crisis and the banks going out of business. But eventually it has to come back. Maybe this market is not for people who are looking to invest.

Look at india for instance: whatever state the economy is in, the housing always booms because of the supply/demand factor. Eventually US will reach that stage unless otherwise the population shrinks.
land cannot be manufactured but look around. US has a massive excess of land compared to its population. what you say about India is correct(to some degree but there are local bubbles out there too)..US will never have that ratio of people / land. especially you don't know what the trend is going to be with the baby boomers ..will they sell their houses and live in mexico ..you never know (so cannot predict). price of land will go up over long long term (due to inflation) but in the short term it is DOWN DOWN and DOWN. if one can wait for a year then they should wait ..and if you do a analysis of costs ..renting is not throwing off yr money ..you get a place to stay (a place which has mobility, less maintenance etc). Especially if you are in banking or related sectors ..just wait ..u don't know who will collapse next.
btw for central NJ (not familiar with that area) ..the price projection in next 5 years is still down.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/price_rent_ratios/
here is another point from earlier post
------------
Because the baby-boom generation is so much bigger than succeeding generations, the ratio of people in the retirement years, 65 and older, to those in the working years, 20 to 64, will rise from 20.6% in 2005 to 35.5% in 2030, according to the Census Bureau.

For most people, the house they live in is their biggest retirement asset. In retirement, people cash in on the value of their homes by selling and then buying less expensive houses, renting or moving in with the kids.
-----------

JunRN, it all depends on how much risk are you willing to take in what area. Equity is generally believed or historically trended to provide 10% returns over 10 years span (multiple market cycles). Where as dwelling as an investment provides a marginal 3 to 5% depending on location in a normal growth rate (Exception to Bubble). Equity market has nose dived as did housing market and people consider it too risky to invest at this stage in equity due to uncertinities (lot of companies may not make it through though times or No. PC companies which has become QPC -filed for chapter11 protection has increased) even though it doesn't involve huge amounts as housing at per unit basis. For investers, same applies for dwelling investment as well at a higher scale. More Chapter 11->more job losses->more houses on foreclosure.

Just to counter your argument, Let me tell you one scenario, When stock market went down, I invested in shares some time back in February 09, as of today, If I look at the individual investment, it stands at 60% increased. But I do not think that it will provide me a 60% returns.. over 10 years... I expect only 10% and may increase to 15% in the long run which is a ball park number.

Lot of sellers/brokers referred Zillow during 2006 and early 2007 (Bubble) to sell their houses at an inflated prices as I mentioned earlier, when it went up 20000 per month for several months.. Based on these numbers..people streached themself and jumped to grab one before it goes beyond their reach thinking that it will continue to go up.. Now, the houses values under water and they are whining about it every day and night.. some of their home values evapourated by 30 to 40%. (I am talking about 100,000 to 150,000 south). Zillow goes up and down.. in short term depending on historic sales and builder's listing price changes, not based on any economic outlook. Every agent wears two hats and is two-faced, because a home�s �value� has to be higher when represent a seller and lower when represent a buyer. The Zillow range of value represents best hope for buyer at the low end of the range, and highest for seller at the high end of that range.

Here's what they say about it in disclaimer "The Zestimate is not an appraisal and you won't be able to use it in place of an appraisal, though you can certainly share it with real estate professionals. It is a computer-generated estimate of the worth of a house today, given the data we have available. Zillow.com does not offer the Zestimate as the basis of any specific real-estate-related financial transaction. Our data sources may be incomplete or incorrect; also, we have not physically inspected a specific home."

My point is, Unless the correction happens in housing market, which is widely believed to be another 10 to 12% further south from where it stands now.. there is always a risk in buying one thinking that its going to appreciate in next 10 years. Remember though the demand cycles for realty market is lenghty ones which will rise once in 10 to 15 years but this does not mean that there's going to be another bubble again to hike it up by 100 and 200% :). It may rise as historically did to provide a 3 to 4% returns. This is regardless of location... location.. location.. First, It will take time to stabilize the market just because there's too much supply, affordiability issue and aging population.

Buy or not, depends on whether and how much you are willing and open to take risk. Higher the risk, higher the returns.. doesn't mean it applies to stupid decisions... One thing I wanted to mention though, we have utilization value for living in a house, bigger than an apartment, again its an individual perspective.

I have not entered into the discussion of the intrinsic/utilization value of owning a home specially with 3 small kids like mine because it's hard to put a $$ value without being biased.

The 10 to 12% down south estimate might be true on the average. However, from where I stand now, in my county not just my zip code, house prices started to go up by 0.8% since January. It might still go down as I see fluctuations but I feel that it's stabilizing already.

Could I have waited until home prices go down another 10%? Probably a wiser decision but as I monitor home purchase price of same model as mine in same community, not one was able to buy same model home as low as my purchase price. So I felt relieved.

But only time can tell, right? All I'm doing right now is to satisfy myself that I made a right decision. Should I find out that it's a mistake, I should be truthful to myself that I did. There's no reason to lie to my ownself.

At the outset, I am not against EB3, but lets think about this for a moment. Any logic that we use to break up spillover between EB2 and EB3 can also easily be applied to EB1 and EB2. I'll repeat an earlier post of mine. "How can EB1 of 2008 get the GC immediately when EB2-I (in my case) has to wait for more than 4 years - clearly preference is at play here".

Any spilt will artificially retrogress EB2 more than what it otherwise would have. Similarly one can always argue to artificially retrogress EB1 to give more visas to EB2 just because someone from EB2 is waiting for 4 years.
Isnt that against the law. Any break up of spill over visas invalidates the category preference as per current law.

Please also note that any unfavorable change to the EB1 category based on a hypothetical approval of an EB2/EB3 break up will invite the attention of Fortune 500 companies and prestigious research/educational institutions (who use EB1 the most) with all their political and financial resources at their disposal. That could put a halt to everything.

Irrational passion calls for dispassionate rationality.

Delax, EB1 with PD 2008 is getting their GC within months not because they utilize an 100% spill over from 'somewhere'. It is just because they do not have enough applicants in the queue and hence no retrogression.

Honestly, 'i don't think' the 'advantage' that EB3 and EB2 have - using spillover from other categories. Correct me if I was wrong.

Exactly. This argument of buying house for kids is no argument. You can argue on either side. The problem is when NKR made a statement that it is big deal to not buy a house because your kid will ask "can you give back my childhood?". As if a 7 year old will regret not owning a house. The child will also regret not owning a playstation3, eat chocalates all the time, play all time. We all know what we wanted when we were kids.

Comparing buying playstation3 and chocolates with buying a house is nojoke. The argument of buying playstation3 and chocolates is no argument.

Anyway, i'll sign off and i won't post any more message in this thread again.
Please respect your own post and stop posting on this topic.

(:this is all true regarding Immigration Services calling then)
Hey guys I also got a call from Immigration Services today on March 25 2009 .
this is what happened
First he started confiming he was talking to the right person
And told My g-28 hasn't been properly signed and completed.
Caller didn't ask me for my personal i nformation
he confirmed my name, dob ,my last entry . address, wifes name address dob
my parents name , my in laws name. He even told g28 it was signed by my HR manager.
He had all the information, he didn't ask for any personal information.
He asked if there was any other names used.
He joked about me not smiling on the picture, he confirmed when the finger prints were completed
After about 10 minutes of conversation he congratualed me on the approval and my wifes approval said the card should be mailed from kentucky with a week and even mentioned that USCIS online system isn't working.

I am taking infopass tommorrow and confirming and if true I am going have it stamped

I hope this is all true.

The odd time uscis does make a phone call to you. The questions they ask are typically what you were asked. Just verifying the information on your forms.

Yours is typical if a person gets phone call.

Original poster questions/requests was not normal.

Not just EB3 to EB2 port but EB2 to EB2 as well. Consider you lose your present job and lose your entire GC process. When you find a new job(if any), you would want to port your old PD at your new employer when they file your fresh 140.

So no one is immune, if you think you are, you are ignorant and do not know how complex a case can become.

There are very few benefits that CIS provides for people who lose jobs and PD portability is one of them. enlighten yourself!

The problem was Labor substitution, which was a nightmare for many of us here, and lot of people are still stuck because of it. DOL eliminated substitution 1 year ago and people whose 140's were filed then are still stuck in that backlog because of LC sub cases files on jul'16th. If you want to do anything do something on that end to ease the 140 backlogs.


No i am not comparing this to labor substitution. Also, i do not think what you said is true for ALL the people trying to port to EB2 by some means.

I intend to fight this legally and everyone else also has the same option of challenging my stand in court if they think i am wrong.

I am just here to gauge support (not monetary support) for the lawsuit, and to see if there are some angles which i am missing that may aid me.

One of the qualifying criteria for EB2 is 5 years of experience. Right????

If your I-485 application is stuck since July 2003 or prior, you are automatically EB2 by that rule. Are you not? You have been working for 5 years atleast.

The revised rule should be

EB2 eligibile = Anybody with experience on labor > 5 years (this would not impact current EB2 folks) or whose labor is older than 5 years (this will make EB3 folks happier).

Peace.

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.


.

Let us be honest. A lot of us who came through body shops had to pay lawyer fee or had to take a cut in pay. Many of us had to sit in the bench for a long time with out pay. At the end of the day, not all of us are the best and the brightest but we are ready to work harder than the average Joe. With or without us this country will go forward. We are here to get a greencard and to become part of the melting pot. Please admit it my friends. I fully understands why many Americans are against us. We simply take their job. Then we insult them. Then we say, if we go back the American economy will go to hell. The companies are here for cheap labor. The congressmen who support them are the biggest receivers of their contribution. That is the reality. Let us not forget that. :D

You cannot make a definite conclusion that everyone come through Body Shops and Stay on Bench etc. There are many who came to do Masters and got good jobs on H1B. Because of few rare incidents you cannot generalise that everyone do the same. We Indians(atleast the indians I know) never felt that way of American economy will go to hell blah blah if we are not there. Maybe you feel that way then it shows your arrogance. We need to be careful not to dig grave by ourselves by posting or quoting rare incidents because Immigration Opposing people frequently visit these forums and take them as "Quote: An Indian Posted like this on that forum"

People will jump to the ship which goes faster...Thats the bottom line, If tomorrow for some reason EB3 ship moves faster than EB2 ship then you would also jump your EB2 Ship and go to EB3 ship as most other people including me. Focus your energy on some positive action items which benefit the community.

I think nowadays you can get great deals in suwanee area, but in alpharetta area (ATLANTA) which is couple of exits towards the city on 400 highway.. are still selling for 400K..I am talking about 3000 sq ft, houses.. I got a quote for 420K with basement 3070 sqft.. with decent upgrades...
and these homes are closely built compared to the ones in suwanee area..

The homes prices never came down in these areas!!

Before I start - I must say that I am EB2 - and I still don't agree with the idea.
Before joining the job, most newbies don't understand that if job requirement is B.S. and they will be shoved to EB3 . It wasn't their fault. I think they deserve a second chance.
I think EB3 people should automatically be upgraded to EB2 if : they already had a masters; or if they received a masters during the process; or if they completed 5yrs of experience.

Let's not be selfish. Instead try to come up with ideas which is good for all legal immigrants !!!

If this forum is strictly for immigration, then we wouldn't have allowed members to discuss anything other than immigration.

But IV allowed its members to discuss, degrade, humiliate muslims and Islam. Why didn't they stop it then?
I don't believe anyone directly condemns Muslims and Islam. Everyone has a great respect for the religion and its followers. The problem starts when one person condemns terrorists and other takes it on Islam. I hope you believe they are not related, then why some people react such way.

Unfortunately, there are no simple answers. Mortgage rates are tied to 10 year bond rate, so they generally are not affected much by short term fed rate. With credit crunch, bond market is in real bad shape.
Fed is trying to supply short term funds to ease this crunch. I don't know how low Fed will go for this. What I am seeing is mortgage rates being stable or going down a little in near term bcoz of Fed easing. For long term, I believe rates will go up as bonds have to become attractive to get new investors.This may not be the best ( absolute bottom) but definitely very good time to refinance if it makes sense for your conditions.
For first time buyers like me, there are a lot of parameters to be considered. In my opinion the parameters are tilted towards faster house price drop . Hence I am waiting at least for a year. I will not do anything till next spring.

Thank you very much.

[snip...]
If you can rent the same house for 50% of your monthly mortgage and on top of it never have to worry about declining home prices why would you be more happy owning it?
[snip...]

You should compare only the interest part of your mortgage payment when comparing with rent.

In China, Crime Is Kept Quiet, Except on TV
The country remains safe by Western standards, but crime is more common and data are scarce (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520804576349181022278452.html)
By JAMES T. AREDDY | Wall Street Journal

Last June, hours after her students went home, Sunny Shi, the principal at a kindergarten in Shanghai's Pudong district, was bludgeoned to death in her office. The suspect was another school employee.

Officially, it was as if the murder never happened. Not a word was reported publicly by Shanghai police or local media. As talk circulated among parents, the school's administrators offered trauma counseling but requested their silence. "Now the case is under police investigation," the chief administrator said by email, and "we regret that we cannot provide any details."

The treatment of this case was not unusual. All across China, authorities are thought to hush up episodes like Ms. Shi's killing, which explains in large part why no one knows how much crime occurs in the world's most populous nation. But few doubt that crime is increasing as economic growth divides rich from poor and China permits more personal mobility.

"In the era of Mao, China was known as a virtually crime-free society," says Steven F. Messner, a University of Albany sociology professor who studies criminality. "To get rich is glorious" is the philosophy today, he added, "but there would be a darker side in terms of crime."

China's national crime statistics show a sharp escalation in cases over the past decade, led in particular by non-violent larceny, like bicycle theft and purse snatching. But, as in the U.S., the official numbers also point to steep declines in violent crime, with the murder rate dropping by half between 2000 and 2009.

Experts consider China's crime statistics both problematic and politicized. They also generally agree that the country remains safe by Western standards. Dark streets don't imply danger here.

Evidence abounds, however, that the Communist Party leadership's ideal of a "harmonious society" remains a target, not the reality. In China's growing cities, aluminum bars over windows and doors make most apartments resemble jails. Homeowners are snapping up security devices like cameras and alarms.

Anxious about kidnapping, China's newly wealthy often drive bullet-proof Land Rovers and hire kung fu masters from Shaolin Temple as security agents.

Television contributes a fear factor with real-crime shows modeled on "America's Most Wanted" and "Cops." China Central Television says its law-and-order channel grabs more viewers than its sports stations. Every day, CCTV's one-hour documentary "Legal Report" follows detectives as they crack sensational abduction, extortion and robbery cases.

Its coverage of a spate of apparently random attacks on seven women this year in Hebei province, for instance, featured the nighttime capture of 23-year-old Zhang Yunshuai. His foldable knife decorated with a butterfly was shown as evidence. He was led to a subsequent interview wearing a reflective orange prison vest and cuffed at the wrists and ankles, where he tilted his shaved head and muttered, "because women break my heart."

Shorter installments drew on security cameras that captured a thief shielding his pilfering hand beneath a menu in a crowded Beijing restaurant and thugs casing hotel lobbies for handbags.

On these true-life crime shows, "the man" consistently finds his perp. A popular notion holds that the censors permit these shows about China's criminal underworld because they allow the leadership to demonstrate how the pervasive surveillance of the government equates to swift justice.

Canadian Debra O'Brien got an up-close look at China's criminal justice system after her 22-year-old daughter Diana was stabbed to death three years ago in Shanghai, a bombshell case just weeks before the start of the 2008 Olympics. Authorities quickly won a confession from Chen Jun, a penniless 18-year-old migrant from rural Anhui province. Mr. Chen admitted he struggled with the aspiring model during his bungled attempt to burgle her apartment, located steps from a tea shop that recently fired him.

Ms. O'Brien left impressed. She received extensive briefings by senior police and personal copies of forensic photos. The judge even sought her opinion about a death sentence for Mr. Chen. She had a face-to-face with the apologetic killer.

"It was all shocking and horrific, but everything was done really respectfully and transparently," Ms. O'Brien said by telephone. "You don't feel there is a lot of ego going on. People are doing their jobs."

But the public wasn't offered many details. Ms. O'Brien herself admits she isn't sure of what happened to Mr. Chen but believes he became eligible for release two months ago. Mr. Chen's lawyer says he is serving life.

Pi Yijun, a professor of criminal justice at China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, says that he sees crime rising and getting more violent, which he attributes to anger and frustration among society's have-nots. "The accepted mindset seems, 'fists are more powerful than reason,'" he said.

But in a rare 2004 survey of crime victimization, centered on the northern city Tianjin, the University of Albany's Mr. Messner found that few people were touched personally by crimes worse than a stolen bicycle. He credits traditional features of Chinese society. "You still have a much more communitarian orientation than the extreme individualism you see in the U.S.," he said.



China Clamps Down in Bid to Halt Protests in Inner Mongolia (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576353353518093630.html) By BRIAN SPEGELE | Wall Street Journal
China tries to avert Inner Mongolia protests (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-mongolia-protests-20110530,0,3895402.story) By Barbara Demick | Los Angeles Times
The China Story Darkens (http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3223&Itemid=422) By Philip Bowring | Asia Sentinel
Once Again, U.S. Finds China Isn�t Manipulating Its Currency (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/global/28currency.html) By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM | The New York Times

Q: Do you yield when a blind pedestrian is crossing the road?
A: What for? He can't see my license plate.

Q: Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time?
A: The pick up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying, "Guns don't kill people. I do."

Q: When driving through fog, what should you use?
A: Your car.

Q: What problems would you face if you were arrested for drunk driving?
A: I'd probably lose my buzz a lot faster.

Q: What changes would occur in your lifestyle if you could no longer drive lawfully?
A: I would be forced to drive unlawfully.

Q: What are some points to remember when passing or being passed?
A: Make eye contact and wave "hello" if s/he is cute.

Q: What is the difference between a flashing red traffic light and a flashing yellow traffic light?
A: The color.

Q: How do you deal with heavy traffic?
A: Heavy psychedelics.

Q: What can you do to help ease a heavy traffic problem?
A: Carry loaded weapons.

http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/shows/loudobbstonight

dont know about lou's total viewership but every day his online polls have less than 15,000 respondents

http://www.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/26653.exclude.html

i m sure its basically everybody who is a member of numbersusa, fair and other nut job establishments