Mike Tyson Tattoos

Pakistan's nukes' user manuals are in Chinese language. How will they know how to fire them?

They will figure it out. You too, Beemar, well-said.

Agree..

All:
if we want to exchange usual blame game on both sides, we don't need to waste each other's time..we can read blames in respective newspapers which are available online.

/Secondly, this is a pretty good opportunity for Indians and Pakistanis who live in the USA to engage in a conversation about the relations between their countries. I don't think this thread is anything more than that. So, unless I start asking you to loan (http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?t=22830&page=14#) me a million dollars, 'trust' is a moot point./

Dying for data: the Indian activist killed for asking too many questions (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/27/india-rti-activists-deaths) By Jason Burke | The Guardian

Shashidhar Mishra was always a curious man. Neighbours in the scruffy industrial town of Baroni, in the northern Indian state of Bihar, called him "kabri lal" or "the news man" because he was always so well informed.

Late every evening, the 35-year-old street hawker would sit down with his files and scribble notes. In February, the father of four was killed outside his home after a day's work selling pens, sweets and snacks in Baroni's bazaar.

The killing was swift and professional. The street lights went out, two men on motorbikes drew up and there were muffled shots. Mishra, an enthusiastic RTI activist, as those who systematically use India's right to information law to uncover wrongdoing and official incompetence are known, became the latest in the country's growing list of RTI martyrs.

The RTI law, introduced by the Congress party-led government in 2005, was a radical piece of legislation giving private citizens the right to demand written answers from India's always opaque and often corrupt bureaucracy and state institutions such as the police and army.

"It was a total paradigm shift from a regime of secrecy to one of transparency," the law minister, Veerappa Moily, said in an interview in Delhi. "It has changed the entire culture of governance."

In many ways, the law has been an astonishing success, prompting requests from tens of thousands of often poor, sometimes almost illiterate, always highly motivated citizens. In Bihar, more than 100,000 demands were made last year, 20 times as many as five years ago, said AK Choudry, the chief information commissioner for the state. In India as a whole at least a million RTI requests have now been filed.

"This act is for the common man of India. Without paying a bribe a poor man can get answers. We have the right to know what is happening in this country," said Afroz Alam Sahil, a student from Bihar who has registered hundreds of requests.

Yet, with the rule of law weak in much of the country, exercising new rights can mean danger. At least 10 activists have been killed so far this year. All found themselves up against powerful individuals, often in league with local authorities. One uncovered a series of corrupt land deals and thefts of social benefits by officials and was subsequently hacked to death near his home near the city of Pune, Maharashtra state.

A 55-year-old stallholder was killed after investigating electricity supplies and gambling dens in his home town of Surat in the western state of Gujarat. Two activists investigating fraud in government labour schemes for the poor were killed in the lawless eastern state of Jharkand, while others - including a 47-year-old sugar cane farmer in the central state of Maharashtra and an activist near the southern city of Bengaluru - were killed after investigating land acquisitions by big businessmen.

In July, Amit Jethava, a pharmacist in Gujarat who had hounded officials about mining endangering Asian lions, spotted deer and wild boar near his village was shot dead. There has since been a lull in the killings, but beatings, intimidations and threats continue.

Amitabh Thakur, who heads an RTI network in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, and is writing a book on the RTI martyrs said that "cases of murder, persecution, prosecution and harassment" are legion. "When you are digging for information there are people who try to hide it from you," he said. "They will do what it takes to keep it hidden."

The true number of activists killed could be much higher. Frequently, campaigners say, the authorities deny a link between the RTI requests and violence, dismissing incidents as everyday crime.

Choudry said that no killing linked to RTI had taken place in Bihar and that Mishra's death in February was "not linked to any RTI application". Local police denied Mishra was an activist and said they no longer had possession of the investigation file opened on his death. It contained, his family said, most of the answers he had received to his various RTI requests.

The dead man had hidden a box of papers at home that suggest the hawker's activism was indeed the reason for his murder. The documents, seen by the Guardian, included receipts for hundreds of different applications for information about local officials, businessmen and even the police themselves.

Mishra, described by his sister as a "sharp and smart guy", had started demanding information two years before his death. His first target was a local government-run dairy, a big employer, where he suspected animals were being mistreated. His next campaign focused on unlicensed stalls run on public land outside the local railway station. These were eventually demolished.

Encouraged by his success, Mishra asked for records of land purchases and sales by members of the local council over the last 20 years. In June last year, he began investigating the local market, largely built by local businessmen on government land. A month later, he asked why there was no electricity in the local health clinic. By the end of the year, he had established that many of the contracts awarded to resurface a road through the town were suspect. He spoke darkly to his family of death threats.

In December and January, Mishra filed a flurry of further information requests, asking for details of the postings of certain policemen and the whereabouts of vehicles the police had recently impounded.

On 9 February , he requested a list of those contracted to carry out construction of a road in the market. He also demanded the local council's 2009 accounts. The answer � which showed that at least �80,000 had been paid to contractors for work that had never been carried out � arrived in May, three months after his death.

His killers had used silenced handguns, the mark of professionals. That a power cut plunged the street into darkness for the few minutes they needed to work indicates the involvement of officials, campaigners claim.

Now his brother Mahdidar is trying to look after four extra children on a family income that has been halved. He told the Guardian he was "desperate".

"I want justice for my brother, but what can I do? There are many corrupt and powerful. I am just one man."

Cases of intimidation and violence are "isolated", Moily, the law minister, insisted. "Wherever protection is needed the government provides it."



'India's history is in two phases, before and after RTI' (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/articlelist/articleshow/7180352.cms) Times of India

Dude..if the rules for EB2 eligibility were followed to the T, most of the EB2 jobs would fall back to EB3. Stop the holier-than-thou postings, it is your first post. you were able to apply in EB2 good for you, you might dissaprove the post bit that is ok with me. you want to file a lawsuit sure go ahead, i also want a file a lawsuit with the FBI for messing up my name check, easier said than done.

I have been in this mess since 2001, i have seen cases where jobs are modified to suit the resume and resumes are modified to suit the job and most of those guys have GCs by now.

Instead of getting emotional if we look at the point Rolling_Flood is trying to make, it makes perfect sense.

I don't see why there are so many angered arguments...

1. EB2/EB3 is decided by Job Profile - correct. Its always option to say NO if your employer is filing it in EB3. My previous company wanted to file my labor in EB3, I said NO and left them. Filed in EB2 with new employer.

Its easy to be sympathetic with people whose employer filed them in EB3, but remember they always had option to say NO.

2. If someone have EB3 priority date before other guy who filed EB2 from beginning, the porting EB3 to EB2 and getting ahead of EB2 guy is grossly incorrect. I can't believe USCIS lets this happen.

If someones job profile was eligible for EB3 only when they filed and now fits in EB2, they should file fresh application based on EB2 job profile.



Looking at previous trashing of thread opener, I am expecting lots of reds - so go ahead but that not going to change the truth.

agree with Jung.lee. if you are in california or florida ..it definitely makes sense to wait. MSN reported that lot of people are just walking away ..
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomeFinancing/HomeownersWhoJustWalkAway.aspx
-------
Ismael, 37, still lives in his four-bedroom house in Menifee, Calif., for now. But he is ready to leave.

"The situation I am in is really ugly," said Ismael, who asked that his last name be omitted. "It's better for me to walk away and leave the stress and everything that is involved in this home. I am about 95% sure I am walking away."

The single parent of a 3-year-old, Ismael bought his $370,000 home in 2005 for no money down, qualifying on his mid-$40,000s salary. (That's about triple what he might have qualified for under more traditional lending guidelines used in MSN Money's Housing Affordability Calculator.) He was paying $2,700 a month for an adjustable 8.25% loan.
Photo by Joseph A. Garcia

Then he and his girlfriend split up, reducing his household income to a single paycheck at the same time the mortgage was adjusting upward. To add to his struggles, the value of his house dropped by $145,000.

Yadira Maga�a, left, with her children Lizeth Torres, 13, and Conrad Torres III, 10, have lived at her mother's Oxnard, Calif., home since walking away from their previous residence in 2007.
Yadira Maga�a, a medical biller in her early 30s in Oxnard, Calif., has a similar story. She walked away from her $585,000 home in June 2007. When she bought it, Maga�a thought she had gotten a great deal. She made a $16,000 down payment on the house. But she lived there only eight months before her marriage collapsed.

She couldn't afford to pay the $4,500 monthly interest-only mortgage, plus taxes and insurance separately, on her own $50,000 income. So she and her two children moved into her mother's house.

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.

How many believe that the vote on Tuesday will allow for the inclusion of Dream Act in the Defense Authorization Bill?
How many believe that if it does get the votes on Tuesday, it will be passed on Wed or Thursday as some claim it?

Are you pascal with a different ID by any chance? :), I don’t know, I thought I saw pascal id above the previous post before the id changed to Ifwf

Don't know how you saw that :-)
I wish, but no! How do you change the id on a post anyway? And if you delete a post it should show as a deleted post shouldn't it? If you know, share the secret, might be of some use :-)))

ps: Might involve a serious gender change too!

Assuming your husband is here from 2000, they are asking for 7 years, i.e. 12 * 7 = 84 months of paystubs? This is ridiculous. How many people keep paystubs from 7 years ago? Infact in those days paystubs used to have their social security numbers on them, they should be shredded, atleast that's the common advice.

My pay stub still has SSN.

Its always good to keep all the paystubs / w2/ tax returns / employment verifications letter / what ever other evidences you have.. especially employment based GC applicants

i can not speak for everybody but
i bought in east coast in 2004 for $330K. it peaked to $425K in 2006 and now it is somewhere $350K. it may go even go down to $300K

I will break even if i stay for another 3 years. (total 7 years)
If renting then : 110K in rent with no benefits for 7 years.

Good Side:
- Tax benefits with dual income. ( proabably $300 per month)
- Bigger house

Bad Side:
Maintenance
IF i have to sell now then will be loss for me for sure so key is location and how long u stay.
Atleast you are being honest and telling that the price now is somewhere around 350K. also the main point is that you bought it in 2004 so you are somewhat lucky. the situation now is such that prices are still very high in the correct location. I will give my example ..if I buy a house now ... for the good deals ..I have to buy one which is 14 miles away from work and another 22 miles away from city / airport (atlanta). and ofcourse if I buy at so far away it will not appreciate for another 10 years (many places have single roads ..and atlanta traffic is famous). there is still a bubble at better locations ..as sellers / builders are not lowering enough ..lots of for sale signs though.
now by renting ..I am closer to work / family ..so atleast 250 $ saved in gas plus vehicle maintenance ..add another 300 in maint + hoa for new house plu 300 - 400 in prop tax etc. with this money itself --I get good deals on renting a townhome with good apartment companies (hence no HOA).
so renting is not throwing money away ..you get a place to stay (with no maintenance) ..maybe smaller in size ..so you need to ask another question ,...do I need extra space (And maintenance ..) ..before you decide to buy especially now.

razis dude, I'm probably the most secular person you'll find on IV. Read my previous posts. However I have to disagree with you on this one and that too very strongly. Each of the places you mention Muslims are the Oppressors and not Oppressed.
I completely support George Bush's doctrine of smokin' em out and ridding the world of Islamofascism. He is one of the best presidents this country has ever had. However he is misunderstood throughout the world. World over - jihadis and islamofascists hate Bush with a vengeance - which tells me only this - He must be doin' somethin' right. As long as we have more leaders like Bush we are in safe hands.

We shall not tire, We shall not falter and We shall not fail - until Islamofascism is wiped out.
Just my 2 cents.

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.

So then lets take an example

1. Company Files H1b from NJ
2. Consultant gets a job in NY or OH or xyz state. Employer files 'amend location' each time. The work and keep on moving like that
3. Time comes up for renewal of H1, if the employer gives the current client's contract in a different location, it will definitely trigger USICS to possibly deny the extension? Since the original H1 petition did not mention this place or since they filed amend its ok?
4. When they file for amend, do they need to give a contract/client letter to justify the amend? If yes then will it trigger an RFE?

According to you anything is possible with USCIS these days.

My original request still stays. I want some advise, I will definitely use an attorney but wanted your opinion on it..

-cheers
kris

Every time you amend the petition; it technically would be another h-1b; when you come up for extension (assuming when you amend the petitoin that you are not requesting for more time); you would be extending the latest h-1b that has been approved. You would have been complying with the terms and conditions of that particular h-1b so you shouldn't have any issues.

California service center when adjudicating person B's H-1b asks for payroll reports of all employees. They will cross reference the h-1b's filed for other employees from the list and if they see even one person who has been paid lower then what their h-1b was filed for then they will deny person b's h-1b. California service center is relying on a case precedent that if a petitioner has not complied with a previous petition (even if it is a different persons petition) then they can't rely on their certification in the instant petition and deny it. Funny thing is that when I looked up that case precedent that they continually site; it is a marriage base case when a person tried to file a second petition. Another example of uscis doing what it wants to do.

Now; I think everyone will start to understand why so many companies are cancelling h-1b's; revoking h-1b's for people on bench and generally not filing many h-1b's in this year quota or filing h-1b transfers for people without projects. I wans't too vocal when some members on the forums were trying to gather support for lifting country quotas; contacting media; etc., because I was well aware of what was going on behind the scenes and we are definitely in a defensive mode right now.

Refugee New,

The focus has totally shifted from "Israeli occupation of Palestine" to "Terrorism". WHY? Blame it of Arafat, his successors and now Hamas.

See how other Arab countries are treating Palestinian Refugees.

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

You can not blame everything on Jewish media. There is no point in you and me jumping up and down. The people that needs to realize should realize and focus on a workable solution.

Mumbai terrorism was discussed at length but you did not see the same level of discussion for LTTE's war with SLA. LTTE shares religion, language and ethnicity with lots of Indians but you DID NOT see the board discussing about that war a lot. What does that mean? It is people's nature to care only about things that impact them. There are so many stuffs that happens in world that doesn't impact all.

This is another example of Middle east getting much more media attention than war between LTTE and SLA. With all the media attention and world opinion favoring Palestine until 10 years ago, they should have gotten their own state long ago.

Why does China block foreign websites? (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/malcolmmoore/100070017/why-does-china-block-foreign-websites/) By Malcolm Moore | Daily Telegraph

Skype has joined the ever-growing list of internet companies that are now unwelcome in China.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Foursquare, Vimeo, Blogger, Blogspot, Wikileaks and Hulu are some of the others.

In the West, the automatic assumption is that China is scared of greater internet freedom. If it relaxes its grip on YouTube, for example, Chinese internet users might suddenly all start looking at videos of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Actually, while China does ban some of the websites because of the information they contain (Amnesty, Wikileaks), the ban on the others is nothing more than plain old protectionism.

China is keeping YouTube out because it has its own domestic video sites � Tudou and Youku � and it wants them to grow and prosper. Youku just made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange and is now worth around $5 billion.

Google�s departure has hugely benefited Baidu and now Alibaba, which has pushed the US giant into third place in the Chinese market.

Likewise for Facebook. China doesn�t mind social networking. Its domestic Facebook clones, Renren and Kaixin001, boast 100 million users between them.

Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, is seeing its user numbers rise by 50 per cent every week. From last year to this year the number of Chinese microbloggers rose from 8 million to 125 million.

Chinese microbloggers have scored some notable successes against the government this year, helping to highlight and, in some cases correct, a series of injustices.

Of course, the Communist party also finds it easier to control (and censor) domestic web companies than foreign firms, so keeping out the likes of Twitter makes the strategy a double-win.

Today�s revelation that Skype is now illegal is a continuation of the trend. In this case, the government is clearly supporting the home-grown services offered by its state-owned companies, China Telecom and China Unicom.

These are more expensive than Skype, require both a hefty monthly fee and then higher call charges, and would probably flounder (as they have to date) without the government�s help.

Stamping out foreign competition is nothing new. All countries do it. But China is quickly becoming the most aggressive and protectionist country out there.

Perhaps after a few years the government will be pressured to let these foreign internet companies back in � Facebook already seems to be negotiating a return � but by then, they will have been firmly left in the dust by their Chinese rivals.

Pani,

I think there will be legislation; if not in the next few months, then next year for sure. Note that the movement in EB2-I has been at the cost of EB2-China and EB3-ROW. Also, there are too many people stuck in EB2 as well, so this movement in PDs will come back to a more realistic level pretty soon. I reckon there will be another push after the elections. My only worry is that our provisions will get all mixed up and confused with those of undocumented workers. This was the best time for us - it is indeed very frustrating to see less than 200 people who make the calls out of an apparant sea of half a million(i am begining to doubt that number now). Only 200 made a contribution to keep this organization strong. what can you really expect? Some of us are just stuck with a large number of people who don't want their GC bad enough.

Anyway. Come October, many of us will be where we are today. We just have to convince the lawmakers to pass some piecemeal legislation that will give relief across the board - bills like the Lofgren bills is the answer.

I am not sure what the USCIS can do in this regard - they are limited by the law and the numbers. The most we can expect from them is admin fixes where they relax/remove the requirement of a "job offer", give a temp. green card etc. etc.

See if things spill horizontally or vertically Eb3(I) is still last in the chain. So many people have demonstrated it. All these days Eb3 (ROW) was gaining from spill over. Now CIS feels that Eb2 takes preference over Eb3 ( which for practical purpose is ROW and not India/ China) so that is why Eb2 is moving forward, else like eb3 eb2 India was also struck. What you are asking is complete re-working of spill over rules. That is not what CIS can do on its own. The rule was always clear Eb1 spill goes to Eb2 and then to Eb2 if some one needs to complain it should be Eb2 who did not get these numbers much earlier.

* When was it unclear?
* Why did it take so long for USCIS to see that the law was unclear?
* What caused USCIS to realize that the law was unclear?
* What caused them to change their interpretation?
* How did USCIS use up all of EB2-I numbers in the very first quarter? (Very illegal thing to do)

Come on, dont be so picky. You know what I mean when I said USCIS changed the law. Dont argue on syntax.

Nobody said it is easy mate. If you are paranoid and want to be safe and prepare for the worst case (like getting fired or your 485 getting rejected) then don’t buy a house. It is a long haul and no one knows when his/her PD would become current. By the time one gets GC, the kids would have grown up and missed their childhood. Read my previous 3 posts. My suggestion was for the person who started this thread and for his situation only. I know each and every person’s situation is different. Like I said if I was in CA, probably I would be renting too.
You're absolutely correct. It depends a lot on one's personal risk profile. I believe in taking calculated risks. So I find myself shaking heads when I read the posts that only consider worst-case scenarios and describe a house as golden-trap. Again, they probably have a valid PoV; just a very very different risk profile from me.

:p :p I like this most. Lets move on...

Let�s worry about our survival rather than the survival of TCS, Infy etc.

People who got GC are not facing any waves. That is why we need to get GC asap. If we struck in the GC process though we have a strong profile (careerwise, w2wise, taxwise, educationwise etc), we need to face waves like recession wave, backlog/perm wave, merging wave, economy wave, I140premium/nopremium wave, bipart wave, 2001 eb3stuck wave, magic visa bulletin wave, technology wave, visa stamping wave, uscis reform wave, dol wave, bulletin wave..

If the thief is hurling bombs and rockets towards police and other innocent people, then yes. Else more innocents will be killed by barbaric thief.


Thats why Indian Govt. freed ruthless terrorists to save innocent civilians?
Don't write crap just for the sake of argument.

When Indian government can release ruthless terrorists in order to save Indians, Do you think people belong to Palestinian govt. elected by Palestinians will hide in schools in order to get killed by ruthless enemy?

Don't you hear the same lie again and again year over year? If Hamas is using school kids as thier shield, then how do you think Palestenian people have elected the same people who cause their kids death rule their country?

Don't you think?

I'm sure you meant Larry David ;)

Did you send Seinfeld a royalty? :D
-a