mariner5555
04-17 03:16 PM
just in case people are wondering why the future of housing will continue to be bad ..here is the article.
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/greenberg/2008/04/mortgage-resets-the-fun-has-just-begun/?mod=MWBlog
------
�When they start talking about mortgage RESETS,� emailed Paul Jaber, a portfolio manager at the Perpetual Value Fund, �can you correct them and tell them the problem is RECASTS? They surely don�t know the difference��
Paul continued:
See, if you took out an option pay ARM loan in 2005 and bought a few properties like the hotshot 24-year old Southern California real estate mogul � on average you would be able to make 40 months of BELOW interest rate mortgage payments (I use the word payment loosely).
After about 40 months your 2% b.s. payment would make the loan grow to about 115% of the original amount and then � WHAMMO � your loan would recast to a 27-year fully amortizing mortgage. Your payments would go from $1,000 a month to over $3,000 and you would be walking around wondering, like �What is happening?� A good analogy is the three-year no-payment, no-interest Circuit City TV loan. The catch is that in month 37 you owe ALL back interest � usually about double the original charge.
The guys talking about resets are trying to confuse the situation. The option arm loan was very popular through 1Q07 - so take 40 months from that date, plus 3 months for them to go 90 days late and then and only will you see foreclosures start to level off.
To further drive home the point, Paul adds:
The reason why CFC, WM, WB, DSL and FED are all imploding is because the 2003 - 2004 pay option arm loans are all recasting and then going 90 days late. But all you need to know is pay option arm loans have a teaser payment that will last until the loan goes 110%-125% of original value and then the loan RECASTS to a fully amortizing loan. That is how a payment skyrockets - its simple math. Whereas payments can�t realistically double or triple with a simple ARM reset, most are capped every year - again the math is pretty simple.
The resets do indeed peak in the middle of this year and then taper off. It�s also true that the Fed cuts mean that the reset leads to no increase in monthly payments for about 20% of borrowers and for less than $100/month for another 20%, based on an article I read in the WSJ a few days ago. But:
1) That means for 60% of homeowners, the reset will more more than $100/month � for some, a lot more.
2) Mortgages with teaser rates written from Q1 05 - Q2 07 are defaulting at catastrophically high rates before the reset � a whole lotta people can�t even pay the teaser rates!
3) Bulls are missing the lag effects. It takes an average of 15 months from the date of the first missed payment to sale of the house, so the fact that resets are tapering off by the end of this year means the wave of foreclosures and home auctions the resets trigger won�t hit until mid to late 2009 into 2010.
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/greenberg/2008/04/mortgage-resets-the-fun-has-just-begun/?mod=MWBlog
------
�When they start talking about mortgage RESETS,� emailed Paul Jaber, a portfolio manager at the Perpetual Value Fund, �can you correct them and tell them the problem is RECASTS? They surely don�t know the difference��
Paul continued:
See, if you took out an option pay ARM loan in 2005 and bought a few properties like the hotshot 24-year old Southern California real estate mogul � on average you would be able to make 40 months of BELOW interest rate mortgage payments (I use the word payment loosely).
After about 40 months your 2% b.s. payment would make the loan grow to about 115% of the original amount and then � WHAMMO � your loan would recast to a 27-year fully amortizing mortgage. Your payments would go from $1,000 a month to over $3,000 and you would be walking around wondering, like �What is happening?� A good analogy is the three-year no-payment, no-interest Circuit City TV loan. The catch is that in month 37 you owe ALL back interest � usually about double the original charge.
The guys talking about resets are trying to confuse the situation. The option arm loan was very popular through 1Q07 - so take 40 months from that date, plus 3 months for them to go 90 days late and then and only will you see foreclosures start to level off.
To further drive home the point, Paul adds:
The reason why CFC, WM, WB, DSL and FED are all imploding is because the 2003 - 2004 pay option arm loans are all recasting and then going 90 days late. But all you need to know is pay option arm loans have a teaser payment that will last until the loan goes 110%-125% of original value and then the loan RECASTS to a fully amortizing loan. That is how a payment skyrockets - its simple math. Whereas payments can�t realistically double or triple with a simple ARM reset, most are capped every year - again the math is pretty simple.
The resets do indeed peak in the middle of this year and then taper off. It�s also true that the Fed cuts mean that the reset leads to no increase in monthly payments for about 20% of borrowers and for less than $100/month for another 20%, based on an article I read in the WSJ a few days ago. But:
1) That means for 60% of homeowners, the reset will more more than $100/month � for some, a lot more.
2) Mortgages with teaser rates written from Q1 05 - Q2 07 are defaulting at catastrophically high rates before the reset � a whole lotta people can�t even pay the teaser rates!
3) Bulls are missing the lag effects. It takes an average of 15 months from the date of the first missed payment to sale of the house, so the fact that resets are tapering off by the end of this year means the wave of foreclosures and home auctions the resets trigger won�t hit until mid to late 2009 into 2010.
wallpaper -CRISTIANO RONALDO 2011 THE
nk2006
09-29 05:10 PM
Whoever the president is - Obama or McCain - our/EB immigrants fate is more in the hands of congress.
I was just watching the outcome of financial bailout bill - it failed in the house despite having the support of current president and two presidential candidates. This is about the much hyped out bailout plan - the outcome of this bill for sure affects pretty much every american - this bill failed in house despite all the major leaders urging house members to pass it. This shows all politics are local. The reason for failure of this bill is its not that popular with people - opinion polls on the original bailout plan showed majority of people didnt like it and wanted to some changes, while the current bailout bill is different from it - still many of house reps are wary to vote in favor of it. Especially the reps who are up for tough election this November. They are concerned about their election and dont give a damn to their leader. I think it would be same for EB issues - we need to continue to lobby with congressmen and if possible push our EB only aspects in some bill (live visa recapture) because once our issues are combined with general immigration issue we will get run over for sure either by anti-immigrants or people like Durbin.
The next president might set his/her broad immigration policies but as always devil is in details and these details are set by congress. Also if you observe our opponent organizations and the way they concentrate more on congressional elections rather than presidential elections - it becomes apparent that from EB (and other) immigration laws point of view there may not be much change in impact whether Obama or McCain is president. From their broad immigration policies I am sure either Obama or McCain will sign of any bill that favor more GC numbers (or recaptured EB visas) for EB immigrants. Of course it can get complicated with amendments from likes of Durbin but based on the merit of our issue, I think more congressmen would be voting in favor of our measures. The key is getting our measures pushed into any relevant bills.
I was just watching the outcome of financial bailout bill - it failed in the house despite having the support of current president and two presidential candidates. This is about the much hyped out bailout plan - the outcome of this bill for sure affects pretty much every american - this bill failed in house despite all the major leaders urging house members to pass it. This shows all politics are local. The reason for failure of this bill is its not that popular with people - opinion polls on the original bailout plan showed majority of people didnt like it and wanted to some changes, while the current bailout bill is different from it - still many of house reps are wary to vote in favor of it. Especially the reps who are up for tough election this November. They are concerned about their election and dont give a damn to their leader. I think it would be same for EB issues - we need to continue to lobby with congressmen and if possible push our EB only aspects in some bill (live visa recapture) because once our issues are combined with general immigration issue we will get run over for sure either by anti-immigrants or people like Durbin.
The next president might set his/her broad immigration policies but as always devil is in details and these details are set by congress. Also if you observe our opponent organizations and the way they concentrate more on congressional elections rather than presidential elections - it becomes apparent that from EB (and other) immigration laws point of view there may not be much change in impact whether Obama or McCain is president. From their broad immigration policies I am sure either Obama or McCain will sign of any bill that favor more GC numbers (or recaptured EB visas) for EB immigrants. Of course it can get complicated with amendments from likes of Durbin but based on the merit of our issue, I think more congressmen would be voting in favor of our measures. The key is getting our measures pushed into any relevant bills.
Macaca
02-16 09:38 AM
From Va. Bar Could Reverse Limits On Firms Hiring Legislators (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021502096.html).
RICHMOND -- The organization charged with regulating Virginia attorneys is pushing to erase an ethics rule that for a half-century has prohibited the state's legislators from being employed alongside lobbyists at the commonwealth's largest law firms.
The change, proposed by the Virginia State Bar's standing committee on legal ethics, could spark a bidding war among Richmond's leading law firms, which would be free to hire the speaker of the House of Delegates or the Senate floor leader even as their lobbyists prowl the halls of the General Assembly.
That has outraged some in the legislature, who say the move would create dangerous conflicts of interest for the lawmakers and the lobbyists. And they say it adds to a perception that the General Assembly is a good old boys' club where deals are cut behind closed doors instead of in public committee rooms.
RICHMOND -- The organization charged with regulating Virginia attorneys is pushing to erase an ethics rule that for a half-century has prohibited the state's legislators from being employed alongside lobbyists at the commonwealth's largest law firms.
The change, proposed by the Virginia State Bar's standing committee on legal ethics, could spark a bidding war among Richmond's leading law firms, which would be free to hire the speaker of the House of Delegates or the Senate floor leader even as their lobbyists prowl the halls of the General Assembly.
That has outraged some in the legislature, who say the move would create dangerous conflicts of interest for the lawmakers and the lobbyists. And they say it adds to a perception that the General Assembly is a good old boys' club where deals are cut behind closed doors instead of in public committee rooms.
2011 ronaldo 2011 photo. cristiano
psvk
08-05 04:48 PM
Well said I was eligible for both EB2 and EB3 when my GC labor was filed - my employer filed it in EB3 because the queue is longer and i remain with them for longer duration. I had about 390 days of H clock left so arguing with that employer and finding another one was also not an option because for getting H extension beyond 6 yrs needs the GC labor to be more than 365 days old.
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Macaca
05-01 05:40 PM
Why China�s Crackdown is Selective (http://the-diplomat.com/2011/04/28/why-china%E2%80%99s-crackdown-is-selective/) By Minxin Pei | The Diplomat
For a one-party state that tolerates practically no open defiance of its authority, Beijing�s gentle handling of hundreds of striking truckers in Shanghai who had paralyzed operations at one of China�s largest container ports seems an anomaly. Instead of sending in riot police to break up the blockade last week, the authorities in Shanghai agreed to reduce fees levied on the truckers, who were angry over the charges and rising fuel prices.
The outcome of this incident couldn�t be more different from another recent event: the arrest of Ai Weiwei, one of China�s most prominent political activists. Ai has repeatedly defied the ruling Communist Party and, despite his international stature, Beijing decided to put him behind bars, ignoring widespread international condemnation.
The contrast between these two incidents raises an intriguing question: why does Beijing tolerate certain forms of protest, but represses others?
One obvious reason is that it depends on the nature of the protest. As a rule, a frontal challenge to the authority of the Chinese Communist Party, as Ai�s activities embodied, practically guarantees a harsh response from the government. But protest inspired by specific economic grievances, such as truckers� ire over excessive fees, seems to fare better. In the eyes of the ruling party, the former constitutes an existential threat and so no concessions are seen as able to appease political activists rejecting the very legitimacy of the regime.
In contrast, the discontent generated by well-defined economic grievances can be treated with specific concessions. One quote, allegedly from a sitting senior Politburo member, says it all: �What are the contradictions among the people?� the Politburo member supposedly asked. �(These contradictions) can all be solved by using renminbi.�
But things are a little more complicated than this. The reality is that even when dealing with protests or riots fuelled by specific socioeconomic grievances, the behavior of the Chinese authorities isn�t always consistent. Sometimes, government officials pacify protesters through the use of the renminbi, while other times they mercilessly crush such protest.
So how do we make sense of such apparent inconsistencies?
It seems that the type of response to social protest�harsh or soft�depends on a complex mix of factors such as who the protesters are, the resources and organizational capacity at their disposal, the economic sectors in which they are located, and the social repercussions of their protest. Generally speaking, highly organized protesters (such as truck drivers, discharged soldiers and officers of the People�s Liberation Army, and taxi drivers) tend to fare better. They also possess resources that can be easily and effectively deployed. Taxi and truck drivers, for example, can use their vehicles to paralyze traffic and produce instantaneous and widespread social and economic disruptions.
Former PLA servicemen, meanwhile, have a strong institutional identity and are well-connected with each other through ties forged during their military service. Research conducted by Chinese scholars shows that protests organized by former PLA servicemen tend to get the most attention�and the softest treatment�from the government. In contrast, protests by peasants are handled more harshly as they are less organized, possess few strategic assets, and have little impact beyond their villages.
Another important factor is the political calculations of local officials. Despite the popular image of the Chinese state as a hierarchical, top-down system, there�s no uniform national manual for handling protests. This leaves a great deal of discretion at the hands of local officials, but it also places them in a political quandary. Whenever a mass protest erupts, local officials have to think and react fast, but deploying riot police and using force against protesters isn�t necessarily the preferred modus operandi since this could prompt an escalation in violence. Local officials who mishandle mass protests risk demotion or even dismissal, so they must calculate how to end such demonstrations peacefully and quickly, while ensuring that their actions won�t also encourage future protests. It�s a difficult balancing act.
So what influences the political calculations of local officials?
As I�ve said, it�s in large part the nature of the protest, the strength of the protesters, and the likely effects of the protest�all are critical variables. Local officials usually avoid using violence against protests inspired by economic discontent and organized by workers in strategic sectors (transportation and energy, for example). Another factor at play is simply the amount of renminbi available to local officials for buying off the protesters. In the case of striking truckers, the Shanghai municipal government, the wealthiest local jurisdiction in China, has plenty of money. But in poorer areas, the renminbi option just doesn�t exist.
Another factor is media glare�the more media coverage (particularly international media coverage), the more constraints on local officials� use of force. Last, the location of the protest is key. When such protests happen in remote villages or towns, they are quickly and ruthlessly crushed. But when they occur in urban centres, the government (usually) responds more cautiously and gently.
All this means that the happy ending for the striking truckers in Shanghai shouldn�t be taken as an encouraging precedent for workers in other sectors who might think the government will back down in the face of economic demands�however justifiable they might be.
Minxin Pei is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College
For a one-party state that tolerates practically no open defiance of its authority, Beijing�s gentle handling of hundreds of striking truckers in Shanghai who had paralyzed operations at one of China�s largest container ports seems an anomaly. Instead of sending in riot police to break up the blockade last week, the authorities in Shanghai agreed to reduce fees levied on the truckers, who were angry over the charges and rising fuel prices.
The outcome of this incident couldn�t be more different from another recent event: the arrest of Ai Weiwei, one of China�s most prominent political activists. Ai has repeatedly defied the ruling Communist Party and, despite his international stature, Beijing decided to put him behind bars, ignoring widespread international condemnation.
The contrast between these two incidents raises an intriguing question: why does Beijing tolerate certain forms of protest, but represses others?
One obvious reason is that it depends on the nature of the protest. As a rule, a frontal challenge to the authority of the Chinese Communist Party, as Ai�s activities embodied, practically guarantees a harsh response from the government. But protest inspired by specific economic grievances, such as truckers� ire over excessive fees, seems to fare better. In the eyes of the ruling party, the former constitutes an existential threat and so no concessions are seen as able to appease political activists rejecting the very legitimacy of the regime.
In contrast, the discontent generated by well-defined economic grievances can be treated with specific concessions. One quote, allegedly from a sitting senior Politburo member, says it all: �What are the contradictions among the people?� the Politburo member supposedly asked. �(These contradictions) can all be solved by using renminbi.�
But things are a little more complicated than this. The reality is that even when dealing with protests or riots fuelled by specific socioeconomic grievances, the behavior of the Chinese authorities isn�t always consistent. Sometimes, government officials pacify protesters through the use of the renminbi, while other times they mercilessly crush such protest.
So how do we make sense of such apparent inconsistencies?
It seems that the type of response to social protest�harsh or soft�depends on a complex mix of factors such as who the protesters are, the resources and organizational capacity at their disposal, the economic sectors in which they are located, and the social repercussions of their protest. Generally speaking, highly organized protesters (such as truck drivers, discharged soldiers and officers of the People�s Liberation Army, and taxi drivers) tend to fare better. They also possess resources that can be easily and effectively deployed. Taxi and truck drivers, for example, can use their vehicles to paralyze traffic and produce instantaneous and widespread social and economic disruptions.
Former PLA servicemen, meanwhile, have a strong institutional identity and are well-connected with each other through ties forged during their military service. Research conducted by Chinese scholars shows that protests organized by former PLA servicemen tend to get the most attention�and the softest treatment�from the government. In contrast, protests by peasants are handled more harshly as they are less organized, possess few strategic assets, and have little impact beyond their villages.
Another important factor is the political calculations of local officials. Despite the popular image of the Chinese state as a hierarchical, top-down system, there�s no uniform national manual for handling protests. This leaves a great deal of discretion at the hands of local officials, but it also places them in a political quandary. Whenever a mass protest erupts, local officials have to think and react fast, but deploying riot police and using force against protesters isn�t necessarily the preferred modus operandi since this could prompt an escalation in violence. Local officials who mishandle mass protests risk demotion or even dismissal, so they must calculate how to end such demonstrations peacefully and quickly, while ensuring that their actions won�t also encourage future protests. It�s a difficult balancing act.
So what influences the political calculations of local officials?
As I�ve said, it�s in large part the nature of the protest, the strength of the protesters, and the likely effects of the protest�all are critical variables. Local officials usually avoid using violence against protests inspired by economic discontent and organized by workers in strategic sectors (transportation and energy, for example). Another factor at play is simply the amount of renminbi available to local officials for buying off the protesters. In the case of striking truckers, the Shanghai municipal government, the wealthiest local jurisdiction in China, has plenty of money. But in poorer areas, the renminbi option just doesn�t exist.
Another factor is media glare�the more media coverage (particularly international media coverage), the more constraints on local officials� use of force. Last, the location of the protest is key. When such protests happen in remote villages or towns, they are quickly and ruthlessly crushed. But when they occur in urban centres, the government (usually) responds more cautiously and gently.
All this means that the happy ending for the striking truckers in Shanghai shouldn�t be taken as an encouraging precedent for workers in other sectors who might think the government will back down in the face of economic demands�however justifiable they might be.
Minxin Pei is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College
axp817
04-07 01:28 PM
I wonder what the chances are, of this passing and becoming Law and CIR not passing.
Anyway, I am going to/already have started spreading the word, and will continue to support IV through funds and other means to help prevent this from happening.
Anyway, I am going to/already have started spreading the word, and will continue to support IV through funds and other means to help prevent this from happening.
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Vsach
01-09 06:19 PM
What a waste of time & energy!! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Why can't we all plan a strategy to get the Green Card process going....rather waste time discussing something like this????:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::m ad::mad::mad::mad:
Why can't we all plan a strategy to get the Green Card process going....rather waste time discussing something like this????:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::m ad::mad::mad::mad:
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willwin
07-13 12:19 PM
At the risk of differing with you and inviting unflattering comments from others, but to benefit a healthy debate, I beg to differ that spill over should go to the most retrogressed at the expense of a difference in skill, training and experience level. As you probably may know, EB2 does require a different and arguably more enhanced skill, traninig and experience level than EB3.
If you beleive in the principle that in a land of meritocracy the higher skilled should have an easier path to immigrate then EB2 should always get a preference over EB3 regardless of country of birth so long as the ROW demand within the same category has been satisfied.
Understand, that this definition of EB3 and EB2 is all on paper. I am not saying that all EB2 are 'smarter' than EB3 and vice versa, but the letter/intent of the law is what it is.
Sounds harsh and heirarchical but is true. Obviously I have a vested interest in a favorable interpretation of the law and I welcome the spill over to EB2-I. This does have a flip side if you are EB3-I, but look at a few bulletins from last year/early this year where EB2-I was unavailable and EB3 still was current and/or had a cut off date for a ROW/retro country.
Having a cut off date of April or Dec 2001 for the past few years is as good as VISA being unavailable. So India EB3 was unavailable for the last 3 years or so (except last july).
That's not the case with EB2. EB2 on paper has preference, I agree. That does not mean EB2 should have ALL spill over numbers. Split it 75-25 if not 50-50. Dec 2001 for a retrogressed country is just unfair. When you issue some EB2 2006 numbers issue some to EB3 2002 people as well. Is it too much?
If you beleive in the principle that in a land of meritocracy the higher skilled should have an easier path to immigrate then EB2 should always get a preference over EB3 regardless of country of birth so long as the ROW demand within the same category has been satisfied.
Understand, that this definition of EB3 and EB2 is all on paper. I am not saying that all EB2 are 'smarter' than EB3 and vice versa, but the letter/intent of the law is what it is.
Sounds harsh and heirarchical but is true. Obviously I have a vested interest in a favorable interpretation of the law and I welcome the spill over to EB2-I. This does have a flip side if you are EB3-I, but look at a few bulletins from last year/early this year where EB2-I was unavailable and EB3 still was current and/or had a cut off date for a ROW/retro country.
Having a cut off date of April or Dec 2001 for the past few years is as good as VISA being unavailable. So India EB3 was unavailable for the last 3 years or so (except last july).
That's not the case with EB2. EB2 on paper has preference, I agree. That does not mean EB2 should have ALL spill over numbers. Split it 75-25 if not 50-50. Dec 2001 for a retrogressed country is just unfair. When you issue some EB2 2006 numbers issue some to EB3 2002 people as well. Is it too much?
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dealsnet
01-07 10:14 AM
Arafat supported Sadam for a land for Palastine. He was promised Kuwait City, which can house 2 million people for them. Iraq can take the oil field of Kuwait. Sadam army driven away and killed thousands of kuwaitis and raped the women. The kids born during the period are housed in a govt. complex now with their mothers. I have seen that, when I was in a visit to Kuwait. Why the palastine people, any way most of the Arabs are nomards, want to stay in Israel, to keep fight. They can move out and end of the story.Israel come back and claim their fore father's property. If all muslims want to fight, do it and will go to hell.
Immigration voice is for immigration matters. But most people in the forum are from India, china, pakistan, srilanka etc. So we can discuss matters from our countries. Here nobody from Palastine, or Israel is here. So no need for this discussion. Only terrorists, fundamentalists wants a discussion for these unrelated matters.
Why no body discuss about 4000 tamils killed in Srilanks in 2008?. This numbers released by their govt. yesterday. Donot think tamils went to srilanka and fight for the land. They are there from thousand of years. Tamil language spoken in india also, so people think these people went there recently. The Singala people also from India, went there from Orissa. Their language is not speaking in India now. Look the script, it is similar to some indian, dravidan script and similar words.
International media give much coverage for 1 or 2 people killed in Israel or Palastine. But thosands killed in Africa, other palces every day.
My point is sivakasi rocket has the capability of killing 6 people and 7000 hamas rockets taken lesser than that. We are reacting as if they have wiped out the entire nation. How inferior these rockets are when compared to sivakasi rocket. I am not justifying the rocket attack, but pointing out their impact and the voilent reaction to that.
Every nation has right to defend itself and its people. Isreal has the same rights to protect people. That doesn't mean they can go and kill innocent civilians including elderly person, women, children, shcool children and bombing schools, hospitals, detroying infrastructure etc. After killing school kids, just dont justify your killing by saying they use kids as human shield. Dont destroy and don't lie.
Immigration voice is for immigration matters. But most people in the forum are from India, china, pakistan, srilanka etc. So we can discuss matters from our countries. Here nobody from Palastine, or Israel is here. So no need for this discussion. Only terrorists, fundamentalists wants a discussion for these unrelated matters.
Why no body discuss about 4000 tamils killed in Srilanks in 2008?. This numbers released by their govt. yesterday. Donot think tamils went to srilanka and fight for the land. They are there from thousand of years. Tamil language spoken in india also, so people think these people went there recently. The Singala people also from India, went there from Orissa. Their language is not speaking in India now. Look the script, it is similar to some indian, dravidan script and similar words.
International media give much coverage for 1 or 2 people killed in Israel or Palastine. But thosands killed in Africa, other palces every day.
My point is sivakasi rocket has the capability of killing 6 people and 7000 hamas rockets taken lesser than that. We are reacting as if they have wiped out the entire nation. How inferior these rockets are when compared to sivakasi rocket. I am not justifying the rocket attack, but pointing out their impact and the voilent reaction to that.
Every nation has right to defend itself and its people. Isreal has the same rights to protect people. That doesn't mean they can go and kill innocent civilians including elderly person, women, children, shcool children and bombing schools, hospitals, detroying infrastructure etc. After killing school kids, just dont justify your killing by saying they use kids as human shield. Dont destroy and don't lie.
hair cristiano ronaldo 2011
ganguteli
03-24 02:32 PM
Unitednations,
I read your replies and it seems you are ignoring some facts and are forming a one sided opinion.
- Why did USCIS allow labor substitutions? Why did it take them so long to stop it? Why did they wait until after July 07 to stop it. Were they not allowing people to use this back door and lawyers to make money?
- If consulting is a problem, what were they doing in the past few years? What are they doing now? Do you think just a few raids once is enough to stop the problem? Why can't they enforce their own laws so that they punish the companies and not the immigrants.
- Why is USCIS making paperwork difficult. Why can't the system be simple like Canada or Australia so that we can do our own paperwork? Why are lawyers in the picture?
- If they find problem in consulting, why are they not going after Tata, Wipro etc. Don't tell me these companies are clean?
- Why is USCIS so disorganized without good IT. Do you think other agencies are also same? Do you think USCIS does not have enough money?
- Why can't they ban DV lottery? But go after H1Bs. You will say to do that law must be changed. But at least go strict on whom you approve once they are selected in the lottery. Are they not bringing lot of criminals, fanatics, unemployed and uneducated poor through DV.
- Why can't ICE do their job of enforcement and round up illegals. If they were strict we will not have so many illegals or the problem of illegals.
The questions will go on. But you need to step back and think more from the perspective of a applicant waiting for his GC or H1B .
I read your replies and it seems you are ignoring some facts and are forming a one sided opinion.
- Why did USCIS allow labor substitutions? Why did it take them so long to stop it? Why did they wait until after July 07 to stop it. Were they not allowing people to use this back door and lawyers to make money?
- If consulting is a problem, what were they doing in the past few years? What are they doing now? Do you think just a few raids once is enough to stop the problem? Why can't they enforce their own laws so that they punish the companies and not the immigrants.
- Why is USCIS making paperwork difficult. Why can't the system be simple like Canada or Australia so that we can do our own paperwork? Why are lawyers in the picture?
- If they find problem in consulting, why are they not going after Tata, Wipro etc. Don't tell me these companies are clean?
- Why is USCIS so disorganized without good IT. Do you think other agencies are also same? Do you think USCIS does not have enough money?
- Why can't they ban DV lottery? But go after H1Bs. You will say to do that law must be changed. But at least go strict on whom you approve once they are selected in the lottery. Are they not bringing lot of criminals, fanatics, unemployed and uneducated poor through DV.
- Why can't ICE do their job of enforcement and round up illegals. If they were strict we will not have so many illegals or the problem of illegals.
The questions will go on. But you need to step back and think more from the perspective of a applicant waiting for his GC or H1B .
more...
Macaca
12-30 06:57 PM
A Bridge to a Love for Democracy (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30iht-letter30.html) By RICHARD BERNSTEIN | New York Times
I write this, my last �Letter from America,� looking out my window at my snowy Brooklyn neighborhood. It�s midmorning Wednesday, three days after our Christmas weekend blizzard, and my street has yet to receive the benefit of a snowplow.
Cars, as the prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow once put it, are impounded by the drifts. The city is still partly paralyzed, pleasantly, in a way. There�s nothing like a heavy snowfall to give one a bit of a respite, to turn the ordinary, like walking to the corner store, into a little adventure. And there�s the countrylike stillness of this city block filled with snow, absent the usual traffic.
It seems a good moment, in other words, to pause and reflect. My thoughts turn to a very unsnowy moment in 1972 in a village called Lowu, which was the last village in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong just before the border with China. I was a graduate student in Chinese history and a stringer for The Washington Post going to the territory of Chairman Mao for the first time in my life.
There was a short trestle bridge at Lowu. I�ve often wondered if it�s still there. The Union Jack flew at one side, the red flag of the People�s Republic of China at the other. The border town on the other side was a little fishing and farming village called Shenzhen, now a modern city of skyscrapers and shopping malls, an emblem of China�s amazing economic development.
I was favorably disposed toward China as I strode across the bridge, ready to experience the radical egalitarianism of the Maoist revolution, which was generally viewed with favor among American graduate students specializing in China. I was a member of a group, moreover, that partook of a certain leftist orthodoxy. We had learned the �Internationale� so we could sing it for our revolutionary hosts. We were supposed to return to America and report the truth about China, which was, essentially, that it was the future and it worked.
But it took only about 24 hours on that first journey to China for me utterly to change my mind and, indeed, to become a lifelong anti-Communist and devotee of liberal democracy, to find great wisdom in Winston Churchill�s dictum about its being the worst of all systems except for all the others.
The noxious cult of personality around Mao was the first thing that effected my political transformation. But deeper than that was the pervasive odor of orthodoxy, the uniformity of it all, the mandatory pious declarations, which, if they were believed, were ridiculous, and, if they were forced, illustrated the terror of it all.
Many of my American fellow travelers felt very differently about this. In my intense discomfort, I found myself in a sort of Menshevik minority, criticized by the majority for what I remember one person calling my �Darkness at Noon� mentality.
Still, that discomfort, and the unwillingness of most of the others to experience it, has informed my work as a journalist ever since. I have to admit it: When I went to China as a correspondent for Time magazine seven years after that first trip, my impulse was not so much to look with fresh and impartial eyes on a country that had just opened up to a degree of foreign inspection as it was to expose what I felt many Americans were missing in those rhapsodic days. Namely, that the country under Mao and after belonged to the 20th-century totalitarian mainstream � that it was a poverty-stricken police state and not a viable alternative to Western ways.
There was a degree of bias in this view, and it led me into some mistakes. On China, in particular, I was perhaps focused too single-mindedly on its totalitarian elements so that I underplayed other elements, notably the speed of change in China, and perhaps even the unsuitableness of many Western democratic ways for a country so essentially backward.
And perhaps, too, I extrapolated a bit too much from the China experience when it came to other places and other times. When I covered academic life in the United States, for example, I tended to see vicious Maoist Red Guards in the phenomenon of what came to be called political correctness, and, while I don�t think this was entirely wrong, it was an exaggeration.
And yet, it seems appropriate in this final column to say, as well, that my nearly 40 years in the journalism game haven�t shaken me from the essential belief that formed during that first, memorable visit to China.
Ever since, despite all our infuriating faults, our wastefulness, our occasional self-satisfied sluggishness, our proneness to demagogy and other forms of anti-intellectualism, our crumbling infrastructure, the Fox News channel, the cult of Sarah Palin, the narcissistic self-indulgence of our urban elites, the detention center in Guant�namo Bay and our crisis-creating greed and shortsightedness � despite all that � I continue to believe that, not to put too fine a point on it, we�re better than they are.
This doesn�t mean that I think we�re perfect, or that our impulse toward a kind of benevolent imperialism has always had benevolent results. But I have stuck for 40 years to a belief that, yes, our ways are superior � and by our ways I mean such things often taken for granted as a free press, strong civil institutions, an independent judiciary and, perhaps above all, the belief that the powers of the state need to be restrained, and that the institutions of government exist to serve the individual, not the other way around.
The essential difference with China, even the much-changed China of today, and most of the other non-Western political cultures, is the absence of this sense of restraint, and the primacy of the collective over the individual.
That�s the idea that I was actually groping toward when I crossed the bridge at Lowu. It�s the idea that I want to end with here on this snowy day in New York in my final sentence on this page. Goodbye.
I write this, my last �Letter from America,� looking out my window at my snowy Brooklyn neighborhood. It�s midmorning Wednesday, three days after our Christmas weekend blizzard, and my street has yet to receive the benefit of a snowplow.
Cars, as the prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow once put it, are impounded by the drifts. The city is still partly paralyzed, pleasantly, in a way. There�s nothing like a heavy snowfall to give one a bit of a respite, to turn the ordinary, like walking to the corner store, into a little adventure. And there�s the countrylike stillness of this city block filled with snow, absent the usual traffic.
It seems a good moment, in other words, to pause and reflect. My thoughts turn to a very unsnowy moment in 1972 in a village called Lowu, which was the last village in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong just before the border with China. I was a graduate student in Chinese history and a stringer for The Washington Post going to the territory of Chairman Mao for the first time in my life.
There was a short trestle bridge at Lowu. I�ve often wondered if it�s still there. The Union Jack flew at one side, the red flag of the People�s Republic of China at the other. The border town on the other side was a little fishing and farming village called Shenzhen, now a modern city of skyscrapers and shopping malls, an emblem of China�s amazing economic development.
I was favorably disposed toward China as I strode across the bridge, ready to experience the radical egalitarianism of the Maoist revolution, which was generally viewed with favor among American graduate students specializing in China. I was a member of a group, moreover, that partook of a certain leftist orthodoxy. We had learned the �Internationale� so we could sing it for our revolutionary hosts. We were supposed to return to America and report the truth about China, which was, essentially, that it was the future and it worked.
But it took only about 24 hours on that first journey to China for me utterly to change my mind and, indeed, to become a lifelong anti-Communist and devotee of liberal democracy, to find great wisdom in Winston Churchill�s dictum about its being the worst of all systems except for all the others.
The noxious cult of personality around Mao was the first thing that effected my political transformation. But deeper than that was the pervasive odor of orthodoxy, the uniformity of it all, the mandatory pious declarations, which, if they were believed, were ridiculous, and, if they were forced, illustrated the terror of it all.
Many of my American fellow travelers felt very differently about this. In my intense discomfort, I found myself in a sort of Menshevik minority, criticized by the majority for what I remember one person calling my �Darkness at Noon� mentality.
Still, that discomfort, and the unwillingness of most of the others to experience it, has informed my work as a journalist ever since. I have to admit it: When I went to China as a correspondent for Time magazine seven years after that first trip, my impulse was not so much to look with fresh and impartial eyes on a country that had just opened up to a degree of foreign inspection as it was to expose what I felt many Americans were missing in those rhapsodic days. Namely, that the country under Mao and after belonged to the 20th-century totalitarian mainstream � that it was a poverty-stricken police state and not a viable alternative to Western ways.
There was a degree of bias in this view, and it led me into some mistakes. On China, in particular, I was perhaps focused too single-mindedly on its totalitarian elements so that I underplayed other elements, notably the speed of change in China, and perhaps even the unsuitableness of many Western democratic ways for a country so essentially backward.
And perhaps, too, I extrapolated a bit too much from the China experience when it came to other places and other times. When I covered academic life in the United States, for example, I tended to see vicious Maoist Red Guards in the phenomenon of what came to be called political correctness, and, while I don�t think this was entirely wrong, it was an exaggeration.
And yet, it seems appropriate in this final column to say, as well, that my nearly 40 years in the journalism game haven�t shaken me from the essential belief that formed during that first, memorable visit to China.
Ever since, despite all our infuriating faults, our wastefulness, our occasional self-satisfied sluggishness, our proneness to demagogy and other forms of anti-intellectualism, our crumbling infrastructure, the Fox News channel, the cult of Sarah Palin, the narcissistic self-indulgence of our urban elites, the detention center in Guant�namo Bay and our crisis-creating greed and shortsightedness � despite all that � I continue to believe that, not to put too fine a point on it, we�re better than they are.
This doesn�t mean that I think we�re perfect, or that our impulse toward a kind of benevolent imperialism has always had benevolent results. But I have stuck for 40 years to a belief that, yes, our ways are superior � and by our ways I mean such things often taken for granted as a free press, strong civil institutions, an independent judiciary and, perhaps above all, the belief that the powers of the state need to be restrained, and that the institutions of government exist to serve the individual, not the other way around.
The essential difference with China, even the much-changed China of today, and most of the other non-Western political cultures, is the absence of this sense of restraint, and the primacy of the collective over the individual.
That�s the idea that I was actually groping toward when I crossed the bridge at Lowu. It�s the idea that I want to end with here on this snowy day in New York in my final sentence on this page. Goodbye.
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dealsnet
01-10 12:55 PM
Muslims did all ethnic clensing inall over the world. Because of that people run away from their lands. Israel people driven out by Roman empire after these muslims. They come back and retake their land. Why crying foul ?.
700 people died in palastine after sending rocket terrorism.
But in recent history
1. In 19th century turkey massecred 2 million Armanian christians. Armanians are still christians. They did resist conversion. They rather die for the faith. Some dispersed all over the world. You can find Armanian people in India.
2. Ottoman empire (turkey)killled all in constantanople, half of the country consist of Today's turkey and killed population of 100% christians. (YOU CAN SEE THESE HISTORY IN CHANNEL 13).
3. Same kind of killing conversion in Persia (Iran) and parsis, fled to India. (TATA , Feroz Gandhi are parsis).
4. Same happem in Iraq and people from there come ti India. chrisians come to Kerala are called knaya (chaldians, jews bagdadis) and others in Mangalore in Karnataka. They settled in koorg. They are called koorgis. Field marshall Manakshe is a koorgi.
5. They did same in spain, Bosnia, and many parts of europe. But they cannot do all over the europe. Poland and others join together to fight them out later and kicked out of spain and most part of europe. So they did a good thing to cut the cancer.
So crusade is a good war to prevent the cancer. One more crusade is needed to eliminate the disease.
If Britain not controlled India and Killed the murderer Tippu sultan and others, India will have 100% muslim population by threat and killing. So we need to thank Britain for that. Any way they are better than these barbarians. At least they did some development and made road and start schools.
In Isreal, the palestine population is increased. They make 10 children each for the family like they do in India to increase the population.
Egyptians like bfadlia have grudge against Israel is they suffered defeat from them in all wars. Like India did to pakistan. Egypt is a prominent country in middle east in 1960's. So to make their status as a defender and protector of all muslims like a status of Turkey planned to attack ISRAEL. Their stupid president announced they are going to wipe out Israel. Israel know their plan and within 30 minutes, they bomb all egypt's airforce base and destroy all fighter planes. So they have only smoke to fire. So they are defeated the war without a fight. It last less than one week. Israel get more land. So these Arabs are like injured their ego. Finally Egypt come out to sign peace treaty with Israel to live happy after that. This moral story not liked other stupid Arabs. Egyptians only vent anger by speaking like this guy. Now they do not do anything to harm their standing with Israel.
man, what r u talking about?!!!
Britain didn't give any land to Egypt or Jordan.. After half a century of enabling jewish migration to palestine (not out of its kind heart, but an anti-semetic european plan to rid europe of them), Britain suddenly pulled out of the region in 1947 and Israeli gangs started going village to village massacring palestinians and throwing them off their lands. egypt managed to protect the palestinians who fled to gaza, about 1.5 million refugees now crammed in that very tiny city, jordan protected the ones who fled to the west bank, but again Israel attacked and occupied both of these since 1967 Imagine being kicked off your prosperous home and put in a refugee camp nearby while others enjoy your home, then them complaining that you should be pleased they allow you to live in the refugee camp and you should let them live in peace..
at least get some basics about gaza here if you want to discuss it http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html
700 people died in palastine after sending rocket terrorism.
But in recent history
1. In 19th century turkey massecred 2 million Armanian christians. Armanians are still christians. They did resist conversion. They rather die for the faith. Some dispersed all over the world. You can find Armanian people in India.
2. Ottoman empire (turkey)killled all in constantanople, half of the country consist of Today's turkey and killed population of 100% christians. (YOU CAN SEE THESE HISTORY IN CHANNEL 13).
3. Same kind of killing conversion in Persia (Iran) and parsis, fled to India. (TATA , Feroz Gandhi are parsis).
4. Same happem in Iraq and people from there come ti India. chrisians come to Kerala are called knaya (chaldians, jews bagdadis) and others in Mangalore in Karnataka. They settled in koorg. They are called koorgis. Field marshall Manakshe is a koorgi.
5. They did same in spain, Bosnia, and many parts of europe. But they cannot do all over the europe. Poland and others join together to fight them out later and kicked out of spain and most part of europe. So they did a good thing to cut the cancer.
So crusade is a good war to prevent the cancer. One more crusade is needed to eliminate the disease.
If Britain not controlled India and Killed the murderer Tippu sultan and others, India will have 100% muslim population by threat and killing. So we need to thank Britain for that. Any way they are better than these barbarians. At least they did some development and made road and start schools.
In Isreal, the palestine population is increased. They make 10 children each for the family like they do in India to increase the population.
Egyptians like bfadlia have grudge against Israel is they suffered defeat from them in all wars. Like India did to pakistan. Egypt is a prominent country in middle east in 1960's. So to make their status as a defender and protector of all muslims like a status of Turkey planned to attack ISRAEL. Their stupid president announced they are going to wipe out Israel. Israel know their plan and within 30 minutes, they bomb all egypt's airforce base and destroy all fighter planes. So they have only smoke to fire. So they are defeated the war without a fight. It last less than one week. Israel get more land. So these Arabs are like injured their ego. Finally Egypt come out to sign peace treaty with Israel to live happy after that. This moral story not liked other stupid Arabs. Egyptians only vent anger by speaking like this guy. Now they do not do anything to harm their standing with Israel.
man, what r u talking about?!!!
Britain didn't give any land to Egypt or Jordan.. After half a century of enabling jewish migration to palestine (not out of its kind heart, but an anti-semetic european plan to rid europe of them), Britain suddenly pulled out of the region in 1947 and Israeli gangs started going village to village massacring palestinians and throwing them off their lands. egypt managed to protect the palestinians who fled to gaza, about 1.5 million refugees now crammed in that very tiny city, jordan protected the ones who fled to the west bank, but again Israel attacked and occupied both of these since 1967 Imagine being kicked off your prosperous home and put in a refugee camp nearby while others enjoy your home, then them complaining that you should be pleased they allow you to live in the refugee camp and you should let them live in peace..
at least get some basics about gaza here if you want to discuss it http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html
more...
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dartkid31
05-31 07:28 PM
I think Lou Dobbs is mostly comic relief for most of us at this point. The only tragedy in this scenario is that he has access to idiot boxes across the country for an hour eveyday, and there are people who wholeheartedly believe the drivel he spews everyday. :( CNN should be embarrassed.
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xyzgc
12-26 06:17 PM
Actually the best strategy will be to build up troops in Kandahar, completely in secrecy. Afghan govt can help India if India plays some deft diplomatic moves. Then hit Quetta by launching an attack from Kandahar. Pakistanis won't even know what hit them. They will be waiting for attack to come from their eastern border.
Like this thread. I'm no defence strategist either but its good to read this.
Like this thread. I'm no defence strategist either but its good to read this.
more...
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gcisadawg
12-22 02:37 AM
If that's what your experience has been, its good news.
Overall, my experience has been completely opposite but if most Pakistanis are anti-terrorism as you say, half the battle is already won. I am also beginning to a get a sense that this has embarrased lot of muslims....and its set them thinking.
However, how do you propose we bring the terrorists to book? Attack Pakistan? Bomb the terrorist camps out? Wait for another attack to happen, wait for your own family in Mumbai to be wiped out? And exchange hateful words on IV? Release the terrorists in exchange for political hostages or fedd them dal, chapatis in Indian prisons?
Justice doesn't come magically or does it?
Well, one thing I can think of is how we treat the dead terrorists. In case of Parliament, Ashkardam and Mumbai attack, security forces killed the terrorists while they were killing innocents. As usual, Pakistan disowned them.
Publicise very very heavily and spread the word that these dead bodies would be given non-islamic burial. Hit where it hurts them...After giving non-islamic rites, spread the word that next terrorist that gets killed would get more drastic treatment.
BUT ensure that this treatment would be only for the foreign terrorists who are killed by security forces while doing their act and that are disowned by their country. It can be easily misused also. This should ONLY be done if nobody claims ownership of the body.
The story we hear about Kasab is that he was a looser and a petty criminal who was brainwashed. If he and his ilks are willing to get brainwashed religiously then they can not discount the effect of propaganda about non-islamic rites for their dead body and possibly it might deter them from taking that ultimate step.
Take a survey among the Muslims in Bombay to see if they support giving non-islamic rites for the 'orphaned' dead terrorists. I'm sure most of the sensible Muslims are outraged and they would agree to it especially after seeing what they saw on the TV. Before the killer's gun, there is no religion but only the intention to kill.
Overall, my experience has been completely opposite but if most Pakistanis are anti-terrorism as you say, half the battle is already won. I am also beginning to a get a sense that this has embarrased lot of muslims....and its set them thinking.
However, how do you propose we bring the terrorists to book? Attack Pakistan? Bomb the terrorist camps out? Wait for another attack to happen, wait for your own family in Mumbai to be wiped out? And exchange hateful words on IV? Release the terrorists in exchange for political hostages or fedd them dal, chapatis in Indian prisons?
Justice doesn't come magically or does it?
Well, one thing I can think of is how we treat the dead terrorists. In case of Parliament, Ashkardam and Mumbai attack, security forces killed the terrorists while they were killing innocents. As usual, Pakistan disowned them.
Publicise very very heavily and spread the word that these dead bodies would be given non-islamic burial. Hit where it hurts them...After giving non-islamic rites, spread the word that next terrorist that gets killed would get more drastic treatment.
BUT ensure that this treatment would be only for the foreign terrorists who are killed by security forces while doing their act and that are disowned by their country. It can be easily misused also. This should ONLY be done if nobody claims ownership of the body.
The story we hear about Kasab is that he was a looser and a petty criminal who was brainwashed. If he and his ilks are willing to get brainwashed religiously then they can not discount the effect of propaganda about non-islamic rites for their dead body and possibly it might deter them from taking that ultimate step.
Take a survey among the Muslims in Bombay to see if they support giving non-islamic rites for the 'orphaned' dead terrorists. I'm sure most of the sensible Muslims are outraged and they would agree to it especially after seeing what they saw on the TV. Before the killer's gun, there is no religion but only the intention to kill.
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NKR
08-06 03:15 PM
speaking of DOTs..how do you give Dots?
Send a PM to soni and ask, he/she gave me one.
Send a PM to soni and ask, he/she gave me one.
more...
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Macaca
12-28 07:55 PM
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
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
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jung.lee
04-05 10:29 AM
:eek:
I have been reading this thread with a lot of interest and could not hold back from commenting on the unbridled optimism many of you guys are showing towards the housing market, which reminds me of the "long tailed" euphoria that followed long after the NASDAQ had crashed over 50% in 2001 after the tech bubble, and people kept wishing it would come back long after it became clear to most cynical observers that it would take decades to achieve the same levels as before (and it hasn't yet)...
Housing has not yet bottomed. It still has a long way to go. You guys may think that the foreclosures related to subprime resets have subsided so the market may recover. You haven't seen anything yet. Consider:
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/loan-matrix.jpg
and:
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/adjustable-rate-mortgage-reset-schedule.jpg
Option ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) and Alt-A ARMs are the next two shoes to drop. In case you've had your head buried in the sand, the economy is on verge of a collapse. Unemployment is soaring and many more companies are considering layoffs. Many economic observers are opining that we are already in recession.
Desi junta, and others, I entreat you readers to please consider this seriously in your house purchase decisions. If for some reason you need to sell and move out, at a minimum you will be saving some money (by not losing your downpayment, for example) by choosing to rent. Rent a house/townhouse from a private owner if you are tired of renting an apartment and have growing kids - it's a "renters market" in the private rental marketplace right now with so many investment properties purchased during the housing bubble available for rent.
I would like to offer up a few blogs, whose commentators should be taken seriously. I recommend you read and bookmark the following blogs if you want to follow the housing market and the economy:
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/
http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
I like this website for people just starting out to get more financially educated (in an entertaining way):
http://www.minyanville.com/
Good luck and please be careful before 'taking the plunge!'
I have been reading this thread with a lot of interest and could not hold back from commenting on the unbridled optimism many of you guys are showing towards the housing market, which reminds me of the "long tailed" euphoria that followed long after the NASDAQ had crashed over 50% in 2001 after the tech bubble, and people kept wishing it would come back long after it became clear to most cynical observers that it would take decades to achieve the same levels as before (and it hasn't yet)...
Housing has not yet bottomed. It still has a long way to go. You guys may think that the foreclosures related to subprime resets have subsided so the market may recover. You haven't seen anything yet. Consider:
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/loan-matrix.jpg
and:
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/adjustable-rate-mortgage-reset-schedule.jpg
Option ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) and Alt-A ARMs are the next two shoes to drop. In case you've had your head buried in the sand, the economy is on verge of a collapse. Unemployment is soaring and many more companies are considering layoffs. Many economic observers are opining that we are already in recession.
Desi junta, and others, I entreat you readers to please consider this seriously in your house purchase decisions. If for some reason you need to sell and move out, at a minimum you will be saving some money (by not losing your downpayment, for example) by choosing to rent. Rent a house/townhouse from a private owner if you are tired of renting an apartment and have growing kids - it's a "renters market" in the private rental marketplace right now with so many investment properties purchased during the housing bubble available for rent.
I would like to offer up a few blogs, whose commentators should be taken seriously. I recommend you read and bookmark the following blogs if you want to follow the housing market and the economy:
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/
http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
I like this website for people just starting out to get more financially educated (in an entertaining way):
http://www.minyanville.com/
Good luck and please be careful before 'taking the plunge!'
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abracadabra102
12-26 08:03 PM
Attacking Pakistan is a stupid idea.The hardcore hawks in Pak wants this only.
By war this side crores will die and that side crores will die. The Laskar e toiba will go to hiding in NWF and plan for next attack. India will be backward for 10 years and Pak will be backwards for 20 years.Do you want this ?
Don't attack Pak. It will be a failed state on its own. By war between us , China is going to gain.So, the people who want war with Pak by sitting comfortably in US, please think once again. It is not like going to picnic. It is life and death man.
America is failing in tackling terror in Iraq and Afganistan. Israel is failing in tackling the Hamas. Srilanka is failing with Tamil tigers.So tit for tat is not working. It will only aggrevate the problem.
Unless the fools in Pak understand the importance of real education and tolerance , they will go to drain .Now the whole world knows Pak is the culprit.They even disown their own citizen who got captured in Bombay attack.Such is the pathetic condition of proud muslim country .Shame !
My suggestion is ask US to attack Laskar e Toiba training facilities in Pak.[ Six americans and four isralies died in the Bombay attack. That is enough reason for America's attack.]
If US attacks Pak , the stupid people in Pak can't do anything. That way , Indian innocent jawans and common people will be spared.
Amma, I agree with first part of your post. We do not have to go to war with pakistan. It is on its death bed already. Pakistan will not dare attack India, but we should be prepared for such eventuality. You never know what a desperate nation can do!.
I disagree with second part of your post. We can not and should not rely on some other power like US to sort out our issues. We are a sovereign nation and are capable of defending ourselves, whatever the cost may be. Yes, it will set us back economically and we may lose thousands of lives, but that is the price we must be willing to bear.
By war this side crores will die and that side crores will die. The Laskar e toiba will go to hiding in NWF and plan for next attack. India will be backward for 10 years and Pak will be backwards for 20 years.Do you want this ?
Don't attack Pak. It will be a failed state on its own. By war between us , China is going to gain.So, the people who want war with Pak by sitting comfortably in US, please think once again. It is not like going to picnic. It is life and death man.
America is failing in tackling terror in Iraq and Afganistan. Israel is failing in tackling the Hamas. Srilanka is failing with Tamil tigers.So tit for tat is not working. It will only aggrevate the problem.
Unless the fools in Pak understand the importance of real education and tolerance , they will go to drain .Now the whole world knows Pak is the culprit.They even disown their own citizen who got captured in Bombay attack.Such is the pathetic condition of proud muslim country .Shame !
My suggestion is ask US to attack Laskar e Toiba training facilities in Pak.[ Six americans and four isralies died in the Bombay attack. That is enough reason for America's attack.]
If US attacks Pak , the stupid people in Pak can't do anything. That way , Indian innocent jawans and common people will be spared.
Amma, I agree with first part of your post. We do not have to go to war with pakistan. It is on its death bed already. Pakistan will not dare attack India, but we should be prepared for such eventuality. You never know what a desperate nation can do!.
I disagree with second part of your post. We can not and should not rely on some other power like US to sort out our issues. We are a sovereign nation and are capable of defending ourselves, whatever the cost may be. Yes, it will set us back economically and we may lose thousands of lives, but that is the price we must be willing to bear.
GCmuddu_H1BVaddu
01-03 09:57 PM
But the point is, these cockroaches came to Mumbai from Pakistan are fed by ISI, don't you still realize. In what language do you want to hear?
What apology?
If cockroaches from my house take a dump in your kitchen, don't ask me to apologize for that.
What apology?
If cockroaches from my house take a dump in your kitchen, don't ask me to apologize for that.
sumanitha
12-29 05:03 PM
This thread didnt had activity for the past 4 days.
Why did you bring it into limelight by asking it to delete? :D
It has no relevance in an immigration related forum
kris
Why did you bring it into limelight by asking it to delete? :D
It has no relevance in an immigration related forum
kris
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