BALTIMORE – Three Baltimore firefighters were injured Tuesday afternoon after witnesses saw lightning strike a West Baltimore church steeple, igniting a four-alarm blaze Tuesday afternoon, fire officials said. Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. said the firefighters received minor injuries while battling the blaze at First Mount Olive Freewill Baptist Church. The fire started about 3 p.m. after nearby residents saw lightning strike the steeple, he said. “Once the fire involves the steeple, it’s pretty much a total loss of the building,” Goodwin said in an afternoon news conference. The church’s steeple collapsed early in the fire, forcing firefighters to flee. Goodwin said the building was a total loss.
OK but really. What do you theink SOME people would say if lightning struck American Atheists HQ?
H1B and H1 dependent visas – thats how all work related immigration takes place.
By the way, mafia comes to US, using business related visas.
For those you just need to create or invest in a US business(it’s not as simple as that, but with their money, it is).
And the rest of the mafia comes across using the good ol’ fashion American-to -the-bone “family related” visas.
The mafia type are the ones living in Brooklyn in NY and in Marlboro in NJ.
And about half(I would guess more) of those Russians living in Brooklyn, or any major US city, are illegals too. They should get put in prison for 5-10 years, then deported, and then banned from entering US for another 10 years.
Only difference between the Russian illegal and the South/Central American illegal is the process which they used to get inside the country. What they’re doing to the economy is the same.
A little bit more.
Since the 90’s(right after SU’s collapse) Russia(and ex-SU Eastern European countries) have been one of the biggest exporters of programmers(especially in the IT department) and engineers. American companies actually went to Russia to find themselves programmers. The same is also true for many other countries, like India.
How do you get an H1B visa(by yourself, without being exported or requested as a “good” by a company)?
1. Find companies in US that need your labor(preferably visit the country when you do this, so they can interview you – but sometimes even just submitting a resume works).
2. Ask for sponsorship.
- the sponsoring company then submit a foreign worker request form to the INS.
- generally the government approves of these (unless the annual quota for each country has already been filled)
3. Move to US and work
4. Request permanent residence
5. Wait
And I would prefer that for every illegal alien of any nationality that ten people of any nationality would come into this country to live legally.
And I would also like for all illegal aliens to be either deported (without 10 year penalty on reentry of the country) and given the chance to try and come back legally; or all illegals given amnesty and most of the flow of illegal aliens(95% would be a nice decrease) be halted.
We both dare to dream.
“Free post-high school education”
Sorry tri, this is not available here (US). We have to pay for it, and through our noses. I’ll owe on my school loans when I die.
I can’t wrap my head around tri’s “only the educated” attitude. Isn’t it analogous to, “Let them eat cake?” Really tri, you got to pull yourself out of that mindset. I know that the farmers down the road from me didn’t finish high school. They’re farmers; that’s all they know. And what about the Amish? Should we dismiss all these folks as uneducated schmucks? Haven’t they anything to offer society? You bet they do!
Yesterday we had two black gentlemen do some work on our farm. Neither finished high school. Were they worthless? You tell me. They painted a huge bank barn and three outbuildings in less than a day! IMHO they were more efficient than any lawyer or doctor (dripping with education).
The sooner you get off of your high horse, the better.
H 1 B visa, so tri why are you still in the U.S.?
“The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa category in the United States under the Immigration & Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H). It allows U.S. employers to seek temporary help from skilled foreigners who have the equivalent U.S. Bachelor’s Degree education. H-1B employees are employed temporarily in a job category that is considered by the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services to be a “specialty occupation”. A specialty occupation is one that requires theoretical and practical application of a body of specialized knowledge along with at least a bachelor?s degree or its equivalent. For example, architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, medicine and health, education, business specialties, accounting, law, theology, and the arts may be considered to be specialty occupations.”
It is a “non-immigrant” visa category! And you dare to talk about “legal” and “illegal”.
bernada
the only racist and hypocrite here is you.you don’t like english speaking whites take your sorry ass to the third world.get thru that skull of yours it is not racist to expect the gov’t to uphold the law and for people to obey it.you guys bashing tri are tooting your horn ‘look at me i’m a saint’ what horseshit these oppressed people you luv so much don’t respect you.if you want open borders work to change the law don’t disrespect the current law and expect the rest of us to sit back and take it.i guess you guys think its okay when students pull down u.s. flag and raise mexican flag.do i sound angry, yeah i am because i am nationalist.if you don’t support enforcement of the current law you are not a loyal citizen yeah that means bush is disloyal because his enforcement of the law is a farce.
reason,
I have no problem with legal immigration, but I have serious problems with illegal immigration. That much we agree on. But I take great umbrage with your statement that you are a nationalist. Slobodon Milosovich was a nationalist, and I think we all know how that turned out.
I think of myself as a human being, a citizen of the planet first, and an American second. Before you start blasting me, think about Americans during the civil war. They thought of themselves as Virginians and South Carolinians, etc… first, and Americans second.
As time passes and the planet becomes more and more interdependent, I think it is only natural to see a paradigm shift in how people see themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I believe we should take care of our own first, but not at the expense of others.
Somehow I think our Christian friends Placenta and jcc will forget the teachings of their lord and saviour and howl that an American life is worth a hundred Iraqi lives. If spanders is lurking, I would love to hear his take on this subject.
One more thing.
I respectfully disagree. Our current set of laws is responsible for filling our jails with addicts and the mentaly impaired, to the point there is no room at the Inn for actual criminals. As an example, I give you the two guys that broke into a house in CT(?) and tortured and murdered that doctor’s wife and daughters. They both had rap sheets a mile long, but because prisons are at 150% capacity all over the country, they have to let SOMEBODY out, and people in prison on drug charges tend to be there on minimum mandatory sentences, thus being inelligable for early release. Now please tell me that makes any sense at all? Keeping non-violent drug offenders in jail, while we let out the dregs of society. I’m sorry, but I do not support the current drug laws in this country, but I still consider myself a loyal citizen. Of course George H. W. Bush believes I am not a citizen at all, because I am an Atheist.
ren
you were more of a citizen in 1 day then his boy ever has been.
build more prisons for the dregs those two in conn.should be shot.i have no problem with you or bernada not being nationalist like me. i know you served in balkans and i respect you service so i hope you understand that we nationalist are determined to not let this country end like yugoslavia.
reason,
I would argue that it was nationalism that tore Yugoslavia apart. Josip Tito was a brutal dictator that kept a loose federation of states together with an iron fist.
Croats, Serbs and Bosnians are all Slavs. Blood relatives, all of them. Yugoslavia translates into ‘land of the southern Slavs’. Croats, however are RCC, Serbs are Eastern Orthodox, and Bosnians are (mostly) Muslims.
It wasn’t until Tito died and Milosovich came to power that things started to go south. The spark that set off the powderkeg was a speech Milosovich gave at Kosovo Polje (Field of Blackbirds) in which he argued that the Serbs were the one true Slavs, and the Croats and Muslims were second class citizens. This lead to a disintegration of their parliment and the secession of first Slovenia, then Croatia and finally Bosnia-Herzegovina. The worst atrocities in Europe since WWII ensued.
America is a lot like the Former Yugoslavian Republic (FYR). We are not a homogenous society. I am afraid that with the rise of nationalism in this country, we could end up fractured the same way the FYR came apart. One group pitted against another. Protestant V Catholic. Black V White. Conservative V Liberal. I don’t know upon which lines we would separate, but I am sure it would be ugly.
reason, I don’t particularly care if Tri bent the rules to come and stay in the U.S. Six years on a non-immigrant visa is a bit long. I object to his then coming down on other immigrants with his holier-than-thou attitude.
If I were in his shoes, I would shut up about it.
As to “disrespect the law”, do you obey all the laws, every single one of them? Laws are not the holy grail. Sometimes to be even a loyal citizen you need to break some.
The northerners who organized the underground railroad to help escaping slaves for example. I consider John Brown to be a loyal citizen too.
Immigration and trade laws are made by big corporate lobbyists who design them for their own benefit. There is nothing particularly moral about them. Aren’t businesses breaking the law in hiring undocumented immigrants? They do so because it is in their economic interests.
I already mentioned NAFTA with gives more “rights” to goods to cross borders than it does to people. But in fact, it may happen that the corporate lobbyists will soon find it in their interest to allow open immigration from Mexico and Canada.
American writer Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary defined “boundary” thus: In politics, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.
Of course with Bush’s Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act, our rights are more imaginary than ever.
Ren, your comments on prisons and drug laws are well taken. At the end of the 70’s, there were about 600,000 or so people in jail, now there are about 2.2 million. California now spends more on prisons than on higher education.
Does anyone think were are safer and better off than 30 years ago?
reason,
I do not support the death penalty because it is not meted out fairly. If it were, I would not have a problem with it, but we both know the poorer you are and the darker your skin color, the more likely you are to be executed. I say execute EVERYONE convicted of 1st degree murder, without exception, and I would consider changing my mind.
As for building more prisons; I say we let out all the people that have no business being there in the first place, and we can shut down half our prisons and still have room to keep the ones that are a danger to society, locked away forever.
Bernarda,
WOW! I’m going to have to chew on that one for a while. I’m not sure what to think. I don’t exactly disagree with you. Just don’t know if I can bring myself to go that far.
Our founding fathers overthrew their government, and we call them patriots. On the same token, Timothy Mcveigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Bldg, for political reasons. (Response to the raid on the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, TX) Just like John Brown, Mcveigh was executed by the federal government. Loyal citizen? Just not ready to go there.
One more thing about prisons. If we decide that drugs should remain illegal, then perhaps we should consider outlawing tobacco and alcohol. Both cause WAY more harm each year than all other illicit drugs combined. 450,000 tobacco deaths every year in the U.S. alone, and almost 50,000 alcohol related deaths, 35,000 of which are on our highways. Don’t even get me started on the amount of domestic violence alcohol causes each year. If we do that, we would have to build 5 times the number of prisons we have now. If you cannot justify that, then how can anyone justify throwing pot smokers in jail? A drug that has never caused a single verifiable death.
Excuse me Ren, but I believe that John Brown was executed by the the State of Virginia, not the Federal Government, and for treason against Virginia, not the Fed Gov. If I am mistaken, correct me.
bernarda,
I don’t know. That is interesting, to say the least. I have never heard that before. You know what they say…ass…you…me…I’ll have to look into it. If you find it before me, please feel free to post the link. Should make for great reading. I’m off to look into it now.
bernarda,
You learn something new every day! Thank you for conditioning my mind, if not my body. No, seriously! I would much rather be corrected and be armed with the truth in the future, than to be allowed to continue believing an untruth and looking stupid in the process.
bernada and ren
i am not happy with our trade policy either and i agree that big business calls the shots which is wrong.
bernada i have to say that as a white southerner i find praise for john brown insulting he wanted to start a race war that would have killed countless innocents of both races.
ren why is it right for other nations to breakup but when the south tried to leave our towns were burned an our women raped.seems like a double standard.yankees forced us to stay so now nobody is going to leave america.too late for buyers remorse yankees.inspite of our diff.views i respect the two of you.
reason,
I’m not sure where you got the idea that I think it is okay for other nations to break up. If I alluded to that, let me clarify now.
I think the break-up of the Balkans was a tragedy that need not have happened. I oppose the break-up of Iraq, even though the current boundries were imposed on them at the end of the Ottoman Empire. Breaking Iraq up will lead to further warring between, most notably, the Kurds and the Turks, as well as forcing the Syrians and the Saudis to back their Sunni Bretheren and the Iranians doing the same for the Shia. Can you say regional war?
I was adamantly against our actions in Kosovo, because it would be the equivalent of some country bombing Washington D.C. until we agreed to allow southern California, Arizona and New Mexico to secede and join Mexico.
I hope that clarifies my stance on the subject.
Oh yeah, and one more thing. My mom and dad grew up in Florence, SC. I didn’t grow up there because my father was in the Navy, but all of my immediate ancestors are from that part of the country. My favorite meal in the world is lima beans over rice and fatback with homemade bisquits and SWEETENED, iced tea. Yankee indeed!
Ren
thanks for clearing that up.and i think you are right about iraq.did your see where turkey has 150,000 troops on the border.i can’t believe nobody close to bush didn’t warn him he was opening up pandoras box.i hear that sadr alone has 60,000 milita.the public hears we got 125-50,000 but they don’t understand not everyone one is infantry.at least we know what bushs plan b is ‘give it to the next president’.i hope like heck we don’t get into shooting war with iran.
reason,
I did in fact see all the troops on the Turkey / Iraq border.
This is a pretty long link, so I don’t know if it will work correctly, but it talks about Saudi Arabia’s increasing involvement in Iraq. Something like 48% of the Suicide Bombers there are from the KSA. In my opinion, they are much more of a detriment to our soldier’s well being, than is Iran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/world/middleeast/27saudi.html?ei=5065&en=869eb184561c74d8&ex=1186113600&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
I’m not so sure they didn’t. I think he was just too pig-headed to listen. He was so…scratch that. He IS so certain that he is doing the work of the lord, that he couldn’t possibly go wrong. After all, with God, all things are possible. You don’t suppose the Iraqis have chariots made of iron, do you?
As for a war with Iran? Whatever it is that Atheists do in lieu of praying, we should all be doing right now. A war with Iran would make Iraq look like Grenada.
reason, you talk about possible “innocent victims” if a race war started? What about the 200 years of slavery in the South, and even in the North? All those people were truly innocent victims, and we are supposed to feel sorry for White Southern slavers?
Before African slavery, the South, particularly South Carolina practiced Indian slavery. They even exported Indian slaves to the Caribbean.
I have no sympathy for them. Take Nat Turner much later.
So Nat Turner killed a few dozen white Southerners, how does that compare with the 200 years of slavery? I admit that Turner was an ambiguous figure in that he emulated white xians and thought that he was receiving messages from god commanding his actions.
But even without the visions and religious influence, what choice did he have? The Allies killed a fair number of German civilians during the war too.