Epic Congressional Battle 2 – IMMIGRATION REFORM!

If you thought that HEALTH CARE REFORM was tough – wait until debate starts on Immigration Reform!

On December 15, 2009, Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) introduced legislation titled: The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR ASAP).

According to Immigration Attorney Sheela Murthy’s law firm:

The bill addresses a wide range of key immigration areas. Comprehensive Immigration Reform is intended as an overarching rewrite of a laundry list of pervasive immigration problem areas.
 
It is an effort to address these issues in a cohesive manner, rather than in a piecemeal fashion. This includes many matters of concern to our readers, such as enhancements to the legal immigration system, as well as revisions to the H1B and L-1 programs.
 
Some of these areas of interest:
 
–  The bill would allow family- and employment-based immigrant visa numbers that went unused between 1992 and 2008 to be “recaptured.”  It would prevent future loss of numbers by allowing them to roll over to the next year.
 
 – The bill also proposes to increase the percentage of immigrant visa numbers that may be used each year by a given country. Some categories of highly-skilled workers would be exempt from the numerical limits.

 – The bill also proposes to permit nonimmigrant skilled workers to file applications for adjustment of status (I-485s), if otherwise eligible, even if their priority dates are not yet current.

• This would have significant ramifications…like the ability to obtain the employment authorization document (EAD) and possibly enjoying AC21 portability benefits. 

 – The bill contains significant revisions to the current H1B, H2B, and L-1 temporary worker programs. It proposes establishing a Commission on Immigration and Labor Markets to research and provide recommendations on the flow of workers into the United States.

 – Included in the H1B changes would be requirements for recruitment of U.S. workers. The U.S. Department of Labor would be given additional enforcement authority. There would be audit authority given to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in connection with L-1 employers.

 – Finally, the bill contains proposals to improve the process of naturalization to U.S. citizenship, and to encourage naturalization. This would include grants to community-based programs in English-training and legal support aimed at facilitating naturalization.
 
Gutierrez chairs the Democratic Caucus Task Force on Immigration. Here is the release:

On Tuesday, December 15, Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) will introduce new legislation, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR ASAP), to the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Gutierrez will be joined by members of many different faiths and backgrounds, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Black Caucus, Asian Pacific American Caucus and Progressive Caucus.

Who:
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (IL-4), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force

Rep. Nydia  M. Velázquez (NY-12), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus

Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (NY-11), Whip of the Congressional Black Caucus

Rep. Mike Honda (CA-15), Chair of Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (TX-16), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA-6), Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus

Rep. Joe Baca (CA-43)

Rep. Xavier Becerra (CA-31)

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)

Rep. Judy Chu (CA-32)

Rep. Joseph Crowley (NY-7)

Rep. Sam Farr (CA-17)

Rep. Charlie Gonzalez (TX-20)

Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)

Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (TX-15)

Rep. Grace Napolitano (CA-38)

Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz (TX-27)

Rep. Pedro R. Pierluisi (PR-At large)

Rep. Jared Polis (CO-2)

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-9)

Rep. Jose E. Serrano (NY-16)

Rep. Anthony Weiner (NY-9)

Other Members of Congress
 
What:
Introduction of Comprehensive Immigration Reform Legislation 
 
When:
12:30 pm, Tuesday, December 15, 2009
 
Where:
Room 2261, Rayburn House Office Building
 
“We have waited patiently for a workable solution to our immigration crisis to be taken up by this Congress and our President,” said Rep. Gutierrez. “The time for waiting is over. This bill will be presented before Congress recesses for the holidays so that there is no excuse for inaction in the New Year.

It is the product of months of collaboration with civil rights advocates, labor organizations, and members of Congress. It is an answer to too many years of pain —mothers separated from their children, workers exploited and undermined security at the border— all caused at the hands of a broken immigration system.

This bill says ‘enough,’ and presents a solution to our broken system that we as a nation of immigrants can be proud of.” 
 
Now we’ve been through this before. Last time a similar effort at Comprehensive Immigration Reform was shot down, largely by republicans.

What’s going to happen this time around?

When President Obama was campaigning for office, he placed Health Care Reform and Immigration Reform among his TOP priorities.

He’s had to deal with the economy which was tanking when he took office. He’s had to deal with Afghanistan. He’s also taken on Health Care.

Many of his supporters are NOT too happy that he decided to send MORE troops to Afghanistan.

Others are NOT pleased that the PUBLIC OPTION is NOT included in the Health Care Bill. Yet more remain unhappy with his administration’s handling of Wall Street excesses…not that there’s much he can do about that!

However, IMMIGRATION REFORM gives the president an opportunity to mobilize and energize the growingly influential Hispanic base and pacify Unions/Labor Leaders who are lukewarm at best over the Health Care Bill they’re getting.

DEMOCRATS – let this be a warning!

FAIL ON IMMIGRATION REFORM AND COME 2010 – YOU WILL BE THE ONES LOOKING FOR STATUS…AND PACKING UP TO GO HOME.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!

Opinion – Tiger Roars…shows, er – stripes?

I’m tired of hearing about Tiger Woods and his mistresses…

I really don’t care if he was having sex with the maid, the PTA chairman or the CEO.

The KANSAS CITY STAR has an interesting article on the Tiger Woods affair…

It’s titled: Media should be ashamed of Tiger Woods ‘coverage’. The writer says:

We’re no better than the gossip rags, tabloids and blogs, and we will no longer strive to be.

The high road no longer pays our bills. So, like TMZ, the National Enquirer and all the rest, we will pick through the personal lives of celebrity athletes, and when we turn up dirt, we will shout they owe us a televised, remorseful, ratings-driving explanation.

I disagree with this approach. But I’m willing to accept it, as long as we’re honest about it and enthusiastically accept the consequences of our decision.

Media houses are NOT honest about their decisions to cover these types of stories. And of course, it IS a decision. Stories don’t just walk into the newsroom and jump onto the screen. Editors, anchors and managers decide WHICH stories to pursue, what angles to take and when to run them.

News has been so trivialized to feed the ratings game…that media houses now have WE The People actually thinking, heck demanding, that WE have a “right” to know about the personal lives of prominent people. The Media will even find “experts” to tell us why we need to know!

Meantime, the media, the fourth estate that is supposed to act as a counter balance to the pressing authority of politics and religion - fiddled while the government planned a useless, distracting, ill-conceived war in Iraq.

A war based on lies and false premises that will (if not forever, then for a very long time), affect us and this country. They didn’t think we had a right to know how much it would cost – or whether there were weapons of mass destruction, etc.

No, our right to know revolves around how many mistresses that Tiger Woods has!

Why do we care where Tiger prowls when we are sending thousands of soldiers (who hopefully are not texting mistresses from the trenches) to Afghanistan?

Why do we care who Tiger sleeps with when our infrastructure is so worn thin, we are closing bridges?

Why do we care about Tiger’s crash – instead of the stock market crash? Did we not see what happened after Dubai’s loan default –  or is that NOT as important as Tiger Woods and his shenanigans?

As I see it, THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO SHOULD CARE ARE: Tiger, his family/relatives, the women involved (and apparently THEY don’t care), the PGA (maybe) and sponsors.

Outside of that, apart from the: Tiger did What? moment (why Tiger, I didn’t know you lived up to your name off the links, too) – drop it! There are too many issues of substance to be focusing on a golfer’s sexploits!

There was even a doctor on TV saying Tiger is displaying all the symptoms of a “Sex Addict”. We only want to know, though – when it involves OTHER people. Our own lover/spouse/better half could be having their own Tiger moments and we would NOT want the neighbors to know, much less the world!

Heck, some people even KNOW, but pretend they don’t know…

Others don’t want to know…

The Star also says that:

Had Elin been found barefoot, floating in and out of consciousness, with facial lacerations and Tiger hovering over her, the tone of media commentary would be quite different regardless of whatever alleged actions Elin might’ve taken to provoke Tiger.

I agree. Tiger would have been labeled another star athlete who is a wife beater; a pampered, self absorbed jerk of a jock!

So, why do these highly paid, high profile men lack the ability to see through women they should steer clear of? WARNING: If you see BOOBS first, before you see the person – RUN! Don’t look back or you will be turned into a pillar of shame! (Biblical reference to Lot’s wife.)

Bill Clinton and  Monica Lewinski?

Don’t these men understand that they should start running soon as they smell these women coming?

How is it that men are not caught gallivanting with female professors or nuclear engineers or head teachers or even nurses? Well, except for that NASA astronaut and the media did NOT portray HER as sexy.

Notice how the news reports made her look crazy? However, she is NOT out there, though, arranging press conferences to sell sexy emails (Or whatever types of communication they use) between earth and space! Well, not yet!

High profile men/athletes seem to marry professional, supportive girl next door (in most cases) then gravitate towards bar workers, nannies and hostesses. Are these women MORE attractive? Is it that the personality types who gravitate towards these jobs are different? Is it the educational level? (Some bar hostesses/nannies have degrees, too.) Can somebody explain?

I’m confused because there are many highly attractive, sexy female PHDS with an abundance of boobs – and brains! Or is it that they have the presence of mind to keep their mouths shut, so we never find out!

According to the Star:

Look at what we’ve done to Tiger in a week. We’ve convinced the public, among other things, that Tiger was wrong for exercising his right to remain silent with the police. We did this while young Americans are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan in protection of this most American freedom.

Remember when Dick Cheney and other White House officials refused – refused to talk about the leaking of emails and information pertaining to the outing of a CIA spy? We’ve already forgotten? There was NO sex involved. (That we know of!)

One woman is on TV saying: Tiger’s wife should leave him!

Really?

I have a neighbor whose boyfriend beats her up! They have two kids. The apartment is in her name – it’s a constant domestic abuse saga of tears,  police and drama.

Why doesn’t SHE leave him? He’s no Tiger – if he was a book, he would not even be in the same library as Tiger. He has no education, no looks, no money – yet SHE is standing by her thug!

All across America women are standing by men who cheat (see politics) lie, even KILL!

I’d NOT worry about Tigers wife, Elin Nordegren. She can apparently take care of herself! Go Sistah! Maybe YOU should take up professional golf, Elin! You apparently know how to use that iron. Birdie to you – or is it eagle?

And as for those women saying Elin Nordegren should leave…do YOU think they would turn Tiger down if he called them and said: “Elin left me, I want to marry you“!?

You believe they’d say: “No Thanks Tiger – I’m waiting for a man who doesn’t cheat“?

About this bridge in Brooklyn…

From Success To Failure In Just One Year…

I guess you’ve heard the news about Dubai – the oil rich, over-spending tiny Arab Emirate that tried to rebuild “The world” is now drowning in debt!

The country can’t pay some 60 billion-dollars it owes to mostly European banks. The news sent European stock markets plunging, which in turn dragged American markets down with them.

(I hope the protectionist people see a lesson in there. When America sneezes the world catches a cold. And when the world is down with that cold…the virus finds its way back to the US!)

I feel sorry for President Obama…

The poor guy DID NOT create any of the messes he now has to deal with. How do you fix Dubai or the next Dubai? How do you insulate the US from these economic meltdowns…and can we?

I guess these are questions for FED Chairman Ben Bernanke…and Treasury Secretary, Tim Geitner.

Bernanke is one of the few people I have confidence in on the economy. I don’t particularly care for Geitner. I’ve always thought that HE should NOT have been appointed…after his tax debacle came to light.

Geitner did not pay 34-thousand-dollars in self-employment taxes when he worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is supposedly a common “mistake” that Geitner conveniently realized around the time he was being nominated for Treasury Secretary.

How can a banker, and a prominent one at that, or anyone in the financial industry, especially the top dogs, NOT know they have to pay taxes…and on what?

That is a question that should flummox me; NOT the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

If you don’t understand a simple thing like that, HOW CAN YOU UNDERSTAND THE CONSIDERABLY MORE COMPLICATED US ECONOMY?

Still, the IRS did NOT go after Geitner. But it comes after me…and YOU – ordinary Joe (NOT John McCain’s Joe the non-plumber – the IRS went after him! That poor Joe!).

Do you know auditors sent me a letter over my withholding for a couple hundred dollars? Even though I stapled a COPY of the bank forms to my return?

Yep. But Tim Geitner slipped through the cracks. I guess our tax guys are more efficient here in Massachusetts.

Anyway, back to Dubai!

In August 2008, CBS’S 60 Minutes ran a story on Dubai entitled: A visit to Dubai Inc. Steve Kroft reports on a Success Story In The Middle East.

News headline this past week: Debt crisis in millionaires’ playground could herald new phase in global financial meltdown

I feel sorry for people who are near retirement and have invested in the Stock Market…

Heck, I feel sorry for myself. But I don’t feel sorry for Dubai!

60 Minutes opened its Dubai piece by saying: Dubai is a tiny sheikdom nestled along the Persian Gulf on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula and part of a tiny, oil-rich country called the United Arab Emirates. Over the course of just a few decades, it has transformed itself from a spit of sand about the size of Rhode Island into the Singapore of the Middle East.

Kroft described the transformation as: the vision of one man, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

According to 60 Minutes: One project, called by some the “largest construction site on earth,” was just desert several years ago. The site employs half a million laborers, working 12-hour shifts on a reported $300 billion worth of projects, building Sheikh Mohammed’s dream of a modern, efficient and tolerant Arab city with fine restaurants, a vibrant nightlife, that is both the playground and business capital of a new Middle East.

Sheikh Mohammed came up with the idea of turning Dubai into an international center for finance and media. He set up a series of free trade zones, promising no taxes, minimal regulation, and special incentive to corporations willing to locate to the emirate.

Since it opened three years ago, the Dubai International Finance Center has attracted banks, investment firms, and capital from around the world

According to the Sheik: Five years from now you’re gonna see towers on your right, towers on your left. You’re gonna see a kilometer-and-a-half garden where you can exercise. And if you’re bored of that, you can go underneath it for a kilo-and-a-half shopping mall…and it is not the largest shopping center in the world. Because that’s next door…

The Sheik was referring to The Burj Dubai development, where the largest shopping center in the world is under construction at the base what will become the world’s tallest building.

The building includes the first Giorgio Armani hotel with floor after floor of million dollar apartments. It was already nearly a mile high, and when it is finished it will be twice as tall as the Empire State Building.

60 Minuets reported that: With no environmental regulations to stop him, Sultan began dredging a hundred million cubic yards of sand from the Persian Gulf, along with seven million tons of rock to form a man-made Island in the shape of a palm. It more the doubled the coastline of Dubai, and created waterfront condos and homes for 150,000 people, not including 35 hotels.

The palm island project sold out in less than a week, and houses that initially went for $1 million are being resold by original investors and real estate speculators for five times that.

Three more off-shore developments are underway, including a chain of 300 man-made islands, some of which will be private. They are shaped and situated to resemble a map of the world, which is what the project is called.

That was in 2008.

 And coming from a real island, when I saw those low-lying sandbars they were referring to as Palm “islands” I thought of a tsunami…

This past week (ending 11/28/2009), Dubai World set off its own financial tsunami when it announced it needed more time to pay back some of its 60 billion-dollar debt.

Sarah Palin…plus Economic Anger

• This past week (Nov. 15 to Nov. 21, 2009) Sarah Palin was all over the news – the way she likes it!

Here was Sarah on the cover of Newsweek – and there was Sarah on Oprah and ABC’s 20/20 and other places that I don’t watch.

And there was the phony controversy that both Sarah and the media promote. She was complaining all the way to the bank – about Newsweek putting a cutesy photo of her in her snug shorts on their cover.

Now Sarah – did Newsweek make YOU pose for that flirty photo? NO!

Why did YOU choose that particular pose for that photo? I don’t think we’ll see the Queen in shorts in that pose any time soon. So obviously, YOU posed, for your own reasons and liked the photo enough to let another publication run it.

So if it wasn’t sexist when YOU posed, then it’s not sexist now.

It’s like taking nude photos for playboy and saying Newsweek shouldn’t run them when the poser decides to run for president of the church guild!

However, Newsweek too is playing games. I mean, come on – of all the photos of Miss Palin in your archive; of her in suits that she paid for, suits the campaign paid for – you could have gotten a different (note I didn’t say better, just different) one to put on the cover.

So both Newsweek and Sarah Palin are playing games with the rest of us – the dummies who they think won’t notice.

Palin is generating publicity for her book and she will do whatever…

Newsweek is trying to sell magazines, and it will do whatever…

Play your games, but don’t try to fudge the score. 

• Americans are angry over the economy…

Apparently “the economy” resides in Washington, in the White House basement, and President Obama is just sitting on it.

We forget that we, yes WE affect the economy every day with our purchasing  and other choices

When we buy cheap whatever from China, WE are affecting the economy.

When you buy those expensive jeans you cannot afford and charge them to your credit card, then pay off the minimum each month, YOU are affecting the economy.

When people buy houses and cars they can and cannot afford, THEY are affecting the economy.

When we eat out, WE are affecting the economy.

When we don’t go to see a movie, WE are affecting the economy.

Buy a car or take the bus; go overseas on vacation or stay home; invest and pay taxes or stash our money overseas - all this affects the economy.

Was I the ONLY person who heard all the warning heads who were saying that the US economy is under pressure and something has to give?

That speculative housing was straining the market?

That our trade deficit was/is too large?

Why did some take note, while so many others did not?

Why did they disregard their own expenses and go on spending?

Why did people NOT save for the proverbial rainy day?

Now we are railing at the government for not providing more unemployment benefits…did the government ask you to overload your credit card?

Did the government prevent you from balancing your resources and allocating them efficiently?

So why do the prudent people who wear their shoes to the soles and buy things on sale now have to pay for your stupidity – instead of you?

AND MOST IMPORTANLY, WHEN OR RATHER IF PEOPLE GET OUT OF THEIR SELF-IMPOSED BLACK HOLE, WILL THEY HAVE LEARNT A LESSON – OR CONTINUE SPENDING AS IF THERE’S NO TOMORROW? Because we just learnt: TODAY IS TOMORROW’S…TOMORROW!

Now I understand that the government bailed out the banks. Well, you’re NOT a bank, even if you spent like you were a bank! So there!

You will never be treated as equitably as those big Wall Street guys. Not under a democrat, especially NOT under a republican, double especially NOT under a capitalist system! And not under communism either!

So basically, what all this long rambling tirade means is: We should be angry at OURselves for TURNING OUR BACKS on the old principles of saving and being thrifty and to hell with the Joneses.

But of course, that’s painful and inconvenient for us to blame ourselves, so let’s take our anger out on the government…and the banks and whomever.  (Not that they’re blameless, either!) But if we blame somebody ELSE, then we can feel better about our poor/lack of planning.

You think that’s bad?

Wait until you’re ready to retire and you didn’t plan, set NOTHING aside because it’s not your responsibility or your fault or your decision – NO ROTH IRA, NO 401K, NO PENSION…and find out there’s NO social security or a leaner payout!

America has become a country where IT IS ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT.

I’m just waiting for the case where a pregnant woman sues because nobody warned her that sex leads to pregnancy. I’m sure it’s already happened. I just haven’t heard. Let me know…

• Did you see Republican lawmakers and some Democrats too, talking about spending?

The same ones who were there before AND during eight years of Bush, who helped spend, spend, spend…who gave Mr. Bush carte blanche to finance two losing wars?

Now those hypocrites want us to believe that the “economy” just turned sour overnight. That things started going downhill last January. That you sent them to Washington to enjoy a cozy incestuous relationships with their pals in the insurance industry and the auto industry and the housing industry…

And you agree – because YOU keep sending them back. Don’t you?

Gays, Maine and Flu Shots

People from Maine are coming here to Massachusetts to get flu shots.

They just showed on the news, a few minutes ago, a woman from Maine who drove all the way to a FREE FLU CLINIC in Dorchester.

Apparently, the fact that Massachusetts allows gays to marry has not “tainted” the HINI vaccine here. Hopefully, the good folks up in Maine who are coming to The Bay State for flu shots are NOT the ones who were so busy agitating to outlaw gay marriage…they had no time to agitate for free flu shots IN their area.

 Naturally, securing flu shots for their area is obviously NOT as important as stopping gays from getting married. I understand that. What I don’t get is why come to Massachusetts? Why not go to Texas or some other gay-hating place where the vaccines are gay-free?

I’ve been living here BEFORE and since gays won the right to marry – and so far I’ve NOT noticed a difference in my life that I can attribute to gays.

Well, maybe I spoke too soon. I noticed that as soon as we gave gays the go-ahead to marry, my teenage son decided that he should NOT be asked to wash dishes and that if he does, he should ONLY be made to wash those that HE used!

Our unemployment rate has climbed. I am sure that is somehow the fault of gays. I just can’t figure out the connection, but I’m sure there are people who can. Because I am convinced that we would have weathered the economic crash…if only WE HAD NOT ALLOWED GAYS TO MARRY.

I still see people getting divorced and others shacking up together with NO intention of marrying. I BLAME GAYS FOR THAT! If we had NOT allowed gays to marry, Massachusetts would be the land of June Cleaver.

Indeed, we were well on our way with the Romney’s. Stay-home mom. Cute brood of kids. Bevy of groomed grandkids. But no, we had to go and let gays get married. The Romney’s left!

Now what do we have? Divorces, alimony battles, neglected kids, an overburdened foster care system.  That’s what you get when you let gays marry!

Failing schools. Another repercussion from gays getting married. Need I explain how that happens? Gay teachers suddenly started coming out and openly dating kids. Kids start exploring gay lifestyles and say: to heck with school and studies. Our MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) scores headed to damnation.

From the moment we decided to let gays marry, people started having abortions in alleyways. Yep…even animals had more abortions! Heterosexual couples reasoned: if gays can’t have kids – why should we? So they started aborting their pregnancies.

In fact, so many things went wrong in Massachusetts since we let gays start marrying that dwelling on them are just … too painful.

So I tell the good folks up in Maine: thank God, YOU saw the light. You decided to uphold the sanctity of marriage. And so, there will be NO more kids born out of wedlock in Maine. No more abortions. No more divorces. No fornication. No ads from people in Maine looking for unusual sexual liaisons…

Every person will marry. Couples will be enfolded in a loving relationship for life, produce healthy, well-adjusted kids…who are likely to become missionaries who will then come down to Massachusetts and convert us.

96 percent of Maine’s population is white…and the few non-whites will leave.

Kids up there will no longer live in poverty…and life will be just loverly!

According to the 1999 US Census figures for Maine:

10-percent of Maine’s population earned less than 10-thousand dollars. That will change dramatically. In the new world of no-gay-marriage Maine, by the 2010 census, that figure will dramatically drop to just 2-percent.

1 percent of Mainers make 200-thousand-dollars or more. More people will now rapidly join that group…now that gays can no longer marry and break the family structures that prevented them from achieving and earning.

7.8 percent of families live below the poverty level. That will drop.

28 percent of families with female householder, no husband present, live below the poverty level. No husband present? Maine has households with NO husband present? The only explanation is that these women must be gay!

11 percent of individuals live below the poverty level. They’re gay too. Otherwise they would all be millionaires.

Here are some figures for MAINE from the National Center for Children in Poverty:

• 15% (40,952) of children live in poor families
• 33% (13,532) of children in poor families do not have an employed parent
• 57% (6,512) of children whose parents do not have a high school degree live in poor families.
• 65% (26,788) of children in poor families live with a single parent.
• 18% (14,762) of children, under age 6, live in poor families.
• 13% (26,190) of children, age 6 or older, live in poor families
• 5% (1,937) of poor children live in families with no parent present.
• 2% (4,074) of children (who are not poor) live in families with no parent present.

Now that MAINERS HAVE VOTED TO STOP GAYS FROM MARRYING, that state will now rapidly begin to prosper and change for the better.

Just sit back and watch their GDP shoot past ours. And then all you LIBERAL MASSACHUSETTS denizens will rue the day – yes, sackcloth and ashes – you let gays marry here!

Thanks for the interest…

I appreciate all the comments about the informative nature of my posts.

I would have liked to keep blogging daily, but it takes up too much of my time…right now.

I will blog on Sundays- if I miss one, it doesn’t mean I won’t post next time.

I don’t like people to give opinion and pass it of as fact. Fact is fact (even if that too can be subjective) but while I can have an opinion on anything…I can’t just change facts to suit me. 

That does not mean that my opinion is one that everybody should subscribe to or that because others don’t – they are wrong.

People feel that if you’re a democrat and President Obama decides to invade Mexico, for no good reason, then all democrats should say: yeah!?  Not so.

 Good democrats should say Mr. President, with all due respect, I think you are making a mistake.

All republicans are not bad – and every issue they raise is not to be disregarded, either.

Of course this current batch of republican leaders are a sad joke, and the more acrimonious they are, the more they jockey to posture on TV!

But that, hopefully, will adjust itself with time. America needs an opposition party that comes up with constructive ideas for the better good.

We don’t need destabilization to achieve our ends. At the end of the day, when a president fails, America fails.

And when he wins, we all win.

Presidents come and go, but the economy remains with us, and so do issues like: job creation, health care, education, crime, poverty, excessive wealth etc.

When President Obama leaves the White House he will be set for life…whatever his legacy.

Will you…? If he or any president fails at job creation, fails at health care, fails at establishing green technologies/industries, fails at immigration reform – will you be better off?

If he (any president) creates more jobs, lowers crime, improves America’s image overseas – do you benefit?

I rest my case.

Thanks for the comments/emails. Keep tuning in.

Workplace Shootings Double Standards

Here’s a quick quiz for you:

There were 5, 071 workplace fatalities in the U.S. last year. 517 of them were workplace homicides.

I am going to give you a list of Work Place Shooters and I’d like you to tell me what their Religion was:

 March 20, 2000: Fired employee Robert Harris, 28, fatally shoots five people at a Dallas, Texas area car wash.
HIS RELIGION..?

 December 30, 1999: Authorities say housekeeper Silvio Izquierdo-Leyva, 36, fatally shoots five co-workers at Tampa’s Radisson Bay Harbor hotel in Florida.
HIS RELIGION..?

 November 2, 1999: Copier repairman Byran Uyesugi, 40, fatally shoots seven people at the Xerox Corporation in Honolulu, Hawaii.
HIS RELIGION…?

 August 5, 1999: Truck driver Alan E. Miller, 35, fatally shoots two co-workers at Pelham, Alabama. office, then kills former co-worker.
HIS RELIGION…?

 July 29, 1999: Former day trader Mark Barton, 44, kills nine people at two Atlanta brokerage offices and later commits suicide.
HIS RELIGION…?

 March 6, 1998: Former Connecticut Lottery accountant Matthew Beck, 35, fatally shoots four lottery executives, then himself.
HIS RELIGION…?

 December. 18, 1997: Fired employee Arturo R. Torres, 43, kills four former co-workers at maintenance yard in Orange, California and is shot to death by police.
HIS RELIGION…?

 September 15, 1997: Fired assembly line worker Arthur H. Wise, 43, allegedly opens fire at Aiken, South Carolina parts plant, killing four.
HIS RELIGION…?

 April 24, 1996: Firefighter Kenneth Tornes kills four superiors at a Jackson, Mississippi firehouse.
HIS RELIGION…?

 April 3, 1995: Former employee James Simpson, 28, fatally shoots five people at refinery inspection station in Corpus Christi, Texas, then kills himself.
HIS RELIGION…?

 July 19, 1995: City electrician Willie Woods fatally shoots four supervisors at the C. Erwin Piper Technical Center in Los Angeles, California.
HIS RELIGION…?

 February 2001: William D. Baker, 66, killed four people and himself at a Navistar International engine plant in Chicago area suburb, Melrose Park.
HIS RELIGION…?

 July 2003: New York City councilman Othniel Askew, 81, opened fire at City hall in killing one person – a fellow councilman and political rival.
HIS RELIGION…?

 August 2003: Salvador Tapia, 36, opened fire at a Chicago, Illinois auto supply warehouse where he used to work, killing six of its nine employees, including two of the company’s principals.
HIS RELIGION…?

 September 2009: Researcher Annie Le’s body is found strangled, stuffed in the wall of a research center at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Her fellow Lab technician, Raymond Clark, 24, is arrested for her murder.
HIS RELIGION…?

 November, 2009: Jason Rodriguez, 40, a former employee of the engineering firm killed one person dead and injured five.
HIS RELIGION…?

We don’t know, do we! WE SHALL ASSUME THEY WERE ALL ATHEISTS!

November, 2009: Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opens fire at Fort Hood, Texas killing 13 and injuring about 30.
His RELIGION: Muslim.

We know that! It’s been repeated over and over and over. Why…?

Because he is a Muslim and that fits into our stereotype of Muslims as violent and terrorists? What else could make him snap except for his religion?

I’m not saying his religion is NOT a factor. I’m just saying until we know it’s a factor…we should leave it out.

We continuously try to distance ourselves from people in our stereotype who do unsocial things.

Nobody in the suburbs wants to be associated with the group of kids who spray Nazi symbols on a Synagogue…

I, as a black person, definitely do not want to be associated with gang bangers…

Yet we label ALL Muslims terrorists because a minority of Muslims subscribe to a terrorist ideology. Were Muslims behind the bombings in the UK/Northern Ireland conflict? Nope – just Protestants and Catholics fighting.

Is Pope Sylvester II a terrorist? At the end of the tenth century he “entreated the church universal to succor the church of Jerusalem, and to redeem a sepulcher which the prophet Isaiah had said should be a glorious one, and which the sons of the destroyer Satan were making inglorious.

The Turks were apparently pillaging the Holy Land…and this could not be allowed. So we got the Crusades, and of course these soldiers of religion went over to the Middle East and planted flowers…

The Muslims did not enslave thousands of blacks in the New World and try to Christianize the natives with whips and bondage! The people who were throwing shackled slaves overboard in the Atlantic to lighten their ships were NOT Muslims either!

Muslims did not rule South Africa under apartheid…

I believe all these atrocities were perpetrated by Christians…with a Bible in one hand!

Yet when these Bible loving souls open fire and kill people, we don’t say they are Baptists or Catholics, DO WE?

Fanatics occur in every religion…and Christianity has had and still has its fair share!

One British newspaper reports Hasan once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats. According to the paper Hasan also told colleagues at America’s top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire.

Thanks Britain. The Inca, the Maya, Native people in Australia, China and wherever you ventured during your “Conquests” think you were as bad, if not worse. I don’t think anyone will argue that you did not “terrorize” them…us. My Caribbean island was enslaved by you, too.

By the way, according to government figures, workplace killings are trending downwards. But apparently the current weak economy has boosted stress levels in many workplaces. Add to this the normal or abnormal levels of combat stress among the military, and we get incidents like the Fort Hood shooting.

It might be easier to blame Islam than taking a retrospective look at a military super-macho culture where admitting to stress is considered weak; a military that does not have enough avenues to deal with and recognize combat stress; an army that is overstretched/over-deployed…where commanders do not listen to soldiers who say they don’t want to return to combat situations, but will deploy you regardless.

(People try to kill themselves to get out of deployments or the military – but the military deploys them anyway. How many red, green, yellow, purple flags do you need?)

Easier to simply blame Islam (which may or may not be blameless)!

I suppose those soldiers who come home and kill their spouses/lovers were all Muslims, too?

I know nothing about ISLAM except what I too see/hear in the media. It is not a religion I want to follow. But it’s not the only one I don’t want to follow!

Pilot Fatigue

When I heard about that North West Airlines flight that bypassed the Minneapolis airport and kept on going…for another 150 miles, two thoughts immediately flashed through my mind:

1. What if they didn’t have enough fuel?

2. Pilot Fatigue?

Now those pilots say they were having a “heated discussion” about airline policy. Some people think they were sleeping. Whatever they were doing, that was scary!

I’ve been really afraid of flying since Lockerbie, because I was in London, and had just passed through Frankfurt around that time. Since then, airplane crashes and near misses have only reinforced my fear.

Hearing about that incident where pilots, TWO pilots, just let the plane fly itself to wherever on a straight line is not very reassuring.

I decided to look into Pilot Fatigue…and found a report from NASA (America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration). The NASA report outlines the findings from a study the agency did on pilot fatigue and its implications for aviation safety.

The Deputy Associate Administrator in the Office of Aero-Space Technology at NASA testified at a Congressional Hearing on Pilot Fatigue in August, 1999. 10 Years ago!

He told the Aviation Subcommittee of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, United States House of Representatives, that Pilot Fatigue is a significant safety issue in aviation.

He testified that: “Rather than simply being a mental state that can be willed away or overcome through motivation or discipline, fatigue is rooted in physiological mechanisms related to sleep, sleep loss, and circadian rhythms. These mechanisms are at work in flight crews no less than others who need to remain vigilant despite long duty days, transmeridien travel, and working at night when the body is programmed for sleep”.

According to the NASA official: “Flight crews routinely respond that fatigue is a concern, often admitting to having nodded off during a flight and/or arranging for one pilot to nap in the cockpit seat”.

• The crewmembers napped one-at-a-time in a three-person cockpit with minimal disruption to normal flight operations and no reported or identified concerns regarding safety. The benefits of the nap were observed throughout the critical descent and landing phases of flight. The planned nap appeared to provide effective and acute relief from significant sleepiness experienced by crews in three-person nonaugmented flight operations.

• He told Congres: The Fatigue Countermeasures Program submitted a draft advisory circular to the FAA in January 1993 on “Controlled Rest on the Flight Deck.” Regulatory provisions that would sanction the appropriate use of planned cockpit rest remain under review. Several non-U.S. air carriers have already implemented the procedure.

Congress apparently asked NASA to conduct the Study. NASA’s Ames Research Center created a program to examine whether “there is a safety problem of uncertain magnitude, due to transmeridian flying and a potential problem due to fatigue in association with various factors found in air transport operations.”

Researchers came up with a number of recommendations and countermeasures to address Pilot Fatigue in the cockpit.

Is anyone (Sixty Minutes, Oprah?) asking if the FAA implemented those measures and how many US CARRIERS HAVE SIGNED ON?

Do I have to stop blogging and go do some investigative journalism (which I was trained to do)? I’m sleeping – blogging is much easier! Just like Networks/Media Outlets are sleeping – because it’s also much easier to hire bloviates who promulgate spin, opinion and bull – instead of dealing with FACTS – which by the way are inconvenient things!

If they were indeed arguing, or “heatedly discussing” – maybe those two should NOT work together anymore? Please argue while having a drink (preferably orange juice) at a club – NOT up in the air where it causes you to go 150 miles off course.

I also found this article that appeared in USA TODAY in JUNE. 2009.

Airlines, pilot unions and federal officials have until September first to develop new rules to limit fatigue among pilots, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday in an unusually aggressive move to reach agreement on one of the industry’s most contentious safety issues.

The National Transportation Safety Board has cited fatigue as a factor in several recent crashes, including a February crash near Buffalo that killed 50 people.

The board revealed last month that both pilots on that flight had not gotten a full night’s sleep before the accident.
The NTSB lists combating fatigue as one of its “Most Wanted” safety improvements.

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt called on airlines and pilot unions to begin meeting with federal officials by July 15 to come up with recommendations on how long pilots can work each day.
The committee will have until September to present their findings, Babbitt said in a news release. “Now is the time to push these initiatives forward,” he said.

An effort to get unions and airlines to reach a compromise in the 1990s failed, leaving 50-year-old rules that scientists who study fatigue say do little to promote safety.

Under current rules, pilots generally can fly up to eight hours a day. Their workday, which includes time on the ground between flights, can extend up to 16 hours. There are no restrictions on flying during the middle of the night or making numerous takeoffs and landings.

Curtis Graeber, a scientist who has studied pilot fatigue for nearly 30 years, said that research can better predict how long pilots should work than simple hourly limits.

Factors such as how many days in a row a pilot has worked and whether rest periods allow for a good night’s sleep should be used to limit flying time, Graeber said.

Airlines in Europe, Australia and New Zealand have begun adopting such rules. Graeber said he is not hopeful that the groups can reach agreement in this country.

“Getting that kind of consensus has proved challenging in the past,” he said.

Pilots have rejected attempts to extend the amount of time they can fly and airlines oppose changes that would restrict scheduling.
Airlines and the Air Line Pilots Association say they support the government’s effort.

DO YOU NOTE THE SENTENCE BEFORE THE LAST? > Pilots have rejected attempts to extend the amount of time they can fly and airlines oppose changes that would restrict scheduling.

Why not just put a squadron of fighter jets on standby – to escort runaway planes…and bill the airlines/Pilots Union?!

That would get somebody’s attention!

(Please remember: I’m ONLY posting on SUNDAY’S now, due to other commitments).

First Sunday Post – Parenting.

I always thought that I would not be a good parent because I have a Type A plus personality – quick temper, no patience (notice how many media types have this similar type of personality, with a super big ego?). 

However, I struggled along. I have dreams of becoming a Top Model or winning Survivor (TV reality show) and writing that winning screenplay. But although none of these have happened (yet!) I have managed to not live vicariously through my son. 

Well, confession: I used a mixture of threats, cajoling and bribes to get him to take an instrument at school. I wanted piano, he’s going for drums. But so far, I have not paraded him on national T.V…and there’s been no vomiting. Again, not yet! 

I’m not one of those people who think that parents should not profit off their kids. The little buggers profit off us for decades, sometimes forever! Go ahead, profit off them. Raising a kid is not easy and if that kid has a particular talent or skill that can help take that family off difficult times into the good life. I say, GO for it.

However, please parents, DO NOT USE THESE KIDS AS YOUR MEAL TICKET, even if he/she/they…is/are that meal ticket. 

I cannot stand to see parents parade their little girls on stage pushing them to do things the kids don’t want to do. Some do like it, some do have a natural bent for it and for them it’s OK. But many kids don’t, yet these parents push these kids into the limelight or on stage, because they are blinded by dollar signs. 

I used to take my son to auditions and I would overhear the coaching, the handling, and the managing – the prodding and the bullying and the cautioning: Say this. (You can tell from the parent’s tone/attitude and the child’s reaction which ones are being coerced.) Do this. Don’t do that it will ruin your hair/costume, whatever…and I’d feel sorry for those kids. 

Yes, sorry for those kids. We see what happens to child stars when they are not grounded, and even to some that are grounded. 

We forget that Einstein was not an actor or a basketball player. But he’s more famous and respected and honored than any sports star or Hollywood celebrity will ever be. 

(Please let me know if I am wrong, but:) Bill Gates was not a child star. 

Mother Theresa was not a child star. 

Jay Leno was not a child star. 

Marie Curie was not a child star. 

Do you remember the name of that cute little girl who played Bill Cosby’s youngest daughter on the Cosby show? 

Do you know who Bill Clinton is? HE was not a child star, but she (Keshia Knight Pulliam) was. Which person (not character) do you remember offhand? Would you recognize her in the street today? Would you recognize Clinton? Does she have Secret Service protection?

I’m just throwing out names at random to show that our kids DO NOT NEED TO BECOME YOUNG CELEBRITIES AND OVERACHIEVERS to leave their mark on the world. 

However, in the race for fame, celebrity, money and book deals (which is apparently ALL that counts these days) some of us, parents, seem to be seeing our kids as cash cows that we reckon we should milk every few hours! 

What set me off? The balloon story out of Colorado! 

I came home Thursday afternoon (Oct. 15, 2009) and there was this hot air balloon (home made) drifting in the sky. According to news reports, there is/was a 6-year-old inside and now he’s not, and maybe the kid fell out! 

What! A 6-year-old in a hot air balloon! What was he doing in the balloon, I’m asking my son? Why was he in the balloon in the first place? Was an adult with him? Did he fall out? What if he did fall out? 

I have visions of a broken body in a tree somewhere…

 And then…and then…we learn the kid was safe, hiding in his attic all along. 

Wow! Ok, that’s good. But…? 

Then I listen to the emergency calls and I learn the dad calls a local TV station and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) first, before calling 911. BEFORE calling 911?

 Your 6-year-old son is drifting off in a hot air balloon and 911 is your third call?

 Did he want to ensure that the government did NOT blast the balloon out of the air? Then the best thing would be to call 911, wouldn’t it?

If my son doesn’t get home from the school bus within minutes I’m calling him – where are you? And if for some reason I can’t reach him, I’m already thinking of what to tell the police to convince them that no, he didn’t run away and has never done this sort of thing before.

 So am I going to say it’s a hoax? Nope, can’t say that because for one, I’m afraid of lawsuits. This family seems to have a lot more money than I do. (Plus I make cookies; they make hot-air balloons!) They have an attic atop their garage – I don’t even have a garage! Or a parking spot!

 Police plan an announcement…I’m waiting to hear it.

In the meantime, please parents, (I think) it is better to have an emotionally secure, stable, well-adjusted kid who is not a celebrity, but doing well at school and has friends etc…than one who is getting chased by paparazzi or is paraded on live T.V. and has their embarrassing bodily malfunctions televised worldwide.

 And (in an unrelated incident) would I have let my kid sit on the floor at an awards show just to hold Pamela Anderson’s train? According to news reports, the 9-year-old girl did not have her own seat – she had to sit at Pamela’s feet all night!

Too much to say about this one…but WE are the sanctimonious finger-waggers who criticize child labor in India and other developing countries, where these kids work TO SURVIVE…AND SUPPORT ENTIRE FAMILIES.

See Why I Rave About Hypocrisy!

What do you think?

Sunday Blogger

Hello there… 

I just launched an online endeavor. 

I’ve wanted to do it for more than a year, but I was dragging my feet. I got the paperwork, set things up and was afraid to take the plunge.

I finally launched this week and it’s looking promising. But it takes a lot of my time. And I won’t be able to blog every day like I used to. 

So I’ve decided to bcome a Sunday Blogger. 

I got the idea from a report I saw on TV about a woman who only blogs on Sundays. I thought – perfect! I don’t have to give up blogging – and I can use my weekdays to focus on my enterprise! 

I will have a new post on Sunday.

Please come back. I still have lots of opinions…on everything, and I’m still NOT afraid to say them – well, most of them! 

Thanks,

Conlibe.