The Message From Music Blogs

Cowerds those lebanese are firing rockets and attacking israel. When 2 countries are fighting. Lebonon is firing rockets. Cowerds!
Now the killing has gone mad. Apart from killing the innocent civilians, crazy war mongers started bombing schools and killing innocent school kids. Today two schools were bombed and more than 40 children have been massacred.

Its sad to see school children being brutally killed by missles and tanks. I don't understand how people could blow up innocent kids, women and men under the name of self-defence?

This world has gone crazy and there's no one questioning about this in-human atrocities committed against fellow human being.

Lets us pray for those who are going thru this hardship, and for an immediate end to this war crime.

How many more innocent civilians including children they are planning to kill?. All these so called peace loving nations blocking the UN from making a cease-fire resolution. Looks like so called freedom lovers want more innocent lives.

When Mumbai was attacked by terrorists, whole world was united and supported the victim(India). Now the same world is against the victim and encouraging more killing by not stopping the attrocities.

Last year's flower campaign was very successful. It created positive vibes for us all around. The reason for the campaign's success was it's novelty, non-confrontational approach and it's appeal to the sense of justice of the people that mattered.

With the EB3-I situation as it is, we definitely need to start a new and similar collective initiative as has been discussed in this thread. It is been generally agreed that the format of our initiative would be a letter, contact, and action based effort.

Not to be preaching to EB3-I-inans, but most of us are truly in a trance where we refuse the possibility of not getting a Green Card, at least when it is meaningful. To many of us this possibility is such a catastrophic event, that sub consciously we have not even provisioned for it. In the euphoria of EB2-I advancement, we forget that the relief is most likely temporary, and we go back to square one in OCT 2008. I think everybody who is still in immigration process, should take a part in this effort. For those who are already ashore, would be a nice gesture if you too lend a hand. On a personal level, I am glad that I am waking up from my laziness and apathy to do something on my own and not wait on others to do it for me.

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I want to use this post to outline a first cut for two things --
1. Compile a list of points that outlines the general message of what and why of we are doing.
2. Discuss the action items that accompany our message.

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1. Points for general message --

* We understand that immigration is a privilege and national interests are above our plight.

* We are highly educated and experienced residents. Most of us have been living in USA for more than past 7-8 years.

* We are in suspended limbo without knowing the timeline of what the future holds for us.

* When we started the immigration process, it was with implicit belief in the fairness and transparency of the system. The general labor substitution, paying money for Green cards and other abuses have thwarted this belief. This point should be emphasized.

* There were and still are lots of loopholes in the system. Till now, the process has glaringly rewarded the law breakers. As long as these distorted incentives remain, the priorities will be skewed for some.

* We are not here to rob anybody's livelihood. It is a symbiotic relationship. If it is not true and not good for USA, let us know. You cannot let few H1 scams discredit the whole ilk.

* We are tied to our jobs/positions; creative juices are suppressed; creating a secondary class of indentured labor.

* We cannot afford to do tech-speak (245, AC-21, EBs, ....) in the message. The message that we are trying to convey should be understood by the layman in 20-30 seconds.

* We should try to empathize with groups like Numbers-USA. Yes, they too have valid points. If we agree to their points and quote their valid issues, it will take some sting out of their message and work to both our advantage; more to ours.

* By being in this uncertain state, we cannot decide on big ticket items like buying a house, etc.

* We request respect and dignity versus treating us like a dumb herd of sheep. Give us more clear cut direction and transparency.


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2. Ideas for action item --

* Similar to flower campaign, we need to find a novel action that accompanies our message.

* This action item should somehow reflect that it is selfless and for a higher cause, which creates a general feeling of well-being.

* Some of things I thought of are -- contributing to Salvation Army / Goodwill, sponsoring education for children from low income family in USA, blood donation campaign, etc.

* Out of this, I think blood donation provides most bang for buck. The idea sounds like too extreme and desperate. It probably is, but it sends a strong signal, also subtleness of if-my-blood-is-good-enough......
Also other inherent benefits are it does not cost anything and is good for your health. And you can be very discrete about it, if you think of lobbying for your green card is stooping too low.

* For blood donation or any other option that is decided, attach proof of receipts/certificates along with our letter. Alongwith a national level office (USCIS director?), this should be sent out to all local representatives, news orgs, etc.

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This is a long post and I appreciate your patience in going through it. Please post your comments on this post and add any other ideas you deem fit. I think we all should move very fast and try to drum up as much attention as possible. The ultimate goal is to get some kind of direction or relief before the end of this year.


Thanks.

THERE IS THIS GOOD OLD BARBER IN SOME CITY IN THE AMERICA....

ONE DAY A FLORIST GOES TO HIM FOR A HAIRCUT. AFTER THE CUT, HE GOES TO PAY THE BARBER AND THE BARBER REPLIES: "I AM SORRY. I CANNOT ACCEPT MONEY FROM YOU.I AM DOING COMMUNITY SERVICE." THE FLORIST IS HAPPY AND LEAVES THE SHOP.

THE NEXT MORNING WHEN THE BARBER GOES TO OPEN HIS SHOP, THERE IS A THANK YOU CARD AND A DOZEN ROSES WAITING AT HIS DOOR.

A POLICEMAN GOES FOR A HAIRCUT AND HE ALSO GOES TO PAY THE BARBER AFTER THE CUT. BUT THE BARBER REPLIES:"I AM SORRY. I CANNOT ACCEPT MONEY FROM YOU. I AM DOING COMMUNITY SERVICE." THE COP IS HAPPY AND LEAVES THE SHOP.

THE NEXT MORNING THE BARBER GOES TO OPEN HIS SHOP, THERE IS A THANK YOU CARD AND A DOZEN DONUTS WAITING AT HIS DOOR.

AN INDIAN SOFTWARE ENGINEER GOES FOR A HAIRCUT AND HE ALSO GOES TO PAY THE BARBER AFTER THE CUT. BUT THE BARBER REPLIES: I AM SORRY. I CANNOT ACCEPT MONEY FROM YOU. I AM DOING COMMUNITY SERVICE. THE INDIAN SOFTWARE ENGINEER IS HAPPY AND LEAVES.

..Enjoy

THE NEXT MORNING WHEN THE BARBER GOES TO OPEN HIS SHOP, GUESS WHAT HE
FINDS
THERE...

CAN YOU GUESS?

DO YOU KNOW THE ANSWER YET?

COME ON, THINK LIKE A INDIAN....

A DOZEN INDIANS WAITING FOR A HAIRCUT........!!!!!
well most of us guessed the answer because as soon as we read about the barber we were thinking of asking whether you knew his address!!

Glad to know that you remember me. I don’t understand your logic, do you mean to say that I go to my house only on weekends, or do you mean to say that people who live in apartments spend the weekdays with family and go to work only on weekends?. What is your point dude?.
what is your point duuude when you say "Let’s say you have a small kid and you are living in an apartment, after 10 years you save enough money to buy a big house and you then eventually you buy it. Then you ask the your kid “do you like the house?”. He will reply “it’s very nice dad, but can you give you give my childhood now?.”
do you mean to say all those who are renting will buy after 10 years or do you mean to say that children who grow up in rented house or appt ..don't have a childhood ?? as it was mentioned in earlier posts ..there is a greater chance that your son / daughter will find a likeminded play friend in a good apartment complex then in a subdivision of houses.

Yes, they definitely have...Hamas should stop using school kids as human shield before complaining. Heres link for you - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elyXQ6g-TJs

You just go and see this video. Sent by some tamil media.

http://kalaiy.blogspot.com/2009/01/you-tube.html

If you can figure out what these words have in common...

...., you are a lot smarter than I am. And no, it isn't 6 letters in each word; you need a little more moxey than that.

Banana
Dresser
Grammar
Potato
Revive
Uneven
Assess

Are you peeking or have you already given up? Give it another try.... You'll kick yourself when you discover the answer.


Go back and look at them again; think hard. OK... Here you go. Hope you didn't cheat.



Answer: In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter, place it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word.

I know that many people don't like it when their companies revoke I-140. They are not under any legal obligation to do so once the 140 is approved.

However; to protect all the people who are still there then they should revoke the 140 for people who have left so there is less burden to prove ability to pay in case uscis adds up all cases together. I work on a lot of these cases and they are pretty complicated to solve.

There was a case which we termed "baltimore" (mainly because it was decided by baltimore local office); essentially AAO said that a person can use ac21 within the same company (ie., for another job, another work location, etc.). That opened the door which some smart ass employers started to exploit. If one of their employees was eligible for ac21 they justified it by revoking 140 (even though person is still workin with them) and doing labor substitution for another candidate by thinking that first person is protected and i can use it for second person.

From a purety point of view; in your scenario since there is no labor substitution then it shouldn't be a problem; however, in pre labor substitution days if you went back to work for the company in ac21 and they used the labor for someone else then it would pose some challenges.

UN - As you are also a beneficiary of AC21 - what is your take on wrongful denials of 485 for AC21 cases that need to be resolved by MTR? Is it a training issue?

We need to concentrate our efforts in achieving relief for everyone in the EB community whether they are EB1/2/3 India/China or ROW. This infighting or dispersed efforts will not yield any results.

We should all strive for the passage of the 3 Lofgren Bills. Please contact your state chapter and help IV channel our efforts where it could be effective.

One observation: I am seeing a lot of individual efforts by many folks. I did not see their participation when we were trying for passage of the 3 bills through letter campaigns and phone campaigns.
Well at least you have woken up now...I will not complain.

Let us focus our efforts and get permanent fix instead of some temporary move by a screwed up system which at the end of each FY bumps up numbers in a one upmanship between DOS and USCIS. We all are caught in the middle and suffer.

My request to all the people re energized, we could really use your help in working on the lobbying efforts. Please contact your state lead as the issue cannot be posted on open IV forms.

Nobody's gonna come to wipe your ass. You gotta do it yourself.

Yeah man, you put it correclty. India was always hoping that would happen.

Did you mentiopn like Phani_6 that your lawyer filed Eb3 on advice from DOL inspite of you qualifying for Eb2?

I already mailed the Letter to Visa Section, DOS with a request to allocate some Visa Number to EB-3(India) to help to reduce the wait time. Did not mention about EB-2 or any other thing. Just a Request for EB-3 (India).

AO? Adjudicating officer?

Good luck, keep us posted.

Yes..

Thank you :D

The Pakistani security establishment believes, and there is probably some truth in it, that India is already supporting groups that are trying to destabilize Pakistan. And because of that, they view India as an existential threat to Pakistan, and justify their own activities.

Its quite a vicious circle.....

It would be a viscious circle if prime tragets inside Pakistan were being attacked 'visciously' by militant groups enjoying 'moral & political' support from India. Is there a militant group worth its 'Jahadi' salt inside Pakistan that enjoys this 'moral & political' support from India now? Either the Indian side is doing a very poor job of covert ops or not doing anything at all. There is almost no cost to Pakistan from India from Proxy war. I am suggesting increasing the cost for Pakistan and/or anti-Indian groups/institutions inside Pakistan for such attacks in India.

This proxy war (or viscious circle) is almost exclusively being fought on the Indian soil now. All I am saying is move the center of this viscious circle to Paki soil rather than fight it out on Indian soil.

But I agree that this thread is irrelevant to this forum and I apologize in advance for perpetuating this thread. My last post here.

Your leverage is $270,000 in this investment, and you pay 5% interest on it which is tax deductible. You don't suppose one can borrow 270Gs to invest in, per my example, S&P 500 to get 10% annually? Of course the you are able to borrow that much on a home is because it is considered relatively a safe debt for the lender. That can't be said for stocks.

How/where else will you earn $15,000 (equity) per year by spending $13,500 (interest).

EDIT:
Remember, every payment I make, I also include the principal payment, so I am closer to owning more of my home as time passes.

>> But going with the spirit of my original post, in the long run, the equity you build (15K/yr) will far out weigh the yearly savings you get by renting.

You are right in 90% of cases - where people will otherwise spend the money and not save it.

If you have a mortgage - you are "forced" to save because the monthly amortization automatically builds equity. If you are renting - you are not "forced" to save that amount - and hence would probably be spent (in my case) in a gaming machine with I7 processor (which has NO long term value).

However, in the hypothetical 10% scenario (in case of immigrants, specially Indians, my gut feel is that it is significantly more than 10%) - where the amount is saved in some sort of investment vehicle instead of being frittered away - you would come out ahead in the long term.

Yewwwww. Stupid morons get to run the show on CNN who consider guest worker program for Illegal Aliens and H1B the same.

I dont understand why USCIS has to release data to a random attorney guy.
Why the hell doesnt he know how many H1B's are being issued every year? Is this attorney guy sleeping or what? 65K and they are gone on May26th 2006Huh?

Why do you write 'I know this mess is depressing for EB3 folks' ?
Is IV not with Eb3 folks? Or are they not important.

Let me clear somethings.
Earning in higher 70Ks in the year 2003 and with over 5+ years of progressive experience, they still went ahead a filed my app under EB3. Was that a mistake? Not mine. My employer knew that Eb3 would be slower.

What happened? cases like mine were eye openers and learning experiences for comrades who were going to file and they filed under EB2, I asked friends and relatives and classmates of mine to file under Eb2.
Am i happy for them? No, I hate them. Of course, I am happy for them. Very very much.

So, why would you not fight for us?

If people like me and filers before me had not filed under EB3, and not shared our experiences, how would we have progressed?

Suddenly, 'You Eb3 folks are depressed' from 'We folks are depressed'. lol for chauvinism.

Answering some of the posts:
Decisions taken by an employer to file in EB3 or advice by the lawyer to file in EB3 instead of EB2 (even if you disagree with the lawyer) cannot be the basis for administration to change the rules. It is an 'employment based' system and employer files the petition for the employee. You cannot write in the letter to DOS that your employer filed for EB3 even though you qualify for EB2 and thus you are entitled for xyz. Administration can only work within the legal limits. They cannot create more visas. If you are going to ask for more visas, they will tell you it will be done via a bill so that the law is changed and EB3 gets more visas. And thus we have to go for bills like recapture, STEM exemption and country caps. We already ran the admin fix campaign precisely for that reason to get things that we can get without changing the law. Recapture was added after much thought even though we knew it is a long shot. If we want more visas, then it has to be done legislatively. If we plan to do something via administration, then our list of items must be thoroughly researched they must offer solutions within the current law. It should merely be a regulation that provides guidance on the current law. Each item in the admin fix campaign did that.

And please stop taking out your anger on IV or each other. Take it out on the system that has caused problems for all of us and help each other fix this system. IV is everyone and we need to work together to fix it.

Why are be debating 3 - 4 years rent vs own? As the subject indicates "long" term prospects of buying a home..we of all the ppl should know the meaning of the word "long" based on our "long" wait for PD (which I think should be renamed to retrogress date because I see nothing priority about it)..the point being lets debate 10 years rent vs own..as against 3-4...I think over a 10 year timeline the buyers would come out ahead of the renters..maybe not in CA but in other states that's quite likely..

coz, next 3-4 years make it special due to immigration status and special status of the economy and you can plan for 5-7 years but whats going to happen after that is beyond anyone.

I was watching Lou Dobbs yesterday he was discussing STRIVE act being introduced in house,

He pulled out a slide which says they bring 2 million legals every year and part of which said 400,000 H1Bs every year,

Where does he get this number when anual quota is only 65K, can some one verify this

I have seen him do this earlier also. I think he adds the dependants too. So, what he is saying is that with every H-1B comes 5 or 6 dependants!!!!

we may be thinking that the points below are a worst case scenario but according to the famous economist Roubini - this is a likely one.
on the lighter side - if this really happens then even the mighty GC would finally become just a card.:rolleyes:
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1. We are experiencing the worst US housing recession since the Great Depression and this housing recession is nowhere near bottoming out. Housing starts have fallen 50% but new home sales have fallen more than 60% thus creating a glut of new –and existing homes- that is pushing home prices sharply down, already 10% so far and another 10% in 2008. With home prices down 10% $2 trillion of home wealth is already wiped out and 6 million households have negative equity and may walk away from their homes; with home prices falling by year end 20% $4 trillion of housing wealth will be destroyed and 16 million households will be in negative wealth territory. And by 2010 the cumulative fall in home prices will be close to 30% with $6 trillion of home equity destroyed and 21 million households (40% of the 51 million having a mortgage being underwater). Potential credit losses from households walking away from their homes (“jingle mail”) could be $1 trillion or more, thus wiping out most of the capital of the US financial system.
2. In 2001 it was the corporate sector (10% of GDP or real investment) to be in trouble. Today it is the household sector (70% of GDP in private consumption) to be in trouble. The US consumer is shopped out, saving-less, debt burdened (debt being 136% of income) and buffeted by many negative shocks: falling home prices, falling home equity withdrawal, falling stock prices, rising debt servicing ratios, credit crunch in mortgages and – increasingly – consumer credit, rising oil and gasoline prices, falling employment (now for three months in a row), rising inflation eroding real incomes, sluggish real income growth.
3. The US is experiencing its most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. This is not just a subprime meltdown. Losses are spreading to near prime and prime mortgages; they are spreading to commercial real estate mortgages. They will spread to unsecured consumer credit in a recession (credit cards, auto loans, student loans). The losses are now increasing in the leveraged loans that financed reckless and excessively debt-burdened LBOs; they are spreading to muni bonds as default rates among municipalities will rise in a housing-led recession; they are spreading to industrial and commercial loans. And they will soon spread to corporate bonds – and thus to the CDS market – as default rates – close to 0% in 2006-2007 will spike above 10% during a recession. I estimate that financial losses outside residential mortgages (and related RMBS and CDOs) will be at least $700 billion (an estimate close to a similar one presented by Goldman Sachs). Thus, total financial losses – including possibly a $1 trillion in mortgages and related securitized products - could be as high as $1.7 trillion.

oh thats the price YOU are willing to bear? How? By staying comfy in the US? Its easy to say dude when you are 7000 miles away. If you (and i know you are not) or anyone in your family is in the military, you would not dare to make such a stupid statement.

This whole thread is ridiculous and should be deleted. It has no place in immigration forums.

Your post is a little rude. War is not good.
But your argument can be turned against you. 'So many suffered in Bombay blast and got killed. They need justice. And so many suffer everyday. It is comfy for you to sit here and say peace and ignore the terror attacks. If you or anyone in your family has suffered these terror...' You got the point?

Donot forget to send the webfax :)

Since most comments in here are against buying a house, I'd like to show one positive/lucky experience.

I bought my house in 2003 while I was on Labor stage, RIR.
I bought the house for the benefit of my kids as well as investment. We needed a bigger house as my kids grew and all my kids' friends lived in their own houses.
I chose the house in the best school zone from the area.

Luckily my house price went up about 50% since I bought, even 5% from last year.
I live in one of those few cities in the nation where the price went up.
And we got our GC last year, august.
Yes, Very lucky.

Well, sometimes, you just have to take a chance, and stop calculating and see what happens.