Tortoise
09-02 12:07 PM
I have applied for AP (I131) on 8/14/09 and my I-485 got approved on 9/01/09. Is USCIS is going to return my I131 fee or is there anything I have to initiate from my end to get the refund?.
Pls do let me know.
Thanks in advance.
Pls do let me know.
Thanks in advance.
wallpaper Mom Bethenny Frankel is
needhelp!
01-14 06:38 PM
Texas fellas :
Please sign up on this thread to volunteer for this Saturday's Booth in Richardson for getting maximum local visibility for IV letter campaign.
Your hard work will be rewarded with some goodies!
Please sign up on this thread to volunteer for this Saturday's Booth in Richardson for getting maximum local visibility for IV letter campaign.
Your hard work will be rewarded with some goodies!
Macaca
10-27 10:14 AM
America has a persuadable center, but neither party appeals to it (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502774.html) By Jonathan Yardley (yardleyj@washpost.com) | Washington Post, October 28, 2007
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America By Ronald Brownstein, Penguin. 484 pp. $27.95
These are difficult times for American politics at just about all levels, but especially in presidential politics, which has been poisoned -- the word is scarcely too strong -- by a variety of influences, none more poisonous than what Ronald Brownstein calls "an unrelenting polarization . . . that has divided Washington and the country into hostile, even irreconcilable camps." There is nothing new about this, he quickly acknowledges, and "partisan rivalry most often has been a source of energy, innovation, and inspiration," but what is particularly worrisome now "is that the political system is more polarized than the country. Rather than reducing the level of conflict, Washington increases it. That tendency, not the breadth of the underlying divisions itself, is the defining characteristic of our era and the principal cause of our impasse on so many problems."
Most people who pay reasonably close attention to American politics will not find much to surprise them in The Second Civil War, but Brownstein -- who recently left the Los Angeles Times to become political correspondent for Atlantic Media and who is a familiar figure on television talk shows -- has done a thorough job of amassing all the pertinent material and analyzing it with no apparent political or ideological axe to grind. He isn't an especially graceful prose stylist, and he's given to glib, one-word portraits -- on a single page he gives us "the burly Joseph T. Robinson," "the bullet-headed Sam Rayburn," "the mystical Henry A. Wallace" and "the flinty Harold Ickes" -- but stylistic elegance is a rare quality in political journalism in the best of times, and in these worst of times it can be forgiven. What matters is that Brownstein knows what he's talking about.
He devotes the book's first 175 pages -- more, really, than are necessary -- to laying the groundwork for the present situation. Since the election of 1896, he argues, "the two parties have moved through four distinct phases": the first, from 1896 to 1938, when they pursued "highly partisan strategies," the "period in modern American life most like our own"; the second, from the late New Deal through the assassination of John F. Kennedy, "the longest sustained period of bipartisan negotiation in American history," an "ideal of cooperation across party lines"; the third, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, "a period of transition" in which "the pressures for more partisan confrontation intensified"; and the fourth, "our own period of hyperpartisanship, an era that may be said to have fully arrived when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted on a virtually party-line vote to impeach Bill Clinton in December 1998."
As is well known, the lately departed (but scarcely forgotten) Karl Rove likes to celebrate the presidency of William McKinley, which serious historians generally dismiss out of hand but in which Rove claims to find strength and mastery. Perhaps, as Brownstein and others have suggested, this is because Rove would like to be placed alongside Mark Hanna, the immensely skilled (and immensely cynical) boss who was the power behind McKinley's throne. But the comparison is, indeed, valid in the sense that the McKinley era was the precursor of the Bush II era, which "harkened back to the intensely partisan strategies of McKinley and his successors." Bush's strategies are now widely regarded as failures, not merely among his enemies but also among his erstwhile allies on Capitol Hill, who grouse about "White House incompetence or arrogance." But Brownstein places these complaints in proper context:
"Yet many conservatives recognized in Bush a kindred soul, not only in ideology, but more importantly in temperament. Because their goals were transformative rather than incremental, conservative activists could not be entirely satisfied with the give and take, the half a loaf deal making, of politics in ordinary times. . . . In Bush they found a leader who shared that conviction and who demonstrated, over and again, that in service of his goals he was willing to sharply divide the Congress and the country."
This, as Brownstein notes, came from the man who pledged to govern as "a uniter, not a divider." Bush's service as governor of Texas had been marked by what one Democrat there called a "collaborative spirit," but "he is not the centrist as president that he was as governor." This cannot be explained solely by the influence of Rove, who appeared to be far more interested in placating the GOP's hard-right "base" than in enacting effective legislation. Other influences probably included a Democratic congressional leadership that grew ever more hostile and ideological, the frenzied climate whipped up by screamers on radio and television, and Bush's own determination not to repeat his father's second-term electoral defeat. But whatever the precise causes, the Bush Administration's "forceful, even belligerent style" assured nothing except deadlock on the Hill, even on issues as important to Bush as immigration and Social Security "reform."
Brownstein's analysis of the American mood is far different from Bush/Rove's. He believes, and I think he's right, that there is "still a persuadable center in American politics -- and that no matter how effectively a party mobilized its base, it could not prevail if those swing voters moved sharply and cohesively against it," viz., the 2006 midterm elections. He also believes, and again I think he's right, that coalition politics is the wisest and most effective way to govern: "The party that seeks to encompass and harmonize the widest range of interests and perspectives is the one most likely to thrive. The overriding lesson for both parties from the Bush attempt to profit from polarization is that there remains no way to achieve lasting political power in a nation as diverse as America without assembling a broad coalition that locks arms to produce meaningful progress against the country's problems." As Lyndon Johnson used to say to those on the other side of the fence, "Come now, let us reason together."
Yet there's not much evidence that many in either party have learned this rather obvious lesson. Several of the (remarkably uninspired) presidential candidates have made oratorical gestures toward the politics of inclusion, but from Hillary Clinton to Rudolph Giuliani they're practicing interest-group politics of exclusion as delineated in the Gospel According to Karl Rove. Things have not been helped a bit by the Democratic leadership on the Hill, which took office early this year with great promises of unity but quickly lapsed into an ineffective mixture of partisan rhetoric and internal bickering. Brownstein writes:
"Our modern system of hyperpartisanship has unnecessarily inflamed our differences and impeded progress against our most pressing challenges. . . . In Washington the political debate too often careens between dysfunctional poles: either polarization, when one party imposes its will over the bitter resistance of the other, or immobilization, when the parties fight to stalemate. . . . Our political system has virtually lost its capacity to formulate the principled compromises indispensable for progress in any diverse society. By any measure, the costs of hyperpartisanship vastly exceed the benefits."
Brownstein has plenty of suggestions for changing things, from "allowing independents to participate in primaries" to "changing the rules for drawing districts in the House of Representatives." Most of these are sensible and a few are first-rate, but they have about as much chance of being adopted as I do of being president. The current rush by the states to be fustest with the mostest in primary season suggests how difficult it would be to achieve reform in that area, and the radical gerrymandering of Texas congressional districts engineered by Tom DeLay makes plain that reform in that one won't be easy, either. Probably what would do more good than anything else would be an attractive, well-organized, articulate presidential candidate willing, in Adlai Stevenson's words, "to talk sense to the American people." Realistically, though, what we can look for is more meanness, divisiveness and cynicism. It's the order of the day, and it's not going away any time soon.
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America By Ronald Brownstein, Penguin. 484 pp. $27.95
These are difficult times for American politics at just about all levels, but especially in presidential politics, which has been poisoned -- the word is scarcely too strong -- by a variety of influences, none more poisonous than what Ronald Brownstein calls "an unrelenting polarization . . . that has divided Washington and the country into hostile, even irreconcilable camps." There is nothing new about this, he quickly acknowledges, and "partisan rivalry most often has been a source of energy, innovation, and inspiration," but what is particularly worrisome now "is that the political system is more polarized than the country. Rather than reducing the level of conflict, Washington increases it. That tendency, not the breadth of the underlying divisions itself, is the defining characteristic of our era and the principal cause of our impasse on so many problems."
Most people who pay reasonably close attention to American politics will not find much to surprise them in The Second Civil War, but Brownstein -- who recently left the Los Angeles Times to become political correspondent for Atlantic Media and who is a familiar figure on television talk shows -- has done a thorough job of amassing all the pertinent material and analyzing it with no apparent political or ideological axe to grind. He isn't an especially graceful prose stylist, and he's given to glib, one-word portraits -- on a single page he gives us "the burly Joseph T. Robinson," "the bullet-headed Sam Rayburn," "the mystical Henry A. Wallace" and "the flinty Harold Ickes" -- but stylistic elegance is a rare quality in political journalism in the best of times, and in these worst of times it can be forgiven. What matters is that Brownstein knows what he's talking about.
He devotes the book's first 175 pages -- more, really, than are necessary -- to laying the groundwork for the present situation. Since the election of 1896, he argues, "the two parties have moved through four distinct phases": the first, from 1896 to 1938, when they pursued "highly partisan strategies," the "period in modern American life most like our own"; the second, from the late New Deal through the assassination of John F. Kennedy, "the longest sustained period of bipartisan negotiation in American history," an "ideal of cooperation across party lines"; the third, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, "a period of transition" in which "the pressures for more partisan confrontation intensified"; and the fourth, "our own period of hyperpartisanship, an era that may be said to have fully arrived when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted on a virtually party-line vote to impeach Bill Clinton in December 1998."
As is well known, the lately departed (but scarcely forgotten) Karl Rove likes to celebrate the presidency of William McKinley, which serious historians generally dismiss out of hand but in which Rove claims to find strength and mastery. Perhaps, as Brownstein and others have suggested, this is because Rove would like to be placed alongside Mark Hanna, the immensely skilled (and immensely cynical) boss who was the power behind McKinley's throne. But the comparison is, indeed, valid in the sense that the McKinley era was the precursor of the Bush II era, which "harkened back to the intensely partisan strategies of McKinley and his successors." Bush's strategies are now widely regarded as failures, not merely among his enemies but also among his erstwhile allies on Capitol Hill, who grouse about "White House incompetence or arrogance." But Brownstein places these complaints in proper context:
"Yet many conservatives recognized in Bush a kindred soul, not only in ideology, but more importantly in temperament. Because their goals were transformative rather than incremental, conservative activists could not be entirely satisfied with the give and take, the half a loaf deal making, of politics in ordinary times. . . . In Bush they found a leader who shared that conviction and who demonstrated, over and again, that in service of his goals he was willing to sharply divide the Congress and the country."
This, as Brownstein notes, came from the man who pledged to govern as "a uniter, not a divider." Bush's service as governor of Texas had been marked by what one Democrat there called a "collaborative spirit," but "he is not the centrist as president that he was as governor." This cannot be explained solely by the influence of Rove, who appeared to be far more interested in placating the GOP's hard-right "base" than in enacting effective legislation. Other influences probably included a Democratic congressional leadership that grew ever more hostile and ideological, the frenzied climate whipped up by screamers on radio and television, and Bush's own determination not to repeat his father's second-term electoral defeat. But whatever the precise causes, the Bush Administration's "forceful, even belligerent style" assured nothing except deadlock on the Hill, even on issues as important to Bush as immigration and Social Security "reform."
Brownstein's analysis of the American mood is far different from Bush/Rove's. He believes, and I think he's right, that there is "still a persuadable center in American politics -- and that no matter how effectively a party mobilized its base, it could not prevail if those swing voters moved sharply and cohesively against it," viz., the 2006 midterm elections. He also believes, and again I think he's right, that coalition politics is the wisest and most effective way to govern: "The party that seeks to encompass and harmonize the widest range of interests and perspectives is the one most likely to thrive. The overriding lesson for both parties from the Bush attempt to profit from polarization is that there remains no way to achieve lasting political power in a nation as diverse as America without assembling a broad coalition that locks arms to produce meaningful progress against the country's problems." As Lyndon Johnson used to say to those on the other side of the fence, "Come now, let us reason together."
Yet there's not much evidence that many in either party have learned this rather obvious lesson. Several of the (remarkably uninspired) presidential candidates have made oratorical gestures toward the politics of inclusion, but from Hillary Clinton to Rudolph Giuliani they're practicing interest-group politics of exclusion as delineated in the Gospel According to Karl Rove. Things have not been helped a bit by the Democratic leadership on the Hill, which took office early this year with great promises of unity but quickly lapsed into an ineffective mixture of partisan rhetoric and internal bickering. Brownstein writes:
"Our modern system of hyperpartisanship has unnecessarily inflamed our differences and impeded progress against our most pressing challenges. . . . In Washington the political debate too often careens between dysfunctional poles: either polarization, when one party imposes its will over the bitter resistance of the other, or immobilization, when the parties fight to stalemate. . . . Our political system has virtually lost its capacity to formulate the principled compromises indispensable for progress in any diverse society. By any measure, the costs of hyperpartisanship vastly exceed the benefits."
Brownstein has plenty of suggestions for changing things, from "allowing independents to participate in primaries" to "changing the rules for drawing districts in the House of Representatives." Most of these are sensible and a few are first-rate, but they have about as much chance of being adopted as I do of being president. The current rush by the states to be fustest with the mostest in primary season suggests how difficult it would be to achieve reform in that area, and the radical gerrymandering of Texas congressional districts engineered by Tom DeLay makes plain that reform in that one won't be easy, either. Probably what would do more good than anything else would be an attractive, well-organized, articulate presidential candidate willing, in Adlai Stevenson's words, "to talk sense to the American people." Realistically, though, what we can look for is more meanness, divisiveness and cynicism. It's the order of the day, and it's not going away any time soon.
2011 May 8th, 2011
CRAZYMONK
08-03 08:22 AM
You read that correct. Your stay is legal until the decision on your case is done. It is nothing to do with your I94
more...
mariusp
03-14 07:36 PM
It's that time of the year, so here we go again:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143475-pg,1/article.html
The bill would prohibit companies from hiring H-1B workers, then outsourcing them to other companies, he said. H-1B opponents have complained that outsourcing companies are among the top users of H-1B visas.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143475-pg,1/article.html
The bill would prohibit companies from hiring H-1B workers, then outsourcing them to other companies, he said. H-1B opponents have complained that outsourcing companies are among the top users of H-1B visas.
Steve Mitchell
November 7th, 2003, 07:36 PM
I am eager to hear reports from the first users. I hope it is a killer camera. Nikon is a great manufacturer as is Canon. Healthy competition will only make it even nicer for the users of both systems.