Free Republic

I close my eyes, and think of home,
Another city goes by, in the night,
Ain’t it funny how it is, you never miss it til it’s gone away,
And my heart is lying there and will be til my dying day

Wasted Years - one of my favorite Iron Maiden songs.

Evil at its purest form. Horrific!

Ok, so the country of India - a 3rd world nation - has widespread poverty and ‘filth’. So how exactly is that connected to a second generation AMERICAN of Indian origin winning an AMERICAN contest?

Your reflexive attempt to connect the above two indicates that you cannot see an INDIVIDUAL in a context other than the race they belong to.

To put it simply - you saw a person of Indian origin and the first thing you posted was “they” stink

You are a racist - plain and simple. And an especially odoriferous one at that.

Who is “them” I pray ask? Anyone whose parents/ancestors may have been from India or thereabouts? Or is it anyone with brown skin and a name that you have difficulty pronouncing? I have visited 30+ countries around the world and have worked for a couple of months in India. I find your stereotyping awful and unworthy of this forum.

Nonsense. I have zero doubts about Mitt. He’s as conservative as Barack Obama.

If you take an average group of wealthy, middle class and indigent people and redistribute the money, the wealthy people will likely end up wealthy and the formerly poor will get back to poverty within a few years. This is how nature works. We are created that way.

That said, America is heading the redistributive way inevitably. A GOP win in the near term is likely to be a mere speedbump for the process.

Pakistan “falling” to the Taliban is like saying Tony Sporano “falling” to a life of crime.

Pakistan IS the Taliban or rather the Taliban are a product of the Pakistani military.

It is only to appease us and get an endless stream of cash that the Pakistanis pretend to fight the Taliban every now and then. When our pressure dies off, the Pakistanis and their Taliban buddies meet up, divide the shakedown money and party on like its 1999.

I once stayed in Pakistan working for a defense contractor and still keep in touch with the few secular minded ex-army officers from Pakistan. They all tell me that the ISI and the Pakistani Generals laugh at the ease with which they can push our buttons and extract more dollars, even as their own country goes to hell in a handbasket.

When did America become a haven for third world detritus?

I don’t believe H-1Bs are primarily used by Silcon Valley firms, but rather by top US corporations’ IT departments. In any case, to the extent that there are still tech jobs in the US, forcing firms to pay more than they could elsewhere would only hurt us in the long-run. Other than core governmental functions and national security related jobs, there should be no reason to use tariffs or barriers, even if that is a hard thing to say at a time like this.

First, you have to realize that the Cold War ended about 20 years ago.

The most under-reported success of George W. Bush’s 8 years in office has been the warming of US-India ties. It is not like India has a dearth of offers for defense cooperation and sales. France, UK and most importantly Israel are more than happy to give the Indians anything that they cannot make on their own or get from their largest supplier, Russia.

The 8-years of warming paid off when India signed a $2.1 billion deal with Boeing for the P-8I Poseidon maritime recon planes - a contract that Russia was really unhappy that India went with the US.

Given that the biggest defense intellectual property danger we face is from China and given that we have been more than generous with Pakistan, it is insane to let some bureaucrat mess up a potential $100 B market in a country that is fundamentally aligned with us and getting closer to our interests by the day, not the least because of a growing Chinese threat.

Yup, any profit seeking entity would work to find a cheaper employee who can get the job done. That is the driver of H-1Bs and other such visa programs.

However, if you believe that these same corporations would pay top dollar to US citizen employees if only visa programs were banned, then you are mistaken.

If the government bans the H-1B and other similar programs, companies might hire Americans for the short-term, but many would seek to offshore entire segments of their business to places like India. In other words, entire lines of businesses would move - because as long as there exist people in other parts of the world who can do the same job for a fraction of what we pay here, and with improving long-distance communication technologies etc., it will be hard to prevent the sheer force of economics using artificial barriers.

It may sound cold and uncaring, but corporations exist to serve the interests of their shareholders and not the citizens of countries where they may have been founded in or operate it.

What is this Dimmycrat obsession with “Middle Class”? Their policies are aimed at getting successful Americans down one notch by another until they are on the dole.

LOL. This is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while.

The source seems fishy. 120,000 men would be hard to supply.

The interesting thing is that India had offered to send troops to Afghanistan many times but the Bush administration vetoed it to not anger Pakistan.

LeT’s 15,000 fighters in a conventional setting are good for target practice for standoff weapons.

Where they are likely to cause havoc is by doing more Mumbai style attacks. In 2002, they got into an Indian army barracks and slaughtered several dozen innocents - wives and kids of Indian troops.

Think about how our troops would react if they feared the enemy could kill their kids?

Maybe if groups like the LeT openly join hands with the Pakistan army, instead of the covert role today, we might overcome our reluctance to take care of Pakistan once and for all.

If another 9/11 were to happen, it is likely to come from Pakistan. Let’s not forget that.

PS: Thanks for the ping. Someone I knew died at Mumbai. What an awful tragedy!

Not good enough. Pakistan should not get a single dollar of US aid or IMF loans until all culprits are hanged and the ISI is cleaned up for good.

The Pakistan army bastards are responsible for this. They are under pressure because after Mumbai, we are calling them on their double game and they want to send us a message that they will mess with our supplies.

I say, we start plans for an air bridge to Kabul similar to Berlin after WW2 and then let the Indians have at the Pakistanis.

There will be no peace in South and Central Asia until Pakistan is denuclearaized and broken up into manageable countries.

Wind is unreliable and cannot be more than a small fraction of US supply given our grid requirements. Too much wind power in a grid will cause it to crash. Ideally we sshould have nuclear power covering majority of the baseload and a few gas plants taking care of the peak demand.

The really Wealthy will have the means to hire $$$ accountants and avoid paying taxes. It is the people working their ass off to chase the American dream who will pay through the nose so that Obambi can spread their hard earned money to the proles. Progressive taxation is a sure fire way to discourage people from dreaming big and working for it.

Exactly! So did I. All the Bushbots who cheered on the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping will have no place to hide when Obama uses the same statutes and powers against pro-life groups, second amendment advocates and any conservative opposition to his rule. Checks and balances need to be there for a reason.