guapacha.com

Having suffered the delights of H1-B visa processing before becoming a permanent resident I like to watch the highs and lows of the visa and immigration world. There is a cap on how many new H1-B visitors (specialty workers, such as computer programmers) the country will allow and it is almost always exhausted. For 2005, this cap has almost already been reached and the USCIS is no longer accepting applications for start dates prior to October 1 2005!!!

The financial year for immigration starts October 1st; the USCIS is stating that applications received on or after October 2nd 2004 are being returned as those applications were too late for this year’s processing! Just amazing; it gets harder and harder to work in this country.

I never had much faith in the US media before I came to the US but the more I view it the less respect I have for it. Take the latest video of the marine ‘executing’ a terroist. Ok, its not a nice thing to have happen but its a war and these things happen. Compare this with a ‘news’ program at the weekend discussing the new ‘beheading’ video being sold by the Virgin recordstore. The presenter was clearly outraged that such a thing exists and certainly would never show such a thing – so how come its ok to show the US marine over and over again. The host for the ‘beheading’ video was superb, dealt with the presenter with great skill but made one great point: people should see the videos that terrorists make of beheadings and other executions/terror, then the true context of the marine ‘execution’ will be understood. But the US media would rather let everyone think that the terrorists are the good guys in all this. Thank heaven for the BBC News

The most amazing thing to me about the election is not the size of the Republican party’s win, or even that they won, but that the news media, the oh-so-on-the-pulse political blogs have been totally out of touch with what the American people wanted. For a year, hell even up until late last night, we were told that Kerry, or at least a change, was what the country wanted. I’d like to think that the news networks will re-evaluate their method of making, I mean reporting, the news in future but I am sure that won’t happen.

By the way, 2004 election props to the BBC for the best webpage showing the minute-by-minute election results.

Its here, election day 2004, no more will I have to watch Kerry and lickspittle Edwards promise to give me whatever I want in return for my vote (psst I don’t get a vote). Instead we’ll either be watching them trying to congratulate President Bush (my bet: they will be very poor losers), or watching them dancing in ex-President Bush’s (my bet: he will be a gracious loser) face whilst thinking ‘crap, now we actually need some ideas on what to do’. Either way its all good, as they say in France, plus la change, plus c’est la meme chose.

Btw, I should point out that I am far from being a Republican and disagree with a lot of their policies. However I find Kerry and Edwards most objectionable individuals and would rather see a Republican win than have them rewarded with the Office.