peterchen wrote: As long as peoply rather buy cheap than good, there's no question where this will lead. People don't just choose cheap products, they choose the best products they can afford, which happens to be worse than the products they can't afford. Not every country with cheap (and cheaper) labor can produce the same quality products as India and China. Also, if the same products were produced in US and Germany with the same cost, the quality will probably be even lower.

Orbital^ wrote: do we need visa's to move in China? Yes, you do. But it's probably not a good idea. There more people looking for work there than anywhere else in the world, take the US unemployment number and multiply it by 10 at least. ;)

I liked the grocery stores called Fiesta, very fresh fruits and vegetables. :) Housing is relatively cheap, but property tax is high.

Nishant S wrote: Do all Texas homes have central air conditioning? I don't know. The last time I was in Houston (end of December 1995), the temperature outside the airport was 88 degrees! In the summer, the absolute temperature is not that high (only about 100), but the humidity will kill you.

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: In Los Angeles, Houses on postage-stamp-sized lots and with less than 2000 square feet (and that don't even have central air/heat) are selling for $700,000+. I moved from San Diego (where prices are comparable to those in L.A.) to Texas, and bought a 2200 sqft house on 3/4 acre for less than $109,000. But do you get the same kind of nice weather in Texas? You don't need central air/heat in San Diego, I am sure you need industry-strength-central-air in Texas to keep your brain from being fried. ;P

Is the project (porting CodeProject to .NET) cancelled or still going on? Just curious.

brianwelsch wrote: I'm not sure doing hard work for ridiculous wages is any different from the lifestyle they were leaving in the first place, so its hardly punishment. Regardless of their previous life styles, if they do hard work and getting paid much less, that is punishment (for breaking the law). Why would anyone comes into this country and expects to live worse than in their own country? In reality, some poeple do live worse, but they expect their life to get better at a later time brianwelsch wrote: Also, they manage to get health care, etc. without putting much back into the system. So I'm starting to think maybe they aren't being exploited as much they are exploiting. I think the exploitation by illegal immigrants are grossly exagerated by politicians. There is no doubt that some of them exploited the system, but as illegal immigrants their biggest fear is getting caught and being deported. I am sure most of them don't get any health care at all. I also heard that IRS has been encouraging illegal immigrants to pay income taxes and some of them did pay. Basically IRS is saying "we know you are here illegally, but we are not going to use the tax information you provided to help the INS to deport you". brianwelsch wrote: (I'm a rules guy ) If all rules are followed, then a large portion (may be most) of the legal immigrants won't have their legal status in this country. This is because when they first entered this country, they were using non-immigrant visas but thinking that some day they could live here permanently. However, they were greeted by INS officers at the border with the following question: "Do you have any intention to immigrate to the United States?" If they answered truthfully (yes), they would not be allowed into the country, period. According to the law, your legal immigration status should be taken away if you provided false information when entering this country. When you visit your parents next time, ask them what kind of visa they had when they first came to USA and also ask them if they thought about staying in this country permanently at that time. brianwelsch wrote: Never heard of this. My parents even after living here for 22-23 years, had to go through naturalization with forms and tests and ceremony. The illegal immigrants who stayed here long enough have to do the same paper work to get their legal status, however the INS won't de

brianwelsch wrote: My parents came in legally, the way immigrants should come in. They've worked there ass off to create a a great life for their family. As I know many other immigrants do too. However, whether you can immigrate to this country legally (and maintain legal status) depends too much on luck (where you were born, who you knew, etc.). Somehow I think the current system is fair: illegal immigrants broke the law when they came in, they were punished by doing hard work and getting ridiculous wages until they obtained legal status. I don't know if you heard it or not, once an illegal immigrant stayed in this country for 20-25 years, he is automatically entilted to get legal status. So even the goverment thinks being an illegal immigrant for more than 20 years is enough punishment for a person. brianwelsch wrote: I don't think anyone is blaming all the countries ills on illegal immigrants Some extremely conservative politicians do blame immigrants (including legal ones) for all the problems. brianwelsch wrote: I don't agree with exploiting them for cheap labor either. That's entirely an economical issue. Some business have to choose immigrants over citizens because otherwise they will have to move the business overseas to survive compitetion. brianwelsch wrote: A further issue with getting rid of illegal immigrants has, I think, to do with the decreasing rate of population growth and increasing numbers of retirement aged citizens. The millions of illegal immigrants will have subsequent millions of legal US-born children, who will help to pay for Baby Boomer SS checks, provide a larger labor-force, etc.... Pretty helpful. Ok, now I see you are not one of the extremely conservative politicians ;)

brianwelsch wrote: My ancestors, BTW, were in Germany until 1965, so they had approximately nothing to do with how native americans were treated. So you are the son/daughter of recent immigrants, you should know the hardship experienced by almost every immigrant in this country (USA). In case you don't know, just ask your parents. Immigrants just want to work for a better life, legally or illegally. I don't think they bring any harm (relatively speaking) to this country. brianwelsch wrote: Anyway, shitty behaviour in the past does not justify shitty behaviour in the present. No, it doesn't (justify). However if this country wants to get rid of all illegal immigrants, it is not that hard to do. We should not exploit the cheap labor provided by illegal immigrants and then blame all of our problems on them.

brianwelsch wrote: go work your ass off somewhere else, For your ancestors that soemwhere else would be a tiny country in europe, right? ;P Oh, I forgot your ancestors did get invitation from the natives and they later became dear friends. :laugh:

"ILLEGAL immigrant who lives off hard-working taxpayers." Who is working harder (and getting paid less) than illegal immigrants? :confused:

brianwelsch wrote: I feel that we have a strong tendency to want to take any event and wring out every tear, honor every courageous act, and package it all up into a nice marketable story documenting how the human spirit is alive and well. I agree with you, it bugs me too. brianwelsch wrote: About the lying, ... the church does it You mean, there is no God? :laugh: brianwelsch wrote: what difference does it make when you get down to the details. You won't know the whole story ever anyway. It makes a huge difference. If GWB said "it is unlikely that Saddam has any WMD according to our intelligience", do you think the majority would still support the war? You can mislead most of the poeple for a while, sometimes "a while" is long enough to conduct one or two wars.

Megan Forbes wrote: I'd love to know what Jessica Lynch makes of all this. She lost all memory about what happened, according to the news at the time. I don't believe the military is totally innocent in this matter, they could have denied such reports a lot sooner.

brianwelsch wrote: Exactly. I think they were working on getting the rights for a movie the same day the story broke. Disgusting really. There is nothing disgusting about getting the movie rights, if they don't make up the story. However, how do you know the media is responsible (for lying) in this particular case?

Russell Morris wrote: We couldn't have fooled the Russians with even the technology we have today - they would have called us on it. Yes, we could. Think star wars. ;P P.S. I wasn't really question the moon landing, by the way.

Stan Shannon wrote: This is nothing more than the Washington Post trying to cover its own ass for sloppy reporting. Actually, the article suggested cover up by the military or the government. The story was told by unnamed military source and no reporter has been fired for fabricating it yet. Here is a quote from the article (and there are plenty of places in the article suggesting the same thing): "Why did none of the other POWs talk about Lynch? Were they told not to? Certainly, Lynch's privacy about her ordeal needs to be protected. But the official curtain of silence has extended to everything about the incident from the start." Being a die-hard capitalist, you should have trusted the private organizations (media in this case) more than the goverment or the military, right? ;P

This might be a repost[^], I just read it. The original Post front-page story on April 3 was headlined "She Was Fighting to the Death." It reported, based on unnamed U.S. officials, that Lynch fought fiercely after her unit was ambushed, shot several enemy soldiers and continued firing until running out of ammunition and even after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds. She also was stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position, the story said. I can't help thinking after reading, maybe we didn't go to the moon after all :(

Marc Clifton wrote: every child dreams of (I hate using the term) super-powers Adults are no exception either. :)

Colin Davies wrote: I think you need to put yourself in the mind of a 9yr old in the yr 2003, and not when you were 9. That's it! I was trying to remember what I liked when I was 9 year old. ;)

I am glad to spend the $19 for my 4th grade son (he finished it in 3 days) but I don't understand why it is so attactive to young children. I would never like such a book. What do you think?