You are a liar. I watched the Warner volunteers place those signs at 2:30 PM, on both sides of the road in front of the sign. They were young people, college aged, and were wearing Warner T-shirts. At about 4 PM, some people from the local Dem party noticed that others were snapping pictures of the Warner signs in front of the Billboard, and it dawned on them that perhaps having Warner associated with illegal immigration wasn’t such a good thing. They went and pulled the signs that were directly in front of the billboard, but left the ones on the other side of the street. I watched the entire “show” from my spot under the trees, right next to the VRE parking lot. I was right across the street, sitting on a blanket.

That accounts for one of the THREE Warner signs that were in front of the MWB sign. Right before the festival I saw a mob of Warner supporters putting signs in/on/around anything in Old town that didn’t move.

Nice try.

Also, I was at the festival and had the pleasure of meeting both Warner and Gilmore before the downpour hit. Too bad they couldn’t get together after the deluge and had a picture taken together. Warner was drenched and Gilmore was slightly less drenched.

The Dems do this every election year. They flood the City with campaign staff from outside the area, and the local Dem committee encourages this illegal action. Soccas did it. Feder did it. Webb did it. Gore did it. Kerry did it. All were eventually fined by the city. About the only Dems who followed the rules in recent years were Rishell and Colgan, and I suspect this was because their campaigns didn’t want the fines.

I was at the festival, and pointed this out to the Dems working their booth. They just laughed at me and told me to look up the 1st ammendment. I call it arrogance. The think the rules don’t apply to them.

I went to the 4th of July festival and did not see any Republican signs illegally placed. If you saw them please tell us where they were.

Junes_Reston,

A little nasty are you? Looks like you got up a little too early today. Do you know how many people ran in the city election? Do you have a clue about what goes on in the Manassas/PWC area besides what you read on the blogs?

Don’t you live in Fairfax or something?

A little nasty are you? Looks like you got up a little too early today. Do you know how many people ran in the city election? Do you have a clue about what goes on in the Manassas/PWC area besides what you read on the blogs?

Don’t you live in Fairfax or something?

JUNES_RESTON - With a new mayor and vice mayor on board, perhaps they might see the wisdom of not putting out the ‘welcome mat’ to speak at the city council meetings from those outside of the cities jurisdiction!

Here’s the results from the SBE. There were three names on the ballot.

RACE CANDIDATE VOTE VOTE% STATISTICS DETAILS
Member, City Council
(MANASSAS CITY)

Steven S. Smith 1,238 32.93% Precincts Reporting:
6 of 6 (100%) Votes by Precinct

Jonathan L. “Jon” Way 1,199 31.89%

Mark D. Wolfe 1,234 32.82%

Write In 88 2.34%

You don’t have to live in the city to know that the voter turnout averages less than 20%. AND …. these are the people who RE-ELECTED Steven Smith (who opposed 287(g)).

When 80% of the voters don’t even bother to vote, you dont’ have to live in the city to see that apathy prevails.

Maybe your time would have been better spent encouraging people to get out and vote rather than trying to defend your “complaint” time.

I didn’t think you lived in the city.

Despite mounting concern about a deteriorating economy and ensuing layoffs, Congress, in response to prodding by business interests, has introduced legislation to import more foreign born workers. While much of the media coverage has focused on the H1B visas, the L1-visa has emerged as a growing avenue for employers to bring in foreign specialized workers instead of hiring Americans. Press reports indicate some international companies may be misusing L-l visas to circumvent the worker protections in the H-lBs and displace American workers.

The L visa program was created to enable multinational corporations to temporarily transfer their top level executives, managers or employees with “specialized knowledge” of the corporation to assist its affiliates in the United States.[1]The program was not intended to admit rank-and-file employees having no special knowledge of the corporation and who compete with U.S. workers.

There is growing concern that the L-1B visa, which has no numerical limit, serves as a way to avoid the H-1B cap for some employers. Besides being numerically unrestricted, the L-1 visa has other advantages. Unlike the H-1B visa, the L-1 visa has no labor certification requirement to ensure recipients are paid the prevailing wage and American workers are not displaced.[2] The permissibility of spousal employment represents another potential advantage. The accompanying spouses of L-1 recipients are given L-2 visas and it is generally lawful for an L-2 visa holder to accept gainful employment.[3]

How It Works

To bring in employees on the L-1 visa program, a U.S.-based company first outsources its jobs to an offshore company. Then, the offshore company transfers employees to its U.S. offices to perform the job for the original company (usually for lower pay). Because the original company now outsources more work, it can downsize and get rid of American employees.

Though the L-1 visa program is not specifically tailored for the computer or information technology (IT) industries, the majority of L-1 applicants come from these firms. Seven of the top 10 largest users of the L-1 were IT outsourcing firms. Tata Consultancy was first with 4,887; Cognizant Technologies came in second with 3,520 and Satyam, Wipro Technologies, Hindustan Computers, Patni Computer Systems and Kanbay filling out the top 10 spots. Six of the seven also appeared among the top 10 biggest users of H-1B visa the same year.[4]

At some large information technology (IT) companies with U.S. offices, use of the L-1 visa now outstrips use of the H-1B visa to bring in temporary foreign workers.[5] In some reported cases, American workers are even made to train their foreign replacements before being laid off.[6]

Siemens Technologies lay off Patricia Fluno and 11 colleagues in their Lake Mary, Florida, and office and replaced them with IT workers from Tata Consultancy.[7] The worker to whom Fluno’s work was relegated sits at her old desk, answers her old phone number, and earns a third of what she did. This would be a violation of the law if the replacements were an H-1B, but because it is an L-1 visa worker, nothing can be done. As a Siemens spokesperson explained, “They don’t work for us. They work for Tata.”

On the Rise

Evidence suggests that use of the L1 visa is rising. The latest figures released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show that the number of L1 visas petitions approved climbed from 294,658 in 2006 to 320,829 in 2000. But they still have not caught up to the H-1B numbers: In 2000, 355,605 H-1B visas petitions approved, compared with 431,853 in 2006.

Sidestepping Protections for Americans

The L-1 visa is being touted to IT companies as the way to get around the protections built in to the H-1B program. One visa and immigration consultant says, “With the jump in IT unemployment, fewer US companies can tap the H-1B program these days since it’s conditional to showing that qualified Americans aren’t available. At the same time, employers looking to slash costs have discovered that they can use firms that hire L-1s to dump high-paid Americans in favor of cheaper workers from abroad.”[8]

A major immigration law firm has called the program “a quite useful tool[9]

A 2006 report from DHS’s Office of Inspector General found four areas leaving the L-1 program vulnerable to abuse:

adjudicators often find it difficult to be confident a firm truly intends using an imported worker in the legal capacity
adjudicators believe they have little choice but to approve almost all petitions due to the broad terminology of “specialized knowledge”
adjudicators in the United States have little ability to evaluate the substantiality of the foreign operation.
the program encompasses petitioners who are in the process of establishing, their first U.S. office, and it also permits petitioners to transfer themselves to the United States.[10]
Congress needs to correct the growing abuse of L visas and add to the program protections for American workers against losing their jobs and wages to temporary foreign workers.

Update 04/08

The effects of increased speed on fuel economy are greater on those vehicles with a higher coefficient of drag (ie, less aerodynamic).

In my car, the speeds at which I’d have to drive in order to make the gas mileage drop 5MPG compared to driving at 55-60MPH are in the “go straight to jail” category.