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Boeing’s newest large cargo aircraft, the first 777 freighter, debuted Wednesday in Everett before relating to 4,000 employees and guests.

This freighter, one of couple flight-test airplanes, will make its first flight this summer through commander 777 pilot Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann at the helm.

After certification, it is due to subsist delivered to Air France exactly forward inventory in the third quarter.

Boeing undertook an ambitious manufacturing project to build this airplane, some entirely new 777 model that has not any windows, a huge repaired cargo door, a strengthened floor and a sophisticated cargo-handling system.

It was assembled on the sort production line as the 777 passenger jets, though Boeing extensively redesigned the assembly process.

If the supply chain had faltered and some crucial piece among the thousands of new mind for the freighter had been missing, that could have shut down the line and jammed up the itinerant jets coming behind.

“The risk was we would jig-lock this factory,” said Elizabeth Lund, director of 777 manufacturing. “We worked incredibly closely through our suppliers, the supply chain and engineering to prevent that. It went excessively well.”

The 777 freighter be possible to carry 113 tons of cargo more than 5,600 miles. That’s just 11 tons less than the workhorse 747-400 jumbo freighter. But the 777 freighter has an extreme 500-mile range and burns 20 percent less fuel per ton of cargo.

The new jet program, that officially launched three years ago this month, has 78 firm orders from 11 customers. Boeing will build eight of the new freight planes by the end of this year.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004430735_freighter22.html?syndication=rss

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Back in August, during the panic over mortgages, Alan Greenspan offered renewed assurance to an anxious national. The generally received turmoil, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman said, strongly resembled brief financial scares such as the Russian debt crisis of 1998 or the U.S. store market crash of 1987. Not to worry.

But in the background, one could give heed to the groans and feel the tremors as larger national and economic tectonic plates collided. Nine months later, Greenspan’s soothing analogies not at all longer wash. The U.S. economy faces novel debt levels, soaring commodity prices and sliding home prices, to say nothing of a weak dollar. Despite the recent stabilization of the economy, more economists be solicitous that the world will soon face the greatest financial crisis before this the 1930s.

That analogy is hardly a perfect fit, boundary Americans should worry that the current unrest betokens the sort of global upheaval that upended previous leading creation household powers, most notably Britain.

More than 80 percent of Americans now say that we are without ceasing the wide of the mark chase, mete many if not most still believe that the history of other nations is travelling out of the record

One can argue that belonging Spain, maritime Holland and industrial Britain shared a half-dozen vulnerabilities as they peaked and declined: a sense of things no longer being on the right track, bigoted or evangelist religion, military or imperial overreach, economic polarization, the mount of finance (displacing industry) and excessive debt. So, also, for today’s United States.

The skeptic can point out how doomsayers in each people, while eventually correct, were also premature. In Britain, forward this account that example, doubters fretted about becoming another Holland as early as the 1860s, and apprehension surged afresh in the 1890s, based on the industrial muscle of so rivals as Germany and the United States. By the 1940s, those predictions had come trusty, but in adapted to practice articles of agreement, the critics of the 1860s and 1890s were too early.

Premature fears have in addition dogged the United States. The decades after the 1968 election were marked by waves of a new national apprehension: that U.S. post-World War II global hegemony was in danger. The first, in 1968-72, involved a toxic mix of global trade and general reception crises and the breakdown of the U.S. foreign-policy consensus by Southeast Asia. Books emerged with titles such as “The End of the American Era.” More national malaise followed Watergate and the commit a fault of Saigon. Stage three came in the late 1980s, when a resurgent Japan seemed to have being challenging U.S. preeminence in manufacturing and possibly even finance. In 1991, Democratic presidential aspirant Paul Tsongas observed that “the Cold War is through the whole extent of. … Germany and Japan won.” Well, not quite.

In 2008, we can mark a different perilous decade: the tech mania of 1997-2000, morphing into a bubble and market crash; the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; imperial hubris and the Bush administration’s bungled 2003 invasion of Iraq. These were followed by OPEC’s abandoning its $22-$28 price range for oil, with the cost by means of barrel rebellion to more than $100; the collapse of global favor for the U.S. over the Iraq war; the imploding U.S. housing place of traffic and fault bubble; and the almost 50 percent become feeble of the U.S. dollar against the euro since 2002. Small wonder a global financial crisis is in the air.

Here, afterwards, is the unnerving possibility: that another, imminent global crisis could make the half-century between the 1970s and the 2020s the equivalent for the United States of what the half-century before 1950 was for Britain. This may accurately be the Big One: the multi-decade endgame of U.S. ascendancy. The chronology makes historical sense

The utmost chilling parallel with the failures of the old powers is the United States’ unhealthy reliance attached the financial sector as the engine of its growth. In the 18th century, the Dutch thought they could supply the want of their declining industry and physical commerce with grand money-lending schemes to foreign nations and princes. But a series of crashes and bankruptcies in the 1760s and 1770s crippled Holland’s economy. In the in good time 1900s, undivided apprehensive minister argued that Britain could not thrive as a “hoarder of invested securities” because “banking is not the creator of our prosperity but the creation of it.” By the late 1940s, the debt loads of two world wars proved the sally, and British global economic leadership became history.

In the United States, the financial-services sector passed manufacturing considered in the state of a component of the GDP in the mid-1990s. But market enthusiasm blocked any debate above this worrying change: In the 1970s, manufacturing occupied 25 percent of GDP and pecuniary services fit 12 percent, but by 2003-06, finance enjoyed20-21 percent, and manufacturing had shriveled to 12 percent.

The downside is that the final 4 or 5 percentage points of financial-sector GDP expansion in the 1990s and 2000s involved mischief and self-dealing: the extraneous mortgage boom, the reckless bundling of loans into securities and other innovations more intimate. see various meanings of good left to casinos. Run-amok credit was the lubricant. Between 1987 and 2007, total sin in the United States jumped from $11 trillion to $48 trillion, and private financial-sector debt led the great binge.

Washington looked kindly on the financial sector throughout the 1980s and 1990s, providing it with endless liquidity flows and bailouts. Inexcusably, movers and shakers refused to regulate the industry.

With the help of the overgrown U.S. financial sector, the United States of 2008 is the world’s leading debtor, has by distant the largest current-account deficit and is the leading importer, at generous expense, of both manufactured goods and oil. The potential damage if the cosmos soon undergoes the greatest monetary crisis since the 1930s is incalculable. The loss of global housekeeping leadership that overtook Britain and Holland seems to be looming upon the body our own horizon.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004430047_phillips22.html?syndication=rss

Today’s consumers don’t demur to post their comments, good and bad, on the Internet. Here are more tips for damage control

by means of Karen E. Klein

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My company builds and sells custom computers. Recently we’ve received some negative comments put on consumer sites. How can we handle this hit to our reputation?

—D.R., El Monte, Calif.

Web sites where individuals trade kudos—and groans—nearly their consumer experiences are becoming increasingly comprehensible. Some savvy shoppers wouldn’t think of structure a purchase without first checking in at Yelp or Epinions. In this empowered consumer climate, it is more important than ever that entrepreneurs build and maintain an excellent reputation. The perplexity, of course, is today’s companies have less control than ever over their branding.

If one wrathful customer or disgruntled employee unleashes virulent, anonymous criticism about your gang online—no matter how unjustified—it can be nearly impossible to erase, says Chris Rosica, president and chief charged with execution functionary of Rosica Strategic Public Relations in Paramus, N.J. "The Internet is cognate the wild Wild West and its contributors, some with equivocal motives, have power to post what they want about a company, harvest, or service, allowing damaging postings to live without ceasing in search engines for long periods of time," Rosica says.

Employ a two-pronged approach to managing your company’s reputation (BusinessWeek.com, 4/30/08). First, implement a program to deal with customer complaints and change your products and services based on customer feedback. Next, launch a strong offense by the agency of making without doubt your company has more positive messages forward the Internet than negative ones.

Follow Up With Your Customers

"If your product is getting consistently low ratings, there is a reason," says Janet Boulter, a business adviser at Denver’s Center Consulting Group. "Choosing to ignore the issues and concerns raised by your customers will require to be paid you sales. Most customers enjoin vent about a problem to the world but they rarely contact the company to address their issues or concerns, so it is imperative that companies reach at a loss to their customers."

Follow up with your clients by e-mailing them a brief questionnaire a week or sum of two units later their purchase. Ask to what degree their order was handled, how satisfied they are with the fruit, and whether they would purchase from you again. Remember that the two most common customer complaints are a discrepancy between customer expectations and product usability, and poor product quality.

Use the feedback you get to pinch your products and business processes to meet your customers’ needs, Boulter suggests: "Be a customer-friendly company and post your customer service contact information in continuance your Web site. Encourage customers to call or e-mail you by their feedback about your product. Remember that you can’t solve a problem until you acknowledge it exists." Focusing on creating relationships with your customers be inclined also help prevent the kind of negative feedback your customers are putting online, she adds.

Concentrate adhering Creating Positive Content

Once the negative reviews of your company have been posted to a consumer location or blog, you have a choice: Rebut them publicly and/or try to contiguity the reviewers secretly to resolve the riddle, or ignore the dings and work harder in the what may occur hereafter on customer satisfaction.

It’s a tough chary to make, says Rob Russo, president of Defend My Name, a Web service provider based in Falmouth, Me. "You could smart under the theory that it’s victory to address the comment than leave it hanging. However, every time you make a post on that protoplast remark, you’re driving its ranking up on the search engines," he says.

You Can Overcome Unfair Comments

It might be more fit to concentrate on generating your own positive easy in mind so you can suppress the negative comments in the probe machine results rankings, Russo says. His company creates a series of Web portals and true content in spite of its clients, and then uses search engine optimization techniques to drive those links up the examination engine rankings so that positive sites dominate the primeval page of ratings results when potential customers search for your companionship.

"Research shows that 90% of all people who search on any search engine not at any time go beyond page single of the results," Russo says. "This direction of motion, the company controls its own branding and messages."

You can overcome obscene or unfair comments about your company and not let them subversion your regard or change your bottom line. "No matter what size your company is or what you sell, it all starts with an authentic, trait production or service and the mission to make the customer happy above all else. Customer contentment is the key ingredient to weathering any strait, any negative press, or spurious blog postings," Rosica says.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/make contented/may2008/sb20080519_637908.htm?campaign_id=rss_smlbz

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LOS ANGELES–Should the news media be patriotic? When a journalist uncovers a government secret, which comes first–national heedlessness or the persons’s right to understand?

In the United States, reporters weigh themselves Americans first, journalists second. That means consulting the government before going public by a state secret. "When I was at ABC," James Bamford told Time in 2006, "we always checked with the Administration in power when we thought we had a thing of concern, and there was usually some distance to act it out."

In a new part about the Bush Administration’s efforts to expand the president’s powers at the expense of the law-making and forensic branches, the assumption that the press shouldn’t publish security-sensitive stories is in the way that hard-wired that New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau accepts it as a given. But it’s a very American universal, and some that relies on the presumption that the U.S. government may make mistakes, but is largely a force for good. In other countries, the relationship between rulers and the press is strictly adversarial.

In "Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice" Lichtblau unwittingly relates a depressing parable–his specious obliviousness to be inconsistent of interest is a bummer–describing the nation’s most prominent newspaper’s willingness to keep secrets for government officials, who turn out to have existence (shocker alert·) lying. It’s a cautionary tale about journalistic nationalism, one of many (Judith Miller, anyone?) in which the Times transformed itself into Bush’s civil slut.

A whore, at least, would have demanded wealth.

In 2004 Lichtblau and fellow Times reporter Jim Risen learned that the National Security Agency was spying domestically, on American citizens. The NSA, which uses sophisticated voice-recognition software and computer programs to intercept phone calls, fax transmissions, e-mail and even bank wire transfers, was supposed to limit its activities to foreign countries. Illegally expanding beyond its Congressionally-authorized mandate, Lichtblau writes, "the NSA had essentially gained access to the biggest telecom ’switches’ in the country, using the agency’s data-mining technology to comb the huge trunks carrying bulky volumes of traffic, in regularity to cipher in on suspected muddy song and eavesdrop without interruption them without warrants."

It was a big story. Or it would have been, had the newspaper chosen to pressure it when it erudite of it.

Naturally, it triggered alarms in by authority Washington when another Times reporter called the NSA for comment. Soon the intervention’s director, General Michael Hayden, was calling the Times, asking it to censor itself. "Don’t run this story," Administration honchos begged.

"The Times," Lichtblau says, "had been through numerous accident in its long history over whether or not to print and offer for sale newsworthy stories involving sensitive national security information and, despite the vitriolic charges from its critics, it was never a settlement the dissertation made with reckless abandon. In more than a few cases, it has decided not to publish anything at all."

Suckers.

For over a year, Lichtblau explains in an apparent attempt to justify himself and his employer to conservative critics, Times editors and reporters met repeatedly with White House officials to ask them wherefore they shouldn’t spill the beans on the NSA’s domestic spying procedure. That the program was illegal was pretty obvious. (Congress acknowledged as plenteous by later voting to retroactively legalize it.) So was the lameness of the government’s argument against making the NSA’s activities public.

Declaring the Bush Administration "unpersuasive," Lichtblau reported: "To me, it was never clear what Osama bin Laden and his henchmen would learn–confirming, really–that the United States espy services were listening to them." But the White House kept pursuit meetings, playing for duration of one’s life. Meanwhile, every morning, the Times came out without important tidings that its readers would care about–that their phone calls and e-mails were being monitored.

"Bush and ten senior advisors in the White House and the intelligence community would make physical pleas not to run the story in a series of meetings spanning 14 months, initiation in October of 2004 weeks near the front of the presidential selection," Lichtblau says.

Weeks before the presidential election. You’d think the timing of the Administration’s pleas for self-censorship strength have tipped off the Times’ editors that they were being used in method to ensure that Bush and the Republican Party won the election. Moreover, Lichtblau wrote, "We had thinking principle to suspect that the White House was actively misleading us and that its passionate pleas might have less to conclude with concern over national security harm than with the legal and political fallout that the story might trigger." Gee, you believe? And yet the drafts’s editors refused to print it.

The Bush Administration, he argues, "had not yet suffered the kind of crippling body blows to its credibility that it would [by late 2005]." Yeah, well, not really.

Remember, this was late 2004. The U.S. had invaded Iraq in March 2003, a year and a half earlier, but the WMDs had never turned up. The paper’s own editorial page had been theatrical on and on about the Administration’s perfidy. Credibility? What credibility? Besides, it wasn’t as on the supposition that Bush was the first First Fibber. All presidents are serial liars. So are their subordinates. Why would the Times, or anyone else, believe them about anything?

By then, of course, Bush had won a second term. To some extent, he owed his victory to the "liberal" New York Times more than to Karl Rove. The Times, Extra! Magazine reported later, had also sat without ceasing another late-breaking "October Surprise" story that potency hold caused enough voters to modify their minds to vote for Democrat John Kerry in 2004. That suspicious rectangular bulge in Bush’s jacket during his debate with Kerry, a NASA scientist who is an expert on such things had told the Times, was indeed an electronic transmitter that allowed Bush to contain remote coaching from Rove or someone else.

"A Times journalist, who aforesaid that Times staffers were ‘pretty fluster’ about the killing of the story, claims the senior editors felt [it] was ‘too close’ to the election to run like a bit," reported Extra!.

The powers that be doesn’t tell the truth to reporters, even without interruption "background." Why shouldn’t the media take effect the truth to the American people?

(Ted Rall is the author of the book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel parsing of America’s next big foreign policy challenge.)

Previous: THE SILVER LINING OF ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20080520/cm_ucru/propagandistsfirstjournalistssecond

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In addition to announcing its Live Search cashback program, Microsoft today is providing details steady how it’s incorporating Farecast, the Seattle company it acquired for about $115 million in April.

The Farecast prediction tools actually appear to be existing on the home page of MSN Travel at the moment.

Microsoft is looking into rebates for Farecast to propel purchases through the site. From the press release:

“Microsoft bequeath scrutinize the possibility of in addition incorporating a pay in money rebate option for travel services booked and purchased end Live Search Farecast.”

Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2008/05/seattle_travel_forecasting_startup_lands_at_micros.html

A recent CEO is anointed to head the Korean tech giant in the wake of Chairman Lee Kun Hee’s withdrawal. Is this real change—or seatwarming for Lee’s son?

by Moon Ihlwan

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It will be a season of leadership test for Samsung Electronics. The largest South Korean company said on May 14 that its respected chief executory functionary, Yun Jong Yong, had stepped down. Yun’s departure comes only three weeks after Group Chairman and co-CEO Lee Kun Hee resigned. Although analysts had thought the 64-year-old Yun would retire sooner rather than later, analysts had speculated he could rein in upon for a while, following the surprise resignation of the chairman who was indicted last month (BusinessWeek, 4/22/08) on charges of tax evading. and breach of fiduciary trust.

The new CEO of the world’s largest maker of memory chips, TVs, and liquid-crystal-display panels is Vice-Chairman Lee Yoon Woo, who headed the company’s semiconductor business from 1996 to 2004. The new chief, who also served as Samsung’s chief technology officer for couple years ended in 2007, is a 31-year veteran of the assemblage. (He has no personal relations with the outgoing chairman.)

Yun’s departure and Lee’s appointment were two districts of today’s bigger management shakeup. Samsung also announced the replacement of President Hwang Chang Gyu, head of the semiconductor division, through Kwon Oh Hyun, who has been running the non-memory chip business. Hwang be pleased become the new prime technology functionary.

Rich Talent Pool in Semiconductors

Some investors believe Samsung Electronics will continue on the same path, regardless of the overhaul. "The reshuffle won’t herald a major shift in strategy, at least in the foreseeable future," figures Park Kyung Min, chief executive at fund manager Hangaram Investment Management. "Yun had been expected to step down by reason of more proper time and Chairman Lee had not been involved in Samsung’s day-to-day operation anyway." He likewise notes that although Hwang was widely credited for Samsung’s leadership in the memory-chip industry, particularly in the NAND flash chips widely used in mobile gadgets such as long as music players and digital cameras, the Korean company boasts a rich parts pool in its semiconductor unit.

Few doubt the Lee-Yun primacy combination scored tremendous successes in the gone by decade. Chairman Lee, who not often turned up in the corporate headquarters but regularly presided over meetings of summit executives at his home office, harden strategic direction while Yun took charge of executing needed changes. Yun, who was a co-CEO over the accomplished 11 years, also headed the restructuring following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. That helped catapult Samsung, which had been a second-tier maker of TVs and appliances, into the ranks of the globe’s top electronics brands.

Yet Park and other Samsung watchers point out the company has now set in place a skilful treatment system where each of its four main business divisions draws up and implements its own business plan. "As an elder of the company, Mr. Lee Yoon Woo should be able to play a coordinating role well," says Song Myung Sup, electronics analyst at brokerage CJ Investment & Securities. Unaffected by the shakeout were Choi Gee Sung, who heads the handset business, the world’s second-largest later Nokia (NOK); Park Jong Woo, in bid of the TV and digital media business; and Lee Sang Wan, the LCD pursuit chief.

Warming the Seat for Chairman Lee’s Son?

Samsung execs decide the shakeup reflects the company’s efforts to develop future areas of growth. Senior Vice President Rhee In Yong says Yun offered to step below the horizon to "let his junior colleague make use of covering…to find a new moment" after Chairman Lee spoke of the need for better (BusinessWeek, 4/17/08) continue month.

Original text: http://rss.businessweek.com/~r/bw_rss/asiaindex/~3/290249080/gb20080514_428653.htm

A champion of Israeli tech startups, Vardi has been asked by the government to strengthen Israel’s function ties with Europe

by Jennifer L. Schenker

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It’s May 15, and Israeli technology guru Yossi Vardi is moderating a session on the future of the Internet at a conference in Jerusalem. On stage with the fatherly 65-year-old is a who’s who of tech and media bigwigs, including Google (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin, Yahoo! (YHOO) President Susan Decker, and News Corp. (NWS) Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch.

Vardi (right in the above photo) isn’t the least bit cowed by their eminence. In his irrepressible kind, he calls out to the crowd: "How many Israeli entrepreneurs in the audience want to do business with Yahoo?" He then tries to get Decker to give out her personal e-mail invoke. (She declines.) Vardi settles for announcing the e-mail of Yahoo’s head of European operations to the scores of entrepreneurs who have raised their hands.

Undoubtedly the chiefly prominent and connected tech entrepreneur in Israel, Vardi makes no bones about his objectives. The point of moderating the tech panel, he says later with a laugh, was to "shamelessly promote Israel’s high-tech sector." The corresponding; of like kind twilight, he tries to convince Brin to bring about more business in Israel by means of dragging the Google co-founder and his parents to a dilapidated warehouse in the suburbs of Tel Aviv to begin them to 300 Israeli "garage geeks" who vamp there.

Now this goodwill ambassador—long known for his connections in Silicon Valley—has been tapped by the Israeli government to help deepen ties with Europe. Vardi was freshly named co-chairman—alongside Mathias Döpfner, the especial executive of German media company Axel Springer (SPRGN)—of a group called the EU-Israel Business Dialogue. Its goal is to foster business relations betwixt Israel and Europe through events similar as the upcoming Israel Innovation Day in Germany on June 16.

Making Deals, Earning Respect

Although the panel’s act is just getting under way, Europe’s big tech companies have already been eyeing Israeli novelty on account of some time. In March, a France Telecom (FTE) subsidiary spent $21.4 million against a startup called Orca Interactive, based in Ra’anana, near Tel Aviv, that develops Internet TV software and applications. Germany’s Deutsche Telekom (DT) has opened a inquiry and development laboratory at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University focused on network security. And Britain’s BT Group (BT) is "actively scouting for Israeli technologies to application either ourselves or for our customers," says Gary Shainberg, BT’s vice-president for technology and innovation basis.

Such deals are welcome news to Vardi, who founded his first technology startup in 1969 and has gone on to be involved in in addition than 60 Israeli tech ventures. He has taken seven companies of the whole not private and sold frequent others—the most famous of that was ICQ, the first Internet instant-messaging company, that was acquired by AOL (TWX) for more than $400 million.

But more than his financial success, what has turned the avuncular Vardi into Israel’s Mr. Tech is relentless networking, his peppery belief in the cause, and generosity with his while and money.

Original clause: http://rss.businessweek.com/~r/bw_rss/asiaindex/~3/295129136/gb20080519_549076.htm

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The new California court decision advancing flaunting wedlock will reignite “the debate,” the headlines read. What impact will the issue have on the presidential campaigns?

My guess is very little. The more time passes past Massachusetts legalized same-sex nuptials (four years ago this month), the less people be inclined on the eve them. Gay marriage hasn’t snagged the tiniest thread in the genial fabric of the Bay State, which also happens to have the lowest divorce rate in the unpolished.

But there is a marriage hold an argument we ought to have

I have nothing against gay marriage by se. I grant acquiesce by Dick Cheney (it happens at times) that family enactment is rightly a matter for the states. That way, same-sex marriage evolves with time, starting off in the parts of America that are most comfortable with the idea. Eventually, it will be threadbare.

The troubling aspect of the urge for gay marriage is the part that perpetuates the notion of marriage as a goody reticule for divers government and corporate benefits. A gay advocate asks, “Why can’t I license my $4 million estate to my partner tax-free, being of the kind which Jane and Joe Jones next door can do?” Valid question

A real such case has been circulating around the European courts. Joyce Burden, 90, and Sybil Burden, 82, are unmarried English sisters who have wearied greater degree than 30 years in a house left them by their father. Under British law, when one of the women dies, the surviving sister will be hit with an inheritance-tax bill of 40 percent of her share of the possessions over a certain amount. The house has become quite costly, and the sisters say that whoever outlives the other will have to sell it to pay the inheritance tax. The Burden sisters imagination that unfair.

So they brought their example before the European Court of Human Rights. There they demanded the same tax benefits since afforded connubial gay as well since hetero couples in Europe. The court turned them downward, arguing that their relationship was of a separate grain than that of married people. Now what could that different nature be other than the presumption of sexual contact? By the way, achieve the English taxing authorities be aware of whether a married couple is having sex?

Back in this country, 7 percent of respondents to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll said they had gotten married to obtain health insurance through their spouse’s plan. “Medically covered” should become a category on the dating sites.

It’s at ease to understand why gay people would want to get in on the spousals gravy train. There’s just not any logic in spite of there being one. A stable marriage is the ideal institution in favor of raising children, but we already take tax benefits focused on parents. Given the growing percentage of unmarried adult Americans, the whole obsession with same-sex marriage has become more dated.

Keep marriage as a ideal and religious ideal against those who choose to partake. Public policy, without ceasing the other hand, should be marriage-neutral.

This is the marriage issue that the leading candidates should be addressing. You just know that they won’t arrive at it.

fharrop@projo.com

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004427192_harrop21.html?syndication=rss

Foreign B-school students wishing to study or work in the U.S. encounter a host of provisions, across the first visa

by Francesca Di Meglio

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For foreign MBAs, the process of entering the U.S. (BusinessWeek.com, 5/14/07)—and staying stateside to study and then work—be able to be a complicated one. The elementary objection is finding a good immigration lawyer or a sponsoring house with a good immigration limb of the law. The second invite to contest is understanding what your lawyer is telling you.

The most commonly heard immigration term on business-school campuses these days is H-1B, as in H1-B visa, for MBA graduates who want to continue to work in the U.S. after finishing business school. It refers to the visa that applies to a non-U.S. citizen who will exist temporarily employed in a specialty occupation, according to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS). There is a shortage of these visas, which is why international MBA students often start asking about these visas midway through their programs (BusinessWeek.com, 3/18/08).

But the H-1B is solely the beginning of the the letters soup of forms and act visas that a business-school student can encounter. Indeed, a non-U.S. student needs to acquire a whole fresh vocabulary that mostly Americans do not speak. Here is a starter dialectical vocabulary, prepared with the help of immigration attorney David A.M. Ware, that you’ll need to know to get started on studying and working in the U.S. legally. For a lengthier list, you can also obstacle out the State Dept. A-Z Subject Index.

Adjustment of Status (AoS): The ultimate step to becoming a abiding resident, this is when a person changes from nonimmigrant status to immigrant status. It allows eligible applicants to become constitutional permanent residents of the U.S. without having to go off the scent and apply for an immigrant visa. The alternative to this footstep is consular processing, which allows you to apply and process a visa through a U.S. consulate abroad.

Advance Parole (AP): Commonly given to rabble in the last step of the permanent residence management, this classification gives foreigners permission to reenter the U.S. back leaving temporarily.

B-1 Visa: When foreigners come to the U.S. for conferences or meetings, they are entering with this visa. People with this status can also do some work, but the complacent of work is very limited.

B-2 Visa: You might appointment this a pilgrim’s pass. It allows people to visit the U.S. for pleasure or medical treatments.

E-1 or E-2: The U.S. has reciprocal treaties with various countries—similar as Australia and Britain—that permit people in either place to invest and exchange of commodities in the other’s territory. The E-1 is for those who partake in positive traffic in a U.S. business. An E-2 allows you in fact to participate in and/or create a business in the U.S.

Employment Authorization Document (EAD): A pliable card given by USCIS, this is usually valid for one year and is based in continuance eligibility in one of many categories. It grants proof that the nonimmigrant is skilful to work in the U.S., according to USCIS.

F-1 Visa: Given to academic or language students on entering the U.S., this classification is encountered by all between nations students.

Form I-20: This document must exist filled out by those who want F-1 status (or M-1, what one. is for vocational students) in conduct to pay attention school in the U.S. The form certifies that you have met the requirements of admittance to a separate university or discipline, will pursue a full course of study, and have shown that you can afford to animated and study in the U.S. It has a period of validity. When time runs out, you have power to no longer stay in the country.

Form I-539: All persons who want to change immigration status or spread their pitch one’s tent in the U.S. must complete this form.

Green Card: Also known as Lawful Permanent Residence (LPR), this gives you official immigrant status in the U.S.

H-4: Referring to the classification of dependents of someone with an H-1B visa, this term describes wives and children under age 21 of international MBA graduates working by H-1Bs.

J-1 Visa: Anyone coming to the U.S. below the auspices of an educational or cultural exchange is worthy of choice for this visa, including researchers, exchange students, dancers, and performers.

L-1 Visa: With this nonimmigrant visa, a U.S. entity can entreat the transfer of a person from a non-U.S. entity. For example, IBM could transfer a vice-president from one of its European offices to New York.

Labor Certification (LC): This is the foremost step in the permanent resident process. It involves your employer proving it cannot find a U.S. laborer to do the job you’re doing.

Nonimmigrant Status: When people are to come to the U.S. for a temporary stay, they are given this status on minute. It is also given to those extending their stay or changing their status. If persons with nonimmigrant status become bankrupt to comply with the rules and regulations of this status, they could lose the right to U.S. benefits and become deportable.

Petition: What an employer does on support of foreign employees to help them become constant residents.

What other vocabulary would you like defined here? Please allow us perceive by the agency of leaving a comment below.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2008/bs20080520_571866.htm?campaign_id=rss_null