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Not really. In the state of Yemen, a cleric counts as a consular and half the legal code is verbal - for instance, you can divorce your wife just by shouting "I divorce you" (in Arabic) over and over again a few times, then telling a cleric you did so.

There's also the elements of treason, aiding and abetting enemies, involvement in terrorism... yawn. If you're trying to make this the "we shouldn't use drones or target-kill the leaders of a group at war with us" argument, this isn't the guy to do it with. Hell, out of the right wing kook fringe you're more likely to have them shouting "reenact Dresden" or "reenact Hiroshima" rather than looking askance at taking out the head of a terrorist organization.

In 2010, US export to China was 91.9 billion US dollar, to Hongkong was 26.6 billion US dollar.

Oh come on, you're just being silly. Same as the person who said:

I have no experience with this, but it's most likely easier to get into heaven than it is to get into the USA, if you answer the questions honestly.

Unlike that individual, I do have experience with it, and it was a lot of paperwork (all of which I answered completely honestly), but in the end extremely straightforward. This despite the fact I'd previously had problems and been denied visas after being invalidated out of the visa waiver program.

I believe you're referring to the question about moral turpitude, which specifically asks if you've been arrested or convicted. There are definitions of what constitutes such a crime; suffice to say that your examples don't count.

Again, speaking as someone who went through this, it was pretty uneventful in the end. I answered the questions honestly, got asked five or six different questions in my consulate interview (nothing tricky - things like "when were you married?" - "have either you or your wife left the country since you were married?" - "have you and your wife been living together since you were married?". These questions were because I was applying for an immigrant visa on the basis of my marriage to a U.S. citizen by birth>), and that was it. The paperwork to get to that point was arduous, but after all I was applying for permanent residency.

Everything after that was quick and easy. I went to the next counter where the very charming young lady explained I had the wrong form of birth certificate, told me exactly where to go to get the right form, how much it'd cost, how long it'd take, etc. - she couldn't have been nicer - and to come back the next day once I had it and I'd be in. Done.

By your examples, you'd think I'd be at risk of getting thrown out of the country if I got a speeding ticket. (FYI, naturalization is taken much more seriously in terms of protections and rights granted than is residency. I am not a naturalized U.S. citizen.) In fact, I did get a speeding ticket about six months after moving here, and I was still on my international driver's license, which annoyed the police officer no end. I got a fine, a lecture, and was sent on my way. That's all.

They're really not looking to throw people out on the merest whim, so far as I can tell. I've never had a problem with re-entering the country, even after visiting China. Maybe I've been exceptionally lucky, and in fairness I'm a white male from a very innocuous country that is really too small to gravely annoy anyone). But I do have experience in these matters, unlike a lot of the people pontificating on here.

In the U.S., they recommend you carry a photocopy of the identification page of your passport when you travel, because having a copy will "will make getting a new passport easier" should yours be lost or stolen. So it's not all that illegal.

I was curious so wanted to check the diversity lottery website (http://dvlottery.state.gov/) and encountered this statement: "This web site only supports Internet Explorer 6.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0.". I guess if you want to take part in the diversity lottery you have to do away with some of your freedoms to make use of say Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Safari.
Somehow the term "diversity" does not seem to cover that bit :) Makes you also wonder who is the target audience for this lottery.

On the ISS, by the International Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement (Section 5.2), each country's law applies in the section it supplies. The American's do not allow alcohol in their sections, but I guess in the ESA and Russian modules, wine would be OK. Now, if we could just get the Dutch to launch a module, the astronauts could also enjoy some hash, which I am sure would be good for... something.

You can exploit Indians via caste system.
You can exploit Chinese by abusing human rights.

US Visa system/Outsourcing should have been aligned to Caste system in India and Human Rights in China

US should have linked Outsourcing to Caste system in India and Human Rights in China

I hope this is a lesson to everyone regarding temporary suspension of powers. There is NO SUCH THING AS TEMPORARY. Once you give them away they are gone until the next revolution and re-establishment of laws.

I don't think you quite have the hang of how things work in a democracy.

After the Civil War, black Americans were free, but then segregation laws were passed in some states, but they were ultimately struck down. The United States once had a constitutional amendment prohibiting alcohol, and then it was undone as very unpopular by another constitutional amendment. During World War 2, Americans had their spending controlled by ration books for things like food, gasoline, and clothing. That's over. During World War 2, American media and mail was censored by the government. That's over. Until recently, cities and states could place onerous restrictions or prohibitions on the ownership of firearms by law abiding citizens, but that has been struck down.

The Patriot Act was previously amended to address civil rights concerns:

Senate passes Patriot Act changes
Posted 3/1/2006 11:11 AM Updated 3/1/2006 9:48 PM
By John Diamond, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The Senate added civil liberties protections to the USA Patriot Act on Wednesday, clearing the way for renewal of the anti-terrorism law passed shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The 95-4 vote ended months of bipartisan debate centering on privacy rights. Subsequent procedural votes Wednesday showed enough Senate support to move the bill this week to the House for final passage and then to President Bush.

Most Americans are OK with spying on people in direct contact with terrorist organizations, or who are plotting an attack.

It's not quite that bad yet, thankfully. Most Europeans can get away with an ESTA - a basic online form - for tourist purposes. I needed the visa because I was spending a year at a US university.

Substitute "Seattle" with "Saudi Arabian". Does that mean nobody anywhere in the world can drink beer?

Yes and no. There's not a damn thing they can do when you're outside their borders (well, they might be able to request extradition, but would likely just be laughed at), but if you should ever travel to Saudi Arabia, and have ever had a beer in your life, there could be complications. I don't know anything about the law you are referencing, but an inability to protect travelers from the local government is one of the reasons for a country to show up on the Department of State's Travel Warnings list.

I was going to reference how the US can get you for smoking marijuana when outside the country, but trying to google a citation appears to indicate that that is actually false. Still, it certainly seems plausible for other countries to convict people for things they did outside that countries borders.

If you read TFA, the guy was a REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER in California according to TSA records.

WHOAH, how is that fact even relevant?

It is relevant if he is violating the terms of his release.

It is relevant if he is considered dangerous to himself or others.

Replace 'sex offender' with the word 'jew' and try to repeat your statement without sounding like a Nazi. Go on, I dare you

I double dare you.

The most likely reason your name will be added to a registry of sexual offenders is a long history of violence against women and children.

You are a repeat offender under long-term - perhaps lifetime - supervision and you have no unlimited right to travel.

Passport Information for Criminal Law Enforcement Officers

in cases of outright declared war (World Wars, Korea, Vietnam)

Neither Korea nor Vietnam were formally declared wars. The last formal US declarations of war were during WWII against Japan, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania. See pages 83-89 of the pdf Declarations of War and Authorizations for the Use of Military Force: Historical Background and Legal Implications

Sure. It is a possible scenario if you just fantasize, but what would the other member states of the European Union say? Burning the bridges with them is not wise since they are bigger trading partners than the US.

Major trading partners, exports (2010)--Germany 10.1%, Norway 9.9%, U.K. 7.6%, U.S. 7.3%, Denmark 6.5%, Finland 6.2%, France 5.1%, Netherlands 4.7%, Belgium 3.9%, China 3.1%.
  Source

Import Partners: EU 60.3% (Germany 16.3%, UK 8.8%, Denmark 6.7%, France 5.6%), Norway 8.2%, US 6.7%

Export Partners: EU 53.6% (Germany 10.6%, UK 9.1%, Denmark 5.3%, France 5.1%), US 9.5%, Norway 7.5%
  Source

Note that depending upon which American source you cite, you get a slightly different number, but still, the EU is a much bigger trading partner for Sweden than US.

So no, I do not think your scenario is even remotely likely.

The State Department (led by H. Clinton) is sponsoring "World Press Freedom Day". The official press release at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm says the following:

New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.

The real question is, is H. Clinton concerned about the determination of US politicians "to censor and silence individuals"?

I've always considered Egypt to be on of the more progressive muslim states

Whaaaaat? Egypt is ruled by a dictator that tolerates no dissent. There has been a state of emergency there for 44 years! Let's see, where to start. In 2009, the U.S. Department of State Human Rights report had this to say:

Police, security personnel, and prison guards often tortured and abused prisoners and detainees, sometimes in cases of detentions under the Emergency Law, which authorizes incommunicado detention indefinitely, subject to a judge's ruling.

and

Police and the SSIS reportedly employed torture methods such as stripping and blindfolding victims; suspending victims by the wrists and ankles in contorted positions or from a ceiling or door frame with feet just touching the floor; beating victims with fists, whips, metal rods, or other objects; using electric shocks; dousing victims with cold water; sleep deprivation; and sexual abuse, including sodomy. There was evidence that security officials sexually assaulted some victims or threatened to rape them or their family members. Human rights groups reported that the lack of legally required written police records often effectively blocked investigations.

It just goes on and on. And, keep in mind, the U.S. DOS reports tend to be very conservative, so when this stuff ends up in a DOS report, things on the ground are much, much worse.

Exactly. If we responded to national protests in dictatorships by saying "go Democracy!" and picked sides based on their support for liberty and civil rights rather than their susceptibility to bribery, we could suck a lot of the oxygen out of muslim extremism.

Would it really be so bad if the US and the Muslim extremists were on the same side of the barricades?

There's a lot of people in this discussion claiming that the US is *always* backing dictators with whom we have existing relationships. I want to give two recent counterexamples:
  Tunisia: President Obama hailed the “courage and dignity of the Tunisian people,” and said the United States joined the rest of the world in “bearing witness to this brave and determined struggle." The US has had friendly relations with Tunisia for decades.

Ivory Coast: President Obama "sent a letter to President Gbagbo, urging him to step aside and warning him of consequences if he does not." While the US has never supported Gbagbo after his coup, US companies (especially chocolate companies) have a big interest in the country's stability.

Secondly, SS is just fine. It's running a surplus and can pay full benefits for the next 27 years.

Actually not. SS is now entering the phase where more is being drawn than being contributed (somewhat ahead of schedule - http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html). Further, there is no surplus - there hasn't been for many years. Federal law prohibits it ( http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/51264.pdf). Any surplus must by law be rolled into the general fund (referred to in the document as "borrowing from the Social Security trust fund"). Given that the federal government is currently in debt to the tune of approximately $14Trillion, there is no actual SS money accumulated anywhere.

The situation is dire. Not only is the debt not being reduced, but the deficit is accelerating. Extra taxes aren't going to cover it (they'll probably make the situation worse). Medicare/Medicaid are in even worse shape - and the prior administration made that worse still by signing into law the Medicare Drug Prescription Act.

Bleak indeed.

Israel has effectively done that.

What? You must be joking. Israel defines itself as Jewish state. Its laws grant official recognition just to the Abrahamic religions descended from Judaism, and only to certain sects of those. Only religious marriages are recognized. Israeli law forbids Jews to work on the Sabbath. People who convert to Judaism are granted automatic citizenship and residence rights.

If Israel separated religion from government, it would have to acknowledge that some invisible dude in the sky did not in fact promise that piece of real estate to the descendants of Abraham. That kind of screws up their whole nation's raison d'etre.

Funny on that travel advice on Cuba... Cuba has one of the world's lowest crime rates.

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/articles/article/Cuba/Common-Crime-in-Cuba/241
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1097.html#crime (granted this one is from the US gov't)
http://www.cuba-junky.com/cuba/faq.html
http://www.havana-guide.com/caribbean-crime.html

Still trust your government to inform you about reasons you might not want to go to other countries?

in soviet Cuba, there is no crime, poverty, prostitutes, gays and drug addicts

Funny on that travel advice on Cuba... Cuba has one of the world's lowest crime rates.

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/articles/article/Cuba/Common-Crime-in-Cuba/241
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1097.html#crime (granted this one is from the US gov't)
http://www.cuba-junky.com/cuba/faq.html
http://www.havana-guide.com/caribbean-crime.html

Still trust your government to inform you about reasons you might not want to go to other countries?

We still have ITAR to be followed. It's how the State Department plays favorites.

I speak with authority because my employer makes such technology(in the sensors and lasers category) and the stuff we sell to China is reduced-accuracy by law.

Unless whoever you're donating to is on one of the secret government terrorist lists, or a front for terrorists, or might possibly theoretically maybe help someone who turns out to be connected to a terrorist.

The lists aren't secret, and it would defeat the purpose if they were. (In fact it would be kind of stupid to make them secret.) Have a look... try to find your favorite organizations.

Terrorist Designation Lists

Sorry, posted the wrong google link. Here's the source that one sites that I was trying to paste:

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/100102.pdf

Qtel force all web traffic through a proxy server in order to block access to certain sites. All Qtel web traffic is seen to come from the IP address of the proxy server. This is completely different to NAT. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100604.htm

You may not be a birther, but your logic is about as faulty as a birther's.

To renounce one's citizenship, one must:

      1. appear in person before a U.S. consular or diplomatic officer,
      2. in a foreign country (normally at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate); and
      3. sign an oath of renunciation

And minor children can't have their citizenship renounced by their parents.

http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html

So no, Obama didn't renounce his citizenship, even if he put down Indonesia on his college aid forms since a) He was doing this for a college and not before a US consular or diplomatic officer, b) he wasn't in a foreign country (he was in the US), and c) a college aid form is NOT an oath of renunciation.

Also, regarding the claim he gamed the system for his own ends, you started off your comment saying that he spent millions of dollars sealing his college records. So you essentially admit that you have NO PROOF that he actually put Indonesian down as his citizenship in his college aid forms. All you cite is "There is some though (sic)", which is nothing but speculation.

While the treatment of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is important, it's USUALLY misdirection, to divert public attention.

How effective is the (replacment) EO 13526 http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/E9-31418.pdf or http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information

Was it followed by State and DoD? Have NIST/FISMA security guidelines been properly implemented (even yet)?

Are there actual timing considerations, when-leaked, vs when EO 13526 went into force? (Signed: December 29, 2009)

WHY would there be no "alarms" when a PFC accesses an enormous number of documents?

Someplace between a half-million and 3 million people with full access to these documents BEFORE they got to WikiLeaks?

What about "the State Department's Risk Scoring tool"?

STREUFERT: "...the continuous monitoring has something that is an assessment capacity of the organization to deal with outside risk that is never longer than a month and scanning data in fact could be as fresh as 24 hours old." (but are they looking at the RIGHT THINGS)?

Refs: http://gcn.com/articles/2010/03/03/rsa-futue-of-fisma.aspx
            http://www.govinfosecurity.com/podcasts.php?podcastID=276 [John Streufert, State Department Deputy CIO and CISO]
            http://www.darkreading.com/database-security/167901020/security/news/224200410/ninth-state-department-insider-found-guilty-of-illegal-database-access.html [Ninth State Department Insider Found Guilty Of Illegal Database Access - Mar 25, 2010]

For investigation:
http://www.state.gov/m/pri/rls/plans/146301.htm
> For example, weekly reports to senior management are now routed through Microsoft
> SharePoint websites instead of by paper or individual emails. -- August 30, 2010

In case you think this is "picking on Microsoft" ...
http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20101205/IT03/12050306/
> Besides limiting access to Net Centric Diplomacy, the State Department has recently
> suspended SIPRNet access to two classified sites, ClassNet and SharePoint, according
> to the White House. In an apparent reference to those actions, State Department
> spokesman P.J. Crowley said last week that access to diplomatic cables has been narrowed
> across the government "for the time being."

"Homophobia" is just a stick for angry people like yourself to try an suppress dissent. The president of the American Psychological Association at the time when homosexuality was dropped as a disorder ("pending further research") was Nicholas Cummings. Cummings has said his profession was characterized by:

"intellectual arrogance and zealotry" and homophobia as intimidation is one of the the most pervasive techniques used to silence anyone who would disagree with the gay activist agenda..sadly, I have seen militant gay men and lesbians-- who I am certain do not represent all homosexuals, and who themselves have been the object of derision and oppression-- once gaining freedom and power, then becoming oppressors themselves."

Gender Identity Disorder of course still remains a recognized disorder (for the time being) and Manning really wasn't military service material.

The "gay suicide" epidemic is also mostly a media creation. Youth suicides are down drastically from the 80's and 90's with only a mild uptick in early 2000's. There are less than 5k suicides of people under 25 - and none of them fill out questionnaires about their sexuality before dying so the "gay suicide epidemic" is not substantiated (and a video that recently went viral showed a 14 yr old boy at a school board meeting lamenting
the "gay holocaust" of 6 million gay suicide deaths a year - preposterous of course). Some have tried to use (as evidence) half-way house and drug rehab surveys that suggested homosexuals in the surveys had more suicidal ideation but that was a small sample of an extreme population.

As for the "gay linguists" - they were discharged before even finishing training and were not even translators yet.

As a Congressional Research Service report made clear, homosexuals discharged from the military have decreased in numbers and most of the homosexuals discharged (almost 100% "honorably") "out" themselves most of the time because they want to get out of the military.

DADT - The Law And Military Policy On Same Sex Behavior"
  http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/150775.pdf

Don't let history disappear ... download now! The file, "insurance.aes256," at 1.4G is ten times the size of the seven other Afghan War diaries files combined. Appears to be encrypted with AES Crypt from www.aescrypt.com Here's the torrent page from The Pirate Bay. https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5723136/WikiLeaks_insurance here's the magnet link magnet:?xt=urn:btih:76a36f1d11c72eb5663eeb4cf31e351321efa3a3&dn=WikiLeaks_insurance&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fdenis.stalker.h3q.com%3A6969%2Fannounce here's the torrent link https://torrents.thepiratebay.org/5723136/WikiLeaks_insurance.5723136.TPB.torrent I tried to post the checksums here but the slashdot filter didn't like them. The AES256 encryption reminded me of this page from cryptome http://cryptome.org/0002/state-aes.htm which says State Department Warns Against AES Crypto page 3 of http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/89272.pdf says "The Bureau of Information Resource Management's Radio Programs Branch (IRM/OPS/ITI/LWS/RPB) provides all overseas missions two-way radios equipped with Digital Encryption Standard (DES) or Advance Encryption Standard (AES). These encryption algorithms provide limited protection from unauthorized interception of voice communications and are only approved for the transmission of Department of State Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) and Department of Defense For Official Use Only (FOUO) communications. Under no circumstances should DES- or AES-equipped radios be used for the transmission of classified information, as defined by Executive Order 12958." What's up with that?

http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1322.html

The Congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program makes available 50,000 diversity visas (DV) annually, drawn from random selection among all entries to persons who meet strict eligibility requirements from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

Solution: Why not raise our import tariff rates to match that of our so-called trading partners?

Because the politicians (and make no mistake, I'm talking both major parties in the U.S.) are bought and paid for by the multinational corporations.

That's a great idea, if you want to start another Great Deprerssion. Protectionist laws like the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act virtually shutdown international trade causing the world's economy to collapse. US exports themselves declined by 61%, falling from "US$5.4 billion to US$2.1 billion". Before Pres Herbert Hoover signed it more than a 1000 economists warned him not to, but of course he did. In retaliation other national governments passed their own protectionist laws.

Falcon

There is no money in the trust fund. To quote from this government document: http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/51264.pdf - "If in any year revenues are greater than costs, the Secretary of the Treasury, as Managing Trustee of the trust funds, is required to invest this positive annual balance (or cash flow surplus) in securities backed by the U.S. government(3). The purchasing of the securities allows the surplus to be used for other government purposes(4)". Reference (4) goes on to say, "This is often referred to as 'borrowing from the Social Security trust fund.'". So the trust fund contains in essence only IOUs.

Since there is effectively no differentiation between the SS monies and the general pool, interest is not being earned, but being paid on the net negative balance. If you isolate just the SS trust fund, then you're missing the whole picture (large total federal debt and its ongoing growth).

Further, SS ran a deficit this year: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html. Deficits are expected to grow rapidly after 2014 - read the document. But even had this recent downturn not happened, the situation is still dire. Here is a chart showing the problem - made before the recent increases in federal outflows: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Medicare_%26_Social_Security_Deficits_Chart.png.

Not an issue of spending? This government spreadsheet of the most recent and prior federal budgets contradicts your claim: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/sheets/hist01z1.xls. Note how the growth in outlays out-paces the growth in revenue. Note the much bigger jump in outlays between 2008 and 2009 (nearly twice the magnitude of the drop in revenues over the same period).

You already got fingerprinted when you got your passport, and because you're a U.S. citizen, the government already knows far more about you than it needs to already (far more than it does about some random foreign dude.) You've already been hassled, you just don't know it yet.

The government does know far more about me than it needs to already, I won't argue with that. However you're either not a US citizen or have never traveled overseas. You don't get fingerprinted when getting a passport. Photo ID and proof of citizenship are sufficient information (and no, I didn't get fingerprinted for my driver's license or birth certificate). I'm guessing not US citizen, because otherwise you'd know that there are very few things that get Americans riled up, but among the big ones are gun control and government IDs. A large number of Americans would make a big fuss if the government started fingerprinting us.

Well, I was told (and never followed up to confirm) that one of the passport application is if you've ever smoked pot and if you answer yes, it's an automatic rejection. I'm about to confirm that, but if it is true, I will not be able to legally get a passport.

While I also can't confirm or deny it, to me that just sounds ridiculous. Having smoked pot is something that a very large percentage of the US population has done (including more than one president in recent history apparently). I highly doubt that it would affect your ability to get a passport.

One of the other replies (from interval1066) said that felons can't get passports, which while also dubious sounding is at least slightly more imaginable - Khyber's answer to him however seems to refute that.

Basically, unless you're a wanted criminal or being officially detained in some way (such as "currently under order not to leave the state due to an ongoing criminal investigation"), I doubt there's anything that'll stop you getting a passport.

Just to add to that, the standard form appears to be this one and everything on it is very standard. No questions about a criminal history or activities. I don't doubt they'd perform all the necessary checks if they are relevant, but they don't appear to ask you directly about them.

If found ineligible for a visa or the VWPP to come to the U.S., a renunciant, under certain circumstances, could be barred from entering the United States.

The RL equivilent would perhaps be announcing that every day one random person caught littering shall be executed - it's also hugely excessive as a punishment, but it's a whole lot cheaper than hireing enough police to give every litterer a small fine, and you can be sure that the streets would get a lot cleaner.

This is basically what happens in singapore.

These include jaywalking, littering and spitting. Singapore has a mandatory caning sentence for vandalism offenses.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1017.html

"Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth."

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf

So McCain likely wasn't eligible to be President, or might have been

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_born_citizen_of_the_United_States#Presidential_candidates_whose_eligibility_was_questioned

If McCain had won, I suspect that a group of the same size would exist as a "birthers".

It and engineering pay has suffered badly because of outsourcing and visa abuse. According to Love to Know here: http://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Facts_and_Figures_on_Outsourcing It seems that if the Obama administration was to take job creation seriously and curb outsourcing of American jobs to cheap foreign contractor slavers it would save close to 1.5 million jobs for Americans. Most of those in IT are familiar by now with the visa abuse that takes place in the US. Many unscrupulous companies are playing games and pulling stunts to meet even the lax standards setup for foreign nationals to obtain work visas in the US. If the Obama administration were again to take job creation seriously then they could come up with almost 5 million US jobs by simply denying visas per the US State Department. http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/FY09AnnualReport_TableXVII.pdf

http://travel.state.gov/law/legal/treaty/treaty_1989.html

it's a "compassion" thing, letting someone spend a decade in prison nearer to their family instead of in a place where they have no family.

The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Voice of America, The Washington Post, the BBC, ITN, The Times of India, Time and most British newspapers use Burma for the name.

Good enough for all of them, good enough for me.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bm.html
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35910.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1300003.stm
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/pays-zones-geo_833/birmanie_551/index.html

There's no insistence from the US to give up your previous citizenship when you become a US citizen.

Yes, it does. See, e.g, p.28 of the Guide to Naturalization produced by US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The State Dept even has a page about it:

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1753.html

This does not contradict the US requirement to renounce foreign citizenship as part of the naturalization process. It just recognizes that foreign countries don't automatically give effect to that renunciation and that the citizenship that still exists (under the laws of the country at issue) may have consequences for the traveller.

Note that the State Department is responsible for providing assistance to Americans travelling abroad, and this is travel information about the effects of status as recognized by other countries. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for the process of people becoming US citizens.

Neither the UK nor the USA require that you renounce your UK citizenship when you take US citizenship. See http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2223.html [state.gov]

That page has nothing to do with citizenship and naturalization, it has to do with travel and entry requirements.

However, you should note that the first thing you swear in the signed oath of allegiance required for naturalization is that "I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen" (emphasis added)

Neither the UK nor the USA require that you renounce your UK citizenship when you take US citizenship. See http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2223.html and http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/britishcitizenship/dualnationality.

In fact, until 2002 there was no way to give up British citizenship - now you can get a form from the British embassy, fill it in and send it to the UK government. It doesn't even have to be permanent as you can reacquire your UK citizenship by filling in another form and sending that one in.

There is one good reason to become a US citizen - to protect your social security pension. If you have spent (or expect to spend) a significant number of years in the USA, enough to be eligible for a US pension (40 credits = 10 years, as I recall) then you might want to protect your investment in the social security system i.e. the 6.2% of your income you have paid and continue to pay. However, in my view, that's certainly not the only good reason to be a citizen of the USA if you have permanently moved here.

I've been a US citizen for some years now and have never been called for jury duty.

Actually, all of those countries do validate his point. As would Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama or Guatemala. Every single one of them has a lower standard of living than Cuba. Every. Single. One.

Hell, so do First Nations people in much of Canada. Or any number of American urban ghettoes.

Cuba isn't perfect by a long shot, but by Central American standards it's a fucking paradise for it's average citizenry.

Really? You are saying standard of living in Cuba is better than Canada? Seriously? Let's look at some facts about Cuba:
Average monthly salary: $18
"After 40 years, the economic Standard of Living in Cuba is less than 1% of what it was in the decade of the 50's."
"Before 1959, Cuba boasted as many cattle as people. Today meat is so scarce that it is a crime to kill and eat a cow without government permission.[33] Cuban people even suffered from starvation during the Special Period."
(from same Wiki article):"The famine in Cuba during the Special Period [1989-1993] was caused by political and economic factors similar to the ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s. Both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled when the public food distribution collapsed; priority was given to the elite classes and the military."

Need I go on? Now, I've only been to Canada a handful of times, about the same as I've been to Mexico, but I've never seen outright starvation in either country. In both countries, I was able to get my hands on beef, quite easily (I ordered the steak), as it was for the rest of the population in the areas I was in. Hell, for that matter, I've seen more homeless in Austin Tx and Lansing Mi than in Toronto, Tijuana or Matamoros.

Yes, Mexico has some poverty, but like I said, no one was arrested by the government for eating beef without permission.

I think you are looking at Cuban government docs or Michael Moore movies and taking them at face value. Maybe you are just not considering factors such as "has food to eat" as a viable indicator of quality of standard of living. Maybe your data is from a time before the fall of the Soviet empire.

Either way, I can't find a whole lot of data to back up your claim that the standard of living in Cuba is better than the standard of living in Canada. Sure, there may be some homeless guy freezing to death in Nova Scotia that would be better served starving on a warm beach near Havana, but comparing the absolute economic bottom of one society to the middle class of another isn't really fair. After all, the president of Haiti lives better than the homeless transvestite in Los Angeles, but I wouldn't exactly say that the standard of living in Haiti is better than that of the US.

All you have to do is hook a RFID detector up to an explosive device in a populated tourist area. Once the RFID detector senses enough unique RFID passport codes within a certain timeframe, BOOM!

RFID in passports were never a good idea.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/faq/faq_1741.html

Work Experience: If you are qualifying with work experience, you must have two years of experience in the last five years, in an occupation which, by U.S. Department of Labor definitions, requires at least two years of training or experience that is designated as Job Zone 4 or 5, classified in a Specific Vocational Preparation (SVP) rating of 7.0 or higher. The U.S. Department of Labor provides information on job duties, knowledge and skills, education and training, and other occupational characteristics at their website http://online.onetcenter.org/. The O*Net online database groups work experience into five "job zones." While many occupations are listed, only certain specified occupations qualify for the Diversity Visa Program.

Not sure who's coming off as stupid, espcially after admitting you were xenophobic and thowing a bunch of stereotypes.

Actually, There are grey legal areas in what your dad is trying to to do. First your dual citizenship is grounded in the ffact that you have dual nationalities. A parent from each place. However, if a US citizen applies for citizenship in another country, he can run the risk of losing his US citizenship. You really need to have your father read this. http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_778.html

20. ^ Graham Fuller in interview with Peter Bergen, Bergen, Peter, Holy War Inc., Free Press, (2001), p.68 21. ^ Henry S. Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Interventions, Oxford University Press, 1999, p.185 22. ^ "The Road to September 11". Evan Thomas. Newsweek. 1 October 2001. 23. ^ "1986-1992: CIA and British Recruit and Train Militants Worldwide to Help Fight Afghan War". Cooperative Research History Commons. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a86operationcyclone. Retrieved 2007-01-11. 24. ^ "CIA worked with Pak to create Taliban". India Abroad News Service. 2001-03-06. http://www.rawa.org/cia-talib.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-11. 25. ^ "CIA bin Laden". October 2001. http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2001/oct01/cover6.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-10. 26. ^ "Did the U.S. "Create" Osama bin Laden?". US Department of State. 2005-01-14. http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24-318760.html. Retrieved 2007-01-09.

"dominated"?

http://www.state.gov/

Handily, the top item on their blogroll is about the DoS's priorities and accomplishments:

http://bit.ly/d5U9oa

Feel free to disbelieve it.

As I try to point out in my first post above, I think it is a stretch to call the government policies most beneficial to oil companies, royalty reductions for certain types of wells, "fat subsidies". But yes, royalty hikes would harm the industry and, at least in the short term, America's energy situation.
On another related point: the profitability of the oil industry is often exaggerated or taken out of context. Specifically, their profit margins are not widely known. While US oil companies do make many billions of dollars of profit, this is on even larger amounts of revenue, as this Congressional Research Service report shows, oil industry profits for the ten largest oil companies in America were on average 8% of revenue, well below many other industries such as banks, drug companies, tech companies and even food companies.
This is because the oil industry requires huge capital investments, all the while paying large royalties and more tax than they make profit. For reasons I believe become clear at that site, the argument that US state and federal governments are not getting their fair cut from the oil industry just doesn't hold water.