I worked at Microsoft in Redmond with H1B work status for four years. Last year I left MS because I found job opportunity that was better for my family. (This new job happened to be back in my country.)
I can't comment about the overall H1B program in the US, or the overall US labour market, or even on any new changes at MS over the past year, but I do definitely know about the experiences of H1B employees in the developer and testing roles at MS.
I (and all other non-US-citizen employees) were treated exactly the same as every other employee. We had the same job descriptions and responsibilities as other employees and the same opportunities for promotion. We were integrated in teams that included US citizens, other H1B-status workers, and people with other immigration statuses. We were certainly paid the same as any other employee with a similar job and similar experience.
I also know that Microsoft has very high hiring standards for developer and tester roles. I was not in a management/lead position, but I occasionally reviewed resumes and took part in interviewing applicants. Interviews were tough all-day affairs, including questions that required the use of logic, math, programming, and testing methodologies. The point wasn't to see if the applicant could regurgitate the knowledge, but to view his or her thinking process, creativity, and problem solving abilities as they tried to come up with a solution, and handle complications or restrictions that the interviewer throws at the candidate after they come up with an initial solution.
During the time I was there, my group and most others were always trying to hire more people. The major bottleneck was waiting to get any resumes for candidates that seemed worth interviewing. Most interviews ended with frustration that the candidate wasn't up to standards. Just because you applied to MS and didn't get a job or even an interview is not proof that Microsoft didn't need to look outside the US to find candidates up to their standards.
So, you might have valid criticisms about the quality of Microsoft software, but MS really does have very high standards for their employees, and employees with H1B status are treated the same as any other full-time employee there.
Even if Hawking Radiation does not exist in nature, there is no danger from uncharged micro black holes produced by the LHC. Any black holes produced would have a mass of a few plank units and would be extremely small in size. Obviously, as black holes, they would have an inescapable event horizon and space-time would be extremely distorted very close to them.
However, because they would be so small and because gravity is so very weak compared to the other forces, such a tiny micro black hole could pass through a nucleus without significantly interacting with the nucleons. Basically, it would need to happen to "directly" hit a quark to swallow it and grow in size. This highly unlikely event (nuclei are mostly empty space) would have to repeat several times before the black hole became large enough to start sucking in nearby matter in a run-away process. Instead, the micro black hole would settle to the centre of the Earth and not significantly interact with other matter or "swallow" anything up.
A natural inclination, I think, (and it certainly is mine) is to think of a black hole necessarily sucking in everything around it. But the whole point of truly small micro black holes is that it is very low-mass and thus has very weak gravitational attraction, although of course highly concentrated.
Outstanding question (for me): This assumes that any micro black holes produced by the LHC would be uncharged. Is this a valid assumption? (I remember reading that it was, but now I can't remember why.)
There's really no risk to someone who is vacationing in the US of being arrested and held without warrant.
Quoting from twostix's example:
"Maher Arar, a Syrian-born dual Syrian and Canadian citizen, was detained at Kennedy International Airport on 26 September 2002, by US Immigration and Naturalization Service officials. He was heading home to Canada after a family holiday in Tunisia. After almost two weeks, enduring hours of interrogation chained, he was sent, shackled and bound, in a private jet to Jordan and then Syria, instead of being extradited to Canada. There, he was interrogated and tortured by Syrian intelligence. Maher Arar was eventually released a year later."
Maher Arar's case has become very well-known in Canada.
A simplified version of the algorithm used by Canadian Border Services to determine whether you would be be denied entry (unless you get a waiver) is:
1. Where you convicted of a crime?
2. How serious is that same crime considered in Canada?
3. How long ago was the conviction? If the crime was very serious by Canadian standards, you will be denied entry for a long time after your conviction; if it was less serious, you will be denied entry for only a shorter time after the conviction.
#2 is the reason why US people convicted of "misdemeanour" drunk driving in the US are treated seriously at the Canadian border - drunk driving is actually considered a more serious crime in Canada ("felony", by US standards).
#2 is also the reason why you won't be denied entry to Canada for something that is completely unrelated to anything considered criminal in Canada.
Actually, Canadian diamonds sell for a premium, at least at jewellery stores, especially the government certified "Polar Ice" diamonds which are not only mined in the Northwest Territories but also cut and polished there.
The Parliament of Canada has some excellent resources to explain the basics of the parliamentary system there. They provide good information about how the general British-style parliamentary system works within a specific, real context.
The Library of Parliament hosts the following, online:
I especially recommend "How Canadians Govern Themselves", first written by a Senator and now updated and published by the Library of Parliament. It is written for a general audience (not the law school crowd), but I do not think that it over-simplifies things. Because most Canadians' expectations of how government should function is shaped by US sources, the publication includes a section that compares US and Canadian governance, which I think would be a useful section for any interested American readers, too.
In most parliamentary systems (and my knowledge is mostly about Canadian and other Westminster-style systems), the prime minister is chosen from parliament. In many such systems the prime minister is not technically chosen by parliament, but is chosen by the head of state, and the prime minister must retain the confidence (approval) of parliament to remain in power. Nevertheless, whether the prime minister is chosen by parliament or not, the requirement that the PM retains the approval of parliament means that the PM is generally who parliament would have chosen.
In a purely parliamentary system (i.e. most of Western Europe except for France, all Commonwealth Realms), the head of state may be a directly-elected president, an indirectly-elected president, an appointed president, or a monarch, but they have a largely* ceremonial role and are definitely not the active head of the executive.
It wouldn't make sense to directly elect the prime minister, because the essence of a parliamentary system is that the government (i.e. executive) must have the confidence of parliament.
In most parliamentary systems, certainly in Canada, the judiciary is independent, but there is not a separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The link between the legislative bodies and the executive is what makes it a parliamentary system.
* - For an example of why I said that the head of state is "largely ceremonial" instead of "completely ceremonial", see this story about "Crisis in Ottawa", where the representative of Canada's head of state was not merely ceremonial.
No, the government in Spain is run by the "Presidente del Gobierno", literally President of the Government not President of the Nation. This is using the non-US definition of "government", meaning "executive branch". This basically means "chairman of the cabinet", which is what "prime minister" or "first minister" also means. Indeed, the Spanish "Presidente del Gobierno" is usually called the "Prime Minister" in English.
For getting retribution/justice in this case, filing a civil case against Mrs Drew seems like a much more appropriate and potentially fruitful course of action.
Criminals have a debt to their victim and only to them. The government should be ashamed to steal from the victim it's right to justice. Accusation should be led by the victim's family, not by the state.
I hope this is a parody of libertarianism. If not...
In any common law system, and probably civil code ones too, victims and victims' families can sue for damages for wrongful death in civil court. As for abolishing criminal prosecutions by the state: of course the state has no vested interest in bringing murders and other criminals to justice; of course someone who murders a person who has no family should be safe from prosecution; and of course it makes sense to have a system that strongly encourages a murderer to try to wipe out the entire family of any of his victims.
And the situation with Quebec is similar to Louisiana's: they both have a civil code for areas in provincial/state jurisdiction and for their court systems, but obviously federal law is a common-law system throughout both countries, including in Quebec and Louisiana for federal matters.
The difference is that Louisiana (like other US states) has its own criminal laws and there are parallel state and federal courts, but in Canada making criminal laws (and regulating defences and court proceedings for them) is almost 100% only a federal power, whereas civil matters and administering and setting up the courts is almost 100% a provincial power. In one way this makes things simpler in Quebec than in Louisiana: if you're being tried for a crime, common law principles and procedures apply; if you're involved in a lawsuit, the Quebec civil code (based on French and ultimately Roman law) applies, even though the same court could be hearing both matters.
Oh yeah, and even though Quebec and the other provinces regulate, setup, and administer their own court systems from the lowest level up to their respective Court of Appeal, the federal government appoints the judges for the provincial superior and appeals levels. So in that sense I think the Canadian court systems and separation of federal/provincial powers are more complicated to understand - it is more interwoven - but in practise it makes actually dealing with the court system simpler.
In the same way that french, english, italians etc... are Europeens.
Canadians (and Mexicans) are North Americans in the same way that that French, English, Italians, etc are Europeans. But Canadians are only Americans to the same extent that French, English, Italians, etc are Eurasians. I've decided that the next time someone from a European country smugly points out that I am an "American" because I'm from "the Americas" or "the American continent" (which assumes that I am obscenely geographically ignorant to need that pointed out to me, and which also ignores the context and almost all idiomatic usage of the term "American" in any English dialect), I will point out that they are a Eurasian and continue referring to them as such until they stop calling me American.
Relevant (I hope) joke:
A little old lady called the police to her house, complaining that her neighbour stood in front of his window, completely naked, each morning. She took the police officer into her bathroom and pointed out her neighbour, who could be seen shaving through his bathroom window.
"See," she said, "he hasn't got any clothes on."
"He isn't wearing a shirt," replied the police officer, "but he's only visible from the chest up, so we can't know that he is totally naked."
"Yes you can," she said, "if you stand on the toilet and crane your neck like this..."
"Canadian Privacy Czar"
There are no "czar" positions in Canada, even in slang terms. Yes, I know that it has become a popular term in US politics - drug czar, war czar, etc. It's really, really stupid in that context, and in a Canadian context it is additionally inappropriate.
I think this is a relevant principal of common law: Thin Skull Rule:
2. In criminal law, if a person commits an unlawful act against another with a preexisting condition ("thin skull") that results in that person's death, he or she will be held to have caused the death even though it could not be foreseen. R. v. Smithers (1977), 32 C.C.C. (2d) 427 (S.C.C.)
From Barron's Canadian Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, Hauppauge, New York. 2003.
This is from a Canadian source, but it is a principal that applies in most or all common law jurisdictions, including those in the United States.
I don't see a problem with the current use of these camera systems, assuming it is implemented reasonably. By "reasonably", I mean something like the following: Each camera is connected to a database of the plates of known "offenders", such as stolen cars, fugitives, or more trivial things like cars with lapsed registration, insurance, or failed emissions tests. It scans all the licence plates it sees and checks them against the database - if there is a match, the police or Motor Vehicle Administration enforcement can take action. Otherwise, the scanned plate is not stored and certainly the time and place at which is was scanned is not stored.
As I said, if the system is implemented in a reasonably way, like my scenario, then I have no problem with it being used to check for known infractions and offences - no matter how trivial.
For a bicarmal legislature to work effectivly the two houses need to have different methods of selection....
This is something which isn't the case in the US and Canada. How do you think that senators are selected in Canada? I'm honestly very curious about what your assumption is.
By the way, "parliamentary democracy" and "republican system" are not on the same axis. There are many republics that are also parliamentary systems. See Parliamentary Republic.
A stricter separation of the executive and legislative roles, with a more independent executive, like the U.S. has, is a "presidential (or congressional) system". The presidential system is on the same axis as the parliamentary system. Basically, these are different points on an axis of how directly responsible to the legislate body the executive is.
Also, the degree of party discipline is not necessarily tied to the parliamentary system. There are parliamentary democracies with much less party control over individual MPs than there is in Canada. However, there does tend to be more party discipline in parliamentary systems, because of the need for the government (i.e. "executive branch") to have ongoing support in parliament.
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I worked at Microsoft in Redmond with H1B work status for four years. Last year I left MS because I found job opportunity that was better for my family. (This new job happened to be back in my country.)
I can't comment about the overall H1B program in the US, or the overall US labour market, or even on any new changes at MS over the past year, but I do definitely know about the experiences of H1B employees in the developer and testing roles at MS.
I (and all other non-US-citizen employees) were treated exactly the same as every other employee. We had the same job descriptions and responsibilities as other employees and the same opportunities for promotion. We were integrated in teams that included US citizens, other H1B-status workers, and people with other immigration statuses. We were certainly paid the same as any other employee with a similar job and similar experience.
I also know that Microsoft has very high hiring standards for developer and tester roles. I was not in a management/lead position, but I occasionally reviewed resumes and took part in interviewing applicants. Interviews were tough all-day affairs, including questions that required the use of logic, math, programming, and testing methodologies. The point wasn't to see if the applicant could regurgitate the knowledge, but to view his or her thinking process, creativity, and problem solving abilities as they tried to come up with a solution, and handle complications or restrictions that the interviewer throws at the candidate after they come up with an initial solution.
During the time I was there, my group and most others were always trying to hire more people. The major bottleneck was waiting to get any resumes for candidates that seemed worth interviewing. Most interviews ended with frustration that the candidate wasn't up to standards. Just because you applied to MS and didn't get a job or even an interview is not proof that Microsoft didn't need to look outside the US to find candidates up to their standards.
So, you might have valid criticisms about the quality of Microsoft software, but MS really does have very high standards for their employees, and employees with H1B status are treated the same as any other full-time employee there.
Even if Hawking Radiation does not exist in nature, there is no danger from uncharged micro black holes produced by the LHC. Any black holes produced would have a mass of a few plank units and would be extremely small in size. Obviously, as black holes, they would have an inescapable event horizon and space-time would be extremely distorted very close to them.
However, because they would be so small and because gravity is so very weak compared to the other forces, such a tiny micro black hole could pass through a nucleus without significantly interacting with the nucleons. Basically, it would need to happen to "directly" hit a quark to swallow it and grow in size. This highly unlikely event (nuclei are mostly empty space) would have to repeat several times before the black hole became large enough to start sucking in nearby matter in a run-away process. Instead, the micro black hole would settle to the centre of the Earth and not significantly interact with other matter or "swallow" anything up.
A natural inclination, I think, (and it certainly is mine) is to think of a black hole necessarily sucking in everything around it. But the whole point of truly small micro black holes is that it is very low-mass and thus has very weak gravitational attraction, although of course highly concentrated.
Outstanding question (for me): This assumes that any micro black holes produced by the LHC would be uncharged. Is this a valid assumption? (I remember reading that it was, but now I can't remember why.)
There's really no risk to someone who is vacationing in the US of being arrested and held without warrant.
Quoting from twostix's example: "Maher Arar, a Syrian-born dual Syrian and Canadian citizen, was detained at Kennedy International Airport on 26 September 2002, by US Immigration and Naturalization Service officials. He was heading home to Canada after a family holiday in Tunisia. After almost two weeks, enduring hours of interrogation chained, he was sent, shackled and bound, in a private jet to Jordan and then Syria, instead of being extradited to Canada. There, he was interrogated and tortured by Syrian intelligence. Maher Arar was eventually released a year later." Maher Arar's case has become very well-known in Canada.
#2 is the reason why US people convicted of "misdemeanour" drunk driving in the US are treated seriously at the Canadian border - drunk driving is actually considered a more serious crime in Canada ("felony", by US standards). #2 is also the reason why you won't be denied entry to Canada for something that is completely unrelated to anything considered criminal in Canada.
Brownian Motion? OK, maybe that doesn't actually show atomism, but molecularism.
Actually, Canadian diamonds sell for a premium, at least at jewellery stores, especially the government certified "Polar Ice" diamonds which are not only mined in the Northwest Territories but also cut and polished there.
Last I checked defamation is protected by free speech. He would be laughed out of court.
That is untrue. See Wikipedia's article on US defamation law.
The Library of Parliament hosts the following, online:
I especially recommend "How Canadians Govern Themselves", first written by a Senator and now updated and published by the Library of Parliament. It is written for a general audience (not the law school crowd), but I do not think that it over-simplifies things. Because most Canadians' expectations of how government should function is shaped by US sources, the publication includes a section that compares US and Canadian governance, which I think would be a useful section for any interested American readers, too.
In most parliamentary systems (and my knowledge is mostly about Canadian and other Westminster-style systems), the prime minister is chosen from parliament. In many such systems the prime minister is not technically chosen by parliament, but is chosen by the head of state, and the prime minister must retain the confidence (approval) of parliament to remain in power. Nevertheless, whether the prime minister is chosen by parliament or not, the requirement that the PM retains the approval of parliament means that the PM is generally who parliament would have chosen.
In a purely parliamentary system (i.e. most of Western Europe except for France, all Commonwealth Realms), the head of state may be a directly-elected president, an indirectly-elected president, an appointed president, or a monarch, but they have a largely* ceremonial role and are definitely not the active head of the executive.
It wouldn't make sense to directly elect the prime minister, because the essence of a parliamentary system is that the government (i.e. executive) must have the confidence of parliament.
In most parliamentary systems, certainly in Canada, the judiciary is independent, but there is not a separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The link between the legislative bodies and the executive is what makes it a parliamentary system.
* - For an example of why I said that the head of state is "largely ceremonial" instead of "completely ceremonial", see this story about "Crisis in Ottawa", where the representative of Canada's head of state was not merely ceremonial.
No, the government in Spain is run by the "Presidente del Gobierno", literally President of the Government not President of the Nation. This is using the non-US definition of "government", meaning "executive branch". This basically means "chairman of the cabinet", which is what "prime minister" or "first minister" also means. Indeed, the Spanish "Presidente del Gobierno" is usually called the "Prime Minister" in English.
For getting retribution/justice in this case, filing a civil case against Mrs Drew seems like a much more appropriate and potentially fruitful course of action.
What's the difference between something not existing, and something existing but being impossible to detect?
Praying to the first thing would be silly, but praying to the second one is a de facto requirement to be the U.S. president.
"kph"? WTF? If you're using kph instead of km/h, then you're part of the problem.
Two words: Use CANDU.
Accidentally modded parent -1 Overrated. Replying to fix...
I hope this is a parody of libertarianism. If not...
In any common law system, and probably civil code ones too, victims and victims' families can sue for damages for wrongful death in civil court. As for abolishing criminal prosecutions by the state: of course the state has no vested interest in bringing murders and other criminals to justice; of course someone who murders a person who has no family should be safe from prosecution; and of course it makes sense to have a system that strongly encourages a murderer to try to wipe out the entire family of any of his victims.
And the situation with Quebec is similar to Louisiana's: they both have a civil code for areas in provincial/state jurisdiction and for their court systems, but obviously federal law is a common-law system throughout both countries, including in Quebec and Louisiana for federal matters.
The difference is that Louisiana (like other US states) has its own criminal laws and there are parallel state and federal courts, but in Canada making criminal laws (and regulating defences and court proceedings for them) is almost 100% only a federal power, whereas civil matters and administering and setting up the courts is almost 100% a provincial power. In one way this makes things simpler in Quebec than in Louisiana: if you're being tried for a crime, common law principles and procedures apply; if you're involved in a lawsuit, the Quebec civil code (based on French and ultimately Roman law) applies, even though the same court could be hearing both matters.
Oh yeah, and even though Quebec and the other provinces regulate, setup, and administer their own court systems from the lowest level up to their respective Court of Appeal, the federal government appoints the judges for the provincial superior and appeals levels. So in that sense I think the Canadian court systems and separation of federal/provincial powers are more complicated to understand - it is more interwoven - but in practise it makes actually dealing with the court system simpler.
Canadians (and Mexicans) are North Americans in the same way that that French, English, Italians, etc are Europeans. But Canadians are only Americans to the same extent that French, English, Italians, etc are Eurasians.
I've decided that the next time someone from a European country smugly points out that I am an "American" because I'm from "the Americas" or "the American continent" (which assumes that I am obscenely geographically ignorant to need that pointed out to me, and which also ignores the context and almost all idiomatic usage of the term "American" in any English dialect), I will point out that they are a Eurasian and continue referring to them as such until they stop calling me American.
Relevant (I hope) joke:
A little old lady called the police to her house, complaining that her neighbour stood in front of his window, completely naked, each morning. She took the police officer into her bathroom and pointed out her neighbour, who could be seen shaving through his bathroom window.
"See," she said, "he hasn't got any clothes on."
"He isn't wearing a shirt," replied the police officer, "but he's only visible from the chest up, so we can't know that he is totally naked."
"Yes you can," she said, "if you stand on the toilet and crane your neck like this..."
"Canadian Privacy Czar"
There are no "czar" positions in Canada, even in slang terms. Yes, I know that it has become a popular term in US politics - drug czar , war czar , etc. It's really, really stupid in that context, and in a Canadian context it is additionally inappropriate.
I think this is a relevant principal of common law:
Thin Skull Rule: 2. In criminal law, if a person commits an unlawful act against another with a preexisting condition ("thin skull") that results in that person's death, he or she will be held to have caused the death even though it could not be foreseen. R. v. Smithers (1977), 32 C.C.C. (2d) 427 (S.C.C.)
From Barron's Canadian Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, Hauppauge, New York. 2003.
This is from a Canadian source, but it is a principal that applies in most or all common law jurisdictions, including those in the United States.
I don't see a problem with the current use of these camera systems, assuming it is implemented reasonably. By "reasonably", I mean something like the following: Each camera is connected to a database of the plates of known "offenders", such as stolen cars, fugitives, or more trivial things like cars with lapsed registration, insurance, or failed emissions tests. It scans all the licence plates it sees and checks them against the database - if there is a match, the police or Motor Vehicle Administration enforcement can take action. Otherwise, the scanned plate is not stored and certainly the time and place at which is was scanned is not stored.
As I said, if the system is implemented in a reasonably way, like my scenario, then I have no problem with it being used to check for known infractions and offences - no matter how trivial.
Daniel al-Autistiqui? daniel mcgrath?
By the way, "parliamentary democracy" and "republican system" are not on the same axis. There are many republics that are also parliamentary systems. See Parliamentary Republic.
A stricter separation of the executive and legislative roles, with a more independent executive, like the U.S. has, is a "presidential (or congressional) system". The presidential system is on the same axis as the parliamentary system. Basically, these are different points on an axis of how directly responsible to the legislate body the executive is.
Also, the degree of party discipline is not necessarily tied to the parliamentary system. There are parliamentary democracies with much less party control over individual MPs than there is in Canada. However, there does tend to be more party discipline in parliamentary systems, because of the need for the government (i.e. "executive branch") to have ongoing support in parliament.