Tuesday, July 5, 2011

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  • gsc999
    08-15 12:41 PM
    A comprehensive look at Lou Doub, his past, his present and his future ( ;-) please see quote below for future...)


    "CNN president Jonathan Klein refused The Nation's requests for an interview, but he has told the New York Times that "Lou's show is not a harbinger of things to come at CNN."

    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/eviatar





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  • Macaca
    03-04 06:04 PM
    Over the next five weeks, The Washington Post will tell Gerald Cassidy's story in a unique way. On Monday, the series will jump to the newspaper's Web site, washingtonpost.com/citizen-k-street, to begin a 25-chapter serial narrative that will describe how Cassidy built his business, how he made the deals that earned his millions, how he and his fellow-lobbyists influenced decisions of government and helped create the money-centric culture of modern Washington.





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  • 485Mbe4001
    09-29 07:55 PM
    its ok, you misunderstood my point. I dont want to divert OP of this thread.

    Anyways the fact of the matter is that we are in a limbo, all indications point to Obama becoming the next president of US. if CIR 2008 was any indication , we as EB applicants are royally screwed if Sen Durbin dictates his immigration policy. What is the use of talking about wars and innocent people when chances are that the advocate of his immigration policy is opposed to my main issue of EB reform. high low Taxes, 401k's, houses, Medicare etc will matter if you get to stay here in the first place. A average 6-9 years of paying taxes, supporting medicare and Social Security and we now need to think about moving to different countries where skilled immigrants are welcome....think about it. Just look at the CIR 2008 discussion to understand what i am talking about. Read the senators transcripts.



    Ramayan was an epic written long time ago. It is a story(like stories in bibble). Creationism evolved just to oppose evolution theory and cause confusion to the evolution theory. They say it is based on science, when it is not. BTW evolution is also a fact, it is not just theory.

    Spending on needless wars are not helping economy. With this economy there is little chance for GC. If everybody wants tax cut, who will pay the debt. Keep borrowing? Some one has to pay the interest at the least..
    Clinton balanced the budget, while taxing the rich. McCain is for the 'trickle down economy' which we now see what it really is(DOW down 800 points). Obama is for tax cut for the average guys and not for the 'trickle down economy' scam.





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  • abracadabra102
    08-06 05:16 PM
    Thompson, Ritchie and Kernighan admit that Unix was a prank

    In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix operating system and C programming language created by them is an elaborate prank kept alive for over 20 years. Speaking at the recent UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the following:

    "In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/Honeywell/AT&T Multics project. Brian and I had started work with an early release of Pascal from Professor Niklaus Wirth's ETH Labs in Switzerland and we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and power. Dennis had just finished reading 'Bored of the Rings', a National Lampoon parody of the Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. As a lark, we decided to do parodies of the Multics environment and Pascal. Dennis and I were responsible for the operating environment. We looked at Multics and designed the new OS to be as complex and cryptic as possible to maximize casual users' frustration levels, calling it Unix as a parody of Multics, as well as other more risque! allusions. We sold the terse command language to novitiates by telling them that it saved them typing.

    Then Dennis and Brian worked on a warped version of Pascal, called 'A'. 'A' looked a lot like Pascal, but elevated the notion of the direct memory address (which Wirth had banished) to the central concept of the "pointer" as an innocuous sounding name for a truly malevolent construct. Brian must be credited with the idea of having absolutely no standard I/O specification: this ensured that at least 50% of the typical commercial program would have to be re-coded when changing hardware platforms.

    Brian was also responsible for pitching this lack of I/O as a feature: it allowed us to describe the language as "truly portable". When we found others were actually creating real programs with A, we removed compulsory type-checking on function arguments. Later, we added a notion we called "casting": this allowed the programmer to treat an integer as though it were a 50kb user-defined structure. When we found that some programmers were simply not using pointers, we eliminated the ability to pass structures to functions, enforcing their use in even the simplest applications. We sold this, and many other features, as enhancements to the efficiency of the language. In this way, our prank evolved into B, BCPL, and finally C.

    We stopped when we got a clean compile on the following syntax: for(;P("\n"),R-;P("|"))for(e=C;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("| "+(*u/4)%2);

    At one time, we joked about selling this to the Soviets to set their computer science progress back 20 or more years.

    Unfortunately, AT&T and other US corporations actually began using Unix and C. We decided we'd better keep mum, assuming it was just a passing phase. In fact, it's taken US companies over 20 years to develop enough expertise to generate useful applications using this 1960's technological parody. We are impressed with the tenacity of the general Unix and C programmer. In fact, Brian, Dennis and I have never ourselves attempted to write a commercial application in this environment.

    We feel really guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly awesome programming projects that have resulted from our silly prank so long ago."

    Dennis Ritchie said: "What really tore it (just when ADA was catching on), was that Bjarne Stroustrup caught onto our joke. He extended it to further parody Smalltalk. Like us, he was caught by surprise when nobody laughed. So he added multiple inheritance, virtual base classes, and later ...templates. All to no avail. So we now have compilers that can compile 100,000 lines per second, but need to process header files for 25 minutes before they get to the meat of "Hello, World".

    Major Unix and C vendors and customers, including AT&T, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, GTE, NCR, and DEC have refused comment at this time.

    Borland International, a leading vendor of object-oriented tools, including the popular Turbo Pascal and Borland C++, stated they had suspected for Windows was originally written in C++. Philippe Kahn said: "After two and a half years programming, and massive programmer burn-outs, we re-coded the whole thing in Turbo Pascal in three months. I think it's fair to say that Turbo Pascal saved our bacon". Another Borland spokesman said that they would continue to enhance their Pascal products and halt further efforts to develop C/C++.

    Professor Wirth of the ETH Institute and father of the Pascal, Modula 2, and Oberon structured languages, cryptically said "P.T. Barnum was right." He had no further comments.



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  • gcisadawg
    01-06 05:45 PM
    Refugee New,

    The focus has totally shifted from "Israeli occupation of Palestine" to "Terrorism". WHY? Blame it of Arafat, his successors and now Hamas.

    See how other Arab countries are treating Palestinian Refugees.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugees

    You can not blame everything on Jewish media. There is no point in you and me jumping up and down. The people that needs to realize should realize and focus on a workable solution.

    Mumbai terrorism was discussed at length but you did not see the same level of discussion for LTTE's war with SLA. LTTE shares religion, language and ethnicity with lots of Indians but you DID NOT see the board discussing about that war a lot. What does that mean? It is people's nature to care only about things that impact them. There are so many stuffs that happens in world that doesn't impact all.

    This is another example of Middle east getting much more media attention than war between LTTE and SLA. With all the media attention and world opinion favoring Palestine until 10 years ago, they should have gotten their own state long ago.





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  • StuckInTheMuck
    08-08 04:40 PM
    Two alligators are sitting on the edge of a swamp. The small one turns to the big one and says, "I don't understand how you can be so much bigger than me. We're the same age, we were the same size as kids. I just don't get it."

    "Well," says the big alligator, "What have you been eating?"

    "Immigration attorneys, same as you," replies the small alligator.

    "Hm. Well, where do you catch 'em?"

    "Down at that law firm on the edge of the swamp."

    "Same here. Hm. How do you catch 'em?"

    "Well, I crawl under a BMW and wait for someone to unlock the door. Then I jump out, bite 'em, shake the crap out of 'em, and eat 'em!"

    "Ah!" says the big alligator, "I think I see your problem. See, by the time you get done shakin' the crap out of an immigration lawyer, there's nothin' left but lips and a briefcase."



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  • brad_sk2
    01-06 01:54 PM
    Israeli shelling kills more than 40 at UN school in Gaza.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/06/gaza-israel-death-un

    More killing while the world watches silently.

    Unfortunately Hamas has been using this school as human shield launching missiles against Israel military. You need to consider all acts before accusing Israel of killing innocents.

    Hamas must stop their methodology of using innocent civilian homes/schools as launch pads for bombings and they must drop their quest of eliminating a Jewish state. Similarly Israel should recognize Palestine as a separate independent country.





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  • unitednations
    07-09 01:03 PM
    UN..after I read your story..

    god..you r so gutsy.. must appreciate you..!!


    Just follow the law. There are lots of protections in it for us.



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  • gaz
    01-10 06:48 AM
    Killing of innocents is always terrible. Even more so when it is children.

    Hamas has been holding Palestinians hostage - and now Israel, the cop, doesn't care if the hostage is affected in the fight.

    Israel is fully justified in defending its people, but should at least spare shooting independent parties like the Red Cross etc who are
    helping the wounded in Gaza.

    "when Elephants fight, its the grass that suffers."


    I am not sure why Islamic Fanatics become victims when they are attacked. Israel is 101% right in defending their territory from Palestine terror attacks. My home country is gonig through the same problem but my government won't do anything.

    Similar example of Pakistan becoming a victim of terror when actually it is a factory of terror and 100% of it s population supports terror in one form or another.

    Don't fire rockets if u fear trouble. Civilized world ( US,UK.Israel,India) need to come together and get a gameplan to weed out this trouble.

    When those terrorists kill innocents, Islamic fanatics go silent. They only wake up when their terrorist brothers are killed.

    So collateral is always in play.


    :D





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  • bigboy007
    10-05 06:13 PM
    But as many have pointed out , I have same doubts whether US will maintain its edge with all these issues facing.

    Coming on to GC , its a mess already .. Dates even might retrogress more :-( but with new admin and initiatives like CIR07 if it passes again I dont what situation we might face.

    Let us give Obama a chance and see what he does� We are already in deep shit and nothing worse can happen



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  • hiralal
    06-25 10:48 PM
    Just as an example, this may be an anomaly, but I know this Australian Indian citizen, who has recently bought 2 houses in the LA Valley and is having no issues filling them with contractors so far (1 my friend), even in this economy. He works on SAP projects traveling on H1 , but is in Aussie land most of the time, with his family. The rent more than pays off his mortgage.
    I have only one sentence to say ..watch the movie "pacific heights" ..I was watching it now and that is a perfect movie for those who intend to rent their homes.
    (ofcourse it is just a movie ..but very interesting, worth watching for everyone and gives you some knowledge too. what you have mentioned is the best case scenario ..the movie is the worst case scenario. as always, reality is somewhere in between).
    personally there are better ways to make money ..for me diversify is the key word ..(rather than everything in real estate or everything in stock ...and yes, you need to watch the money you have like a hawk (and that is difficult when you give your house on rent ..for eg how do you find out if only the tenant's family is living there - or whether he has sub leased to 2-3 families etc etc)





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  • somegchuh
    03-25 12:59 PM
    I completely agree that buying a house is a long term move. But I disagree with some of the points:

    1. Does rent always go up? No, my rent did not go up at all during the real estate boom as the number of ppl renting was low. Recently my rent has gone up only $75 pm. (love rent control!!!) So in 5 years, my monthly rent has gone up a total of $125 per month
    2. I hear about tax rebate for homeowners. But what about property tax?
    3. What about mortgage insurance payments?

    It is a misconception that 5-10 years is the cycle for real estate.

    Here's how in a sane real estate market the cycle should work:

    No population influx in your area or there is no exodus from your area:
    Your real estate ownership should be 25 years because that's when the next generation is ready to buy houses.

    However, in places like SF Bay Area/new York/Boston where there is continuous influx of young working ppl this cycle can be reduced to 15-20 years.

    Over the last few years, nobody thought of longevity required to make money in RE. Now that it is tanking ppl are talking about 5-10 years. Unless you are buying in a booming place, your ownership has to be 15+ years to turn a real profit.

    This is purely the financial aspect of ownership. If you have a family I think its really nice to have a house but you don't have to really take on the liability. You can rent the same house for much less. But if you are clear in your mind that no matter what I am going to live in XYZ town/city for the next 20 years, go for it.

    As a sidenote for Indians. We all have either aging or soon to start aging parents. The way I see it, caring for aging parents is a social debt that we must pay back. This will need me to go back to India. Therefore, if you feel you need to care for your parents, don't commit to a house.



    Buying a house is a long term move. Not a short term. The payment for house will remain (pretty much) the same for 30 years! Rental prices will go up every year. And after 30 years of payments, the house will be all yours.

    You're also neglecting the tax savings. There'll be appx. $900 per month in tax saving (assuming 25% tax bracket).

    Unless you can think and plan 5~10 years ahead (at least), real estate is not for you.



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  • sanju
    12-18 05:41 PM
    Why is it that there are no true democracies in the middle east? Have you ever thought of that? Do you realize that in a country like Saudi Arabia women are oppressed and they have to follow the dictates of the mullahs!! Every person, irrespective of their personal faith is subject to the Sharia laws!! Is that justice!! Why is it that Muslims don’t see oppression within their own country and try wage a jihad against that? Why is it that Muslims don’t want to spend time and effort cleaning up their own house?


    Let me tell why, because it has got to be someone else's fault. Those terrorist who attacked America no 911 had nothing to do with Chechenya or Palestine or Darfur. They were merely blinded by their twisted world view that was based on their twisted belief system. And the applied to the terrorist who attacked Mumbai on 11/26.

    Although it is difficult to swallow what these misguided guys did, it is even more difficult to see EDUCATED LITERATE people defend barbaric heinous inhuman actions in the name of religion. I can't even image in the wildest of my dreams anybody's GOD will tell someone to conduct such acts and anybody's GOD will tell that person to defend such acts. This has got be work of an extremely inferior mind which says - lets try to reason out why such attacks are conducted on unarmed civilians including woman and children. Denfending such acts in the name of religion is worst than participating in this crime against humanity.

    And if I am incharge and decision maker, if the objective of terrorist is to draw attention to a specifc cause to solve it to their liking, I will make sure that that issue is never EVER addressed. No compromise and no negotitions with terrorists, EVER.


    .





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  • nojoke
    01-03 07:42 PM
    You are a Kashmiri muslim.
    Will you accept the responsibility of making hundreds of thousands Kashimiri pandits homeless? Will you accept the responsibility for the Godhra attack?
    Do you have a time machine that can take you back to 1600 A.D and stop the evil islamic barbarics from pillaging our land? Can you? Or you need a proof for that as well to interpol?

    1. To curb terrorism, Pakistan must destroy all the terror camps. Its not doing it, its not handing over any terrorists, what's the point of having cup of chai and talking non-sense?

    2. You are a Kashmiri. Tell us, what is a possible solution? India will not hand over the remainder of the Kashmir because part of the Kashmir is already occupied by Pakistan. Period. Now, do you have a solution?

    3. You are open for open visas. What good will it do except for terrorists to come in freely and legally?

    4. By exchanging prisoners you mean hand over the terrorists, right. Hand over Afzal and Kasam and the other butchers. And ask president to pardon them.
    Sorry, won't happen.

    What else?

    I agree there are issues that need to be resolved in India. But what is happening in India ia India's problem. They don't need to handover anyone to international court. India is not causing problem to other countries. There are laws and due process to handle the criminals in India. But the powerful do get away. It is silly to ask all these problems to be solved by International court. I don't think they will be interested to run trials on such cases.
    Sorry this post is to engineer.



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  • ohpdfeb2003
    06-27 01:35 PM
    Right, you pay for what you called "service", which is what your landlord is providing. And you pay him to let you stay in his house, which means YOU my friend are paying more than 80% of HIS mortgage. At the end of his mortgage, all his tenants would have collectively chipped in to pay more than 80% of HIS mortage and he has a house at the end of it all. What do YOU have? Zero, zilch, nada!

    No true in most cases espcially where housing is not affordable, is there a rule anywhere that tenants have to chip in 80%. There are several foolish housing investors, that I know of right now who arent even making 50% of their mortgage.

    If landlords are doing so well then who are the people undergoing foreclousures and bankruptices that we hear about :D

    Historically over a 30 year period, housing doesnt even return inflation adjusted value of money.

    What does a renter have in the end? He had the diversified returns from the downpayment money he has invested else where and difference between rent and mortgage compounded every month.

    Money paid as interest is the "service" cost of the money being loaned to you. You are paying so that you can live in the house you did NOT pay full cash for.

    My interest in a year is 2 times more than the standard deduction. I don't have a business yet, but when I start one, I'm going to have more deductions. Do the math!

    not forever, only the first few years. you will have to revert to standard deduction, that samething that renter's get years down the line.

    Right goahead and deduct your business expense from your personal tax return, IRS will pay you a visit:p





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  • zxcvb
    07-17 10:37 PM
    Hi UN,

    What if the employee gets paid less than what is mentioned on the LCA on H1. Is that considered Out of Status?

    Thanks in advance



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  • amsgc
    07-15 12:01 AM
    Pani,

    I think there will be legislation; if not in the next few months, then next year for sure. Note that the movement in EB2-I has been at the cost of EB2-China and EB3-ROW. Also, there are too many people stuck in EB2 as well, so this movement in PDs will come back to a more realistic level pretty soon. I reckon there will be another push after the elections. My only worry is that our provisions will get all mixed up and confused with those of undocumented workers. This was the best time for us - it is indeed very frustrating to see less than 200 people who make the calls out of an apparant sea of half a million(i am begining to doubt that number now). Only 200 made a contribution to keep this organization strong. what can you really expect? Some of us are just stuck with a large number of people who don't want their GC bad enough.

    Anyway. Come October, many of us will be where we are today. We just have to convince the lawmakers to pass some piecemeal legislation that will give relief across the board - bills like the Lofgren bills is the answer.

    I am not sure what the USCIS can do in this regard - they are limited by the law and the numbers. The most we can expect from them is admin fixes where they relax/remove the requirement of a "job offer", give a temp. green card etc. etc.





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  • lfwf
    08-05 02:40 PM
    Agree. Like labor subsitution scandal/abuse, you should have a documenterly evidence to go after this scam (creating duplicate EB2 job just to cut-short the line). If it is a USCIS rule, they may ripoff this ( like labor sub.). It is long way to go. The nut shell-- as long us GC is in high demand, people abuse the system. DOL, USCIS, knows this. Thatswhy DOL is auditing most EB2 labor certification. In my view, who ever filed EB2 between 2000 to 2004 (when EB3 was current) are true-EB2. After 2005, most of the EB2 filings are cut-short the EB3 que. Most of the cases not based on actual MINIMUM requirements for the job. Everyone knows this..

    Please stop with this. this is truly offensive. Many of us happen to be truly qualified beyond your clarly limited imagination. Not all of us are in IT, not all of us work in body shops and NOT all of us deal with fraud in our lives. If a few do, then go chase the, and stop tarring us all with the same brush. This is really akin to my saying (and I'm not saying it) that all EB3 folks are just IT diploma holders working for body shops and the whole category is just a fruad. How does the tarring feel now?





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  • needhelp!
    09-29 11:08 AM
    This year 4 of my class mates (from engineering college in India) have moved out of the US. I have one other classmate who had picked a position in Singapore over one being offered in the US two years back, and he already has his PR there. He did not want the uncertainty of not know what to call home even after 5 or 8 or 10 years. He called it "settling down".

    When we were graduating from engineering college, there was peer pressure to come to the US and pursue higher education and the "American Dream". Now I feel like my time to head out may come sooner rather than later.





    brb2
    04-07 07:12 PM
    If the Strive act passes then a large part of the H1B visa demand from US STEM will be out of the que, because these people will not need a H1B Visa. The proposed restrictions on H1B will put the body shoppers out of business where people are hired, put on the bench if there are no contracts, and if they do have a job, then the company will collect a hefty cut off the work of the H1B worker. If this part of the H1B numbers are out, then companies which genuinely hire hi-tech workers such as foreign qualified Engineers, Scientists, technicians etc. These people will then not have to compete for visa numbers with these Desi companies who might just bring in web developers to hire out on contracts at various sites accross the US. Currently, as things stand, a smart lawyer can get an H1B petition written up even to collect garbage or to pump gas at a gas station. No one can dispute that all this goes on. The restrictions should be in place only for new H1B employees not existing ones to minimize the effect on businesses and these employees too.





    Macaca
    12-30 08:20 AM
    2007: Democrats in Control, but Thwarted (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/30/AR2007123000447.html) By LAURIE KELLMAN | Associated Press, Dec 30, 2007

    WASHINGTON -- It's a painful irony for Democrats: In the space of a year, the Iraq war that was the source of party's resurgence in Congress became the measure of its impotence.

    By the end of the 2007, a Congress controlled by Democrats for the first time since 1994 had an approval rating of only 25 percent, down from 40 percent last spring. Then the debate over the war split the party and cast shadows over other issues, spawning a series of legislative failures and losing confrontations with President Bush.

    What to do about Iraq has turned into a dissing match so far-reaching and nasty that Congress's accomplishments are seen, even by some who run it, through the lens of their failure to override Bush and start bringing the troops home.

    "There is no question that the war in Iraq has eclipsed much of what we have done," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. "If you asked me in a phone call, as ardent a Democrat as I am, I would disapprove of Congress as well."

    It's not as if the new Democrat-controlled Congress did nothing during 2007.

    It gave the nation's lowest paid workers their first raise in a decade, raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour in July. It will rise to $7.25 an hour in 2009.

    Congress also cut in half the interest rates on federal student loans and boosted annual Pell grants for post high-school education by $260 to $4,310 in July, rising to $5,400 for the 2012-2013 school year. Bush signed the bill after initially threatening to veto it.

    And just before Congress turned out the lights for the year on Dec. 19, Bush signed into law a sweeping new energy policy that requires automakers to achieve an industrywide average fuel efficiency for cars, SUVs and small trucks of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, a 40 percent jump. Some analysts said the new law will render gas guzzlers relics of the past and make farmers rivals of oil companies in producing motor fuels.

    "All of us deserve credit for getting some things done," Bush said in his year-end news conference, insisting that he doesn't keep score.

    But on the eve of an election year with the presidency and control of Congress at stake, many others do.

    In the year's firmest push-back against the Bush administration, Congress for the first time overrode one of Bush's vetoes, on a $23 billion bill for restoring hurricane-ravaged wetlands along the Gulf Coast and other water projects. The president had protested it was filled with unnecessary projects, but 34 Senate Republicans defied him.

    Democrats scored other political victories as well. Most significantly, a Democrat-led investigation revealed a troubled Justice Department and forced Alberto Gonzales, a longtime presidential friend, from the attorney general's office. Democrats also played a big role in selecting his successor, Michael Mukasey.

    But the story of Congress in 2007 is more about what it failed to accomplish during a war that the public opposes and that Democrats had vowed _ but did not _ to end.

    On that, they found themselves repeatedly outmaneuvered, unable to break bill-killing GOP filibusters with 60 votes in a Senate where Democrats held only what effectively is a 51-49 majority.

    Plans to expand health care for 10 million children stalled. And a fragile compromise put together by Bush and liberal Democrats to provide a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants buckled with only lukewarm support from all sides.

    Perhaps the most bitter pill came toward the end of the year. Democrats were forced to acknowledge that the decrease in violence in Iraq might mean that Bush's much-criticized surge buildup of troops was working.

    Simultaneously, they found themselves on the defensive against Republican charges that they squandered time on the war that could have been spent getting agency budgets passed on time. As usual, what has become an annual fix to the tax code to save 20 million families an average $2,000 in extra taxes was put off until the final days before Christmas.

    Predictably, Democrats and Republicans blamed each other.

    Majority Leader Harry Reid called Bush's "stubbornness" and Republicans' filibuster threats "obstruction on steroids."

    Republicans suggested Democrats could have accomplished big reforms on Social Security and immigration _ or even just speedy passage of the federal budget _ had it been in their election-year interests.

    "I just don't think the new majority wanted to do anything significant," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

    By most accounts, the window for accomplishing broad new reforms was quickly closing as the nation's political machinery rumbled into position for the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. On the ballot will be all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate.

    At stake is a wider Democratic majority, big enough to govern. A cascade of retirements by Republicans in the Senate made that goal achievable. Democrats hoped gain seats in the House, as well.

    So they labored to tout what they had accomplished in the majority. They suggested that what failed this year might pass with more Democrats elected next year.

    Bush has signed into law other initiatives of the Democratic-led Congress, such as $3 billion in funding for Louisiana's Road Home program to rebuild housing stock destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

    Procedural and institutional reforms became law as well, such as changes in ethics and lobbying rules.

    Behind the scenes, Democrats and their aides debated which fights to pick next year with a lame duck president. Most likely, they said: the children's health care bill.

    Immigration reform, however, appears dead until the new Congress takes its seats in 2009.



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