Free Republic

Comprehensive immigration reform may have eluded the 110th Congress, but House Democrats are still hoping to help two groups of workers — fashion models and computer geeks — who are usually linked only in implausible online fantasies. Under current immigration policy, models coming to the United States for a photo shoot or an event — regardless of how short the stay — compete with high-tech workers for precious H-1B visas. But under a bill that cleared the Judiciary Committee last week, the models would be moved into a separate immigration category, freeing up more H-1B slots for the much-needed nerds....

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) - A police survey says panhandlers outside a Wal-Mart here can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much. Police say people who have a problem with that needn't look to the law--asking for money is considered protected free speech. "We are not going to target panhandlers," said Coos Bay Police Capt. Rodger Craddock, who spoke a recent gathering of business owners about panhandling. "We can't do that. But if they aren't getting money from us, they aren't going to stand on that corner." He said most panhandlers are...

Insulting British callers make operators sick By Amrit Dhillon in New Delhi Last Updated: 1:43am GMT 06/01/2008 British callers may be infuriated when they discover that the company they are telephoning has moved its customer service centre to India. But their frustration is as nothing compared with the heart attacks, ulcers and insomnia afflicting those on the other end of the line. Staff in call centres say they have been shocked at the ferocity of the verbal attacks they encounter Research carried out by India's booming call centre industry has found the 1.6 million people who work in them, mostly...

NEW YORK - "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" will resume production on Jan. 7 without their striking writers, the Comedy Central network announced Thursday. "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" rely far more on scripted material than those shows, which are more centered around interviews and musical guests. In a joint statement, Stewart and Colbert said: "We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence." A spokesman for Comedy...

On reading that the Carpenters Union hired others to picket for them in Washington, D.C., Ed Morrissey thinks the pickets who are paid less than WalMart workers should unite: "....The ironies here are so thick that one could cut them with a labor-produced knife. Does the union offer these workers a chance to organize? Perhaps they should form Picket Line Walkers Local #1 and demand a better wage than $8 per hour. The working conditions sound rather grim as well. Do these workers get paid breaks, health-care coverage, and a safe working environment? Er ... no. And let's take a...

Let’s stipulate at the outset that if the Republican Congress had done a decent job addressing the nation’s problems over the past two years, the Foley scandal and cover-up wouldn’t now be plunging the Republicans into political perdition. Instead, the scandal has served chiefly to crystallize in the public’s mind much that it has come to loathe about both the Congress and the Bush administration -- above all, their unwavering focus on the politics of a problem rather than the problem itself. It’s not just that congressional Republicans have neglected to do anything about the conduct of the war in...

Morning, folks. The following thread is presented as a place for my fellow FReepers to wipe their feet. : )No longer the darlings of Dixie, the trio's new direction is already paying dividends This time, they brought a sense of humor. The Dixie Chicks entered the United Center on Tuesday night to the orchestral pomp of "Hail to the Chief," a not-so-veiled shot at the president whose name was not spoken all night, but whose presence has loomed large over the country-pop trio's career the last three years. "The Incident," as the Chicks once described it, occurred in 2003 when...

NEW YORK (AP) Members of the striking Transport Workers Union's face the loss of two days pay for every day they are on strike. Aside from the loss of pay, the strikers have lost the backing of their union, The International Transport Workers Union. The international union is urging strikers to go back to work. Bus driver Bill McRae who has worked in transit since 1985 says ``The union executives called for a strike, and we have to do what we have to do.'' Lawrence Reuter, President of the NYC Transit, told NY One News that about one thousand transit...

<p>WASHINGTON - It was both an auspicious and ominous way to begin the week: Auspicious because of President George Bush's resolute demand that Saddam Hussein and his sons leave Iraq. There were also ominous noises from his predecessor in the White House, Bill Clinton, who bared not only his antagonism to the president but his horror at envisioning a strong America.</p>