not a perfect process... but what is seen in the video seems reasonable

as an american living overseas for many years, i've seen american bureaucracy at its worst in our consulates, embassies and trade offices ... what is seen in this video pales in comparison

try this one on for size before complaining of invasive, unfair requirements and possible conspiracy:

my son is born overseas and i want to apply for his us citizenship / passport

i try to phone the embassy to ask what documents i will need to bring by three-hour train ride - i get a 10-minute phone tree that answers nothing and simply refers me to their website, which is rattled-off so quickly that i need to listen to the 10-minute phone tree two more times to jot the url down

the website explains that answers cannot be given over the phone, and i can only speak to a human in an emergency circumstance - the website gives me some ambiguous answers, and states that if i have questions i will need to make an appointment online - an online calendar appears showing me possible appointment dates/times - all monday to friday between 9-11am and 2-4pm... also the american citizen services section is closed for all american holidays AND those of the host country - yay for having to take unpaid time off from work!

i get a date and time to appear, and i try to collect all relevant information to only make a single visit

at the appointed time, i appear and am told to surrender my bag and phone, pass through a metal detector, and then i am frisked - upon arriving at the proper office, i am given a number and told to wait - when my number is called, i approach the proper window and speak to an 'american' through a speaker system embedded in the 1-inch bulletproof glass

i have somehow managed to have most all of the necessary documents (not to the website's credit, but to my overkill), but one requirement stops me... they don't accept that i am a us citizen... what the hell?!

i show them my original us birth certificate, my valid us passport, my valid us driver's license, my social security card, proof of my us address, my us high school and university diplomas, my voter registration card, etc...

all are unacceptable proof...

i am told that to satisfy their requirement, they will need at least five-years' worth of us school transcripts from a single us location... since i was a military brat, and changed schools often, this was an impossibility

i finally get through to a supervisor who i had phone my state senator, who is a family friend, and he rips them one and they finally relent

clear? nope... one further requirement is that my son's notarized foreign birth certificate needs to be translated into english and notarized - i have the translation but not the notary seal (this can only be done at the embassy) - i ask them to notarize it and they inform me that i will have to leave and mail it to them with a check and pre-paid, express-mail return envelope - once i receive that, i should set up a new appointment and return... with their assuring me that the process (CRBA) would be complete at that point

i do what they said, and two weeks later I receive the now-notarized translation and set up a new appointment - i return at the stipulated time with all the proper documents and go to pay the fee...

then i am told that my infant son has to be present as well... and so the process can't be completed at that time

i return home, a 6-hour roundtrip commute by train, and set up a new appointment... returning with my 6-month-old son so that they can see him through the bullet proof glass, and then i can pay the exorbitant fee

as if all of this isn't enough, the cashier will not provide change... and they want me to leave, set up a new appointment and return with exact change - i offer to leave 'a tip' of close to us$20 in order to finalize this ridiculous process without having to return... they refuse

having read all of this... can you still complain about what this woman and her son had to go through?

nonsense

>> ^marbles:

In response to the latest title edit "California man trolls local news station?"
He was probably going by what he was told by the Federal Agents when he said it was about unpaid student loans. Does the rest of his story not jive?
Going by the warrant, it looks like his wife was running multiple financial aid scams.
She may have been just trying to take out a bunch of different loans and then stick her husband with them.


Who gives a fuck about that shit, the important thing is did the door make it?!?!?

I had the same reaction to the new title. Was this guy trolling? Or was he misinformed about jurisdiction and who was doing what? Did he exaggerate a little bit (he is hysterically funny) but the essence of his story is true?

I'm still not all that comfortable with feeling like we have the whole story.... if we had all the facts, we might still think that the SWAT response was over the top for the offense. Warrants by definition are written very broadly -- how many loans are we talking about? I can't tell from the warrant. Is it one bad application? Or multiples? How much money?

When it is okay to bring in SWAT on a financial crime? From wiki: "A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers."

Fraudulent loan application(s?) is a "high-risk operation"? Maybe @Lawdeedaw can give us some perspective, if he's willing?


>> ^marbles:

In response to the latest title edit "California man trolls local news station?"
He was probably going by what he was told by the Federal Agents when he said it was about unpaid student loans. Does the rest of his story not jive?
Going by the warrant, it looks like his wife was running multiple financial aid scams.
She may have been just trying to take out a bunch of different loans and then stick her husband with them.

In response to the latest title edit "California man trolls local news station?"

He was probably going by what he was told by the Federal Agents when he said it was about unpaid student loans. Does the rest of his story not jive?

Going by the warrant, it looks like his wife was running multiple financial aid scams.

She may have been just trying to take out a bunch of different loans and then stick her husband with them.

His recount of the events, he told them to "hold on" twice. I wonder how much time between those "hold ons" he allowed. Enough to flush her embezzled student aide down the toilet?! And then they had no choice but to bust in!


>> ^bcglorf:

Uh, wow???
I hate to say it, but I seriously question this gives us the real story. I'm pretty sure police don't break down your door and force entry over unpaid loans without even asking you to open the door.
Seriously, does anyone believe that's what happened here???
If it IS what happened, it's really something horrific. But come on, seriously?

Uh, wow???

I hate to say it, but I seriously question this gives us the real story. I'm pretty sure police don't break down your door and force entry over unpaid loans without even asking you to open the door.

Seriously, does anyone believe that's what happened here???

If it IS what happened, it's really something horrific. But come on, seriously?

True, 10 years ago saw a job posting of a well known Swedish telecom that wanted people under 25 with a masters in computer engineering and at least five to ten years of experience in the industry.
To this date i still wonder if they ever managed to find one with those qualifications.
>> ^marinara:

what there is, is a lot of business owners who want 30 years of experience for the low low price of $6.50 per hour. And they want it with mandantory overtime and unpaid overtime.

there isn't a shortage of skilled labor.

what there is, is a lot of business owners who want 30 years of experience for the low low price of $6.50 per hour. And they want it with mandantory overtime and unpaid overtime.

No doubt there are employees who are underqualified and doing a crappy job in theiry job. But what I see are highly talkented people doing difficult jobs extremely well for $9 per hour. So, which is true?

By the way, Kasinator, I felt the same way about her name. Then I heard the story about how she started using it when she was unknown and unpaid. It was ironic, and maybe a little hopeful. After that (and my roommate playing her music in her car) I gave the album a listen. It's got some crap, but also so very fun and edgy stuff. Don't let the name turn you off.

http://www.billboard.com/news#/features/breaking-entering-ke-ha-1004048466.story

QM...where do you get your information? From Trump?
As far as I can tell, most if not all jobs 'created' (moved) by Trump are NOT in this country. Indications are that the net job gain/loss in this country are squarely in the negative column for Trump, probably internationally too, but that's much harder to tell. You can say he lost, then won, but indications are that the losses are larger than the wins, and the wins are wins for him alone (and other chair-persons who get large payoffs for bankrupting and 'strip-mining' companies), not his company's American employees or the companies themselves for the most part. By his account, his involvement with the bankrupt casino was most likely considered a 'win' because HE made money selling his name, the fact that the business failed and the employees lost their jobs doesn't seem to bother him in the least, or even register.
Also, the numbers I've seen show large private sector job growth, true, not back to pre-Bush levels yet, but Bush drove/spent us into the ground for 8 years, turning surplus into insurmountable debt and deficit while also deferring payment of many of his 'project's' costs until after he left office (the sneakiest thing he did as president, he found a way to make the next president find a way to pay for many of his failed policies and projects (can you say unpaid for tax cuts?), amazing), climbing back up is bound to take time. The stock market is back higher than pre-Obama and moving in the right direction, jobs are sure to follow.
And as to 'his earness', why not quit parsing your words and come out and say 'his browness', it's fairly obvious that's the problem most of the far right have with him, a little honesty would be refreshing. Making up BS and infantile names to call someone because you're afraid to admit and confront your REAL issue with them is what spoiled little girls do, not grown men and women. I'm sure you won't agree, but you can't possibly defend your childish name calling over the years, or your incessant unpatriotic attacks against YOUR president during war(s). Sometimes your vitriol IS as excruciating as watching "the situation" attempt to roast Trump because it comes from the same uninformed, hyper arrogant, infantile, inexplicably self righteous attitude (I call it "Peggy Hill Syndrome").
Then there's the real question for you, what if you got what you wanted and removed Obama, do the Retardicans really think Biden would be better for them somehow? Perhaps so, if what they really want is someone to give them gaffs to exploit, he almost certainly would. If they want reason and thoughtfulness, they had better hope with all their might that Obama stays right where he is. Compared to most Dumbocrats, his plans seem hyper-conservative.

>> ^quantumushroom
Trump creates jobs that create wealth. Trump has lost and won, lost and won again, the real deal who earned his arrogance. What the fuck is a community organizer?
His Earness created more government jobs, which actually drain taxpayer money. Otherwise he hasn't done shit, unless you count making things worse as "doing something".
This is nowhere near as excruciating as watching "the situation" attempt to roast Trump during Trump's Comedy Central roast.

>> ^bareboards2:

Am I the only one who saw the cop continuing to beat him when he was on the ground? It wasn't just the two flashlights to the head.


Can't see the guy on the ground at all at that point in the video, so how can you possibly say for sure any additional strikes weren't justified? You can't even see where the strikes are landing. This is important because strikes with a flashlight INTENDED to hit the head area would be considered a lethal force option by most police forces. A guy grabbing at an officers belt is a scenario where it would be reasonable to articulate why that level of force was necessary. A guy on the ground resisting being handcuffed? Not so much.

>> ^bareboards2:

The fact that he is on unpaid leave, rather than transferred to a desk while they investigate, is also proof that this was illegal and inappropriate and not his training.


People complain all the time about cops being being on paid leave or desk duty whilst being investigated for misconduct/criminal acts. Management hanging someone out to dry to cover their ass or avoid controversy? Maybe. Proof? Not even close.

Am I the only one who saw the cop continuing to beat him when he was on the ground? It wasn't just the two flashlights to the head.

And I do agree that it is simplistic to say the guy being beat was "seemingly calm."

That isn't the point, though. The point is the cop took a flashlight to his head twice, pulled him to the ground and continued to beat on him.

The fact that he is on unpaid leave, rather than transferred to a desk while they investigate, is also proof that this was illegal and inappropriate and not his training.

Question -- why would you want to defend the indefensible?

Human trafficking sounds accurate from what I've heard. My brother has a friend who is essentially a minion/slave of Scientology. He moves where they tell him to, works unpaid, and rakes in money for the organization as an auditor.

If someone did this for an ordinary religion they might call it volunteering or missionary work. But it does seem like the executives of Scientology are masters of deliberate brain washing and false promises. . . Then again, the same could easily be said of Catholics or Mormons or really most religions.

She can still leave negative feedback though, as an unpaid item dispute cannot be filled until 4 days after the auction closes.

@SDGundamX

I hope I've done the tag properly. I prefer notifications to be set to 'off' because I get enough junkmail from the other bazillion websites I'm registered to as it is, so yeah I don't pay much attention to that stuff.

Anyway, on to your reply!

Speaking of assumptions...

Oh boy! Here we go!

...I’m noticing that you tend to make a lot of them. You assumed, for instance, that I was a Christian. You assumed that I was trying to defend a particular religion or religious practice.

Yes, I did, as I've already admitted. It was a fine display of all the common symptoms of a religious apologist/troll, touting all the usual old and tired canards I've heard repeated ad nauseum; unjustified and arrogantly pronounced assertions with no evidence to ground them to reality, a blatant false equivocation, and flat out wrong characterizations of Hitchens et al's position. I'm genuinely sorry I had you falsely pegged but when it walks like a duck and squawks like a duck...well, y'know. In other words, you probably could have done a better job of elucidating and then justifying your opinion.

You assumed (and continue to assume) that I am calling Hitchens and the rest fundamentalists. I am not. I could not. Atheism by its very definition cannot be “fundamentalist” as this article explains. What I said was:

I find it ironic that those such as Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris, in their zeal to exterminate religion, have become such zealots unwilling to admit evidence contrary to their position that they now rival the fundamentalists they profess to be fighting against.

Your words are right there above mine. They are zealots that rival the fundamentalists they are opposed to, in their zeal to exterminate (I call bullshit on this, they seek to marginalize it not destroy it) religion. On what planet is this not a false equivocation? On what planet am I to not take you at your word? You still haven't provided evidence for this or the other claim that they even wish to exterminate religion, as well. Because they don't. If you don't stand by your wording then retract it. You really haven't read anything from them other than what you have learned from secondary, tertiary sources, have you?



...that they refuse to revise their absolutist statements about religion being the cause of evil or the spreading hatred even when faced with evidence of religion instead bringing good into the world (on the blog—the story of Hitchens and the taxi driver who went to great lengths to return Hitchens’ lost wallet because the driver’s religion demanded he do so).

This evidence exists in heaps and bounds—I would guess (though I don’t know for sure, granted) in equal amounts to the evidence that religion spreads hatred. Regardless of the amount, in the face of the fact that such evidence exists at all, Hitchens’ previous statement (the one made in this clip about religion being the primary cause of hatred) becomes wholly untenable.


Are you seriously attributing the fact that moral people can exist within the institution of a religion and still be moral, to the religion itself? Could you name a single decent thing a religious person can do that a non-religious person couldn't? What kind of morality do you think preceded the origins of the Muslim cab driver's religion? The exact same morality that has always existed between humans and other humans on some level, that of mutual altruistic behavior, the "golden rule" and that the Abrahamic religion has co-opted into the rest of their vile ideology. You have your causes and effects here reversed, human morality is what it is in spite of religion, and to invoke religion where its not even a necessary requirement is to trivialize the very thing that enabled homo sapiens, as inherently social animals, to get to where we are today in this technological age without destroying ourselves in the process.


In regards to the so-called ad hom: I feel this applies to your post because you appear to be dismissing my argument before even considering it since you start off suspecting I don’t think clearly.

Well, you are wrong. I obviously read your whole reply before I responded. What you feel is irrelevant. Did you just read that one line and then ignore everything else I said? I mentioned the "not thinking clearly thing" purely as an aside, I then went on to address your points. Ad hom doesn't apply, sorry. It would've if that was all I supplied as the basis of my argument; I didn't say "You do not think clearly, therefore you are wrong". Ad hominem isn't what you wish it to be so stop abusing the term.

This brings us back to the Gnu Atheist’s confrontational tactics—in that link you gave me, the writer explicitly endorses being rude. I’m not here to tell you it isn’t a valid tactic—it most certainly is.


Being unflinchingly truthful and not kowtowing to the religious lies/claptrap and ridiculing those whose faith is threatened (who would have no qualms about being as rude and demeaning as possible in telling me so) by my sole existence is rude now. You should tell those uppity gays to be more polite and not stand up for equal treatment, in whatever way they choose as long as its non-violent/within the boundaries of the law, maybe their oppressors would stand down. No, confrontation is the answer if you want to change speak out and "business as usual". I consider lies to be harmful and rude and demeaning to an individual deserving of being treated like an adult in the marketplace of ideas, even the most comfortably benign, fluffy touchie-feelie ones.


I’m here to question it’s efficacy.

It was already pretty clear to me but thanks. It looked to me like you had already decided. You may NOW be appearing to question that, but again, what you may have meant certainly isn't what you wrote and to expect others to be able to know is dickish. I agree it's a good question still but haven't provided evidence to show its efficacy. So let's refrain from the assumptions. All I know is it wasn't some accommodationist, overly polite wank, unwilling to get his hands dirty to enlighten me, that stirred the feelings I've secretly held for so many years about my existence and God, it was someone who was NOT afraid of confrontation in surgically disillusioning my cherished notions of reality, of showing just how ridiculously absurd the whole thing is. It is a matter of ethics to value truth more than(key words) some default arbitrarily designated level of respect.

So, what I was trying to say in my original post is that it annoys me that Hitchens and the rest continue onward with their blanket absolutist statements despite the fact that there exists evidence to the contrary.

Saying religion, of all kinds, is the primary (meaning secondary and tertiary factors also contribute but don't even approach the monopoly religion has on spreading misery, violence, and hatred) isn't really a controversial statement at all to me. History tells us much. Can you think of any other more divisive human social construct that has caused more strife throughout history? Shall we play the game of "add up the bodies"? It boggles the mind to think of where humanity might be right now if not for the Dark Ages.

For instance, just because some people use communism to establish totalitarian regimes, doesn’t make communism evil.

Communism is as much an ideology based on fantasy as religion. In so far as it is not based on evidence and reason and being willfully enforced/propagated, it is harmful.

So, my question for you is, is being rude and disrespectful to people an effective arguing technique? Let’s be clear, I am not saying we need to respect other people’s ideas.


It certainly can be effective. I have no real evidence besides anecdotes and the correlative fact that religious membership levels in the US/Britain have been slowly declining since around the time the Gnu Atheists began to speak out and be more prominently featured in the media/Internets in general. The level of ridicule should be in proportion to the level of bat-shit insanity of the beliefs held. No one is championing a one-size-fits-all approach.

To tie all this together, let’s talk about one last assumption you made. You assumed I didn’t want to reply to your questions because I was trying to dodge the issue. I’d like us to be clear on my true reasons for not replying (so you won’t have to assume anymore).

I (like you, I imagine) happen to be a very busy person. I work full-time and put in a lot of unpaid overtime. I also have a beautiful family and good friends that I want to spend my free time with. This limits the amount of time I can spend on the Internet. So I have to choose when and how to respond to posts wisely.

Fair enough, I wouldn't accuse someone of dodging for being busy. I do not expect replies either, I hold you to nothing except your own words. I accused you of dodging because, when asked, you didn't provide much in the way of evidence to justify your assertions or a flat-out retraction. I could say this in any number of polite ways, you simply didn't.

You, from the very start of your post, set out to pick a fight.

Guilty as charged!

You made completely unfounded assumptions and then attacked an imaginary opponent that you mistook for me.

I made the assumption you were religious and was wrong, the rest still stands. You don't want others to take your word for it? Then add some more words! What you may have "meant" is not what I got pissed off at and responded to, understand this already.

Why should I spend it defending or searching the Internet for proof for an argument I never actually made (the “reality/validity” of Christianity; the fundamentalism of atheists like Hitchens)? Why should I try to reason with someone who from the very outset displays such misguided behavior?

That's my whole point! You shouldn't have said anything at all if you didn't have anything truthful to say in the first place. You really have no fucking clue what you're talking about when you talk about them and you rightly got called on it. I already addressed where I made any assumptions about you, the rest is through your own doing. You have NOT shown that they rival those fundamentalists they oppose, you have NOT shown that they wish to eradicate religion, you haven't even shown how they are zealots. You are being incredibly dishonest to the point of absurdity!


Thanks for reading this to the end. As a footnote, here is a link to a discussion on that web site you gave me that I found very interesting. Most of all, I found JoiletJake’s comments interesting—see posts #139 and #146 in particular, as I believe they are similar to my views on religion.


I've already read them and just re-read. Joilet comes off as incredibly honest, humble considering his position, and its pretty plain to see that the response he got, while initially bumpy, gradually warmed up to him as he elaborated and made it well known he is relying solely on his personal feeling in the matter and not trying to assert an attribution of those feelings onto actual reality. I think its great your attitude aligns with his, it may not be logically consistent but at least it's pretty harmless on the whole. Notice he wasn't tossing out baseless assertions, straw manning, or falsely equivocating.

I'd really enjoy it if you were to paste/copy what you said on Pharyngula and see how different the reaction would be. Such tasty schadenfreude! My guess is you would be entertainingly dismantled, rudely perhaps, but dismantled nonetheless. Welcome to the Internets.

I really have no interest in continuing this conversation, as lovely and downright tedious as it has been. I am done responding the minutiae of your several attempts at special pleading. Think whatever you want about the Gnu Atheists, whatever keeps the cognitive dissonance at bay.