Mahone

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Everything posted by Mahone

  1. I have attended my current ward in the UK since I was 13, and I'm 28 now. In my experience of both the US and UK is that the US tends to be more accepting of religion in general. The UK as a whole tends to be sceptical and views religious people as naive, perhaps stupid. The area that my ward is located in is run down, one of the poorer areas of the city I live in. The issues caused by having a ward in this area got so bad at one point that the stake president attempted to close it down, but was overruled when a new stake president replaced him. This stereotype of religion exists even more deeply in these areas, and people trying to "sell" religion are viewed as worse than door-to-door salesmen trying to scam already poor people out of even more money. 99% of our missionaries are fresh faced American boys from the US, who repeatedly demonstrate very little local knowledge regardless of how long they've been serving their mission. I've watched them come and go over the years, and each set of missionaries make the same mistakes as those before. They come into the ward, get invited into lots of houses, get the local people to come out to the ward on Sundays and then move on happy in the knowledge that they've bought a few families into the ward. They never see the aftermath that occurs when these families realize that despite their conceptions about the local "American church" as having very deep pockets, they aren't going to just be handed money because they have are poor and have 10 kids to feed. Once they realized the support they'll get from the church is limited, they disappear never to be seen again. I've seen this happen, time and time again over the past 15 years. We've had people come to church because they are present illegally in the UK and believe the church has enough influence to help them obtain a visa, we've had many people with the financial difficulties mentioned above, we've had people with severe health problems that need a lot of money for support and the result is always the same - the church doesn't just hand out packets of cash upon request and they leave. The young American missionaries have left at this point, and never see these results. Their replacements are there bringing in yet more people for the same hidden motives. Don't be surprised. Based on my experience above, this is relatively normal.
  2. I'll be trying to make my wife's 4th July as pleasant as possible while we're still waiting for our visa application to complete outside of the US. That's twice in a row now that she has not been able to be with the rest of her family for this day as a result of this process. We were going to head down to London for the weekend for the 4th July celebrations there, as there is a heavy American expat and tourist presence in the capital, but unfortunately we've already got alternative plans. There is something of an irony to celebrating 4th July in the very country that the US is celebrating independence from. Almost like having a divorce party in your ex's house. As for browsing this site on mobile devices, the problem is the mobile version of the site doesn't work. All web browsers automatically send your agent string to the web server that hosts the website you are visiting. The agent string is simply a line of text that specifies what web browser and operating system you are using. Most mobile devices will explicitly specify in the agent string that they are a mobile version of a browser, or a mobile operating system, and then the webserver has been set to display the mobile version of the website to these devices, which in this case doesn't work. The solution? Forge your agent string so that the web server thinks you're using a standard PC and therefore won't try and push the mobile version of the site on you. For apple devices, there is an app called 'KissMyAgent' that will do this for you. I've been browsing this site successfully on my iPhone for weeks.
  3. I don't know about US employment law (I guess I'm going to have to learn pretty soon) but here in the UK we can't really do that, otherwise we risk an employment tribunal - especially in the public sector. Using proven personal experience to place the person you know above the person you don't is classed as unfair. When short-listing or interviewing, everything we use to determine a persons appropriateness for the position has to be taken from their CV/Resume, or conduct during the interview. The person you don't know can't provide a personal history with yourself, so you have nothing to compare the personal history you have with the person you do know to - I am interested in a US legal perspective on this though. To answer the question directly in the OP, I'd probably have less desire to employ a member of the church above a non-member based on my past experience working with members. Employer/employee relationships, due to their very nature can destroy all other kinds of relationships with this person if they exist. For instance, if I had to modify the contract with this person to give them a lower pay, or fire them, I wouldn't want to have any additional relationships with this person outside of work otherwise I'd have to face them regularly outside of work, knowing that they probably detest me. I've seen this happen several times and people have left the church entirely because of it. Not a pleasant experience.
  4. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has launched an offensive in Iraq recently and poses the most significant threat to Iraqis since the withdrawal of American forces in 2011. The United States is now planning Operation Secure and Protect Freedom (OSPF) to go in and remove ISIS. We'll be working in conjunction with the Baghdad Guardian Platoon (BGP) and the Iraqi Ground Reactionary Pack (IGRP) to route ISIS out of the country.
  5. We had this issue for a period of time as well. I've only attended a small handful in the past and haven't had to in a long time now, so can't say whether it's managed better now or not. My opinion on why it took so long is that there was simply no real agenda. On the occasions that there was one, no-one stuck to it and by the conclusion of the meeting no list of action points had been generated, either vocally or in writing. So the meetings didn't really resolve any problems, merely raised them and were therefore pointless.
  6. Fun indeed. We've now finally got a reasonably specific date planned for our move from the UK to Florida - it'll be in the first week of September. My resignation notice has already been submitted at work, and things are moving along fairly smoothly with the visa application process. Should be a very interesting, albeit busy summer.
  7. Yet the US has done so for many years. Some of these negotiations are documented, reputably sourced and publicly available. Others will have taken place behind closed doors. So there is nothing new about these negotiations with terrorists. The phrase "we never negotiate with terrorists" hasn't applied in practice for a long time, it's just repeated by the general public in circumstances like this. I haven't really followed the story in anger, so don't know much about it. But personally, I think there is more to it than is being officially stated. I suspect that this exchange relates to the anticipated closure of guantanamo bay, and partially answers the question of what to do with all the prisoners held there.
  8. I've found that, so far in my life, all doors that haven't been open to me for whatever reason in the past have been for a very good reason. So far, everything I have desperately wanted, but couldn't have at some point in my past, a much better alternative becomes available at some point in the future. The most recent scenario I can think of that the above applies to is job related. So I guess I'd tell myself that despite the disappointments I may be experiencing at that moment in time, it's probably because something better than that is coming up further down the line that I don't currently have any foresight of.
  9. I'm not so sure. They are still bound by the legal agreements they made with the UK, which in turn are bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, in order to get hold of him in the first place. I don't know the finer terms of the agreement, but it likely wouldn't be difficult to argue that letting such a high profile and hated prisoner into gen pop within the prison where people can actually get to him is breaking the agreement. Everyone already knows he is in greater danger than most, so if anything did happen, I don't think Europe would would look too kindly on it, and could damage EU/US relations - not something the US needs at this at this moment in time. I predict he'll live for many years yet, but happy to come back to this thread in time and be proven wrong :)
  10. I asked a similar question on here a couple of years ago. The UK are glad to see the backside of him, to the only country that actually wanted him - the states. Part of the agreement that the UK reached with the US on extraditing him was that he'd be treated humanely and as has correctly pointed out, that means not executing him. Assuming his life isn't cut short through other means, he'll spent the rest of his life living on the US taxpayers dollar. From my personal perspective though, I can't get rid of him. He lived off my taxes here, and he'll be living off my taxes when I move over there!
  11. Remember the Washington sniper? The media's own profilers insisted he was likely a middle aged white man acting alone, and all outlets were insisting he was driving a white van, causing havoc with the police investigation... until he was caught, and then all of those previous statements and predictions were quickly pushed under the carpet.
  12. Virtual hugs for Iggy and Anatess! This is actually something you have a little experience in Anatess - quite rare that I get to discuss with someone that has been through the process we're going through. My wife and I got married in December 2011. It was always agreed that we'd move to the US once we were married, as Shannon never had any desire to live in the UK for long. I did negotiate a year in the UK with her though because of my job, so she moved here in December 2011, initially stayed here on a tourist visa, flew back to the US 5 months later where she applied for and obtained a temporary UK work visa to live and work here. She flew back to the UK around September 2012 under this visa. In February 2012, two months after we moved here, my job circumstances changed that meant my services were required for a longer period of time. By May 2013, I felt it was now justified to leave, so we applied for my visa to live and work in the US. This is where all the troubles started. I had fully expected that the process would be quick and smooth like that of the UK visa for my wife, and the absolute maximum length of time that the process should have taken from start to finish was eight months. However, it turns out that only months earlier, Barack Obama had initiated a pathway to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants currently living in the US illegally, known as 'deferred action' applications (I-821D). These applications swamped United States Citizenship and Immigration Services with hundreds of thousands of additional applications, and they were given no additional resources to help process these applications, causing massive delays. In December 2013 our application was transferred to a Texas Service Center, where it sat for a further 3 months untouched. Finally, in late March 2014, they approved the application. That isn't the end though, as it then took them a week to send it across to the National Visa Center, where it sat for a further month before we got an application number. We've now waited a further week before we get access to the payment portals and fully expect a further two months for the application go to through the whole NVC process. Then it gets passed onto the US London embassy where we'll likely wait a further two months for my interview, according to recent timescales. So overall, we originally submitted the application in May 2013 and it probably won't be completed until late August 2014, 7 months after we expected and planned to have migrated everything. As a result of this delay, my professional life is in a mess, it's cost us a lot in finances and caused us immense amounts of stress, just not knowing whether it'd be done within a few months or a few years as USCIS didn't give us any correct information regarding timescales throughout the entire process - there is only so long you can carry on telling workplace bosses and family that we simply don't know when we'll be leaving, and not being able to make any plans to do anything, or make any changes in any part of our lives for fear of it clashing with our departure. My wife misses her friends and family immensely, it's not easy being stuck in a foreign country without any knowledge of when you'll be able to go back home. And then to add to all of that, we could have actually filed through the US embassy in London which wasn't affected by the delays - if we had done that, the process would have been over by September 2013. We didn't find that out until afterwards though - hindsight really is 20/20. It's been a really rocky journey and one that I'm glad we won't have to repeat again, as we're both fed up with our lives being on hold for unknown amounts of time. Finally got all that off my chest! I like this place!
  13. Iggy Just out of curiosity, does your stance on swearing extend to those who swear as a result of vocal tourettes, or your stance of an excessive body odor extend to those who have a physical medical condition that means they sweat to the point that it is beyond their control, and repeated washing makes little difference? Where do you draw the line? Or is your stance complete zero tolerance?
  14. Are you trying to open an application, or install an application? Because the operating system is no longer supported by Microsoft, and therefore no longer receiving bug fixes or updates. Anti-virus applications, regardless of how up-to-date they are, run inside this vulnerable operating system. It's like placing secret service agents inside the white house. The agents can provide a certain level of protection to the occupants inside the whitehouse from other occupants inside the whitehouse, but they will be useless if the whole building is blown up by a missile. The building itself needs protection, not just the occupants. Not necessarily - personally, I'd say its more than adequent for home users, as long as its combined with OS updates, a firewall (hardware or software) and a a sensible user. The same reason as the analogy above.
  15. Thanks both Pam - presumably naturalization isn't distinguished from natural-born-citizen at this point, at least in most cases? I am obviously eligible to apply for the former further down the line to remove this disadvantage from my career path, but can never obtain the latter. Thanks
  16. It's getting closer to the date when my wife and myself will be moving to the states. As a result, I've started looking at IT related jobs in Florida just to get a general feel of pay scales and availability in the individual areas. I do have one question from the results I've seen though. Many jobs that I feel would be ideal for me as I meet all the other requirements, append the clause of "U.S. citizens only" to the job description and requirements meaning I'm not eligible to apply as I'll only be a legal resident, at least for the first three years that I'll be living in the states. When this is stated on the job description, is it to be taken at face value, or are they using the wrong terminology and really mean you have to be able to legally work in the US whether a US citizen or legal resident? I admit I do feel a little bit disadvantaged as a result of this clause, so many jobs I've seen include it and makes me wonder how easy it'll be for me to find employment once we move. Thanks
  17. Many, if not the majority of missionaries from the UK get called elsewhere within the UK. As you can pretty much drive from one end of the UK to the other within 6 or 7 hours, there isn't a lot of choice but to have them serving close to home. My brother served all of two hours away from his home. 1.5 hours on a good traffic day.
  18. I doubt Tom Philips himself predicted anything but being thrown out of court. I used to know the guy, he was previously in my stake before his divorce and subsequent departure from the church. I still see his ex-wife every now and then. He is a very intelligent man, and while I can't be certain of what he really intended to achieve from all of this, I doubt it was a successful court case. There will be an alternative motive for all of this, perhaps multiple alternative motives.
  19. From the bits of pieces of information I've read today, my understanding is that the data provided by Inmarsat only provides conclusive evidence that the plane crashed into the ocean, a long way from any land. That means that after this much time has passed, it's extremely unlikely that there are any survivors based on past statistics. However, the data cannot provide a more precise location, so they are still searching for the wreckage of the plane across a big area.
  20. Are you sure? Most teenagers are pretty savvy online, and I'd hazard a guess and say that most lds teens have viewed at least one or two anti-lds websites at some point, whether intentionally or accidentally. It can be difficult to avoid them if you spent a lot of time online. When I was 14, I could give you the names of all the well known anti-lds websites that existed at the time, simply because I was curious and loved to compare them to pro lds arguments, like on fairlds.org.
  21. Further information revealed by Inmarsat as to the final destination of the plane: BBC News - UK firm behind Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 breakthrough
  22. I actually hope I don't lose my accent. Having met with several other British ex-pats in the US, it doesn't seem to be the norm to lose it, at worst it's something of a hybrid, but only after 40 years!
  23. My immediate relative petition for migration to the USA was approved this past week, so I will be moving from the UK to Florida at some point in the next five months. I'm already aware of many differences between the UK and US in culture, language and almost everything else and therefore will adapt accordingly. But despite having visited on multiple occasions, this will be the first time I've ever worked in the US so it's probably going to be something of a shock for the first few months while I attempt to stop appending 'cheers' to the bottom of my e-mails, and learn to pronounce router as 'raut-er' instead of 'root-er'. I do work in IT so this latter one will be kind of important, and I suspect will produce some blank stares if I mess up.
  24. I agree entirely with those suggesting you just ignore any further correspondence on the matter, after you've given a firm but polite 'no thank you'. Arguing with a a sales person about their product rarely works as they will always have an answer and counter argument to every concern that you have - they have to, it's part of their job to. Arguing about it also destroys friendships and relationships if that person is someone you know, which is why I learnt very early on to never do business with family or close friends.
  25. Just a few additional things from a British perspective. I've been back and forth to Florida enough times to make the TSA suspicious, but outside of Florida I've only been to NY. - Most public toilets seem to be intentionally fitted so that the gaps between the walls and doors are wide enough to see clearly through for anyone nearby. It's really a little off putting. On the other hand public toilets are regularly available, clean and FOC to use - a welcome change from the UK. - Flags. Flags everywhere. It can take a first time visitor by surprise to see it in person, even if they expected it. - Don't be surprised when you hear the average Americans perception of modern day Britain. I married my wife in Florida, and an American guy there was dressed in a top hat, three piece suit and walking stick. At least two people asked, quite seriously, if he was my father. Another American I met here in the UK admitted he had expected to see thatched cottage houses. There also seems to be some sort of obsession with the UK, particularly among the women, which I can't quite explain.