Letter to US Passport Office - a thing of beauty

I got this email today (True or False) I do Not Care, But it tell you something is going to happen soon!!!!!

Subject: Letter to US Passport Office - a thing of beauty...

I don't know, but I think this person is a little upset...

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This letter is a thing of beauty. An actual letter to the passport office...

Dear Sirs,

I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a cable t.v. from them back in 1987, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.

For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my social security card, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30 years. It is on my health insurance card, my driver's license, on the last eight damn passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done at election times.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Gladys, my father's name is William (Bill) and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!!

I apologize, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my address?

What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthal asses working there?

Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy beach.

And would someone please tell me, why would you care whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I'd sure as hell not want to tell anyone!

Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the city and get another copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of $60. Which our President today can't even come up with to prove who he really is. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day??

Nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some idiot to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic morons)

Hey, you know why we can't smile? We're totally pissed off!

Signed - An Irate Citizen.

P.S.. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776 ........I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had security clearances up the yingyang..........However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am - you know, someone like my doctor WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN INDIA!

Sincerely,


You Sure In the Hell Should Know Who I Am.

And you want to run our health care system?!?

Chairman Obama's, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke

Chairman Obama's,

Paralyzes Greece

Greece problems tied to budget, competitivity: Bernanke
24 February 2010,


(WASHINGTON) - US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday the economic woes facing Greece stem from fiscal and competitiveness issues, but that Europeans were focused on fixing the problems.

"The very serious problem here is not involving only fiscal issues, but also competitiveness issues because of the single exchange rate," Bernanke told a congressional panel when asked about Greece's deep financial troubles.

"But you know, we have talked to the European leaders, they're very focused on getting this problem solved."

Under acute pressure from its 15 eurozone partners, the Socialist Greek government has pledged to slash its deficit this year, agreeing to painful public spending cuts that have sparked a national strike.

Bernanke said that for the Fed, "we are keeping an eye on it, but the Europeans of course, it's most relevant to them and they're most exposed to those problems. And they're very focused on trying to get them under control."

On Wednesday, police fired tear gas and clashed with youths as tens of thousands protested in Athens, Thessaloniki and other main Greek cities against the austerity measures to tame a public debt crisis.

ATHENS — Flights at Greek airports were canceled, public transportation was halted, and schools closed Wednesday as public-sector employees and private-sector workers walked off their jobs in the second 24-hour strike in two weeks against austerity measures.

The government is under intense pressure to plug a budget deficit that equals 12.7 percent of gross domestic product and to avert the first national default among the 16 countries that use the euro.

The day was largely peaceful, though police officers fired tear gas to disperse around 50 young demonstrators who pelted them with stones and paint near the Parliament building in the city center. They were part of a crowd of more than 20,000 who marched holding banners reading “tax the rich” and “hands off our pension funds.”

At the same time, government officials and representatives of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund were discussing the imposition of additional measures to reduce the national debt — now more than $400 billion — and increase revenue. But the strike included journalists, effectively creating a media blackout that kept Greeks in the dark about any progress.

Greece has already announced wage freezes, bonus cuts, tax crackdowns and pension reforms over the past month meant to save some $6.7 billion.

The new measures, which the government has not yet confirmed but are expected to be announced next week, include a 2 percent increase in the 19 percent value-added tax, higher fuel prices and the possible abolition of one of two additional months of pay received by public-sector workers and by employees at many private firms.

“What else are they going to cut, the air that we breathe?” said Kiki Oikonomou, a 47-year-old administrative employee at a state school for disabled children. “This is like a jail sentence. Where’s the hope?”

According to Paraskevi Androni, 26, an unemployed engineer whose short-term contract with the privatized state carrier Olympic Air expired recently, the abolition of the extra pay would bring misery to workers and businesses alike.

“People rely on this additional wage to pay for basic needs,” she said. “If it gets cut, people will stop spending and even more small businesses will close.” As for her own employment prospects, she said “I try to be optimistic but I’m worried about the future.”

Another engineer milling in the crowd before Wednesday’s march said he believed many more protests would follow. “If people see the minority living a good life and their wages plummeting, they’re going to take to the streets,” said Haralambos Dramantis, a 60-year-old employee with the state power board. “We haven’t seen the big uprising yet but it will come.”

He added that strikes by farmers, tax collectors, customs officials and others in recent weeks were “just the beginning.”

Addressing a sea of protesters from a lectern bedecked with a banner reading, “People and their needs above the markets,” the head of main labor union encouraged public resistance to the government’s austerity measures. “We refuse to pay the price for a crisis that we didn’t create,” the leader, Yannis Panagopoulos, said.

He added that Greece has become “a Ping-Pong ball in a game being played by global speculators,” a reference to the financial markets.

The strike came a day after the international credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded Greece’s four largest banks on fears that Greece’s efforts to bring down its deficit through austerity measures would reduce demand for loans and curb bank profits.

“It is clear,” said Giorgos Lakopoulos of Ta Nea, a center-left daily, that European Union officials “do not believe the austerity measures heralded to date are adequate to reduce the deficit by four percentage points this year.”

“They want more,” he said.

$1billion US "fortress embassy"

President: Chairman Obama are you out of your mind?
$1,005,074,815.97
$1 billion US "fortress embassy"


What did we sell the old embassy for??????

Were is this FORTRESS
Not in any terrorist country, but in London!!!!!

Design picked for US 'fortress embassy'

Philadelphia-based architect Kieran Timberlake has won the battle to design the new US embassy in London - the largest American building in western Europe.

The design beat off competition from four other practices, all-American, due to security concerns.

The partnership of Kieran-Timberlake (Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake was selected by a design jury that included the architect Richard Rogers and the proerty developer Peter Palumbo.

Other names in contention were IM Pei, Richard Meier and Thom Mayne of Morphosis. The US government wants to build the £650m complex, 12 stores high - on a five-acre site in Nine Elms in south London.

Selected design of new US embassy in London As described by the then US ambassador in 2008, Robert Tuttle: "We realised that the goal of a modern, secure and environmentally-sustainable embassy could best be met by constructing a new facility."

The Americans had talked in military terms of a "blast zone" 30 metres wide around the building and a perimeter fence 4.5 metres high.

But the plans do not include an obvious perimeter fence. Instead security will be maintained by clever landscaping, through a water feature, inclines and embankments.

Post -9/11, American embassy construction has offered a particular challenge. The state department has a specialist section dealing with it - the wonderful acronym, the OBO, Overseas Building Operations.

For the OBO, security has to be paramount. How do you build to deter terrorists? They all remember the bloody attacks on embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam in 1998, on the embassy in San'a in Yemen a decade later.

The American embassy in Baghdad, which opened in January 2009, stands in the Green Zone. The last important new embassy in Europe, in Berlin, was dogged by delays mostly because of security.

The Berlin design (naturally by American architects) was ready in 1996. Construction finally started eight years later in 2004.

Grosvenor Square Eagle (Credit: Getty) The old embassy in Grosvenor Square - designed by the Finnish-American, Eero Saarinen in 1955 - will continue to function until then.

The lease was sold to Diar Real Estate Investment of Qatar in November 2009.

Biography of Mr Ghanim bin Saad al-Saad CEO Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company

Qatari born Mr. Ghanim bin Saad al-Saad is a prominent leader in Qatar’s real-estate and business sectors. He obtained his Master’s degree from Kent University, UK and is currently involved with his Ph.D.

Furthermore, Mr. Al-Saad is currently the Chairman of a number of organizations, namely, Barwa Real Estate Company (which is 45% owned by Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company), First Finance Company, First Real Estate Company, Al-Jazeera Academy, and Barwa Bank. Moreover, he is also the Director of Urban Velvet (Architecture & Development company) in London, UK. Most recently, Mr. Al-Saad has been appointed to be the CEO of Qatari Diar Real-Estate Investment Company the wholly owned real estate investment arm of the Qatar Investment Authority and the Government of Qatar capitalized at US$1 billion.


The world’s 100 most influential Arabs

65# Ghanim Bin Saad Al Saad

Country of Residence / Nationality: Qatar

Industry: Real Estate

Companies: Barwa Real Estate Company

A star of Qatar's real estate market, Al Saad's reputation and profile grew alongside his home state's property boom.

A star of Qatar's real estate market, Al Saad's reputation and profile grew alongside his home state's property boom.

As head of one of the Gulf nation's biggest developers, Barwa Real Estate, he has overseen high-profile property developments in his domestic market, while steering the firm into foreign markets including Libya, Switzerland and Belgium.

The property sector's slump, triggered by the global economic downturn, means Al Saad will need all his business acumen to guide Barwa through this challenging year.

Earlier this month the firm reported a 41.5 percent drop in 2008 net profit to $85.14m, caused by a decline in property prices. In January, Qatar's government ordered Barwa, an affiliate of state-owned Qatari Diar, to merge with Qatar Real Estate Investment Company.

Barwa is publicly listed and trades on the Doha Securities Market. The company was formed in 2005 and a stake of 55 percent, worth more than $300m, was offered shortly afterwards in an initial public offering that attracted more than 200,000 shareholders.

It is expected to be turned into a hotel.



In October 2009, the building was Grade 2 listed and that means its facade cannot be touched and parts of its interior without special planning permission. The building's Eagle with its 35-foot wingspan, will stay.