Pattern for the Lady Di dress

Where did you get them for free? Taria

FarmI wrote:

At the local hospital ER. See my previous post on the subject.

I'm in Australia. And yes, I do pay for it by paying taxes but I have never complained about paying taxes. My philosophy is that I want to live in a society where people are treated decently and not 'blamed' for being poor or allowed to live in squalor like Victorian Britain.

If you lived in a place where illegal immigrants were flocking so that they could take advanced of tax-funded services that they pay no taxes to support, aided by lawyers that help them milk the system and get tons of freebies without contributing a cent back into the system, you might feel a little differently. California is going bankrupt because of this, yet some people in this state still apparently feel that it's better for the state to go bankrupt than it is to stop the drain on public-funded services by people who should not be here in the first place.

Admittedly, it's a sensitive subject, but when you see illegal immigrants gett>

My husband and I are both into mountain biking. I've taken his stitches out, he's done mine as well. It's not rocket science, especially if you happen to own a pair of the tiny, hook-nosed suture scissors and a decent pair of tweezers.

It's helpful to apply an extended healing bandage or something similar right over the sutures to keep the healing wound soft and moist. It not only improves the look of the resulting scar, it keeps the skin soft and flexible, making removing stitches easier than having to yank crusty, scabby sutures out of a wound that's been left open to the air.

If you've let a stitched wound become crusty, soak it in plain warm water and scrub gently with a clean wash cloth. You may need to repeat the soaking/scrubbing a few times, depending on how long the stitches were in and how ooze-y the wound was.

Once everything is nice and clean and soft, use your suture scissors to snip each individual stitch then tweeze it out of the skin.

Sometimes it happens that a tiny bit of suture material is left behind. 5 years after having my elbow stitched I felt something rough when rubbing my arm. It was maybe a quarter inch of what looked like a white hair. Only, who gets elbow hair?

I finally tweezed out a half inch of what appeared to be nylon fishing line - the stuff they'd used to close up a wound to a high tension area like the elbow. And that particular set of stitches had been both installed and removed by a physician.

Also, pull the suture up, then cut it where it was just below the surface of the skin, then pull from the opposite side, so that no part of the suture that was exposed to the air goes through the skin.

"Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to reply" wrote in message news:46e43912$0$27169$ snipped-for-privacy@news.sonic.net...

I DO live in such a place.

so that

It depends on what services you are describing as being "milked".

Health care is not one such system that can be "milked" here as in order to get treatment, the person seeking such treatment must have a Medicare card. Anyone over 18 who is not a student and not living at home would have such a card (unless they haven't applied and been issued with one).

As for the illegals who come here and who seek recognition of 'refugee status' and some of the other categories of illegals, then I am all in favour of any solicitor who provides help to them to gain such status. This will eventually allow them to live here and perhaps eventually gain residency or citizenship. Those who don't qualify because they don't fit in with the government guidelines or exceed the quota of refugees to be accepted (and unfortunatley there are too many) will be turfed out of the country and often they are being sent back to places where they have been tortured or had members of their families killed.

The worst and most numerous cases of "illegals" are those who come in by air on valid visitors visas and then simply disappear into the community. Most Australians know so little about the real problems that they splutter about the refugees and 'boat people' as these are the groups that our Government can whip up rascist hatred against because it's all about perception and not fact. When you ask them their opinion of the overstayed visitors they haven't got a clue about how many of them there are (massively more than the other groups) or even what a problem they are.

California is going bankrupt because of

?????? Isn't immigration an issue that is a Federal Government responsibility and not that of a State? If California is going broke because of illegals, then it needs to do something about a) ensuring that the checks used to provide services are rigorously enforced and b) get onto the Feds to stop illegal immigration and then yell loud and clear so that all its citizens know that illegals are not something that a State can control or deal with to any great effect.

If there are loopholes then than it is a matter for the State of California to close them. It ain't rocket science. It just needs will on behalf of the legislators and then good policies and procedures that are acted upon at the level of contact of between the service givers (ie servants of the State) and the service receivers (the illegals).

as well as lie/cheat about what

I think that this might in fact be the nub of the whole issue. I wouldn't mind betting dollars to doughnuts that the real reason why California and much of the US has a problem with illegals is because it doesn't suit either the State of California or the Federal Government to actually DO anything about illegals. I'll bet that the cheap labour is the real reason why no-one does anything about them. The various governments may say the right things but I'll bet they don't bother to do the right things. Cheap labour is what they want and what their backers want and the right words are just a charade to pacify Joe Citizen.

BTW, there are mechanisms in this country to, in effect, inform (but remain anonymous), on those cheating the tax system. I'd be very surprised if the same systems weren't available to those who wanted to do so in the US too.

You have hit the nail on the proverbial head. Those who fund political campaigns rely on immigrant labor, some even paying "under the table" so that they can pay below minimum wage and without any witholding of taxes or insurance coverage. While health insurance coverage is important to workers, that is not the insurance I refer to here -- it's worker's compensation and unemployment insurance that the employers don't want to pay. That and social security.

Agri-business cannot survive without cheap labor, and that means illegal immigrant labor in most areas. Construction also relies on illegal immigrants, as do large resorts, who need dishwashers, and other laborers.

I thought that I could be onto a winner with my comment. Governments can so just about anything they want to, if they want to enough. Having worked for government for nearly 30 years, I always look for what the politicians don't want us to think about or focus on.

Don't you love the way they run around pontificating about "family values" with the landscape littered with their ex-wives, various children and step-children? It seems to be working, though, distracting people from real issues. I just wish they'd butt out of the family business altogether. How about some renewable energy resources?

We had a woman run for governor on a platform of stopping illegal immigration. Duh! Like state government controls the national borders that aren't even in our state?

Locally, we have a city council trying to annex land some miles from the city limits, so that they can approve high-density development. Nothing included about an adequate highway, schools, police and fire protection, though. Just incredible urban sprawl, and you have to wonder what's in it for them that they ignore previous law and planning and zoning.

Well, the ways to discourage illegal immigrants from coming are terribly unpopular solutions -- refusing to allow illegals access to government-funded services, etc. -- and nobody seems to be willing to do these things.

If there was no gravy train for people to arrive illegally, *AND* if the minimum wage didn't keep climbing so high that hiring illegals at less than minimum wage looked so attractive, then we probably wouldn't see as many illegals. But trying to enact those things, unfortunately, would probably be political suicide for anybody who attempted it.

How about just prosecuting the people who hire them? If there weren't jobs waiting for them, they wouldn't be coming here. It seems putting the cart before the horse to punish those who accept the jobs and do the work, when it's the employers who are getting rich off their labor.

How about more economic development below the border? There are very successful enterprises there now, funded by foreign companies and individuals, providing good work and good pay to some natives. More of that would be good investments in many ways.

Nevada doesn't have much of a problem with illegal immigrants using government-funded services. Probably because we don't have very many services, and getting access to what there is requires much hoop-jumping.

That works for me. I have tried to lobby in my neighborhood to collect license plate numbers of people who "hire" the illegal aliens loitering in the neighborhood hoping to be picked up as day laborers, especially since there are signs up on the streets stating that it's illegal to hire them, but I can't get enough people interested in doing that to make it worth it.

Yup. I would rather see third-world countries get jobs for foreign aid rather than some of the traditional foreign aid they have gotten -- things they can't use, things that they can't maintain, things duplicating things they couldn't use and didn't or things they couldn't maintain and they broke, things that get siphoned off so they don't help the average person, etc.

That works, too. But publically-funded welfare-type services are bleeding this state dry, and I suppose it is because of all the agriculture that nothing gets done about it.

California agri-business is bleeding the state dry, with ancient laws passed way back when California was the breadbasket of the nation. Now, they get your water, whether they need it or not, and they get government services that any industry would love to have.

Meanwhile, Californians who have been priced out of the housing market, or who have made a killing on the real estate they've owned for 30 years are flocking here, to take advantage of the lower taxes. So what do they holler for first? California-level services!!! They don't seem to understand that all those things cost money, and the only place government can get money is through taxes.

When they still used horses to cultivate tomato fields -- unlike tractors, horses could step between the vines -- hillbillies from Kentucky picked them.

After Kentucky got electricity and running water, Mexicans picked the tomatoes.

The last time we drove through the farmlands, we passed a field where a combine was running through tomato vines and leaving bare dirt behind. A truck piled high with tomatoes was parked nearby.

Farms needed cheap labor; agribusiness doesn't.

Joy Beeson

Sounds like all the city slickers who are moving into the little

6,000-population town I grew up in that is miles away from nowhere (2 hours to NYC, 2 hours to Philly when there is no traffic) and want to be in a small town but one with all the conveniences of the big city *roll>

Human nature. They want it all, but not in their own back yard. There's some kind of logic gap happening there. Also, they never want to pay for what they get. Their mamas apparently never told them that there is no free lunch.

Having worked for

:-)) That AND multiple other hypocritical idiotic things they say. The trouble is that it seems to fool soooo many people. Has me beat why.

I just wish they'd butt out of the family

But have you noticed how many people seem to think there is are no energy problems at all - huge cars, huge houses, no attempt to reduce household energy use.

:-)) Joe Citizen perhaps doesn't know that? A lot of pollies seem to rely on ignorance of the public. The sad thing is that there are so many ignorant 'public' out there.

Increased income in the form of local taxes or someone owns the land and has greased a few palms or given lots of free lunches. A universal problem unfortunately