Alaska forever

One of the most interesting parts of the US lies maybe not where you might think. I mean that New York, L.A., Washington, the Grand Canyon are all interesting places to visit, but a very unusual place to go might be the largest state of the Federation : Alaska.

Alaska has a very different history than the rest of the nation for several reasons:
- It is maybe the first American territory to be populated by settlers that would have crossed the straight separating Russia from America,
- Vitus Bering was indeed the first Russian to cross the straight in 1741, and therefore it became a Russian territory. It was only in 1867 that this huge piece of land was bought by the US for $7,2 millions.

Alaska became the 49th state on January 3rd, 1959 (Hawaii was incorporated as a state on August 21st, of the same year).

Resulting from these years of Russian occupation, several and unique orthodox churches were built in Alaska. Something unique in Northern America.

So if you're interested, the Alaska tourism bureau is a good place to begin your research otherwise you can always read this great article published in my newspaper the New York times.


Photo from nytimes.com

No border please

An interesting story was told in yesterday's New York times, the one about a sleepy little town settled on the US-Canada's border. The town is called Stanstead in Quebec and Derby line in Vermont.

There is actually some border stations on the main streets of this little town but on the other ones one can freely go from Canada to the US. Sometimes, it is even impossible to tell in which country you're in.

I know that because I travelled throught this little town in the summer of 2005. It was really cool. Some of the buildings are on the border itself like the Opera house and the library (in the picture).

Some houses are on the US side but the driveway is on the Canadian one.



The town has been like this for ever and now the authorities are trying to change this. They are affraid of a potential terrorist threat and of illegal immigration. To me, this is just non-sense, there is no threat at all and illegals immigrants can easely avoid the border town by crossing into Canada throught the nearby fields and or forets.

On top of that the local authorities are not willing to disclose to the public what exactly is at risk. How many illegal immigrants are we talking about?

The way of life of this charming city is at risk of disappearing. People will be less likely to travel to the other side to go grocery shopping, see friends etc...

I believe that cooperation between the two countries border agencies is the best way to address security issues and not barriers that only complicate everyday lifes.

Passports

After the big mess surrounding the passports requirements imposed by the US to all the countries benefiting from the Visa Waiver Program (including France), the US imposed on all its citizens to present a Passport when entering the country by plane (for cars that should be for next year).
Of course, here too, things did not go well and the Passport Agency has not been able to meet the demand. Too much demand for new passports and not enough agents to process them. People had to cancel trips, go queue at the Passport Agency etc...
As a result, the rule has been suspended.

This drives me crazy. If the US want to secure their borders and control who enters and leaves this country, as they repeat constantly on TV, they should be able to produce the use of safe documents such as a passport.
This would make things so much easier.

The only good thing about this suspension is that it will annoy Lou Dobbs ;-)

Immigration

Unfortunately the immigration bill that was currently debated in the US Senate failed. Today more than 12 million illegal immigrants are in the US. Nobody really knows how they live and how they survive in America.

Although, as a newcomer in America, I have to say that there is a real hypocrisy here about this topic. One the hand, we ear all the time about how these people broke the law and that they should be deported. On the other hand, it's very easy for an illegal immigrant to come and settle in the US. They can open bank accounts, own property, cars, get insurance etc... (this is not the case in France)
For me, the greatest joke about this are the social security card. They are made of paper and are really easy to tamper. You wonder if this may not be on purpose. I don't know but this makes it very easy for illegal immigrants to forge them and almost impossible for employers to know if a person has or not a legal status.

What I liked about this bill was that it required the potential immigrant to know some English (not that I want to impose English as the unique language but but I have to admit that it makes me sad to talk to some people that have been here almost 20 years and not be able to get a good job because they don't speak the language), and to prioritize immigrants that have some technical skills the US needs the most. I understand that when you emigrate here you want to be close to your children and wife (I totally support that, I even think that parents of US citizens should not be deported) but I really don't see why the parents of a child that has reached its majority and its siblings should benefit of some kind of priority before other people that have a particular degree which might be helpful to the US economy.

Moreover, I also believe that you cannot have a good immigration bill without a secure border. I know this is completely political. But I believe that the US need to address this issue. I believe that a lot of people would be more willing to accept a comprehensive reform of the current law, if they knew that it would nearly be impossible to sneak in through the border.

I love my Prius

 
I got a new car, I got a new car!

The car is fantastic. It runs great, has an excellent gas mileage, and is bright RED!!!!

I love it. It's a Prius Hybrid. It's a Toyota. It's exclusively made in Japan next to where we used to live. It's fantastic.

I am so happy.

Virginia Tech Massacre

The story coming out of Virginia Tech is just too sad. What a waste! What was on the mind of this young guy when he decided to get his gun and kill his fellow students.

I cannot imagine what the parents of the dead students must feel at this time.
Of course, the debate or better say the controversy around the necessity of a stricter gun control will start again. It is true that if guns were not so easily accessible here, events like these ones might be avoided. Anderson Cooper mentions on his blog that the suicide killer went to a local gun shop to buy the revolver and the ammunitions.
So easy isn't it?


Photo from nytimes.com

Ryanair comes to America

With the ink on the new Open Skies agreement between the EU and the US still wet, Ryanair's CEO, Michael O'Leary announced that the airline will launch low fare, no-frills flights between its European bases and the US.
The opening fare would be around $12. Amazing!
I am sure that a lot of people would be interested in this. I am!

The market is dominated by the legacy carriers (American and British Airways in particular), the prices are always too high and the service is pretty bad (although I have to say that we went to France for Christmas, flew Air France and enjoyed an excellent in-flight service).
For sure, there is room for Ryanair. I am confident that this will be a success story.

The company plans to imitate what it does in Europe: fly to secondary airports in order to avoid high taxes and reduce costs.
For example, Michael O'Leary revealed that he would fly the planes to Baltimore instead of DC, Long Island instead of NYC and Providence, RI instead of Boston Logan airport.

It will be funny to be on a Charleroix- Baltimore or on a Girona-Providence flight!


I can't wait for this day to happen and maybe my family will have the opportunity to see Europe in the summer! (dixit Sheila)

Global Warming

We just saw the Al Gore's documentary about Global Warming. It is unbelievable. The documentary is very well set up and presents the issue in a very clear way.

Of course, I was startled when I realized how bad the situation is. I knew, of course that the earth was warming up but I had no idea that It was warming up so fast!

Human activities are clearly the source of it. As I said, It is just unbelievable. The ice is melting at the poles, but extremely quickly. Soon Greenland will have lost all the ice cap that covers it. The risk is of course the impact on the sea levels (a probable elevation of 40 feet) and the effect of the ocean currents that currently regulate the weather and the climate around the earth.

The statistic that really impressed me was the following one: If the ice reverberates around 90% of the heat coming from the sun, once it is melted the ocean absorbs 90 % of it. So there is clearly a very negative path there because not only the ice prevents the warming, but the ocean accelerates it.

What is amazing and as Al Gore puts it in his documentary, the technologies exists to limit our emissions. Of course, the US are behind everyone else in terms of limiting their emissions of green house gazes. I hope that there will be a change with the next administration.

Macao forever

An interesting article was published today in Le Monde. More money was collected in the Macao's casinos than in the Vegas ones.
$7.2 Billions for Macao versus $6.6 for Vegas. What the article does not mention is how many tourists visited Vegas last year compared to the ones than went to Macao.
Today, Vegas is trying to become a more upscale destination, also a family destination.
I wonder if that may not have affected the sales.
However, the money ends up in the same pockets. The new casino developers are the same than the Vegas one. In fact, they are building replicas of the Vegas Casinos like the Venetian.

Welcome to America!

A quick post to salute the first arrival of the Airbus A380 in America.

Actually, I should say the first arrivals. Let me explain why: It was agreed that the first airport to welcome the A380 was LAX near Los Angeles. Of course, New York did not like this at all and pressure both Airbus and Lufthansa to modify their plans and have the big apple to be the first city to greet the new machine.

As a result, Airbus decided to have not one but two planes land in the US at the same time at both LAX and JFK.

Unfortunately for Los Angeles, History will remember that the first plane to touch down was in New York and not in California. The LAX plane landed only minutes after the JFK one.

Anyway, It's an historic moment for Airbus.

March Madness continues

After the conferences tournaments ended, all the best selected teams end up playing the National Tournament: The National Championships.

Duke plays tonight Virginia Commonwealth University.

For all the basketball fans, you can watch it live here for FREE!

Conservapedia.com

The conservative right in this country has started a new war on ideas. The war is waged against Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. After doing their own research, they realized that Wikipedia was biased mainly because it was written mostly by liberals.

So weird!! As a way to fight that they have come up with the idea that they needed their own online encyclopedia : conservapedia.com

It's exactly the same argument they had with Fox News. The general press was not fair and had a liberal bias so they had to come up with their own news channel.

So let's play: I searched Kangaroo:

Here is what conservapedia says at the end of the article:

According to the origins theory model used by creation scientists, modern kangaroos, like all modern animals, originated in the Middle East[1] and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood. (...)

Also according to creation science theories, after the Flood, kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land[2] -- as Australia was still for a time connected to Europe by a land bridge similar to the one that connected Asia to America[3] -- or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters.[2] Another theory is that God simply generated kangaroos into existence there. "


Any comment so far?

Mine is: "laughable but real"

Another funny search is, for example: France.

Pres. Bush's visit to South America

Pres. Bush is currently in Latin America accomplishing one of his longest tours in the region.
He is visiting Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. Of course, his visit generates protests in these countries. His most famous opponent in the region is of course the extravagant Venezuela's president (future dictator?) Hugo Chavez. He held a meeting in Buenos Aires while Pres. Bush was in Montevideo where he quoted saying "Gringo, go home". That's not helpful!

It is true that having lived in Chile and now in the US, I understand maybe both societies a little more.

I understand that the US does not invest enough in South America. Of course, there are some economical exchanges but cultural, educational, artistic projects are totally insufficient and underfunded.
Before the 9/11 attacks, he had a lot more active policy south of the border. He also speaks Spanish, was a border state governor (Texas). Because of all these assets, he convinced a lot of Hispanics to vote for him.
After 9/11, everything changed. Latin America is not a priority any more.
Too bad, because there is a lot to be done.

On the other hand, many times the US is trying to do something in these countries, this is not understood as a co-development project but has a way for the US to push for its own agenda.


For example, I believe in free trade as one of the fastest way to reduce poverty all around the world. The Bush administration has been pushing for a free trade zone in the Americas. This project is not progressing mainly for political reasons in Latin American countries. This is really unfortunate. The US is the main economy in the world and I am sure both sides would benefit from such agreement. Developing countries could export more to the US and vice-versa.

Of course, the US would have to renounce to its agricultural exports subsidies which are totally unacceptable. By the way, The EU is not better than the States in this matter and should go forward with the Doha round.

What do you think?

Pictures from USAtoday.com and CNN.com

America 's competitiveness

Bill Gates got to testify before Congress at the beginning of a week to push for education and immigration reforms. His speech was mentioned in a NYtimes article. He warns us that if the US does not train more students in maths, engineering and sciences, America's leadership could be at stake.

It is true that not enough resourses have been invested into the educational system to train young kids in scientific fields. As pointed out in the article, it is obvious that in an economy based on innovation and knowledge, making sure that high schoolers and college students master these areas is essential.

Bill Gates also argues that America should allow more foreigners with a scientific background into the country. Only 65,000 visas are granted every year, which is not enough to fill up all the open positions.

I am not so sure about that. Would opening the border lead to lower wages for skilled workers already in the US? Studies are extremely expensive here and you must be assured that your future income will allow you to reimburse your loans. On the other hand, if some positions remain for a long time available, then a company might consider relocation overseas where the labor market is more favorable to its needs.


In any case, The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has been very active in making sure that more and more children are trained in maths and sciences and this is wonderful.

On the right of the picture, you can see legendary investor Warren Buffet next to Bill and Melinda. He recently announced a major donation to the foundation including ten million shares of his holding Berkshire Hathaway. Today's price for one share was $3,646.

Thank you Mr. Buffet.


Picture from gatesfoundation.org