Post Titled: Rising Costs of US immigration fees:
ouch:
"An application for citizenship, including biometric encoding, would climb to $675 from $400; an application to become a permanent resident would rise to $1,010 from $395. The latter would be partially offset by the elimination of fees applicants have to pay while waiting for the green cards, officials said."

so the Germans don't seem so bad afterall...

FROM the Guardian regarding the shadiness of the G8:

"As George Bush put it: 'Real rich people figure out how to dodge taxes.'"


Kid in maryland dies from tooth infection -from SLATE:

"It may be that Deamonte's abscess had progressed to the point that the nerve endings were dead, so he didn't feel the pain for a time. Or maybe he was just a child who complained less. In any case, Deamonte eventually developed headaches, because the infection had reached his brain. A hospital emergency room gave him antibiotics, but within days he was back in the emergency room, this time for brain surgery. He died after six weeks of hospitalization.

After hearing Deamonte's story, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, had his staff call the 24 dentists listed by Deamonte's Medicaid provider. Twenty-three of them either were wrong listings or would not take Medicaid. The 24th was a specialist, not a dentist."

rest of that story HERE

To Lighten the Mood, THE ULTIMATE MOUSE CURSOR (thanks Nigel!)