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The use of an I-9 Form is mandated by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) bureau of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish worker eligibility.

Employers need to have each of their employees fill out the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9, or be subject to fines of as much as five and a half thousand dollars per unauthorized worker, alongside with other penalties. Such employers may also be subject to sanctions called for under other laws, especially those relevant to immigration.

Even failing to keep correct records can carry fines, to the tune of over a thousand dollars per missing or problematic form, regardless of whether the employee is legally authorized to work in the United States, so great is the value attached by the government to the I-9 Form.

Individuals, employer, employee, or otherwise, who intentionally commits or participates in document fraud might be subject to over three thousand dollars for the first offense and up to six and a half thousand for subsequent offenses. Information must be reverified as essential, such as in the case of expiring supporting documents. Information must be retained even for former employees, up to one year following the end of employment.

The “I-9 requirement” came about with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), which law stipulated that employers must verify an employee’s identity and eligibility for employment in the United States. Employers might be liable even in the situation of hired sub-contractors who themselves employ unauthorized workers. Such verification isn’t required in the case of volunteers.

IRCA also provided for a number of anti-discrimination conditions so that factors like national origin and citizenship status cannot be used against job candidates. Thus, in order to avoid any possibility of a lawsuit, corporations won’t ask for the I-9 form to be filled out until after somebody is actually hired.

Wine for medicinal purposes? It used to be a humorous excuse of alcoholics, however scientific study seems to confirm the practice – in moderation. Consuming a single five-ounce serving of red wine a day appears to duplicate the beneficial elements of caloric restriction without any of the potential unwanted effects such as muscle loss and decrease in bone density.

Nothing has been effectively proven yet – because long-term studies require, well, a long period of time to finish – but all indications so far have been positive. Unlike the case of smoking, which doctors in the 1920s actually recommended for good health (!), the daily drinking of red wine in moderation does indeed seem to provide health benefits.

Be aware that we’re talking about red wines in particular, not regular, and not barley wines or other kinds of fruit wines. Nor do we mean other kinds of alcohol, regardless of whether made from grains or vegetables – only red wines.

The main reason for this is that resveratrol, the key chemical providing all these benefits (there are others, of course; a little on them later), comes from grape skin and is found most abundantly in red wines. Specifically, resveratrol is produced by grape skin when infected by fungus, such as that which happens during fermentation through the exposure to yeast.

White wines, in contrast, are made with minimal contact of that sort during their production process and therefore are not the best source of resveratrols; not surprisingly, all other kinds of alcohol contain no grapes at all, though all alcohol, in moderate, minute amounts, are now presumed to provide some benefits to the heart.

So pick up a small glass of “red, red wine” and kick back to the UB40 song of the same name and sip slowly, enjoying your daily dose of resveratrol, polyphenols, antioxidants, and flavonoids!

Green energy is expected to be the great industry with the 21st Century, paying great dividends to the country or countries that pioneer and successfully capitalize on it. Economically, environmentally, and even militarily, the capability to produce sustainable forms of energy is a prize which will set the fate of the world for centuries to come.

Sadly, the United States is in danger of losing the green energy race. Our nation is addicted to oil and the politicians are addicted to corporate money, so change has been nearly impossible.

On the other side of the globe, literally, are the leaders of China, who have embarked on an ambitious plan to produce solar panels as well as implement solar farms themselves for domestic use. The Chinese are also big on wind farms and nuclear power, other technologies which Americans first developed but have now abandoned.

Sounds ominous? The chattering classes are all up in arms about the issue, but nothing has been getting done, not even with the election of Barack Obama. The interests are just too entrenched. Everyone stands to lose some thing, and contemporary American culture seems to have lost sight of any notion of the common good.

It’s a crazy situation. You can find American citizens, engineers and scientists, educated with American tax dollars, who now conduct their work in China or are employed by businesses that do the rest of their work there. In effect, United States tax dollars are educating the individuals whose work will ultimately benefit the Chinese!

Of course, these scientists and engineers are only working for the highest salaries. But the businesses they work for – American firms, owned by American citizens – complain that they simply can’t do business here; they need to go where the action is, and that’s China. To do anything else would be like trying to sell ice at the North Pole.

You might think that the expansion of coffee houses the past twenty to thirty years would suggest a decrease in the sale of coffee machines, but on the contrary they continue being as popular as ever, with espresso makers one of the most ballyhooed goods on late-night television. It’s a interesting thing, and will possibly not make a lot of sense on the face of it, but in fact the number of businesses dedicated to providing coffee has only made people want to buy coffee machines of their own!

Now why should this be? The reply points up to an intriguing feature of human nature. But first think of why people should patronize coffee houses: it isn’t all about the coffee. Many restaurants, such as Starbucks, have hit upon the effective formula that formerly saw the rise of sidewalk cafes throughout Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: people needed a nice place indoors! Escaping cramped quarters at home, such establishments offered a relatively high-class environment for the price of a cup of coffee. And it’s the same today, with students among the most faithful of customers for these chain coffee houses.

But why should people need coffee machines, then? Well, in this case, it also isn’t necessarily all about the coffee. That’s right! You’d think that people who like coffee either go to coffee houses or buy coffee makers to use at home. But in both cases, it isn’t always about the coffee itself, but everything else relating to how they get their coffee!

In the case of a coffee house, people go for the ambience as much as anything else. In the situation of a home coffee maker, it’s about the convenience: no lines to wait on, but everything on a timer and ready when you wake up or come home, with the same range of flavors – all at a much reduced cost. And there’s always seating available!