Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

Illegal Aliens. The Mafia parallel

Posted: February 9, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Can you find a parallel between illegal aliens and the mafia? I see one that should exist.

One things you notice about mafia or any large organization is the acceptance of the threat of organized crime and jail. This is one of the dangers of the job. The mafia guys all know that arrest and jail comes with the turf, they try to avoid it but they know that it is the price for the money.

It’s not a source of whining it is the way it is.

One of the things that hit me about illegal immigration and angers me is the idea that the risk of arrest and deportation is unfair. That we are somehow wrong in enforcing the existing laws.

I’ll say this bluntly: If I was in Mexico and had kids I’d do everything i could by hook or crook to get here. If I had a pregnant wife I’d do all I could to get my kid born in the US and be a US citizen. Particularly with the violence and drug wars that are going on now. The laws of the US be damned! I’d also take advantage of anything or anyone that kept me here too. I don’ blame them.

But likewise they shouldn’t blame us for having and enforcing the laws. This is part of the risk. If you are going to do this don’t expect us to be celebrating you for breaking the law. Don’t expect bailout money and don’t expect things to change at home when people run away from it either.

If you want the rewards then you have to accept the risks that come with it.

Update: Was this post timely or what:

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.

What a crock.

The talking point: Hypocrites

Posted: February 9, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: ,

It looks like the new talking point is that the GOP are hypocrites and have to business being critical of the bill.

Note that the argument is not that they are wrong it is now all about the spending of the last 8 years. Lets ignore the fact that the Fannie Mae mess is a wholly owned subsidy of the Democratic party.

Lets ignore the money for Acorn

A multi-million dollar liberal non-profit activist conglomerate reportedly under federal investigation may get a big piece of the economic recovery stimulus pie now under consideration by Congress.

It’s the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now – the infamous ACORN.

That’s right. ACORN, the activist group that has been implicated in voter fraud and registration deception in at least 14 states may get the financial bailout it needs to pull off another round of schemes in the next election season.

Or that the Tarp money has gone God knows where:

“What remains almost entirely opaque, however, is what has been done with the TARP money,” Barofsky says in January letter to Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. “If the American taxpayer is to be expected to fund this extraordinary effort to stabilize the financial system, it is not unreasonable that the public and its representatives in Congress have some understanding as to how those funds have been used by the recipients.”

Ignore all of this; Lets just remember that the GOP spent money poorly so this bill should pass. If we fall for this we deserve everything we get out of it.

I’m sorry that’s just funny

Posted: February 9, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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A lot of the noise about the Williamson case is smoke and grandstanding these days Williamson’s statements on what the Vatican has ordered are not so odd:

Williamson does not plan to immediately comply with the Vatican’s demand that he recant, and has rejected a suggestion that he might visit the former Auschwitz death camp, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

Williamson said he would correct himself if he is satisfied by the evidence, but insisted that examining it “will take time,” Der Spiegel reported.

…but the last line of this associated press story just make me smile and laugh:

Several efforts by The Associated Press to reach Williamson at his home in La Reja, Argentina, have been unsuccessful.

Argentina, ARGENTINA? Boy you don’t get a better fit than that do you?

He doesn’t know my brother

Posted: February 9, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: ,

Tim Blair links to an article by John Hawkins about how online stuff has changed the way things are done:

Well, you have individuals from all over the world who can talk anonymously to people with whom they have no personal connection, and they can say absolutely anything without fear of being punched in the nose. Put another way, the Internet takes away all the factors that keep people from saying the rude things that they may be thinking, but wouldn’t blurt out if they were face to face with another human being. On a more sinister note, the Internet allows misfits, sexual deviants, and sociopaths to form communities outside the mainstream where they can reinforce each others’ values.

I once mentioned that everyone has a crazy uncle who has odd ideas. Link them by the net and you have not an Army of Davids but an army of crazy uncles.

Blair has a suggestion:

It’s generally best when writing online – anonymously or otherwise – to observe the “would I say that if the person I was saying it about were right in front of me?” rule.

That wouldn’t make any difference at all if it was my brother who was talking. He thinks “tacit” is what you use to put up things on a bulletin board.