A realistic proposal

A sensible approach to the Mexican border problem has to deal with two realities. First, Mexicans and other immigrants with few skills and low cognitive awareness levels are coming to this country illegally because they have no or very little economic opportunity at home. Second, illegal immigration poses an unacceptable risk of economic and cultural dislocation, as well as real security threats, to the United States. I have an approach that tackles both problems.

The key is to secure the present border at the Rio Grande and west to the Pacific. This means a highly secure fence or wall, patrolled and electronically monitored 24/7/365. This is well within our capabilities. That doesn't deal, however, with the fact that it is the economic opportunity available in the United States that is attracting undesirable immigrants.

I propose the creation of an economic and security zone in northern Mexico, extending from the present border with the United States to a line joining the Gulf of Mexico shoreline to Monterrey to Chihuahua to Hermosillo and then to the Gulf of California. All of Baja California would be included in the zone. Special security and identification measures would be in effect in the zone, so that all residents would be unequivocally identified and their status clearly established. The idea will be to establish within this zone the economic and legal framework which has been so successful in making the states of the United States prosperous and attractive. This would have to include clear and effective real property and commercial transactions regulations, as well as incorruptible law enforcement and political organizations. The United States will consult with Mexico as to the nature of these changes in the present failed and fragile social framework within this area. The only real difference between this zone and the states of the United States would be that social welfare provision would remain at the level that obtains in the rest of Mexico. It is to be anticipated that economic development in this zone would be rapid and healthy. All the economic migrants who pose security and cultural risks to the United States should be able to find the opportunity they seek for legitimate economic activity in this zone. It may even turn out that this zone will be a magnet for those migrants from around the world who cannot meet the standards that legal US immigration should require. Perhaps many Mexican citizens who have immigrated illegally or legally to the United States will find this zone just as economically attractive and more culturally and linguistically comfortable than the areas in the United States where they find themselves today.

Should it become impossible to establish this zone by agreement with Mexico, it will become necessary to impose, by whatever means may be required, a border control zone, a hundred miles wide, from the present border south into Mexico. Within this zone travel will be prohibited and all existing settlements will be removed. Such a drastic measure should not be necessary, however. If Mexican immigrants only want to come to the United States to work and prosper, they will have that opportunity within their own country. Perhaps when the rest of Mexico, and eventually the rest of Latin America, observe the results that can be achieved by a rational regime of laws and a government with integrity, they too will adopt the measures prevalent in the zone. Then the border zone will no longer be necessary and men of all cultures and ethnicities can be free and prosperous in their own countries.

Update: Just to show I'm not a complete nut, there's a good article by Tom Bethell at the American Spectator about Hernando DeSoto's theories as they apply to the third world, and specifically to Mexico:

Hernando de Soto's organization was invited to Mexico and did some work on the question. He says that only 6 percent of Mexican enterprises are legal, the rest are informal. If you want yours legalized, it will take you four years with no certainty in the outcome.

This is the kind of problem that could be addressed in the economic and security zone.

Cheapest so far?

Another fare to Istanbul in the fall - but I know I can do better. What amazes me is that the fare right from Tallahassee is so little larger than the fare direct from Atlanta or New York. It's almost like they're flying me to Orlando or New York for free. Every time I think of driving to another airport I look at what I'd save and it just isn't worth it.
The only kicker in the QIXO fare is that they haven't disclosed all the taxes and fees yet, so it may not really be the cheapest. Maybe by Labor Day I'll have a fare I can live with - and fly with!

Whale of a tail

A story on Samizdata about the fishy goings on at the World non-Whaling Conference led me to hook up with this burger saga about whaleburgers. This is one of the reasons I want to go to Japan - so I can eat some good cetacean. So let's look at a package tour:

Package details
Price details
Total: $1,746.55
Included:

* Items selected, taxes, & fees for flight.

Flight: 1 roundtrip ticket flight
7:00 am Depart Tallahassee (TLH)
Arrive Tokyo (NRT) 3:00 pm tip+1 day Tue 24-Oct
Duration: 19hr 0mn
United United United 3588 operated by US /US AIRWAYS EXPRESS-PSA AIRLINES -- US22383588 / United 2265 operated by US AIRWAYS -- US9262265 / 881
Connect in Charlotte (CLT), Chicago (ORD)
3:20 pm Depart Tokyo (NRT)
Arrive Tallahassee (TLH) 6:49 pm Tue 31-Oct
Duration: 16hr 29mn
United United 884 / 432 / United 3480 operated by US /US AIRWAYS EXPRESS-PSA AIRLINES -- US22693480
Connect in Chicago (ORD), Charlotte (CLT)
Choose a different flight for this package.
Hotel: 1 room for 6 nights hotel
More lodging info
Shinbashi Atagoyama Tokyu Inn
2.0-star Tokyo, Japan
# This 14-story high-rise, located in downtown Tokyo, is less than two km (one mile) from the Imperial Palace.

# Refrigerators come in all ... More lodging info
Check-in: Wed 25-Oct-06 Check-out: Tue 31-Oct-06
Room options Price
Std Single - Annex Main Wing Sale! Included
Std Twin - Annex Main Wing Sale! + $23.55 per night
Choose a different hotel for this package.

Hey, not bad, but I'll probably have to get another flight to Sapporo to get the advertised whaleburger. I'll settle for a Tokyo version.

And of course I couldn't resist the chance for a good comment:

It's just a fluke, that's all. Whale "meets" with my approval! It may seem fishy, but I wouldn't beef about a whaleburger. See whale? Se(a) - food! Now don't blubber, get to the meat of the matter. You have to loin there's a lot at steak here. Stop spouting off and being such a blowhard!

I always hope this sort of thing causes a pun-demonium. Or at least a pun-demic.

These guys are ... terrible!

Just finished watching the US Open golf tournament. I don't think there was one birdie in the last six holes among the top leaders. It was drives in the rough, in the sand, in a garbage can, in the corporate tent - and that was only Phil Mickelson! And the iron play wasn't any better. The putting made one think these so-called professionals had never seen a fairly complex green before. A good college player could have won today. I kept wishing Tiger was playing, because I knew he would have won by fifteen strokes. Then I remembered he didn't even make the cut, with two successive 76's on Thursday and Friday! Then I also remembered John Daly, not the most successful golfer, if perhaps the most obnoxious, saying that he lost $55 million dollars gambling. When someone pointed out he hadn't won any more than $15 million in twenty years on the Tour he explained all the other ways a golfer could get money. I guess I'm in the wrong business. I wonder if a fat 58-year-old can take a few lessons and go on tour and win an easy million or two and then retire. How hard could it be?

OK, I'm glad Ogilvy the Aussie won, but really - he didn't win, the others lost. I watch to see men win by making great shots, not to see someone back into the trophy because the leader double-bogeys the last hole. Disgusting

Compared to what?

I am getting mighty disgusted by all these articles yammering on about how much the liberation of Iraq has hurt the President's political standing. I have to ask, "Compared to what?" Compared to if he hadn't done anything, if Saddam was still in there killing thousands every month, threatening his neighbors, moving confidently forward on his nuclear program? What's that you say, he didn't have a nuclear program? Sure. Once the inspectors left for good and the no-fly zones were dismantled - or does someone think they would have been continued forever? - Saddam's scientists would have dug up all the machinery buried in their back yards, brought back all the stuff from Syria and continued on their merry way. And today we'd be facing a nuclearized Iraq under Saddam. And, as I mentioned before, Libya's nuclear program would still be active. And in response Iran would certainly have moved well towards nuclearization. And on the War on Terror front, with no Iraq liberation, all those "insurgents" would have flooded into Afghanistan. And how long would the "multilateral" force there have lasted?

So sometimes in life there are no really good choices. But doing nothing about Saddam was not an option. Here's a retroactive prediction: If Bush hadn't invaded Iraq in 2003, he would never have been re-elected in 2004. By now the situation would have been very bad in Afghanistan and there would have been multiple large terrorist attacks here at home - maybe even in Tallahassee! Things would have been bad enough that the public would have considered John Kerry a better choice. Hard as that may be to believe. And if this president can help Iraq become a viable polity, he will go a long way to soothing my anger at him over immigration and overspending and the war on drugs. I'll still be mad at him, but I'll probably still vote Republican. Considering the alternative.

Forget South America

OK, so forget South America. What do they have down there I want to see, anyway? I admit the main attraction in BA was steak. But I won't beef about giving that up. Now on to Turkey (Oops. Link appears to be broken) in the fall. I've been wanting to go to Turkey for a long time, since I read a book about Trebizond and started dreaming. Sure it's now called Trabzon, but it's still the former terminus of the Silk Road to China and a former Greek city-state and on the Black Sea. It's got a Russian bazaar and it's only twenty miles inland to a Byzantine monastery that looks like something out of Indiana Jones or an H. Rider Haggard novel.

Travel blogging

Ever since spending a week in Paris in April with my two older kids, I've just been crazy about travel planning. So many countries, so little time and money. One example that drives me crazy came up last week. I looked at a flight to Buenos Aires. South America in the summer seemed like a smart idea, right? Southern Hemisphere winter is a good break from Tallahassee in August. So I found a flight from Tallahassee to BA, via Miami and Santiago, Chile, for about $954. Not bad. Then I started thinking. Chile sounds pretty good. And since it's on the way to BA, if in a roundabout way, it should be cheaper, right? Well, that's not the way it works in airline world. I searched the same database, on the same dates, same everything, but Tallahassee to Santiago only. What came back was a trip via Atlanta this time, but for more than the price for the ticket through Santiago to BA! OK, so, clever me, I think I'll buy the BA ticket and get off in Santiago, right? Oops. But how do I get back? You can see how this is driving me crazy. Will they let me on the plane coming back from BA? Do I really want to take that chance? Can I get a stopover in Santiago? What is the factor that makes it cheaper to fly all the way to BA than to stop at Santiago? Demand?

Update:And look at this from Aerolineas Argentinas. $920! But I do have to get to Miami. So why is this so much cheaper? Or am I missing something?

Randi - Snarky?

James Randi's in good form today, slapping around defenseless psychics:

When you say psychic, many people have an image of an old woman in a gown with a crystal ball. They don't associate themselves with that.

Randi: Then what image should we conjure up – pun intended – Simon? A middle-aged opportunist with no other means of support, who has attended the College of Psychic Studies and learned how easily he/she can make a living by delivering bad guesses and generalities to vulnerable persons who really need some help and attention to make their lives temporarily seem easier, but will settle for any scam?

Sounds about right to me. The shock of recognition will pass. Substitute "law school" for "the College of Psychic Studies" and you have a description of my life!

Economics and immigration

Steve Sailer reports on the VDARE blog about a plan to charge immigrants $2000 to immigrate:

And, two polls conducted by the Pew Hispanic Trust showed that over 40% of Mexicans say they would immigrate to America if it were legal. And, just about anybody could borrow $2,000 based on their future earnings in America.

So $2000 isn't the right price. But that got me thinking. What is the right price? $1 million? $10 million? Because there's got to be a market clearing price, right? Hey, I almost sounded like an economist there. But really. How much is it worth to a willing buyer to be able to live and work in the USA? Or, to put it another way, how much would the USA have to get to deal with the costs and risks of another immigrant? I wonder if Sailer has considered that. But maybe he thinks that no price is enough. Since the government controls (HA!) immigration, the government would get the money. And the taxpayers, not the government, would have to put up with the dislocations caused by the immigrants. However. The US does have a product to offer - a good investment climate, relative social peace, prosperity, opportunity. It must be worth a certain amount of money to foreigners who don't enjoy these things. I'm going to post this and then look up something on the INS (sorry, ICE or something) website about "treaty investors". This question may already have been answered.

Update: OK, I think I've got it, but it's disappointing:

(2) Treaty investor. An alien, if otherwise admissible, may be classified as a nonimmigrant treaty investor (E-2) under the provision of section 101(a)(15)(E)(ii) of the Act if the alien:


(i) Has invested or is actively in the process of investing a substantial amount of capital in a bona fide enterprise in the United States, as distinct from a relatively small amount of capital in a marginal enterprise solely for the purpose of earning a living;


(ii) Is seeking entry solely to develop and direct the enterprise; and


(iii) Intends to depart the United States upon the expiration or termination of treaty investor (E-2) status.

Looks like it doesn't really confer resident status. And it doesn't define what a "substantial amount" of money is. But if you have enough money to invest here you can come in and keep an eye on it. It's called an E-2 visa. I'd look for cases, but I'm too lazy right now. I have to check up on whether Tiger's going to make the cut in the US Open. Doesn't look too good. He's at +10 after 14. Sigh.
Update to Update: +12 in the clubhouse. No cut line yet. And the leader is someone named Steve Stricker I've never heard of. Golf is one weird game.

No wage, José!

In a Chequerboard post about the minimum wage even Pejman gets a little snarky:

And to support an increase in the minimum wage is to be on the side of the angels? Right?

So I had to leave a supportive comment, dragging in the immigration issue:

I've always found it strange that the strongest supporters of the minimum wage tend to be those who also support the rights of illegal aliens to work in this country. Don't they realize that employers take on low-skilled, generally uneducated illegal alien workers so they can pay them less than the minimum wage, or, at any rate, less than "documented" workers? Seems like a simple connection to make.

Another question comes to mind - how can illegals get Social Security credit for jobs which violate the minimum wage laws AND, conceivably, the hours and conditions of employment laws AND the immigration laws? Gee, you would think the government would want to discourage people from breaking all those laws, not pay them for doing so.

He's ... different

The lefties gang up on Jeff Goldstein to hilarious effect:

Jeff: Do you have a response to this essay about your writing?
http://sadelyno.com/archives/002902.html

I suggest you read it (or have your therapist read it). It is quite enlightening.

By the way: why haven’t you finished your MA or PhD yet?
Posted by dartmouth prof

and

So, I saw this post about at SadlyNo. Instead of taking Klonopin to mask your personal problems, how about some honest reflection or some professional psychological care?

I don’t intend this as an attack; I just read some of the things you wrote, and to be honest, if you only said half of them, you come off as man desperately in need of help. I realize you’ll mock, attack, or ignore me, but seriously - find help.

The return fire is worth a read, but cover your keyboard first.
Oh, yes and I did contribute a little teeny bit at the very end (so far):

Wait a minute. You mean Jeff’s NOT crazy???!!! I’m going away.

Of course, I'm not really. Going away, I mean. That was just a joke.

Tears for the murdering clowns

Tears come to my eyes to read this swissinfo article about internecine strife in "Palestine":

Gunmen set fire to the Palestinian prime minister's office on Monday as clashes escalated between his Islamist Hamas followers and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.
***
In the southern Gaza confrontation, Hamas gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank rockets at the local headquarters of the Preventive Security Service, witnesses said.

Five people were wounded in the clash in the town of Rafah, which followed the killing earlier in the day of a gunman from a Hamas paramilitary unit.

I've got an idea! Why not split the West Bank and Gaza up into two states, one controlled by Fatah, one by Hamas? Then everyone could live in peace, right? We could call it the "three-state solution". Wait a minute. Some of Southern Lebanon is occupied by Hezbollah. OK - the "four-state solution". But then there's the "Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade". Oh, dear, we've run out of land. Let's see. How about Madagascar? Or didn't Stalin have a little place in mind out in Siberia, on the Amur River, for one of his minorities? The Evrey Avtonomichesski Respublik or something. Hmm. What does "Evrey" mean? Anyway, there should be lots of room out there. And we can all rest assured in the knowledge it was all Bush's fault if it goes wrong.

Just War

An excellent article in the American Thinker on just war theory swam into my gaze. It's by Don Crawford, a radio talk show host I'd never heard of before. A sample:

The cause in Iraq was unquestionably just due to Saddam’s continuing efforts to:

• attack our pilots who enforced his agreement to air restrictions that ended the ’91 Gulf War;

• torture to death in the most horrific manner an average of 300 innocent Iraqis a day;

• pay suicide bombers world-wide to attack innocent men, women, and children;

• aggressively develop WMD’s;

• have the highest echelon of his military run at least four training camps where virtually every Islamic terrorist organization in the world including al Qaeda were trained how to make and implement WMD and other terrorist attacks against the west; the cause was indisputably just.

He lays it all out. His litany of the reasons behind the Iraq liberation led me to think about the current standoff with Iran on nuclear weapons development and how that situation would be different if Saddam were still in power. That horrible prospect stimulated me to send him this email:

Don:

Great article in the American Thinker about just war theory and the Iraq liberation. You lay everything out clearly and comprehensively. In the matter of justification for deposing Saddam, does anyone really think that Saddam was not on the road to developing nuclear weapons? Without the US pressure, all he had to do was wait out the ridiculous UN and the EUnuchs. Once the inspectors gave up and left, he would be back on track in weeks. And if that had happened, we wouldn't have just Iran to deal with today, we would be facing two near-nuclearized powers in the Middle East. And without the example of the Iraqi deposition, Libya would probably not have given up its program, either. So there could easily be three powers going down that road. And given the rivalry between Iraq and Iran reflected by the war in the Eighties that cost a million dead, the conclusion is unavoidable that Saddam's progress toward nuclearization would have pushed Iran even more quickly in that direction.
So by following his instinct to protect America, George Bush has significantly lessened the threat from nuclear proliferation and the unbearable prospect that a terrorist group might get their hands on a working nuke. This is an historic achievement. I only hope I see it recognized in my lifetime!

Kudos again,

Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida

Ann Coulter is God(dess)

At least, she must be a minor deity to me. I always find myself worshipping her and defending her against all threats. Even against Pejman's histrionics:

Won't Ann Coulter just go away? We'd all be so much better off if she did.

And those of a commenter:

Coulter's caustic columns are examples of how outrageous rhetoric will obfuscate substance and logic.

Since Ann was talking about the 9/11 widows who have used their husbands' deaths to spread collectivist propaganda, how could I not defend her? So I did:

Odd. I thought Coulter made her point exactly and emphatically. And she got loads of attention for it. And why was it wrong to call these women irrational and vindictive when that is exactly what they were? By not letting them get away with irrational vindictiveness because they had suffered grievous losses, Coulter honored those bereaved who didn't lurch into idiocy and claim an "absolute moral authority" to which even the most grievous loss would not entitle them.

How is their behavior any different from that of the odious Mother Sheehan? Does anyone really want to defend her? Is the concept of the reverse ad hominem argument carrying all before it, so that a statement made by someone seen as noble or victimized (or both) is unquestionable no matter how loony and vicious it may be?

Anti-intellectualism rears its ignorant head

I really never thought I'd read a Samizdata comment like this:

"Oops - dictated, not written. Mohammed was illiterate."
As was Socrates. Surely you aren't suggest that ability to draw shapes with a pen correlates with quality of thought, are you?

What an insight! The ability to write (which kind of goes along with the ability to read) is irrelevant to one's ideas. So I got a bit snarky:

"Surely you aren't suggest that ability to draw shapes with a pen correlates with quality of thought, are you?"

No, of course not. The ability to read (and write) couldn't possibly affect the sophistication of a man's thought. Never having read a book shouldn't mean a man is less knowledgeable about the real world or less able to express himself than anyone else. All of those other books either conflict with the Koran and are therefore lies or agree with it and are therefore unnecessary.

Right?

I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. I find it a bit hard to believe that Socrates was illiterate. I'll have to confirm that for myself. Someday.

The headless snake goes nowhere
Lots of thinking about the Iraqi terrorist organizations post-Zarqawi is happening in the blogosphere. Not only do we not have to wait for the NYT or Newsweek to tell us what to think about these events, we don't even care any more. Which is great. Patrick Porter on Oxblog, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite bloggers, has some thoughts on the utility of killing heads of terrorist groups:

The cumulative effect, in other words, is to hurt the cohesion of the group. Its not so much about a cycle of violence, but about an ultimately finite number of seasoned and clever warriors.

All this is tempered by the chaotic situation much of Iraq faces. Were this one highly structured enemy organisation operating within a population living in greater stability and with basic services working, etc, who could be effectively divorced and separated from such groups, this kill would be more valuable.

In response to another commenter who said charisma was more important than a tight organization, I made the following point:

However, a loose organizational structure prevents a group from having a well-defined program and especially from changing its goals and structure quickly. One could well ask what the insurgency's goals are. What exactly have they accomplished since the liberation except nearly random killing? Now, without the head of the snake, it will thrash around even more. But it won't get anywhere.

Oldie but goodie
A polygamy post on Econlog inspired this comment:

If you legalize both gay marriage and polygamy and still allow citizens to bring their spouses into the US and make them citizens, at some point one legal Mexican will be able to bring in the entire remaining population of Mexico to East L.A. with one signature.

I know I've used it before, but I don't think I've blogged it before.

Sometimes libertarians don't think out the consequences of the things they say:

How about social sanctions? After seeing the human face of polygamy - fictional though it be - I would go out of my way to put any polygamist I met at ease. The people who need to be stigmatized are those who won't mind their own business.

I admit the consequence I lay out is unlikely, but that it exists at all should be a warning sign that something is wrong. What are you going to do, impose a numerical limit on the number of wives, like Islam? And how do libertarians propose to calculate that?

Blogging is good for the brain
This is why I love reading blogs and commenting on them. I've been thinking about the Vietnam war for forty years, like most American men my age. This post on Oxblog about Vietnam, therefore, attracted my attention, especially this part:

Why was the Army so intransigent? The answer is that old saying about the hammer and the nail. When you have a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. The US military's first and foremost mission during the 1950s and 1960s was to prepare for a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Building on its success in World War II, the US military prepared to repel a Soviet invasion by building up a heavily-armed and heavily-armored fighting force.

Then I had a thought that hadn't occurred to me in the last forty years. Yet it's pretty obvious:

Perhaps the Cold War influenced the way the Vietnam war was fought. Small wars are training grounds. There's no better training than live combat. During the Cold War, the army wanted to train its soldiers to fight conventional war, because those skills might be needed at any moment against the Russkis. Now, the army knows it needs counterinsurgency combat skills for the WOT. In Iraq and Afghanistan, it's developing a cadre of tested veterans that should be very effective in the long war to come. The UAV is getting a good test, too, just like the Stuka did in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

To Fed or not to Fed

This sort of statement in a linked article:

Conservatives claim to believe in federalism, until the states do things they don’t like. Then they turn into New Deal liberals, believing that the federal government should correct the errors of the 50 states.

almost forced me to
comment on this post on Pejman's Chequer Board.

I've always thought it ironic that it was the liberals who federalized abortion law in Roe v. Wade. Before Roe, there was no feeling that the Federal Government should be involved in telling states whether or not they could criminalize abortion. Now that topic is firmly federalized, the door has been opened for the nationwide criminalization of abortion, a prospect never imagined by the progressives, and one that wouldn't have appeared but for Roe.

Similarly, federalizing marriage restrictions - or liberalization - on civil liberties grounds may endanger the ability of any state to define marriage in a way that conservatives would prefer, if the tide turns. I guess I would only be happy with a Supreme Court decision that said that neither states nor the Feds should be defining marriage. But I know that's not going to happen.

More path-ology

Now Samizdata, in the person of Dale Amon pontificating about the minimum wage, is stimulating comments about the "path to citizenship":

The interesting thing will be what would happen should amnesty come to pass in the US. Once all the aliens become citizens they too can demand the minimum wage. If employers have to choose between a worker that speaks perfect English and costs $6.50/hr and one that doesn't speak English (or speaks it poorly) at the same wage, then guess who will win out. It is in some of these "migrant worker's" best interest to stay off the system. For the ones that do get "in the system" and don't have the skills to compete for higher paying jobs they will simply join the ranks of the perpetually unemployed welfare mooches.

So I thought I'd chime in:

By making it harder to get a job as a citizen than as an illegal, minimum wages make nonsense of the "path to citizenship" argument. And increasingly, it seems, illegals don't want to become US citizens, certainly not if it means paying a fine, learning English, paying taxes and abiding by a host of regulations. Why should they, since they know the laws aren't going to be enforced? And we'll all be Mexicans before long.

Path, schmath!
I hate articles like this one that say voters want to provide illegal aliens a "path to citizenship" (via Kaus). Not only do most illegals not even want to become citizens, as shown by their behavior, but they already have a "path to citizenship". Namely, they can go back home - shouldn't be too hard, with everyone coming the other way - and apply for legal admission to the US, wait in line like everyone else and become legal citizens like my father's family and millions of others have done.

Wait a minute. If you actually read the article, it says there's a ton of opposition to the "path to citizenship":

Shays, one of the few vulnerable House Republicans open to a broad compromise with the Senate, said strong protests from his constituents this month prompted him to speak out for the first time against citizenship for undocumented workers. "It would be a huge mistake to give people a path to citizenship that came here illegally," he said.

Well, no wonder. Because "path to citizenship" in this context really means, "path to citizenship that doesn't require as much time or effort as is required of everyone else who didn't violate the laws of the country everyone assumes without much evidence that they want to become citizens of". Because, after all, they've already benefited from years in this country illegally. We can't make them go back and suffer from the years of oppression and poverty that their compatriots who actually, you know, RESPECT American laws have to go through to get US citizenship. I mean, we don't really want all those foreigners who actually think our laws mean what they say to come here, do we? What a bunch of party-pooping spoilsports they would be! Nah, let's go with the nihilist punks. That's the modern way.

Finally! Puerto Rico information
Maybe my meme is getting around. Amity Shlaes over at Bloomberg has picked up on the idea that Puerto Rico is a model for what happens with Hispanics in a US cultural and legal environment:

What the Puerto Rican example suggests is that in the short run open borders can provide nations with an excuse not to change. Mexicans hate the notion of being compared to Puerto Rico, but by not reforming Mexico runs the risk of Puerto Rico- izing itself.

Maybe not so short a run as she thinks. Puerto Rico has been a US territory, if memory serves, since 1898. Ah, the Spanish-American War. The gift that keeps on giving! The Shlaes article also shows that if you wait long enough you won't have to do any actual research, you can just pontificate at will. Some reporter will do the research for you. And if you're lucky, it will support your bloviations.

The migration information Shlaes provides doesn't agree, however, with what I read elsewhere. She says 485,000 out of 3.5 million Puerto Riquenos moved to the US in the Nineties. Another article said migration had effectively stopped, because it was now just as easy to live in Puerto Rico. I'll have to look up that other article. If I had the Furl.com utility working, I'd have it neatly stashed away under the "immigration" category. I'll have to get that going.

Ok, Janis Joplin
Drunk now. Eating day. Or should that be "Drinking Day"? C'est possible. Janis lives. And she has never died dans ma cerveaux fievre. Prediction: Youtube is going to take over from cable TV, DSL and all that other jazz. Who needs anything else?

Later Note: this post shows why internet access should be automatically cut off when the alcohol level in the blood goes above a sane level.

Married to the job

A Samizdata post avers that being married beats working for a living. But at least when you're working you get to take a break! Ba doom ba! It's really about McCartney and wives gone wild, though:

Of course, it may not be terribly 'romantic' to have pre-nups, but let's face it, if rich people fear they will lose a huge chunk of their money to a cynical spouse on the make, it will raise calls for no-fault divorce to be abolished.

So, being quite recently divorced, I had to hop in with a snarky comment that summarizes a bit of regretting, having to do with my state of mind when I was 24, which unfortunately I can't go back and change, in this lifetime:

In fact, if the newlyweds had to explicitly promise to share a certain percentage of their assets and income with each other, for a specific time - none of this "till death us do part" nonsense - they might wake up and realize how ruinously unprofitable marriage could be. The way things are, you have to be a lawyer to quite understand the trouble you are getting yourself into. If marriage were a true contract, there would have to be a knowing, conscious meeting of the minds.

Posted by Robert Speirs at May 25, 2006 08:47 PM

Maybe before reincarnation I can leave a message for my next self warning of the pitfalls presented by women you think you can't live without. Hey. Maybe that's how all those self-help books get written!

But it also seemed like a good opportunity to chime in with one of my most time-honored pieces of worldly wisdom about marriage:

Marriage as it is today is not a relationship between a man and a woman. It is a relationship between a person and the state, with the terms set by the state, for the benefit of others, that is, the spouse and the children. The relationship between a man and a woman is called love.

Posted by Robert Speirs at May 26, 2006 07:21 PM

I can't believe I've never blogged about that opinion before. So maybe I have. What does it really mean? I left out the other supposed beneficiary of the marriage machine - other members of society who get a nice domesticated castrato to deal with instead of a wild young man, from which development the state benefits as well. And marriage also is a machine for creating more taxpayers, as one commenter pointed out.

Hee, hee!
A bishop gets a lesson in what some people consider holy:

The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Right Reverend John Gladwin, and 20 curates have been abandoned in Africa by the Anglican Church of Kenya after its Archbishop discovered his liberal views on gays.

I liked it so much I even made a comment to a Social Affairs Unit post about the British church. The comment isn't up yet. I am bowled over by a vision of the Bishop's astonishment that some religious leaders actually read the Bible and take what it says as literally true and applicable to today's world. How stupid, mean and arrogant can one be? And he calls himself a representative of goodness. I hope the leopards eat well tonight.

Symmetrical blather

Tyler Cowen, having absorbed multiple broadsides on the immigration issue, has struck his flag and is bloviating about relationships. But that's OK. I can spout blather on that topic, too:

In every relationship, there is a moment of maximum symmetry. Sadly, a man's emotional high points will rarely coincide with those of the woman he loves. Women and men are just too different. The longer a relationship goes on, the more moments occur when there's no match at all. And perhaps the mutual high points are all pretty much the same. The mismatches are all different, and so more memorable.

The Da Vinci Code: Never read it, never will. But...

A post on the Gene Expression blog about the Da Vinci Code publishing phenomenon seems puzzling, as in this extract:

That being said, why does it matter that The Da Vinci Code is historically inaccurate? Some readers might view it as fantasy, but the problem is that it is billed as historical fiction (see the preface to the book). 45 million Americans have read this book, that's 20% of the population. A small minority, on the order of millions, claim to have had their view of the Bible and Christianity altered. This is nothing to sneeze at, if a new religious movement claimed millions in a few years we would take note.

until I stopped to think about Julian Jaynes and Rodney Stark. Then I came up with this comment:

Isn't it odd that a book about the fine details of Christian history should be so popular in our secularized age, when you would think religious history would be totally irrelevant? The only explanation I can imagine is that Western Man realizes that his view of the world depends heavily on the Christian perspective, whether he's an agnostic or a self-proclaimed "pagan". 45 million readers sense that what happened to Jesus affected events for two thousand years and, by extension, is essential to the consciousness with which we analyze the world today. Pretty amazing.

I don't see the DVC as leading to a religious reawakening or anything. But if it leads to a greater understanding of the role of Christian theology and psychology in creating the modern world, perhaps it will be worth the laughable errors it contains.

Futility moment
I sent this letter to Senator Mel Martinez:

I have lately heard the unbelievable suggestion that illegal aliens - who lied and cheated to get into this country and continued to lie and cheat to work here - should be able to benefit from this deception by getting credit for their illegal work in the US Social Security system, even though the work was only possible because they used forged documentation! I certainly hope you don't agree with this appeasement of felonious conduct.
The rationale that has been given is that these workers paid into the system and should get the benefit of what they paid. Of course this is nonsense. Like all other workers, the system envisions giving them far more than what they or their employers paid. But it gets worse.
As I understand Social Security regulations, even if a worker doesn't make contributions to the Social Security system, or his employer doesn't, as long as the work he does SHOULD HAVE been covered by Social Security, he will get credit for the work. How long will it be until some liberal lawmaker gets the bright idea of imputing contributions from every illegal alien who asserts, however mendaciously, that he worked in this country? This is a real threat to the Social Security system and to honest, hard-working American workers. Illegal immigration and especially illegal employment must be stopped now.

I know. It's pointless. They'll do what they want and Mel Martinez in particular will never vote for justice and freedom. But I had to try. Do I feel especially strongly about all this because I'm within a decade of getting Social Security? Maybe. Or maybe the whole immigration thing is getting to me big time, even though I plan to spend my retirement as an immigrant - legal, let me hastily add - to some lucky country with a stimulating environment. It would be good, though, if there were an actual America to come back to now and then.

Insanely great

Michael Totten, (via Instapundit), has a mind-boggling post about tackling the leaders of the Palestinian insanity in their dens. What would you say to Saeb Erekat if you had the chance, even though you were surrounded by heavies with eyes like dead sharks'? This is what Totten said:

"Why did the intifada end?” I said. The question didn’t phase him like it did Abu Laila.

“I don’t know,” he said. “And I don’t care. I’m just glad it’s over. Hopefully it ended out of an understanding that it was bad. I condemned every single attack.”

“What do you think was the biggest Palestinian mistake since the Oslo peace process began?” I said.

“We were unsuccessful in terms of transparency and accountability,” he said. “We could have done it. But we failed. That’s why Hamas won. We should have been tough on people who abused their offices.”

“What was the biggest Israeli mistake since Oslo?” I said.

“The motto of No Sacred Dates,” he said. “Each time they had a date-based obligation, they didn’t do it. They kept building settlements.”

“Why is a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank such a big problem for Palestinians?” I said. “Would you rather the Israelis stay?”
"The problem with unilateralism is the outcome of it,” he said. “The Israelis will get everything they want without negotiation.”
***
“I am against suicide bombing morally, not politically,” he said.

“How many Palestinians agree with you about that?” I said.

“Few,” he said. “Very few.” He said this inside the Palestinian Legislative Council within earshot of his colleagues, many of whom speak English and could hear him perfectly well. “We have to keep working,” he said and gently put his hand on my shoulder. “It is difficult in this environment.”

Just amazing. Why has no other news outlet brought out the true attitude of Fatah toward Hamas, the "sickness unto death" of the Palestinian "leadership"? It would conflict with their agenda now, wouldn't it? Can you imagine the Guardian or the New York Times printing such an interview? Maybe today the blogosphere came of age.

Huh?

I hope no real geneticist notices my comment on this Gene Expression post.

I'm beginning to wonder whether failure to reproduce on the part of a specific organism with a particular genetic makeup really affects the survival of that behavioral complex at all, given the genetic complexity of behavioral syndromes and the multiple methods of producing the same phenotype using various combinations of genes. Homosexuality might be an example.

Oops. Looks like one did:

Stop wondering.
gcochran | Email | Homepage | 05.19.06 - 1:38 pm | #

Fallujah in Sao Paulo
Blair also links to an article about the violence in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I like the "activists concerned" tag. It's really the criminals who should be concerned. As a judge I used to appear in front of said to young thugs: "You think you've got a tough gang? I've got the biggest, toughest gang of all - the law. And you're about to learn how it feels to lose." The Brazilian police killed 115 people. I especially liked this bit:

Police did not identify any of those they killed, say where they were killed or in what circumstances, Sao Paulo's leading newspapers reported Wednesday.

Can you even imagine what would happen around here if even one gangster were killed under the same circumstances? Of course, I can't imagine what, for example, the Houston police would do if they had forty-one police killed by rampaging thugs. And I don't think I want to know.

Pub names

Tim Blair asks for weird pub names. My favorite: The Snark and Yeti. Or how about what I saw on the way in here, "I'm Feeling Lucky"?

Bigger, Better, Cheaper
Cheaper fares to Europe? I certainly hope so:

Singapore Airlines intends to configure its A380 interior to take around 500 passengers, although the plane - depending on airline requirements - can take up to 800 customers.

Also, fewer planes will be needed, which should make airports easier to get through, at least until traffic catches up. I'm going to enjoy the next few years.

Enrique Cuatro
Just finished reading a book about Henry 1V of Castile (1425-74). OK, I must admit when I took the book out of the Leon County Library I thought it was about Henry IV of Navarre, the Huguenot King of France who converted to Catholicism because "Paris is worth a mass". And I realized the danger of being confused with Henry IV of England, father of Prince Hal and all that. But that just goes to show you that when you least expect it, serendipity strikes. After all, if you expected it, it would hardly justify invoking the Princes of Serendip, would it? So anyway, I wound up with this Henry IV, also known as Enrique the Impotent. Yeek. But Townsend Miller's book is something of a tour de force. Enrique is in Miller's hands a most compelling if pathetic figure. And a major historical influence, right in there fighting in the conflicts between Castile and Aragon that led to the reign of Ferdinand (Fernando) and Isabella (Isabel). You remember them. The ones who gave a bit of money to equip three tiny ships that conquered the Western Ocean? And just in the same year conquered Granada, drove out the Muslims and, oh, yes, banished the Jews. Well, you gotta take the good with the bad. Under that Genoese guy, Cristobal Colon? Oh, sure we know him better as Christopher Columbus, the Western oppressive white male sexist pig. But to millions of Americanos he was the bringer of a few good things. Like the wheel. And alphabetic writing. And horses. And consciousness, if you believe Julian Jaynes. (And who doesn't, nowadays?) And civilization, unless you really think the Aztec way of life, featuring the ripping of hearts from tens of thousands of living sacrifices, was a GOOD THING??! And to top it all off, the descendants of Columbus's Spanish sponsors now get minority status in the richest and most powerful nation on earth. Talk about a winner!
Enrique tried his best, despite his obvious unfitness for kingliness and especially progenitizing. Here's a Miller sample:

For more than a tired and hapless man had died that winter night. Spain's Middle Ages themselves lay dead on those bare boards. An era, a world were over: the same chill dawn was coming in Segovia, and as young Isabel rose to greet it, as she drew her martened robe around her and leaned from her casement and watched the tall square towers grow gray, grow faintly pink, then as at last the sun burst forth above the snowy mountains and scattered gold and diamonds across the wakening city at her feet, a new day, too, was breaking for the kingdom, a day which was triumphantly to free it from the rue and fraction we have sought to chronicle and bring it on - healed, rectified and welded - to might, to majesty, to sway of half the globe, to unimaginable splendor.
But that is another story.

Oh good.

Diet hope - Food Yesterday, Food Tomorrow, Never Food Today?
I'm listening to the Glenn and Helen show about the Shangri-La Diet. It's pretty interesting. I had been looking for a copy of the book, almost bought it several times. But then I stumbled across this other, old, out-of-print book called The Eating Man's Diet, by Thomas Sharkey. Of course, being a man and having some experience with eating and hoping to continue eating for some time, I was fascinated. The idea is simple: eat every other day. Unlike in Alice in Wonderland, this is not a cruel delusion. You simply eat 900 calories or less one day, then the next day eat a "regular" set of meals, up to about 3000 calories. It's easy to follow. I'm in the tenth day now. Tomorrow morning I get to weigh myself. Woohoo! But I just love the "eating days". And I'm starting to get to the point where the "diet days" are not too bad. So we'll see. He says it takes about three weeks to become habituated to the schedule. He also has some interesting things to say about the psychology of dieting and how different breaking bad food habits is from stopping smoking or excessive drinking. I'm surprised he's never, as far as I can tell, written anything else.
The Sharkey book is from 1969. The most amazing thing is how little has changed. People were obsessed with dieting then, they have been for forty years and we're even fatter now, supposedly! Something's got to change. In the Seth Roberts podcast, he mentions that "ditto foods" or foods that taste exactly the same every time you eat them, are partly responsible for food cravings and "addictions". My only problem with his approach is that I don't want to drink a glass of sugar water and tablespoons of olive oil every day. I want a diet regime that allows me to eat whatever I want, but that changes the way I approach food so I don't want as much. That way, I can eat the best food and drink and enjoy myself, while not seeking absolution or nepenthe in massive amounts of calories.

Update: Lost three pounds in ten days! And that's with only five days of actual dieting. This could be good. Before too long I might even learn to cut back - just a little - on my calorie count on the eating days.

Puerto Rico - AGAIN??
Sometimes I wonder why I have to repeat things over and over before people finally admit how brilliant my thoughts are. Here on Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen puts out some less-than-brilliant (maybe lower-than-moronic would be more accurate) arguments on immigrants. I hate it when they don't differentiate between legal and illegal immigration in an argument about illegal immigration! And someone calls me a xenophobe. Hmmpf! (one of my favorite words). And some of my best friends are named Xeno. Luckily Steve Sailer and someone named Teller jump in with some of those embarrassing things called facts. They also must have the "how many times do I have to say this stuff?" feeling. I make a telling rejoinder:

Immigrants, and particularly illegal immigrants, which is what we're talking about, aren't "just people". They're a particular kind of people, with lower intelligence, less education, less comprehension of English and higher crime rates than the average American citizen. They also, by definition, have less respect for the American legal system. Besides, if they're such an asset, why doesn't Mexico do anything at all to get them to stay?

And I get this for my troubles:

Thank you for revealing yourself to be an ignorant xenophobe, thus saving the rest of us the bother of reading your nonsense.

So, scads and reams of unrebutted FACTS later, I haul out the heavy Puerto Rican artillery:

Puerto Rico offers a clear example of how "Latinos" fare in a US-style economic system. Over half the island is on USDA food stamps. They have not "assimilated". They are all US citizens, but have not accepted traditional American culture. Despite decades of tax breaks and huge taxpayer-funded assistance and massive money from tourism, they are in the same situation, relative to the mainland, that they have been in for years. Their per capita GDP is at about 35% of that on the mainland. Oh, and they have also had several opportunities to become independent and have rejected them all. Puerto Rico represents the future for any other parts of the US that become Hispanic-majority. Anyone who has eyes can see these facts. You have to be ignorant and viciously partisan to deny them.

I'm still waiting for someone to deny or rebut my contentions about Puerto Rico and cite some trenchant analysis or stunning countervailing data, thus destroying my analogy. I wonder why they haven't? You don't think maybe - Heavens! - I might actually be right??!

What I believe
This introduction to The Objective Standard summarizes it pretty well. And I acknowledge I have always had problems with the word "believe". Perhaps I should just say, this is what seems like common sense to me. A sample:

Altruism is not good for one’s life. If accepted and practiced consistently, it leads to death. This is what Jesus did. If accepted and practiced inconsistently, it retards one’s life and leads to guilt. This is what most altruists do. An altruist might not die from his morality—so long as he cheats on it—but nor will he live fully. Insofar as a person acts against the requirements of his life and happiness, he will not make the most of his life; he will not achieve the kind of happiness possible to Man.

He didn't!
Did David Cameron really say this:"We should be thinking not what is good for putting money in people's pockets but what is good for putting joy in people's hearts,"?

Yes, he did, in the Daily Telegraph. Here's more:

In the UK, the economist Richard Layard, New Labour's very own happiness guru, has succeeded in getting hard-nosed political operators to back his campaign. His recent call for the Government to train 10,000 more therapists to help us become happy, resonates with politicians who are desperately short of ideas. Back in the 1940s and '50s, the big idea was the Welfare State. Today it is the Happy State. Stalin, who called himself the "constructor of happiness" would approve.

Of course, in order to make everyone happy, the state has to have a definition of happiness that applies to everyone, in every circumstance. And therapists that can help everyone get to their own state-certified and guaranteed happiness level. And the Camerons and Blairs of the world will be writing that policy! Just think what a bang-up job Gore and Kerry and Ralph Nader could do with that kind of opportunity. Now if I were a Muslim, I'd only have to open the Koran and read the right parts to figure out what to do to achieve optimum bliss. Why can't they have some sort of guide like that for us poor atheists? Oh. That's what the government is going to do - provide an ideology that conduces to happiness, just like Buddhism makes Buddhists happy and Judaism makes Jews happy. The whole idea would be shocking if it weren't so stupid, naive and ahistorical. I, for one, feel quite competent to resist any attempt to make me happy for any considerable period of time that doesn't involve gin, red meat and chocolate.

Fan

My technical brilliance astounds even me:

In the latest technology air circulating devices, circa approximately 1923, the descriptive terms "oscillating" and "rotating" are not mutually exclusive. The rotating turbine oscillates - on another axis - to sweep an extensive volume of space.

Verity and EG, sitting in a tree ...

It's a bit odd, when you haven't a clue what either one looks like. But I had to put a comment in on a Samizdata post about comment control which brought up the question of the appropriateness of comments by the varied weirdos who show up there:

We invite comments but that does not mean we relinquish control over our property, just as when you invite people into your house, you do not relinquish the right to subsequently un-invite them if they act inappropriately or if you just want them out for whatever reason.

I have always relished the to-and-fro on Samizdata. The boundaries of comment style and substance fit my inclinations. I'm aware, though, that some Samizdata commenters might think I was over the edge and should be banned, just as I dislike some of them. But it's the house that makes the rules. So I thought I'd comment on the commenting of two of the edgiest commenters:

The great thing about the blogosphere in general is that every blog has a slightly different definition of who is a "racist" or an "Islamofascist" or just a "troll". So those who really want to profit from their blogiversations gravitate toward those sites with whose definitions they tend to agree. Kos's definition of a "right-winger" is about as far from Samizdata's as Protein Wisdom's definition of a "communist" is from that of the Idiotarian Rottweiler. And many Samizdatistas reject the whole right-left thing entirely. You guys do a good job of maintaining a balance while keeping an edge on the discussions. If Verity and EG can comment interestingly on the same post without dissolving into flames, anything is possible!

Note: Of course, that should be the "ANTI-Idiotarian Rottweiler"! My humblest apologies, Emperor Misha!

Marginal Revolution had an interesting post on the "forever stamp":

The forever stamp


The post office is planning a ''forever" stamp for letters, good no matter how many times postal rates increase. That means people could say goodbye to those annoying 2- or 3-cent stamps that have to be added to letters every time rates go up. The idea for the special stamps, which would be sold at the same price as other first-class stamps, was included in proposals announced yesterday that would also raise stamp prices 3 cents -- to 42 cents -- next year.

Here is the story. Yes this is a hedging device, but it also represents an attempt to peg a real rate of return.

So I had to extend the idea:

Maybe Wal-mart should guarantee people interest equal to gasoline price inflation (which is essentially what the Post Office is doing with stamps) when they put money on those cards that get you 3 cents a gallon off the gas price at their stations. So you would be guaranteed the same price for gas for as long as the money lasted. The problem there might be that the price of gas could (I wish!) come down. What if you put sixty dollars on the card and the price of gas was cut in half? Would you then only be able to buy thirty dollars worth of gas?
The viability of the scheme would appear to depend on the size of the float and the interest the seller could get on the float money.

Bookmeat?

Putting this comment in at Samizdata:

Some ideas just die of their own idiocy, like the "ozone hole", although that cost billions before it exposed itself as an illusion. "Acid rain" was another myth that was used until it no longer cut any ice. I don't think it will be too long before HIV=AIDS goes the same way. And "Oil comes from dinosaurs" is another. As is "Immigrants take jobs Americans won't do." It's often best to just let stupidity run its course. Attempts at debunking may actually stimulate opposition and lead to stubborn re-assertion of the received wisdom. If in fifty years it's no warmer than it is today, who will believe in global warming?

I found myself thinking, hey these would give me enough material for quite a lengthy treatise. Reminds me of a book I ran across long ago in the stacks at the University of New Hampshire Library, "The History of Human Stupidity". It was an enormous book.

Spengler and Lincoln

That iconoclast Spengler has posted some interesting speculation here and here about the causes of the US Civil War and the alternatives to war. This bit is especially intriguing:

Was it coincidence that France, England and Spain determined to invade Mexico after Benito Juarez suspended debt-service payment to Mexico's European creditors in 1861, just as the American Civil War began? French, English and Spanish forces landed in Mexico in December 1861, after the South's early victories in the Civil War convinced European governments that the slaveholders would prevail. By 1862, after Stonewall Jackson's success in the Shenandoah Valley, England came close to recognizing the Confederacy. In October of that year, William Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer, stated, "We may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States so far as regards their separation from the North." The Union half-victory at the Battle of Antietam in September came just in time to abort British recognition of the South.

Had the war broken out two years later, the European powers already would have been entrenched in Mexico, providing the South with a natural ally against the Lincoln government, and a base with which to expand the slave system southward. America would have split in two (at least), and the history of the world would have been radically different, and radically worse.

I'm skeptical if Lincoln really saw all this coming. But such speculation is truly stimulating. The Cinco de Mayo, representing the defeat of the French by the Mexican Army in 1864, may be more fateful and important than we've ever realized. The higher-level point about the timing of a war being even more important than the execution of the campaign also resonates. What if Bush 41 had gone on to Baghdad in '91? Would Iran now be threatening the peace of the world and the existence of Israel? As Spengler says elsewhere, the Chinese say it best: "Kill the chicken and let the monkey watch." And no, I don't really know what that means. But it sounds great.

As I was saying ...

Puerto Rico is the laboratory example of Hispanic culture in a modern North American democratic setting. The island has had numerous opportunities over the past fifty-plus years to become independent, to reclaim its territory from the oppressive Gringos. But they'd rather remain attached to the American taxpayer's nipple. And here's where they stand:

Many basic functions of Puerto Rico's government were unavailable Monday as the U.S. commonwealth ran out of money and imposed a partial public-sector shutdown _ putting nearly 100,000 people _ including 40,000 teachers _ out of work and granting an unscheduled holiday to 500,000 public school students.
*******
The government is Puerto Rico's largest employer, with some 200,000 workers. Salaries make up about 80 percent of the government's operational costs.

And as the article doesn't tell you, more than half the island is on USDA food stamps. The US taxpayer has ponied up for countless tax breaks to convince industry to locate there. Looks like most of those who do work, "work" for the government. Imagine. They might have to have a 5.9% sales tax! In Tallahassee it's 7.5%. This is the future for California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, etc., if low-cognitive-skills, high-crime Hispanic and MesoAmerican immigration is allowed to continue unabated.

Back from Paris and blogging away

Finally got commenting to work on Captain's Quarters. An article on Zarqawi made me think about the fact that the war in Iraq is progressing quite differently from the way the Vietnam war did:

I have been thinking about all those Monday-morning quarterbacking retired generals and State Department pundits who say we should have used many more troops in Iraq. That's exactly what got LBJ into trouble in Vietnam. He kept increasing the numbers, up over 500,000 at one point, in a country smaller than Iraq. And that increased casualties to the point that the politics turned sour, even though LBJ was a Dem.
The anti-war front today wants Bush to escalate, because they can't think in any terms other than Vietnam, and they know significant escalation would doom the effort. They are traitors. Bush has done a great job by keeping troop levels down, using technology and training the Iraqi army. Zarqawi is in the situation of the Japanese after they started running out of kamikaze pilots and the American fleet was within range of the homeland. Main force efforts and occupying territory is suicide for Z. I believe Zarqawi will flee to Iran, if he's not there already, and start talking about how Iraq isn't really important, that Palestine is the critical front.

Last word on global warming

Comment on Econlog. Global warming theorists piffled:

The only "rejection of science" in the global warming debate is the refusal of the high priests of Gaia to answer the question "how do you know your computer models are correct?" The best available models cannot predict accurately three days in advance, in one small column of air, whether the temperature will rise three degrees or fall four, much less why. How is one supposed to accept that such models can predict accurately for the entire earth within ten degrees a century from now? Experience shows that historic temperatures have no relationship - none - to future temperatures. I'll go further. No one even knows what the "temperature of the earth" is or how one would go about measuring such a quantity. Piffle.

Shaken, but stirred

I was a bit shaken by this message from Dan Simmons laying out the future if more people don't realize that we have always been in a war for civilization. That war continues, not the "clash of civilizations" much talked-about these days but the defense of the only actual civilization against barbarism in the form of Islam, in the form of Catholicism, in the form of socialism. This is only a taste:

“Your enemy is he who will give his life to kill you,” said the Time Traveler. “Your enemies are they that wish you and your children and your grandchildren dead and who are willing to sacrifice themselves, or support those fanatics who will sacrifice themselves, to see you and your institutions destroyed. You haven’t figured that out yet – the majority of you fat, sleeping, smug, infinitely stupid Americans and Europeans.”

Noodlefood comment:

This discussion has clarified in my mind the idea that libertarians - and Libertarians - really have no clear philosophy. "Tolerance" appears to be a synonym in their minds for "lack of thought" or simple fuzzy-mindedness. Sometimes in trying to explain to people what Objectivism is, I slip into the "It's like libertarianism, but..." mode, because I expect people will be more likely to have some idea of libertarianism than about Objectivism. That's a mistake and I'm glad to realize it. As to whether small "o" objectivism exists, certainly many people think it does. It does seem to be a contradiction in terms, however, since its difference with Objectivism appears to reside in its rejection of certain people's interpretations of the ideas of Ayn Rand. Ad hominem arguments can hardly form the basis of a coherent philosophy.

AIDS sense (finally)
I am boulversé by this Marginal Revolution post referring to a Washington Post article about the UN's blunders on estimating the extent of African AIDS. The Washington Post! After all these years, all the Duisburg suspicions and the Kary Mullis accusations appear to be vindicated. The article talks about how "independent researchers and U.N. officials"

raise questions about monitoring by the U.N. AIDS agency, which for years overestimated the extent of HIV/AIDS in East and West Africa and, by a smaller margin, in southern Africa

So I put in this comment:

Note that the article says nothing about the predicted massive declines in population that were supposed to be caused by AIDS in Africa, blamed on First World neglect. In fact, it mentions "burgeoning populations". Years ago many voices reported that most African "HIV cases" had never actually had a test, PCR or other, for HIV. Someone was sick, so they had AIDS. And, gee, what do you know, AIDS cases give you a stick to beat the West with and bring in more money for the kleptocrats. This article marks the beginning of the collapse of the entire AIDS conspiracy, responsible for the unnecessary deaths of thousands and the wasting of billions of dollars in scarce resources.

I'm convinced this is big. There was a big outcry about the article a few months ago in Harper's, I believe it was, casting doubt on the "HIV=AIDS" thesis. I wonder what will be said about this.

Update: Dean Esmay, as I expected, has picked up on this story. Nice analysis, saying what needed to be said, even though for years it was like talking into the wind:

To be sure, both of the above-linked stories take the view that HIV, and HIV alone, is the cause of AIDS. But, the establishment--by which I mean CDC, NIH, WHO, and the world's medical associations--now have to face up to at least two things:

1) We were greatly misled about the crisis in America and Europe.

And now,

2) We were greatly misled about the crisis in Africa.

Some of us have been saying for some time now that their numbers for Africa made no damned sense. If you looked too close at them, they always fell apart.

Is it or isn't it?

Geez, Financial Times will there be riots in April in Paris or not? That's all I want to know, so I know whether we should bring tear gas masks:

Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France’s ruling UMP party, on Monday grabbed centre stage in an attempt to find a compromise over the government’s controversial youth labour law as students and trades unions planned mass protests on Tuesday to demand its complete withdrawal.

If Sarkozy doesn't do something effective without caving in entirely to the leeches and goldbrickers, he's not going to get my vote in the next French presidential election.

Dealing with immigration

VDARE has been working hard dispelling immigration myths:

The fact of the matter is that most illegal aliens are law-breaking criminals already, and they’re also liars, cheaters, and thieves (i.e.—stealing a life in the U.S. that does not belong to them), just for good measure.

. And Juan Mann is quite right about the upshot:

But in my humble opinion, this "making it a crime" business is just one gigantic red herring for the reconquista crowd.

As long as the federal government is not particularly interested in enforcing immigration laws anymore, all of these legal distinctions don’t really hold my interest.

When you get right down to it, the immigration problems of the border areas of the US don't really hold my interest, either. I don't have any faith that Congress will do anything at all about illegal immigration except to exacerbate the problem. So I will assert my sovereign individuality by staying away from those areas of the country negatively affected by illegal immigration. And I will adjust my investment and political predictive strategies to reflect continuing and worsening effects on the US economy from what, practically speaking, is an open borders policy. Maybe I'll go live in, oh, just to take a random example, Mexico?!

I am curious, grumpy
I wish James Randi would return from the hospital. He's had some sort of heart problem. Despite his execrable politics, I always enjoy his debunkatory Commentary. He's got some associates doing it for now. They're OK, but sometimes the PC shows through, as in this from Hal Bidlack:

In my area, political science, all too often students are taught history as names and dates to be memorized. I think this is tragic. You can memorize that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066 and think yourself taught. But how much richer is your understanding of history to know that the Norman’s use of the simple stirrup, a cleverly twisted bit of metal allowing the rider to be more stable in the saddle, helped turn human history.

So I had to send him a letter:

For Hal Bidlack,

I must disagree with your downgrading of emphasis on dates in history. Far too little emphasis is placed on putting historical events in chronological context. I play a little game at the supermarket. When the cash register comes up with a recognizable number for the price of my order, say $17.76, I mention the connection to the cashier, who is often a student, "Hey, that's the year the Declaration of Independence was signed". When anything more obscure than 1776 comes up, I'm inevitably met by a blank stare or the question, "Oh, are you a history professor or something?" (I'm not). But how can a student accurately consider the little things like stirrups or Washington's temper when he can't place the Norman Conquest or Valley Forge in its proper century? History teachers these days seem to be afraid to require students to learn dates. They are the ABCs of history. I heard of one student who, when asked how Napoleon traveled to Moscow, asked, "Didn't they have cars back then?" Such are the dangers of not knowing your centuries. A far more pervasive emphasis on chronology would immeasurably enrich our students' ability to analyze history.

Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida

This isn't just grumpiness. I'm perhaps a little obsessed with dates. But at least knowing "which came first" can be priceless. As when you start talking about Islamic influence in Persia and then you realize you're discussing events that happened before Muhammad was even born! Ooops. Then you mix up the Mongols and the Huns. Douple oops - by like seven hundred years. If you don't watch it you'll have Julian the Apostate running around with Alexander and Joan of Arc being burnt by the Crusaders. Time and space just aren't flexible enough. Darn Einstein!

Update: Response from Bidlack:

Mr. Speirs,

You raise a good point. I certainly did not mean to suggest that dates are
unimportant. Rather, I was trying to suggest that if *only* dates are taught,
history loses some of its magic. I certainly would never suggest that having no
knowledge of historical context is acceptable. Sorry if I appeared otherwise,
I'll seek to make that clear in a future column.

--
Hal Bidlack, Ph.D.
www.hamiltonlives.com

Good on yer, Bidlack. OK, maybe I will de-emphasize the "only Randi" meme.

Side point - is it legit to post someone's response to one's email without asking? Ah, blogo-ethics. What a puzzle palace!

More immigration babble

On Bloomberg, Kevin Hassett has a spectacularly wrong-headed article on immigration, including such stunners as this:

If we take the harsh approach, choosing a policy that admits almost nobody, we give up the large potential economic gains associated with diversity in the workforce.

So I sent him an email:

You say in your Bloomberg article:
Second, immigrants tend to have different skill sets, so they increase the beneficial diversity of the workforce, making firms that hire immigrants and the overall economy more productive.

New Orleans is an example that illustrates the latter. A friend recently returned and mentioned how quickly the city is snapping back to life. He saw construction under way throughout the city, performed by swarms of workers who appeared to be predominantly Spanish-speaking. Without those construction workers, restaurants, hotels and other businesses might still be closed.

Laboring on a construction site is a unique skill Americans don't possess?? Am I missing something? How many of the original inhabitants of New Orleans who left could NOT do the work of a laborer on a construction site? Of course, now they're all busy being brain surgeons and nuclear physicists. But. And why would construction sites full of legal immigrants - even, perish the thought, citizens! - not provide as much business for coffee shops as illegals who send most of their money back to Mexico? Hmm, you don't think there are so many illegal immigrants on N.O. construction sites because, being illegal, they're cheaper? And they can't complain about hours and accidents? Nah, couldn't be.

And:
the net effect is that society gains when people move to the U.S.
That very much depends on who those people are. If they have higher crime rates, lower rates of education, including lack of English language ability, and lower skills in general, it's not logical to say that the country would benefit, even compared to having no population growth at all. And it's definitely illogical to say that illegals are as valuable or productive as legal immigrants carefully selected for their skills and productivity would be. Australia and Canada, for instance, have been screening immigrants in this way for years. Our legal system tries, tremendously incompetently, to do the same thing. I still don't know what skills you're talking about that illegal immigrants possess, or why Hispanics, for instance, are so valuable because of their "diversity". Talk about assuming your conclusion! The mass of illegals has exactly the same set of skills as any other mass of uneducated, non-English-speaking peasants would have in America.

Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida

Read the whole article, if you've got your Tums handy.

Last word on God
I seem to be clearing up a lot of old conundrums these days. I don't think anyone who talks about Heaven really knows what it would be like to go there, in the words (approximately) of the old song. I don't think the concept "God" and the concept "exist" should be mentioned in the same breath. So when Razib on Gene Expression came out with a post based on Justin Barrett's Book, "Why would Anyone Believe in God?", including ponderings such as this:

Lots of people say they don't believe in superhuman agency (including gods and ghosts) but will still modify their behaviors around cemeteries on spooky nights ("just in case"). I also run into plenty of people who say they don't believe in God but they really have chosen to act as if they don't believe in God because they are angry with God or don't like God. With these qualifications in place, certainly there are a number of factors that might predispose individuals to become atheists.(from Barrett)

I just had to add my two cents:

I haven't read the book, but isn't it true that the concept "belief" is as undefined and conveniently flexible as the concept "God"? Isn't it true that one cannot "disbelieve" any more than one can "believe" in some concept if that concept is irrational and self-contradictory? So there are not atheists and believers. There are merely wise men and fools.

Then I realized I didn't want to talk about things that don't make any sense. Well, that simplifies life. Although I still may have to think about exactly why people say they believe or disbelieve in God.

More on open borders
The Econlog fallacies are attracting some attention on Parapundit. They bring in the IQ analysis:

Think higher IQ people are better off in lower IQ countries? That's basically the argument that Jane Galt (Megan McArdle in real life) and Bryan Caplan would have you believe... Make sense? One problem: Show me a country with a low average IQ where 125 IQ computer programmers or electrical engineers make more money than they do in the United States or Japan or Germany. Anyone? Anyone? Show me the low IQ country where European and American corporations can't skim off the smart cream with first world job offers because the smart fraction is making so much money they do no want to leave.

And there's good stuff in the comments, too, such as this from John S. Bolton:

If comparative advantage were applicable as proposed, an even more effcient means of getting brains to match up with the largest possible number of brawns, as they called them; would be emigration of the brightest to places like Africa.

Read the whole thing and the whole comments.
Update: Just happened to think: That Bottom of the Pyramid book does seem to suggest that there's money to be made from the wretched - even the dumb - of the earth. But I think the thesis still holds. You can make a lot more money from rich, intelligent, productive people than you can from poor dumb ones. The difference of opinion seems to come in when some people insist, contrary to all experience, that dumb people can be turned into smart ones and will then go about getting productive and then rich.

Immigration questions
That darn Econlog is at it again:

The alternative ideology that I would propose might be called transnational libertarianism. The ideal libertarian world would have no economic borders. There would be no problem of illegal immigration, because all forms of immigration would be legal.

So I asked a few questions, which I have no answer to, but which need answering:

If immigration restrictions are wrong, why do almost all countries in the world have them? And if weak, unenforced US restrictions are bad, why aren't the immigration rules almost everywhere else worse? Why would countries, especially poor countries, harm their economies with strict immigration controls? Yet most do.
And is it entirely irrelevant that the crime rate among illegal immigrants is much higher than that among citizens? Do you favor admitting violent felons?

Immigration sense

Michael Blowhard was kind enough to note on this immigration post on 2Blowhards my comment on EconLog in response to Bryan Caplan's frankly silly post containing this language:

OK, suppose you could give American high school dropouts an 8% raise by deporting every man, woman, and child from Latin America back to their home countries. Would that be the right thing to do?

*******************

Call me a Non-Bleeding Heart Libertarian, but for once, the shoe doesn't fit. My heart does bleed for people born in poor countries who come here to better their condition with hard work. What about low-skilled Americans? They were born in the U.S. and speak fluent English. Let them count their blessings.

The arrogance and irrationality and pandering contained in that one short post sum up pretty well why the immigration situation is the way it is.

This is my take on it:

I'm glad someone realizes that if our government had enforced our laws over the last few decades the income of a segment of our country would be 8% higher than it is today. The question is how to keep America the most prosperous and freest country in the world for the average guy. The American legal system decided that the best way to do that was to impose certain conditions on immigrants. The wisdom of that course is proven by the economic problems, rise in crime, decrease in the educational level and increase in the threat of subversion and terrorism that a failure to enforce those laws has brought.
Posted March 29, 2006 02:00 PM

Thanks, Mr. M.B.!

Last word on voting

I think I've said enough about voting. I say the same thing over and over again, so I must have settled on a position. Jane Galt posted some thoughts on voting and economic rationality, such as this:

Obviously, people are getting some sort of utility out of voting that has nothing to do with casting the deciding vote. There are lots of theories about what this utility might be, but like theories about what makes men so defensively territorial about remote control devices, they tend to be speculative and heavily biased towards the theoreticians personal experiences.

I have no idea what she means about "remote control devices". Hogging the TV? How does that relate?

Somebody brought out the "well, what if everyone did(n't do) it" meme, so I struck back:

Just as one vote will not change an election, one person voting or not voting will not have any appreciable effect on whether "no one does it" or not. The individual's interest cannot be perfectly, or even approximately served, by a faction of millions. Some people influence others' votes more, so they have a greater obligation to vote. The reason for ethics is to be able to sleep at night, not to influence "everyone's" actions. The major effect that voting a particular way, or voting at all, can have on an individual is acceptance or rejection by his immediate peer group. That's reason enough for most people to vote, but it doesn't change the infinitesimal effect of the individual's vote by enough to matter.

I'm bored with people bringing up the same obviously faulty points again and again.

What if?

The pesky riots in France that threaten to interfere with my Paris trip set me to thinking. The protestors are objecting to a law that would make it possible for employers to fire employees under the age of 26 without jumping through nearly-impossible hoops. So what if the restrictions on employers that have for some time now been in effect in France had been in effect in the US? Ever been fired from a job? Laid off? Even left? Was it always the worst thing that could have happened?

What if you had not been fired or laid off from your first real job? What if you had hesitated to leave a job in order to go to, say, law school, because you knew once you left it might be impossible to find another one as good? Where would you be now? I've got a pretty good idea where I'd be. And it wouldn't be half as good as where I am now.

These restrictions aren't just on employers. They also restrict employees' freedom of action, their freedom to take moderate but intelligent risks to get ahead in life. Like most government measures, they do exactly the opposite of what they're promoted as doing. Instead of decreasing fear and uncertainty, they increase it. Instead of reassuring anyone that they can get ahead in a prospering economy, they make prosperity less sure. They destroy people's faith in themselves. As Janet Flannery said about Andre Gide when he came back from a tour of the Soviet Union in 1936: "He no longer believed. He now only hoped."

I scare myself
On a Samizdata post about national IDs, I came up with this idea:

Why not just combine the national ID with a credit card, so the government can regulate people's credit and can be made aware of any socially undesirable transactions? Then there would be the automatic mandatory deductions for the purchase of government securities. Don't want to give anyone ideas, but something tells me they're already thinking along this line.

It seems frighteningly possible. Fascism in the electronic age. When you already have money-laundering laws and mandatory income reporting, how far-fetched is a unitary Govcard?

Getting ready for Paris
Three weeks from tomorrow I am going to Paris for a week with my two older children. I've even found a hotel. There's just too much to do and only six full days to do it in, so I'm bound to come away a bit disappointed. But since we may run into strikes and riots I will just be satisfied to come back in one piece and a bit better informed about the possibilities of living overseas. Would I really like to be an honorary Frog? Is it better than being a Turk or a constant nomad? Some conundrum.

This seems to push my analysis one interesting bit further. Now I just wish I could remember where I put it:

Any Objectivist has to realize that the enemy is not just Al Qaeda, but the political system at home. To avoid being impeached and removed and leaving the destruction of the terrorists to the likes of Gore and Kerry, Bush has to moderate, unfortunately, the level of violence by US troops. This is as much a tactical consideration as what kind of weapons to use in the assault on Fallujah. He needs political support. He could have pushed harder in some places, at some times. And he could have downplayed the democracy angle. He could have shown more and clearer contempt for the obscenity that is Islam. But I don't think his decisions are driven by any motive other than the crushing of the enemies of the United States, the best hope for individual freedom and rationality in the world today. Overall, I'd give him a B-. Who else could do better?

Comment on Belmont Club:

If you want to use the mortality statistics for Americans to compute the effectiveness of the terrorists as soldiers, you have to look at combat deaths. These are quite a bit lower than overall deaths. And with their increasingly overwhelming dependence on IEDs and suicide bombs, which require little to no combat readiness, the picture is of abysmal effectiveness in force-to-force combat. In fact, it might be argued that the shift to bombings is a sign that the combat effectiveness of the average terrorist is approaching zero. This means that if civil war ever really does break out and terrorists try to control cities and launch actual combat operations, they will fail miserably.

Overlooked point

In Steve Sailer's famous "Baby Gap" article from 2004, I noticed this overlooked insight. I wonder why no one has picked up on this:

The endless gun-control brouhaha, which on the surface appears to be a bitter battle between liberal and conservative whites, also features a cryptic racial angle. What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety. Red-region white conservatives, insulated by distance from the Crips and the Bloods, don’t care that white liberals’ kids are in peril. Besides, in sparsely populated Republican areas, where police response times are slow and the chances of drilling an innocent bystander are slim, guns make more sense for self-defense than in the cities and suburbs.

I've known, or known of, several white liberals who have moved out to the country and have no problem at all with gun ownership. They would definitely vote for gun control in cities, but insist on their 2d amendment rights in the country. What's the difference? In the city, more dangerous people are around and you don't want them to have guns. And it's at least possible to fool yourself into thinking the cops will protect you, since you see them around all the time. And of course the racial angle makes it all explicable, even if only Sailer can point out the emperor's lack of garments. Bravo to him, despite his goofy attitude on the liberation of Iraq. There's another good point about school vouchers leading to competition for space in good public schools in the suburbs that I also missed when I read the article before. Read it all. Again.