America's Immigration Dilemma

Another anti-American diatribe on immigration by Roger Cohen of the NY Times, 12/30/15.    Mr. Cohen, a British journalist, might at long last give us an unprejudiced appraisal of America and immigration, something that's sorely lacking amongst the dishonest prigs who so often and so merrily criticize the US.   As never before in its history, America's doors are opened wide to immigrants.  Mr. Cohen must have walked through an airport at some point to get here during his visa free travel to visit his daughter in New Mexico.  Most of the taxi drivers out front are from the Middle East or Africa,  and so are many of our TSA agents.  On my family's recent trip from grandma's house in Boston the TSA front line was manned by a Vietnamese.   Throughout the airport the shops and restaurants are run by Asians and Latinos.   Back home, what do my son and his best school friend have in common?  Their fathers both fought the Communists... one in Vietnam ... the other in Eritrea. Their school teachers' would sum of America's dilemma as follows:  we love you Yafeat (my son's friend), you're the kind of immigrant kid everyone envisions when we think of the American dream, but would somebody either find us more money to help these immigrant kids or give us fewer kids to help.

Know Your Saints: Santa and the Muslims‏

Santiago, Matamoros, y Cierra Espana!

Regarding Steve Benson's Santa cartoon "Muslims are All Right" (12/10/15):

HOLY MACARONI!   Doesn't Steve realize that many Muslims might be offended and/or horrified that Steve has invoked a saint, and a Christian one at that, to intervene on their behalf.

Anachronism:  Santa is avatar of Saint Nicholas who died in 343 AD long before there were any Muslims.   He never thought about Muslims one way or the other.

Avatars:  I might believe in avatars, but Steve Benson has made it abundantly clear he doesn't believe in avatars or saints,   so he shouldn't be making up things about what Saint Nicholas's avatar thinks one way or the other.   Unless this is a revelation that he's started having religious visions.   I suppose anything's possible.

Muslims and Saint Nicholas:   Saint Nicholas is recognized as a saint by nearly all Christians, even many Presbyterians.   As far as Muslims are concerned, he's problematic, especially when treated as venerated saint, and especially for strict Muslims.   The issue of saints is part of the Sunni-Shia divide.   Don't get caught on the wrong side of it if you value your head.

Saint Nicholas and Muslims:  Saint Nicholas is famous for leaving anonymous gifts for poor children.    He is also famous for being a strict conservative theologian and a father of the Nicene Creed.  He famously punched the heretic Arius in the face during the Council of Niceaea.   Since Turkey's repressive Muslim conquerors prohibited celebrating the Divine Liturgy at the site of Saint Nicholas's episcopal see at Myra, Turkey, for centuries until 2007, saying the saint (or his avatar) would be magnanimous with respect to Muslims is problematic.

America is one of the few places in the world where religious tolerance is a reality.   Even though I'm named for Spain's patron,   St. James the Moor slayer, it never occurred to me to ask about my Arab roommate's or my Turkish/Iranian lead system analyst's religion, although my roommate liked to read some guy name Kahlil Gibran and was pretty vocal about saying don't believe everything the New York Times says about Palestinians.  That last part when I was young was like hearing Steve Benson say the Bible is a fairy tale.   I was a whole lot more worried about Vietnam than if my buddy was some kind of crypto-extremist.   When I hit Arizona I revered my colleague Ali because he was a rock of stability and integrity on a big project where we had to herd too many people who were knuckleheads.  If you want to get a job done hire Muslims named Ali and programmers from BYU.

As far as the Muslim world is concerned, my experience working in Saudi Arabia years ago wasn't bad at all (just quiet and boring).  They didn't hold my name against me (but then it didn't say Santiago instead of James on my passport) and it was a lot safer place than the US.   Zero gun violence.   You will not run into anyone that's "strapped".   And no women  drivers talking on their cell phones!    All the Saudi's were exceedingly polite.   On the other hand if you're a Catholic and need to go to confession or communion, or need a beer, you're pretty much out of luck.   

I wouldn't go near Saudi Arabia today, though.  It's a very different world and difficult to figure out who's still polite and who's not.

Einstein and Tensor Calculus

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/science/a-century-ago-einsteins-theory-of-relativity-changed-everything.html

What a shame that Dennis Overbye's story about the General Theory of Relativity didn't mention the mathematical foundation for Einstein's work. The General Theory could not have been developed without Tensor Calculus, which makes possible modeling of complex motion in uneven space. Tenor calculus is so difficult even Einstein needed a tutor, his friend mathematician Marcel Grossman, "Between the years of 1915 to 1919, Einstein held a correspondence with the Italian mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita – who in 1900 published perhaps the most important work on tensor calculus to this very day - who desired to help him [Einstein] fix some mathematical errors he had found in Einstein’s work."

NY Times Features War Criminal Simon Winchester

The Times story concerning the arrest of a British soldier for the Bloody Sunday Massacre makes no mention of the role their featured contributor, Simon Winchester (e.g., 11/6/2015), played in the media cover-up of the murders.  The only thing The Times should be featuring from Winchester is an apology for his complicity in British war crimes in Northern Ireland.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/world/europe/bloody-sunday-massacre-arrest-northern-ireland.html

"The final London edition of the Guardian (February 6th, 1971) said that, 'an army marksman shot dead one rioter, who threw two petrol bombs at an armoured car in Butler Street, off Crumlin Road, Belfast. The dead man was Bernard Watt, aged 28, of Hooker Street'. The report was headed 'by Simon Winchester'. On April 6th Bernadette Devlin raised this report in the House of Commons and alleged that it had been 'concocted in the editorial offices of the Guardian, to condone the cold blooded murder of one, Barney Watt.' "

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/media/mccann72.htm#3

Mr. Winchester's claim to fame rests on a book about a "mad" Oxford dictionary contributor.  The "madman" escaped the gallows according to Mr. Winchester because he was driven mad by having  to witness an Irish deserter, one of many according to Winchester, being branded.   This made for a good story, but as Mr. Winchester surely knew,  since he reviewed the military records of the "madman",  the "madman" wasn't anywhere near where the battle and alleged (imaginary) branding took place.  Moreover, as Mr. Winchester and his editors knew, branding wasn't a Civil War punishment for desertion.   The "deserter" story was just a cock-and-bull excuse dreamed up for a gullible English jury to absolve a rich drunk for shooting a hapless passerby.

Irish Travellers: More Hypocritical NY Times Irish Character Venom

Douglas Dalby, who's previously authored dubious stories about burying dead Irish babies in septic tanks and blaming Irish students killed in the US by faulty apartment construction for their own deaths,  adds Irish Traveller bigotry to his list of Irish character faults.

In a 10/30/2015 story about Irish Travellers he segues from minor difficulties in finding accommodations for fifteen Travellers, who lost their dwellings in a fire, to an indictment of Irish society for mistreating the Travellers.   Dalby blames the Irish as a group for a litany of Traveller problems including imprisonment for crime, alcoholism, disease and mortality rates, and claims deliberate exclusion of the minority group is the cause.   In doing so British Dalby ignores that being a Traveler is a voluntary choice and that there are no laws or social mores that force anyone to be a Traveler.   Genetically, the Traveller group is "typical of the larger Irish indigenous population." Being a Traveler isn't like being black in America.   Most of the Traveler's problems result from an itinerant life style choice that make access to health care, education and jobs problematic.  Moreover, generations of intermarriage within Traveler clans have led to a propensity for inherited diseases especially galactosaemia.

Although Traveller clans live in all of the British Isles and America and the itinerant population is far larger in Britain,  Mr. Dalby neglects to mention whether the Travellers fare any better outside the Irish Republic.   A recent American TV series, The Riches, with a strong British connection suggests suggests not.   The story is about a dysfunctional clan of Irish Traveller con artists and criminals living in America. The main characters were played by British actors Eddie Izzard adn Minnie Driver, without any compunction about their "black face" portrayals of a minority group that Mr. Dalby sees as very maligned.   The creator and writer of the series is Dmitry Lipkin a Russian-Jewish refugee.

Unlike Mr. Dalby, none of The Times coverage of The Riches expressed any discomfort with the "black face" Traveller portrayals as congenital con artists and criminals.  You might call this hypocrisy and you'd be very close to the mark.

Eddie Izzard’s Master Plan - Caryn James

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/arts/television/16jame.html

The Riches, Grifters in Sheeps’ Clothing

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/arts/television/08rich.html

Riches: For This Family of Pros, the Con Is Everything

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY  -  Published: March 12, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/arts/television/12stan.html

*   *   *   *  *
The Times has 160 year history of venomous attacks on the Irish character:

No Irish Need Vote - NYC not an American City
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2014/10/ny-times-no-irish-need-vote-nyc-not.html
Stalking General Sherman
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/11/stalking-general-sherman.html
The New York Times and the Irish Character 
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-new-york-times-and-irish-character.htmlNew York City's Passion Play
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/08/new-york-citys-passion-play.html

Times Friends List: Eat Your Heart Out

Edna Lewis and the Black Roots of American Cooking

The chef and author made the case for black Southern cooking

as the foundation of our national cuisine.

African Americans invented pizza, spaghetti, lasagna, ice cream, hot dogs, hamburgers, popcorn, dim sum, fortune cookies, noodles, baked potatoes and TACOs.   Seriously?   Pass me the carne adovada please!  Leave it to the New York Times to casually insult and demean practically every ethnic group in America, especially the ones not on their "friends" list.   Eat your heart out Giada, Guy, Grandma Chicarello, Aunt Kathleen and Grandpa Albert, the Baker.  

NY Times Publishes Canard Alleging US WWII Bio-weapons Cover-up

Although the Soviet Union tried and convicted of war crimes twelve high ranking Japanese connected to bio-weapons Unit 731,  the New York Times published an article (10/21/2015) that blames the United States for letting war criminals go free and covering up their war crimes.  The article omits any mention that the Soviet Union took prisoner virtually all of Unit 731's personnel in 1945 and convicted twelve of them of war crimes in a public trial in 1949 that the New York Times itself requested to attend.   How could the United States possibly cover up a public war crimes trial that the New York Times knew about and wanted to cover, but was refused access to by Joseph Stalin.

Moreover, how guilty can Douglas MacArthur be for not prosecuting Unit 731 war criminals when the crime sites, evidence, surviving victims, witnesses and accused were virtually all in the hands of the Soviets and Red Chinese?   But, in fact MacArthur had tried over 5,000 Japanese war criminals, convicting most, including the person most responsible for Unit 731:  Hideki Tojo.

Increasingly the New York Times is becoming a venue for anti-American propaganda regurgitated uncritically from leftwing, former Soviet, and Red Chinese sources.

*   *   *   *   *

After a savage and costly campaign to defeat the Japanese in WWII, culminating with dropping atomic bombs on two Japanese cities,  the United States tried over 5,000 Japanese military and civilians for war crimes.   More than twice the number of Germans who were prosecuted for WWII war crimes.  Few were exonerated and over 900 Japanese were sentenced to death and executed, including Hideki Tojo, Japan's supreme wartime leader and onetime commander of the Kwangtung Army of Manchuria and its infamous bio-weapons Unit 731.

August 16 of 1945, the day after Japan surrendered, the Japanese Kwantung Army of Manchuria surrendered to the Red Army and over 500,000 Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner by the Soviet Union.   Among those captured were the personnel, headquarters and facilities for the Japanese bio-weapons Unit 731, which was stationed and headquartered in Harbin, China.  When the Soviets withdrew from Harbin and China in 1946, they took all their Kwantung Army prisoners (500,000+) with them, including virtually all of the Unit 731 personnel and the Japanese bio-weapons technology.   When the Soviets withdrew from China they turned Manchuria, Harbin and the Kwantung Army's remaining weapons over to the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army.

In August of 1949, the Soviet Union held the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials convicting twelve Japanese for Unit 731 war crimes.

Several Western and Japanese papers, among them The New York Times and the Asahi Shimbun, sought permission to send reporters to Khabarovsk, Permyakov said. But Stalin, perhaps still stung by coverage of the 1938 show trials, refused. It is a pity. Soviet newspapers, fueled by Stalinist xenophobia and communist contempt for the people, dehumanized the defendants and condescended to their readers. Reporters in a totalitarian state [which had also committed heinous war crimes] were ill-suited to consider the moral riddle of what impels men in uniform to commit mass murder and then return home to their families believing their work was good and necessary.

Japan Times -- http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2001/06/05/commentary/world-commentary/the-trial-of-unit-731/

Unit 731 Personnel convicted of war crimes at the Soviet Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials:

• 25 years imprisonment
  • Gen. Otozō Yamada, former Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army
  • Lt. Gen. Kajitsuka Ryuji, former Chief of Medical Administration
  • Lt. Gen. Takahashi Takaatsu, former Chief of Veterinary Service
  • Maj. Gen. Kawashima Kiyoshi, former Chief of Unit 731

• 20 years imprisonment
  • Maj. Gen. Sato Shunji, former Chief of Medical Service, 5th Army
  • Lt. Col. Nishi Toshihide, former chief of a division of Unit 731

• 18 years imprisonment
  • Maj. Karasawa Tomio, former chief of a section of Unit 731

• 15 years imprisonment
  • Sr. Sgt. Mitomo Kazuo, former member of Unit 100

• 12 years imprisonment
  • Maj. Onoue Masao, former chief of a branch of Unit 731

• 10 years imprisonment
  • Lt. Hirazakura Zensaku, former researcher of Unit 100

• 3 years imprisonment
  • Kurushima Yuji, former lab orderly of Branch 162 of Unit 731

• 2 years imprisonment
  • Cpl. Kikuchi Norimitsu, former medical orderly of Branch 643 of Unit 731

Guns and Hitler

In addressing Ben Carson's Holocaust gun canard, Alan Steinweis is somewhat ahistorical himself when he limits the origins of the Nazi dictatorship to "the authoritarian legacy of the German Empire, the inability to cope with defeat in World War I and failure to achieve political compromise during the Wiemar Republic."   In fact a large and aggressive armed German leftwing movement had much to do with the rise and ultimate triumph of the Nazis.  The German populace was heavily armed immediately after WWI, in part as a result of soldiers taking weapons home with them when the German army collapsed.  Armed uprisings in Germany and Bavaria against what the left viewed as oppressive regimes legitimatized for many Germans the existence of armed rightwing militias, Freikorps,  that put down the leftist rebellions.  These rightwing militias became the shock troops who brought Hitler to power. Gun ownership did not stop Hitler's rise or place a roadblock on the road to the Holocaust.

Similarly armed leftwing revolt and resistance in Austria and Hungary could not prevent rightwing authoritarian regimes from taking power.  Notably in Spain, even the infusion of Soviet arms could not keep the rightwing "loyalists" from overthrowing the leftwing government.

Insanity: Red China Building US Railroad

If you're looking for the definition of insanity this is it.

A privately held US casino building company is partnering with a state-owned Red Chinese company to build a high-speed railroad between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.   What could possibly be wrong with this.

1.  Red China is conducting an undeclared war in the South and East China Seas to grab territory from longtime US friends and allies Japan and the Philippines.  Someone needs to stand up to these people and tell them that it's not going to be business as usual as long as they're the aggressor in East Asia.

1.1 Red China threatening reprisals if South Korean installs a missile defense system to defend against Red China's client state North Korea's nuclear sabre rattling.

2.  Red China's idea of bilateral trade with its best customer, the United States, is: "heads we win; tails you lose."   Red China gets to sell all the subsidized products, including steel, it wants in the US while US access to Red China's markets is highly restricted.

3.  The US needs to fix its aging infrastructure, especially to give its economy a boost. but sourcing all the technology, including the railroad engines and trains, and engineering from Red China isn't going to help much.  It's just going to add to the huge trade deficit and bill we owe Red China.

4.  The company organizing the high-speed railroad wants a $6 billion loan from the US government.  In effect, the federal government will end up subsidizing more of its trade deficit with Red China.   Moreover, it is doubtful the train service will be economically viable.   It's really a high speed rail service from Las Vegas to Victorville, California, a couple of hours drive from Los Angeles.   When the railroad goes bankrupt and the loan isn't repaid, the US taxpayer will end up holding the bag and the bill.

5.  Why should the US taxpayer subsidize a Red Chinese construction project?   Never mind the federal loan and other outright federal subsidies that may or may not happen.   The railroad can't be built without using the interstate highway right of way between Victorville and Las Vegas.   A private company using a Red Chinese railroad building contractor needs to pay full market prices for any right of way originally paid for by US taxpayers.   Big, big bucks in today's dollars.

6. After this money loser gets built, they want build a high-speed line from Las Vegas to Phoenix, and lose even more money.   But why should they care.  In the end they'll declare bankruptcy and the US taxpayer will be stuck with the bill.

Wrong.  So very, very wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XpressWest

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/10/17/california-rail-china

Times distortion creates false equivalence between Catholic and Muslim cultures

Marriage for Catholics is a sacrament of mutual, voluntary consent.  In the Catholic sacrament of marriage,  the ministers of the sacrament are the spouses themselves.  This is why the allegation appearing in the New York Times of force Catholic marriages is problematic.   

"The survey found child marriage or forced marriage, or both, in families of many faiths, including Muslim, Christian (particularly Catholic), Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/opinion/americas-child-marriage-problem.html

In fact, beyond the fundamental problem of alleging a child can be forcibly married in the Catholic Church, the Times article distorted the language in the cited survey to imply an equivalence between the scope of the problem in the Muslim culture and that of Catholics. 

"Forced marriage also affects people of many different faiths. The majority of respondents who provided information on religious background said they encountered forced marriage victims from Muslim religious backgrounds, but also encountered victims from Christian (particularly Catholic), Hindu, and Buddhist religious backgrounds, among others."

--- Tahirih Justice Center survey

  

NY Times Latest Cover-up

http://www.catholicleague.org/new-york-times-remains-defiant-on-serra/
Here's the latest dust up between The New York Times and the hyperbolic Bill Donohue of the Catholic League over allegations that reporter Laura Holson defamed recently sainted Roman Catholic priest Junipero Serra.   You would think that The Times representative would defuse this with an apology or put Donohue in his place by providing a citation and quote backing up Holson's claim that Serra ordered the torturing of Native Americans.   Instead The Times standards editor Gregory Brock gave a non-answer answer.   Typically in the world of professional skepticism this means that Brock is covering up for Holson whose anonymous source probably doesn't exist.

Strapped

Crime is down according to Charles Blow of the NY Times?   Down from what?   There's a shooting in the news every day in Phoenix and  Phoenix doesn't even rank up there with America's worst combat zones:  Chicago, Detroit or Baltimore.

Do people at The Times think it's a good thing that I can take my kids to a fast food restaurant and run into a "gangsta" with a gun tucked into his waistband.   Living in the country and having a  .22 for hunting is a whole lot different than walking around city streets "strapped" to intimidate potential enemies.   Hell, "strapped"  wasn't part of my vocabulary when I was 17, but it's part of my son's.   Things are getting better?

Take the police off the liberals list and give them the authority to disarm the mentally ill,  criminals and knucklehead kids who think they need to walk around "strapped."

Replace the police on the enemies list with "entertainment" people who glorify young men walking around "strapped."

Education in Black and White

The NY Times Sept 22 story about a controversial rezoning of New York City public schools notes:

"Research has found that minority students who attend integrated schools perform better academically and go on to earn higher incomes and have better health than minority students who attend segregated schools."

My children attend an integrated public school, so let me shed some light on this.  It doesn't come as any surprise to me that minority children to better in classes with white kids.   My son who started to shine academically has been spending hours and hours helping his friends with their homework.    My daughter who's still in middle school was recently drafted to tutor other students in math after school.  

There's no magic formula explaining why my children are in a position to do this.  My wife and I tutor them and every summer our children go to summer school to brush up on their math and science.

We consider it a bless having that our children go school with children from different backgrounds and cultures.   Is it necessary for black children to go school with white children to succeed academically?   No.  What all children need is enough teachers around to help children who need help with their assignments.    We also need a longer school year so that every child can benefit from the extra opportunities that my children have.  

These are far from the only improvements to education we need to make, but they're a good start.

Steve Benson and the Whore of Babylon

"In the Benson household the enemies list included: Martin Luther King, who, I was taught, was a notorious liar and a rabble-rousing communist.... and, last but not least, John F. Kennedy, who, I was told as a fourth grader on the day of his assassination, got what he deserved."
http://ffrf.org/legacy/fttoday/1999/December99/benson.html

The above recalled by Steve Benson, grandson of the Mormon Pope Ezra Taft Benson.  While one of the Twelve LDS leading Apostles,  the elder Benson served in the Eisenhower cabinet.

I'd never hold the sins of someone's parents against him.   Unless, of course, he repeats them.


Steve Benson, AZ Republic, 9/23/2015

"It is also to the Book of Mormon to which we turn for the plainest description of the Catholic Church as the great and abominable church [i.e., the Whore of Babylon]."
-- Mormon Doctrine,  Bruce McConkie, LDS First Council of the Seventy.



Steve Benson, AZ Republic, 9/27/2015

In the vein of a noble tradition:

President Honors Disobedient, Disruptive Student

Ahmed Mohamed brought a "clock" in a box to high school in Irving, Texas, and got in trouble after he disrupted class and frightened the English teacher.  For some reason the President of the United States, in a knee JERK reaction, interjected himself, declared Ahmed a victim and invited him to the White House.



A disobedient, disruptive student should not be honored by the President of the United States. After showing the "clock" in a box to his science teacher, the science teacher told Ahmed: "Nice job. DO NOT SHOW IT TO ANYONE ELSE." Instead of obeying the science teacher little Ahmed went to English class and plugged the thing in and it started making noise, disrupting the English class and frightening the poor English teacher, who as one might expect had no idea what the contraption was and why it was being activated in English class.  Perhaps if the President and others did not encourage disobedient, disruptive students, something might get accomplished in the public schools. Students might even learn to read and write in English class....more

Moreover, it is "more probable than not" that bright young Ahmed's naivete concerning the problematic nature of his contraption is disingenuous, especially after he was warned by the science teacher not to show it to anyone else.  That the high school principal and district superintendent are Latino is omitted and for some reason irrelevant to this story, which is being positioned to highlight American racism.

As a parent with children in public schools and a member of their middle school's site council,  I'm fed up and infuriated by the disingenuous excuses students and their parents make for bad behavior. Just last month my young daughter went to the nurse's office with her friend who has diabetes and needed an insulin injection.   Besides insulin they also keep extra clothes there for children with dress code violations.   An irate lady teacher dragged in a boy "by the ear."  What did I do wrong wailed the boy.  The infuriated teacher yelled:  "You have a picture of a woman with naked breasts on your t-shirt!"  I could go on and on.

Is America Still a Colony?

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina (CNN 9/3/15) thinks English is the official language of the United States.   Does Carly actually think America is still a colony and Queen Elizabeth is our monarch?

My family is filled with grandmas who spoke Spanish, Gaelic, Italian, Portuguese and German.   After three and a half years of high school Spanish, my son can't understand a word they say on Univision, the American Spanish language TV channel.   No one on the planet would understand my broken Gaelic.  The American version of English has worked out well as a common language for business, politics, and  the dinner table.   I've always considered English a foreign language, but thank God I didn't have to learn Portuguese!

But if you want to watch Univision or talk to grandma in Italian, knock yourself out.  It's a free country.  No offense Queen Elizabeth, you're a lovely lady, but that's why we fired your ancestor King George III in the first place.

Slainte (cheers)!

Michael Ignatieff: The Rude Guest

I am offended by Michael Ignatieff's rude rebuke of the United States for allegedly not helping Europe during its latest crisis.  Mr. Ignatieff himself is an immigrant, an ungracious guest of the United States who has a job among the privileged elite at Harvard University.

The United States has the most generous immigration policy in the world.  My children go to public schools with children who are recent immigrants and refugees that the U.S. has taken in from China, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Latin America and other foreign lands.  There are over 41,000,000 foreign-born immigrants living in the United States today.  A million more are given visas to live in the U.S. permanently every year.   U.S. immigration laws are mostly guidelines and tens of thousands more show up each year without a visa and live here mostly unmolested once they navigate the border, their children receiving free education and health care.  Any child born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen no matter where their parents came from or how.   Does Europe offer that. Indeed, has Europe or Canada ever offered to help at all with the millions of Latin American immigrants clamoring at the U.S. door?

America is now in its second century of saving the world.   Too many Americans have given their lives in America's ill-fated wars of good intentions:  brothers, sons, schoolmates and friends.  Too often America has been called upon to save the world because Europe couldn't or wouldn't deal with problems it created.   Is it too much ask that Europe take the lead on dealing with a problem on its doorstep so that America can focus on fixing the very grave problems in the U.S. today, and deal with the millions already knocking on America's door...not Europe's.

Linda Valdez and Immigration: Argumentum Ad Hominem

Extolling Germany's offer to take in Middle East asylum seekers (America's Shame, 9/11),  Linda Valdez claims that "In the land of liberty [US], however, huddled masses from south of the border are not welcomed."  This is an odd, abusive claim by someone named Valdez who holds a coveted job at the Arizona Republic.  In fact her claim is very much at odds with reality.  The US has the most generous immigration policy on the planet.   There are 41,000,000 immigrants living in the US today.   Half are from south of the border.  Indeed, the US has the third largest Latino population of any country in the world.  The US gives permanent residency visas to a million new immigrants each year.  Tens of thousands more arrive each year without permanent visas (or visas of any kind) and live here unmolested once they navigate the border.   If their children are born here, they are automatically US citizens, regardless of their parents immigration status.  If they're poor, and most are, their children get free medical care.  Regardless of where born, all the children from "south of the border" receive free education at public expense.   What would make Ms. Valdez happy?  That the US have no borders at all.   Isn't the US pretty close to that anyway.  Why is it that "progressives", who rejoice in the rule of law when county clerks are jailed for not handing out marriage license, are appalled when the rule of law is applied to US immigrants?

In the meantime three of the Republican candidates for US president come from Latino families.  And my Arizona kids go to public school and church with immigrants from all over the world:  Latin America, Somalia, China, Sudan, Cameroon, Eritrea, the Philippines.  One's dad who went to Camelback High became a citizen last month.  It shouldn't be a Shocker.

Poison Oak Place

President Obama has recently pledged to change the name of Mount McKinley in Alaska back to its original Native American name: Denali.

I wonder what the folks in Los Angeles will say when Obama changes that city's name back to the original Native American place name:  Iyáangẚ, which means "Poison Oak Place." 

There are days I can't wait to get up in the morning.  You just can't make stuff like this up.

Is Puritanism Dead?

The reaction by many including the family of the victim and the state of New Hampshire in the case of alleged prep school rapist Owen Labrie is beyond sanctimonious.   The parents of the victim take no responsibility for raising a daughter who sneaks off to a secluded room for a tryst.  The victim, who is among the nation's brightest and most precocious,  takes no responsibility for sneaking off to a secluded room for a tryst.   The State of New Hampshire, which does practically nothing about the epidemic of teenage sex going on within its borders,  wants us to believe that its prosecution of Labrie, who is barely old enough under the law to be tried as an adult, isn't arbitrary and capricious.   Elite St. Paul's School, which left the young man and women unsupervised, want us to believe that the school is in no way culpable for the teenagers' behavior, and failing to impress upon their students, including the youngest women, that any contact with someone under 16 is criminal.  The State of New Hampshire takes no responsibility for failing to ensure that schools within its borders supervise their young students and prevent teenage sex.   Misandrist activists want young men to take exclusive blame for teenage sex and pretend,  thousands of years of evidence to the contrary, that sexual encounters are part of the rational human experience where checklists for takeoff can and must be maintained just like those used by those piloting 747 aircraft.   Who said Puritanism was dead.

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Wouldn't it be fun to hook up all the activists, journalists, head masters and parents to a lie detector and ask them if they ever had sex with anyone under 16.  You might be in trouble if you kissed someone under 16.  If your hands wandered at all you committed a misdemeanor, at least in New Hampshire.  If you went all the way, congratulations, you're a rapist.  The law makes no distinction between boy and girl perpetrators, by the way.

New Hampshire's law, for example:

http://doj.nh.gov/criminal/victim-assistance/documents/sexual-assault-protocol.pdf

Felonious Sexual Assault (“FSA”) (RSA 632-A:3 ) includes the offense often referred to as the “statutory rape law,” which involves sexual penetration of a person between the ages of 13 and 16 when the age difference between the actor and the other person is 4 years or more.  The legal age of consent in New Hampshire is 16.  It also applies when a person is in a position of authority over another and coerces that other person to engage in sexual contact with the actor or with him/herself in the actor’s presence.

Felonious Sexual Assault includes, but is not limited to:

When the defendant subjects a person to sexual contact and causes serious personal injury to the victim under any of the circumstances named in RSA 632-A:2 (the aggravated felonious sexual assault statute mentioned above).   [I.E: penetration:  oral, anal, vaginal]

N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 632-A:4(I) (Sexual assault) states, 
I. A person is guilty of a class A misdemeanor under any of the following circumstances:
                                                      
(a) When the actor subjects another person who is 13 years of age or older to sexual contact under any of the circumstances named in RSA 632-A:2 [Aggravated felonious sexual assault].  (b) When the actor subjects another person, other than the actor’s legal spouse, who is 13 years of age or older and under 16 years of age to sexual contact where the age difference between the actor and the other person is 5 years or more.  (c) In the absence of any of the circumstances set forth in RSA 632-A:2, when the actor engages in sexual penetration with a person, other than the actor’s legal spouse, who is 13 years of age or older and under 16 years of age where the age difference between the actor and the other person is 4 years or less. 

N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 632-A:1(IV) defines “sexual contact” as “the intentional touching whether directly, through clothing, or otherwise, of the victim’s or actor’s sexual or intimate parts . . . . Sexual contact includes only that aforementioned conduct which can be reasonably construed as being for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification.”

Red China's Business Plan

Red China treats its best customer and WWII savior (the US) like the enemy.   It bullies its neighbors and grabs their territory not unlike Imperial Japan in the days of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.  Its client state, North Korea, is constantly threatening the world with nuclear war.  Its stock markets are papered over with profits from companies like Hanergy, which had a capitalization bigger than Sony's, but no market share (?????).   It solves its domestic overproduction problems by dumping products like steel at predatory prices on the markets of its trading partners.  It says it has 7 percent growth while collapsing world commodity prices suggest something very different. 

What possibly could go wrong with this business plan.  

Allegedly Red China can put out the fire by using its immense foreign currency reserves, but are the people allegedly running the show capable and willing to do that.  Do they even really have a plan?   Is anybody really in charge?

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The latest military development:  Red China prepares to deploy the DF-41 road-mobile nuclear-tipped ICBM.   Every major American city is within striking distance of this weapon.  This is bad news not only for the US and Japan, but also India and Russia.  If Red China has fearsome multiple-warhead ICBMs, then India will conclude that it too needs them, and if India has them, then Pakistan will need them, too.   Will Vietnam and the Philippines be far behind.  Exactly what South Asia and, especially Pakistan needs, road-mobile nuclear-tipped ICBMs.  God help us.

Picture, if you will, Coca Cola, Walmart, Wells Fargo or Apple building missiles to nuke their customers.   Doesn't make much sense does it.

NYC's Topless Women

The New York Times, predictably, advocates letting topless, half-naked women parade around Times Square in New York City.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/opinion/shirtless-bodies-in-pointless-times-square-war.html
The Times is very wrong about this.   There really is a need for laws to protect us from naked people parading in our streets.... even if is unfair to the few who are pleasing to look at.