badice.com – musings for the masses
Today marks the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. It is estimated that 400,000 “boat people” died attempting to escape the soldiers of the Communist North Vietnam.
KPBS has a fantastic interview with, Dr. Dzung Le, a Vietnamese refugee who escaped Saigon and is now a pathologist in San Diego.
Do you have any links to stories of refugees? Please post them here, I’m sure many readers will appreciate them.
Excuse me sir, I’m going to need to see a passport or some other proof of immigration status.
That should be the last thing we ever expect to hear from a police officer on a street corner. In fact, we should never have to worry about hearing it either. The latest legislation out of Arizona allows just that type of questioning though and puts police officers on the front lines of enforcing immigration and naturalization. It is fairly obvious that the law Arizona has passed will not stand up to Constitutional scrutiny and will eventually be thrown out. However, whether or not you agree with the law, it has done one very important thing, brought an issue unfamiliar to a large portion of the population to the front page. Immigration is a subject that people hear in passing or mentioned on the news occasionally, but for those not near a border, and in particular, the Mexican border, immigration is something not to be worried about. This is the wrong attitude. Immigration issues affect jobs, healthcare, education, and just about every other aspect of life, so we should be taking interest in what is happening in Arizona.
Living in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, or California affords one the opportunity to see what illegal immigration in its current form is all about. You can step into an emergency room and see a number of people in this country illegally waiting for treatment, you can drive by the nearest strip center and see day laborers waiting for work, and you visit schools and talk to children who’s parents are migrant workers looking for the next employment opportunity. These scenes are around us everyday and they are becoming more common outside of border states. So how do we define “illegal immigrant”? They are someone who is in this country illegally, whether that be due to an expired visa or if they crossed the border without being documented.
A fact that will surprise many is that the fastest growing group of illegal immigrants is Indians, not Mexicans or Guatemalans. They are here for work and schooling and usually their illegal status is due to the overstaying of their visa. This does not make it any less of a problem, it simply means it is slightly less complicated. This leads me to my next point, which is that we have created some of this mess simply with the way our citizenship system works.
As the law stands now, a child born in the U.S. is a citizen of this country. The citizenship of the child’s parents does not come in to play at all. I am not suggesting that we change this, I just want to point out that our measure of citizenship creates a very ugly situation if we are to start deporting people left and right. Technically, the children would stay in the U.S. and would become wards of the state. We’ve now taken a slight burden of having a mom and dad illegally in the country and turned it into the state taking a child into foster care because of their parent’s immigration status. This seems to be an unsustainable way of dealing with the issue of citizenship and illegal immigration.
There has to be some way to solve this. During the large Italian emigration to the U.S. between 1870 and 1920 there was a very similar attitude toward immigrants, especially those suspected of coming here illegally, as there is today. The Italians flourished though and became a very welcome part of our country and part of that was due to their efforts to assimilate. They kept their customs but worked hard to become part of the communities that they lived in. This is a necessary step for illegal immigrants now, just as it was then. That means we need a way for those who are here illegally to become legal citizens. No, not amnesty, as that denigrates the hard work of those who have pursued legal citizenship. We need a system that allows illegal immigrants to get in line for citizenship and to begin to pay taxes, etc. My theory is that a large portion of the illegal population want to stay here and be legal citizens, they just don’t have a way to do it. If they do have that way, then we’ll have the opportunity to deport those who are here illegally by choice, who’s sole reason is criminal behavior.
While Arizona may have taken extreme steps to get a point across, it’s a point that’s necessary. Europe is struggling to handle their own illegal immigration issues and we have an opportunity to be a good example for what to do in response. People who emigrate here are the whole reason this country is great, but that does give the green light to sneaking into the country illegally. Let’s do the right thing and encourage Washington to seriously evaluate citizenship procedures and take the responsibility of enforcing the federal borders out of the state’s hands.
This news from Gothamist is bothersome. The TSA has partnered with NYPD to provide the New York transit system with “random and unpredictable security measures, like mobile screening in rail environments and at mass transit stations across the country”. The last few words are the most interesting, “across the country” implies that the TSA will be rolling this out across the U.S.
Yes, this is the same TSA who had an agent leave their post unattended, resulting in Newark-Liberty Airport being shut down for six hours. Can we imagine for a minute, what would happen to any of the transit systems across the country if the TSA had such a breach at one of them? It would be pandemonium, people looking for ways to get home and finding no options.
The big question I have is whether or not the TSA actually has the authority to conduct such searches. If they don’t, then hopefully someone stands up against this on a legal base. If they do, then I’d like to know who granted them such authority.
Where I was and what I was doing that morning is unimportant and irrelevant when compared to the events that transpired. Our world changed eight years ago today. May we not forget the day or the innocent men and women who perished.
The protests against David Letterman in New York City make me a chuckle; Sure what he said about Palin’s daughter and A-Rod was in poor taste, but to take time out of your day to go yell at the building where he works seems a bit over the top, don’t you think? Even funnier are the protesters protesting the protest, of course they turn it into a political opportunity rather than a look at what was said as being inappropriate.
Yet, halfway around the world people are protesting and dying for change in their country. Seems like our priorities are out of whack. We’re worried about whether restaurants should be serving trans fats while Iranians are being told they are not allowed to gather in public places. Let’s get our priorities in order and worry about the things that matter, which, I’m sorry to say, do not include what talking heads say on television.
Today marks the anniversary of the turning point on the Western Front during WWII. Some will say that the battles in North Africa marked the turning point and others will reply with mentions of Sicily and Salerno, but the truth of the matter is, the events that took place on June 6, 1944, from the beachheads to the hedgerows, changed the course of the war to a direction from which the Axis powers could not recover.
Watching the ceremonies that took place today in France made my eyes water. I saw war veterans being stopped in the street and asked for their autographs, being treated like royalty, and being thanked. The news station interviewed some of them and their humbleness was unbelievable, most explained that they were just doing their part and that the ones who deserve our thanks are the ones who did not come back. Those who paid the ultimate price do deserve our gratitude, but the ones who lived through the war deserve to know that their hard work is not unnoticed and was not in vain.
The generation that stormed the beaches that morning is slowly dying, we need to thank them and take as much time as we can to know their stories.
June 6, 1944 changed history. Americans, British, Canadians, French, and Australians stormed the beaches of Normandy and parachuted into places like Merville and Ranville. They fought for every inch of beach and in doing so, started a chain reaction to overthrow the evil that had infected Europe.
Public service announcements about Swine Flu from the 1970s.
In most American households the internet has quickly become the source of news, information, and in some cases, communication. So, the bill introduced by John Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat and Republican Olympia Snowe from Maine is surprising because it gives the ultimate authority over the U.S. internet infrastructure to the President, allowing him to turn off access if need be. There is certainly a need for control when a virus or DDoS attack threatens government systems but the vague language of the bill appears to give more control than necessary.
The purpose of a Denial of Service attack is to take a website down by overwhelming it with [fake] traffic. If the government’s intent is to prevent such take downs by simply unplugging the website, then they are fulfilling the goal of the attack, even if it is by proxy. Sure, there are other reasons to take a site or portion of the internet down, as in the case of viruses being programmed to steal important data off of government machines, but the take down should be limited in scope. By painting with a wide brush the writer’s of this bill have given too much power to a single person, rather than focusing on addressing threats, it lays out triage techniques to combat the issue.
There is more in the bill as well, including starting a scholarship program for Federal IT workers. You can read the bill in its entirety below.
0402 Rockefeller Cyber Security Bill
Around 750 “tea parties” are taking place around the country today in an effort to protest the taxation changes being made by the Obama administration. This is one of those issues that has turned into a boxing match between the left and right based media (I guess most issues are now). The tea parties are loosely based around the events that took place before the Revolutionary War, where “No taxation without representation” was the slogan. Today’s events differ because they focus on tax rates and government spending. This is a poor idea, or at least poor execution of an idea.
Sure, a government on its way to spending itself into a debt wholly owned by foreign nations is a bad idea, but focusing on tax increases for the wealthy is no better. The tea parties should instead be focused on bringing attention to what the government is doing with our money, maybe even making the slogan “No taxation with poor representation”. The officials are elected by us but make decisions based on their own prerogatives rather than the needs of the people.
The argument that Americans do not mind paying taxes is one that has been coming out of the media lately and it too is a poor one. Most Americans do not mind because it is simply a way of life and for the most part the actual payment takes place without them even noticing. The truth of the matter is, most Americans get a refund at the end of the year and have no idea that it is because they paid in too much to the system. Start taking more out of people’s paychecks and making the refunds smaller and the number of Americans who do not mind taxes is sure to take a dive.
Back to the tea parties, Paul Krugman, who I am constantly agreeing and disagreeing with, writes that the right-wing is a bunch of crazy people who are embarrassing themselves with their antics and maybe he is right. If the conservatives in this country want to avoid a social democracy then faux-protesting a slight tax hike is not the way to do it. This is not to say that what the government is doing is right, by all means, it isn’t. The idea is not to change tax rates, it is to reduce spending. If spending is reduced, then budgets are naturally cut and as a result, the tax rate stays steady or better yet, falls.
What this country needs is more students of history because then maybe we’d have our memories jogged on how things were done when the Constitution was drafted and what the role of the Federal government should be.
I dropped the ball last week and did not post any links, mostly because I had been out of town and did not bookmark anything. This week’s links will try to make up for it.
Leave a comment with your thoughts!