Category: Uncategorized

… not just something drawn on a map, it’s much more. Here’s the definition:

1. A part that forms the outer edge of something.
2. The line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions; a boundary.

Ok so now we have that out of the way, let’s look at those two dictionary definitions for the word.
#1 is clear enough, the outer edges of something. In this case, we’re talking about two nations, countries, states, whatever you want to call them, the United States, and Mexico. For the purposes of this discussion it really defines the limits of the legal powers of both entities.

#2 is also very telling, and the important word for me is separating. In particular, you’ll note what they separate, political divisions or geographic regions. The border separates The United States from Mexico (and vice versa).

Ok so I think you can tell what I’m trying to get at here. The border is a clear division between two entities, two nations in this case. Although there have been plenty of skirmishes between the two countries, and treaties to specify just where the border runs (the current border runs according to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase), in recent years it has become more of an issue that it probably should have.

Why, you ask? Am I downplaying the importance of a “border”? Not at all. My take on it is this: something should have been done about the “border” a long time ago. And I don’t mean hiring a few hundred more border patrol guards, I mean something serious, something concrete (literally).

Recently however, something interesting was undertaken that has had a profound effect on illegal immigration. San Diego put up a fence. What effect has it had? Illegal immigration (arrests) has dropped to a 1/6th or more of the previous level (from 25,000/yr to around 3,000/yr). Can we say, “it worked”, yet? Well duh, ya think?

Despite some people saying fences and walls don’t work, clearly they do. The Berlin Wall succeeded in its bold (if somewhat nefarious) intention, to keep the majority of Berliners on the east side. Over the many years it was up, only a few lucky souls managed to get across – many failed. So in that respect it achieved its purpose. So what of the US effort to do the same, and why is it so important?

In these years after 9/11 we seem preoccupied with planes, because of course, two planes slammed into the Two Towers. It has become an icon for the War on Terror (mind you, that’s not a bad thing, we SHOULD put effort in securing air travel). But to our detriment, we seem to have forgotten the world’s most traversed border, leading right up to the US’ most populous state! Stupid stupid stupid. It is estimated that one out of every 10 who cross illegally, are muslims/arabs/kurds/afghanis. In other words, those who don’t really like the United States…

Why has the administration seemingly overlooked the effectiveness of the San Diego wall? The Homeland Security department’s head, Michael Chertoff, announced on Tuesday that 1000 more border guards would be hired to stem the tide of illegal immigrants. So that’s more expense, per year, that could be better spent on constructing a barrier that would only be built once. Cost? Approximately $8 billion. The results? The drain on the US economy from illegal immigrants is more than that, per year. So in one year that money would be recouped.

Maybe something to think about, would be the hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants that would be able to work, and the hundreds of thousands of American citizens that would have work, if we stemmed the tide of illegal immigration? The taxes that would generate, the legal issues that would be negated, the security it would provide (not to mention the peace of mind a good border wall would provide knowing that terrorists wouldn’t be slipping across a porous border).

Ok so let’s just quickly run through the illegal immigration talkers; like the saying goes, opinions are like a certain body part – everyone has one. I can’t cover everyone, but I’ll cover the ones that got my attention.

Musing puts it succinctly – it’s about breaking the law, how true. As Musing says at the end, the United States is based on immigration, it is vital, it is the living history of this nation, but it MUST be controlled so immigration will be possible for the future.

A Certain Slant of Light has a post regarding the Houston Chronicles laissez-faire attitude regarding illegal immigration, and has some excellent points on this issue. The “melting pot” is boiling over, as he puts it.

Oblogatory Anecdotes, has posted about the al-Qaeda operative arrested near the Mexican border, originally posted at NewsMax. Do we need any more evidence? Does this wake you up to the threat on our doorstep?

Michelle Malkin has also weighed in on this subject, and now has an Immigration Blog to discuss this subject.

And lastly, TMH’s Bacon Bits has a post about women immigrants being raped by the very men they pay to get them across the border. Asking a valid question:

What to do? Do you think that U.S. and international human rights organizations would, for example, refrain from condemning the Minutemen (who’s only “crime against humanity” is watching for illegals coming into the U.S. and informing our Border Patrol), and instead refocus their efforts on shaming the Mexican government into improving true border security on their side of the line – including protecting immigrants from predators and corrupt Mexican border police? If even to save just one woman or child from rape, sodomy, or even murder?

Do you want to do something about this? Put your name to the TRUE Enforcement Petition.

Taking a sec to check comments, I found a good tip from Barb about checking my browser stats.

“…you might want to check your Sitemeter stats on Browser share. Since mine shows 70% of my visitors are using IE, I could give a hoot what my blog looks like in anything *but* IE.”

That’s certainly valid viewpoint. But (and, if you’ve read here much, you knew there would be a “but”) I take a rather contrarian view. I checked my stats-in Statcounter, though. Sure enough, 38% of those who’ve visited my site in the last month or so (didn’t check back further) use browsers other than Internet Exploder. That pretty well agrees with my 40+% “returning visitors” stats. Yeh, I know it’s only a correlation, and I’d have to dig deeper to see how much that really affects returns, but it does match up with a “gut feel” I had.

You see, I really don’t care what Internet Exploder users see, or at least, not that much. And I’m not at all concerned that I might be filtering out Internet Exploder users with my new template that Internet Exploder’s non-standards-compliant engine doesn’t render properly. Folks who insist on continuing to use the worst browser available-when there are far, far superior, free, options available-are probably not on the upper end of the bell curve, anyway.

Of course, I have had a note from the one Safari user who’s a regular visitor. Yeh, the Safari browser he’s using uses the same old Mozilla code Internet Exploder 5 uses, so CSS of darned near any kind is a foreign language to it. S’OK. Most Safari users (all Macusers) are probably liberalists, anyway. (This guy’s a NOTABLE exception-heh.) Had another I think (IIRC) was Safari user who used to visit, but I had to ban him from commenting because of abusive stupidity. He went away. No loss. Coulda been an IE user; still no loss.

So, where does this thing stand?

As time (and my limited, but slowly geowing, understanding of CSS optimization) permits, I’ll continue to hunt down lil tweaks or non-standard bits in my blog template to make it load and display better in modern, real browsers, but I’ll also continue to consider as a plus the fact that users of the seriously insecure, bloated, non-standards-compliant, sllowwwww Internet Exploder may self-filter out of my readership.

Viewing this in Internet Exploder? You have three options:

1. Put up with the fact that it looks like crap to you because you’re using a crappy browser. No skin offa my nose.
2. Get a better browser. Firefox is good, and only a 4.7MB download (although to make it FULLY functional, you’ll need to download a buncha plugins that the Mozilla folks call extensions-heh). Or try a fully functional browser in a 3.8MB download and get Opera. Either way, you’ll have a more secure, faster, altogether better browsing experience. Everyone (except for Micro$oft) wins.
3. The third option is to have a hissy fit and go away in a huff. No problem for me. Have a nice trip. Don’t let the door hit ya where the Lord split ya, as they say here in America’s Third World Countyâ„¢.

Please note: If you fit into category #1 because you have an idiosyncratic liking for I.E., fine. Everyone’s entitled to their lil eccentricities.

heh

Semi-cruisin’ through part of my blogroll today yielded:

UPDATE: Added to the top of the list: Chris Matthews, Dhimmi Of The Week, at Woody’s News and Views. Make sure you check Woody’s place out regularly. His insight (and ‘splains-it-stick applied to liberalist loony moonbats) are regularly on target.

A commenter at Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor Mail:

Subject: The success of Linux as an argument in favor of Intelligent Design.

The comparisons of Linux to Wikipedia are amusing, when you carry them over to the Intelligent Design debate. Linux has, ultimately, a single designer who oversees every aspect of the creation. Wikipedia is done by an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters. Linux is stable, powerful, and a viable alternative to professionally-developed software. Wikipedia is a bad joke.

Obviously I’m not trying to argue that the success of Linux is an argument in favor of Intelligent Design, but it’s still ironic.

As Jerry might have said (but didn’t this time), heh.

Just cruise down the posts at Kat’s Keep the Coffee Coming for some Glenn Miller, Cat Stevens, The Drifters and more. Click and listen. Good stuff. Moonlight Serenade? Signature Glenn Miller…

Hugh Hewitt: The Effect of “Cut-and-Run” Rhetoric on Troop Morale. Read it.

Put down the coffee before reading London’s Sex Theme Park or Aw, This Is Some Cute Sh*t. As always, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns aren’t quite crazy… but then, maybe it’s the eye of the beholder, eh? heh

Christine offers another “put the coffee down!” post-for a different reason-with Killed by Caffeine. Hmmm… Anyone spot the obvious data holes in the linked page? It’s at least a chuckle.

Red Hot Cuppa posts, Zawahiri’s Family Free To Kill Him …. Hmmm, someone forgot their Jordanian ties… heh Speech-impaired piscine. Oughta cut his own throat to save time.

Posted last Monday, re-read today. Lovely. Dust of Snow. Thanks for the Frost, Nancy. Now, how ’bout more of your own for us? 🙂

Stick your tongue in your cheeck and read aloud, “Sheehan Begins Candlelight Vigil for Zarqawi“

TMH’s Bacon Bits posts Guard the Borders: Immigrants as Rape Targets in Mexico, a part of the Guard the Borders blogburst.

Maybe more later, but this is a typical skip through my blogroll. Try ’em out!

Here’s a slightly edited question I recieved in email (edited to remove identifiers, a little content):

I had a guy who’s a sociology major tell me… that sociology, unlike psych, is a real science. I’m willing to concede the fact that psych is a bit of a soft science at best but I am not really willing to admit the opposite for sociology… what [do] you think[?]

Thanks for asking.

🙂

Since sociology does deal with larger trends, it does have the potential for being more science-like.

Unfortunately, that requires, at the very least, real math and the knowledge and ability to structure falsifiable hypotheses, the ability to test (using real numbers and statistics with a full understanding of the underlying calculus) those hypotheses. (I doubt I could do the calculus to check statistical models myself, any more. Too much water under the bridge. 🙂 The stat courses sociology and psychology students take do not generally require such understanding-even at the graduate level-since most soche and p-sych research is “cookbook science” designed to obtain a predetermined outcome.

Note: I did NOT say “all” sociology and psychology research, ‘K?

So “real science”? No, in fact, since it usually deals in generalizations from large numbers absent the rigors of real science, it’s usually more voodoo than p-sych is.

Usually. Though you recall I did say because of the large numbers/trends it supposedly deals with, it has the potential for being more scientific than p-sych, which must by its nature generalize from smaller sample sets, that is, individuals, even though it attempts to use large groups of these smaller samples.

(Unless of course the sample sets include a LOT of multiple personalities heh)

The problem is largely in preconcieved bias being superimposed on sociological “experiments” without the open and clearly stated fact that almost NO sociological (or psychological) experiment is truly falsifiable in the scientific sense-that is, stated in a hypothesis that is capable of being PROVEN wrong if the data does not support it, AND still manages to describe a significant process. Or even something that exists at all, except in the biases of the observer.

So really, “science” applied to p-sych or soshe is more of a description of attempting to approximate applying scientific research principles, not actually a description of real science.

But that does not mean that either is an invalid discipline. Scientific knowledge and exploration is only one type of knowledge/exploration. The fact that p-sych and soshe attempt to appropriate the name “science” to their disciplines says more about either the lack of knowledge of people in those disiplines OR their low self-esteem (or both) than it does about what they learn. As an example in another field of appropriation of the label and terms of scientific inquiry, Creationist wackos have attempted to appropriate the label “Intelligent Design” and hijack its terms in much the same way, but that doesn’t make the Creationism=Intelligent Design equation true, either. (Nor, for that matter, does Neodarwinist whines, shouts and table-thumping about their version of evolution being fact have anything whatever to do with science… )

Pretty much ditto with climate shift research, though there, the problem is in too much data available to sample and not enough of it being actually sampled, then what little is gathered filtered through a predeterministic political agenda.

Kinda like with most sociology.

But I digress… 😉

The value of what little real approximations of scientific research done in the names of psychology and sociology lie in the ability of observant and discerning individuals to appropriate the research that is validated by their real world experience and treat the rest simply as interesting intellectual exercises. Often intellectual exercises in discerning the biases and preconceptual biases of the “researchers” is a lot more fun (and revealing) than the p-sych or soshe “research” itself, where the research doesn’t really have any darned thing in the world to do with the real world.

(See much of DSM-IV for examples of “scientific” classification of mental states/behaviors. Compare with past DSMs. It’s becoming more and more stratified… and more and more voodoo-ish.)

But that’s my opinion. What about you?

Linked at Don Surber, Committees of Correspondence, Lunch at Basil’s (Dessert 🙂

…and a ticked off neighbor

It sure wasn’t “Homeland Security” (whatever that means this week) at work… at least not the good ole American kind.

Al-Qaida Operative Nabbed Near Mexican Border

“An al-Qaida operative who was on the FBI’s terrorist watch list was recently captured near the Mexican border, housed in a Texas jail and turned over to federal agents, Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, said on Friday… The Iraqi national “had apparently aggravated a neighbor in Mexico, who turned him in to Mexican authorities,” he explained. Mexican officials then turned him over to the U.S. officials… “

Plain dumb luck. If we had good border security, we’d not have to depend on dumb luck, though.

Report: 10 Million Illegal Aliens in U.S.

Gee. The Al-Qaeda guy woulda been better off to do his observations from the U.S. side of the border, eh? Yeh, well, there are probably plenty of ’em doing that already. “Border Patrol,” “Homeland Security”… pull the other one.

Build a sieve and call it a border.

Institute harrassment of Medal of Honor receipients, active duty military (in uniform and with orders), nursing mothers (drink that breast milk, ma’am!) and call it “air travel security”. (Do I have to link to these well-documented events?)

Hogwash.

Linked at Committees of Correspondence, Is It Just Me?, Don Surber, NIF, Robinik.net, The Political Teen, MacStansbury, Right Wing Nation, and Thanksgiving Week Open Trackbacks at Choose Life! (Note that one, folks-looks like someone may be taking aim at NIF’s attempted Mongous Trackback Post. heh), Blogin’ Outloud, The Florida Masochist

Before you read this, put down the coffee. No, swallow that last sip, don’t hold it. (Eeew. Cleaning coffee outa keyboards and offa monitors is such a pain.) NOW, CLICK HERE and read.

heh

h/t Right Wing Nation Open Trackback Saturday post (Yeh, I’m that far behind in my reading, but catching up as fast as I can-have you discovered yet just how many cool blogs these Open Posts are bringing “up front”? Cool! Dwarfs even my collection of blogrolls… )

Check out the Open Trackback info below the Featured Blog

Ipso Facto Blog has become a daily read for me, ever since Mike Wallster tracked back to me here. Mike’s talent and his eye/ear for humor are unmistakeable. He’s also very quick to respond to comments. One day, I mentioned I needed to find/work out a script to display his comic on my sidebar, so as to both point folks to his Ipso Facto Blog and to be a “quick link” for me to click on to check the full-size version at his blog. Next day? He had one ready for folks. Cool. Pick up the script by checking out this post. Or just Click on the comic below and pick the script up.

OPEN TRACKBACKS!

Today is an Open Post Day, all day. In fact, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays (Friday’s post open all weekend) are Open Trackback Post days.

Open Post info: Edit a post (or posts 🙂 of your own that you want to have featured here to include a link to this post. Trackback to my trackback URI (just right-click on “trackback” at the foot of this post and select “copy link” or “copy link location”–however your browser indicates. If your blog software can’t send trackback pings you can use Wizbang’s Standalone Trackback Pinger. If you have trouble, please leave a comment. I’ll try to help. Be sure to reference the Open Trackback Alliance blogroll and the Open Trackback Provider blogroll in my left sidebar. The more you play, the more folks will see your posts!

Update: for folks that trackbacks are new to, here’s what you need to trackback to this post:

Link this URL:

http://thirdworldcounty.blogspot.com/2005/11/monday-featured-siteopen-post.html

in your post somewhere.

Enter this trackback URI in your trackback pinger:

http://www.haloscan.com/tb/mnmus/113252155454456784/

Linked at Committees of Correspondence, Is It Just Me?, Don Surber, Conservative Cat, NIF, Robinik.net, The Political Teen, MacStansbury, Right Wing Nation, Jo’s Cafe, Breakfast at Basil’s and Thanksgiving Week Open Trackbacks at Choose Life! (Note that one, folks-looks like someone may be taking aim at NIF’s attempted Mongous Trackback Post. heh), Blogin’ Outloud, The Florida Masochist

…the Coltillion Interview and while the questions Basil asked and the answers the ladies gave were all almost equally interesting, this one tickled my fancy:

“How do you handle writer’s block?”

The ladies’ answers were cool, but I prefer my method of dealing with writer’s block over all others:

I simply emulate James Joyce and start spewing unconnected, random words that have apparent connection without having any cohesive meaning. When something starts to stick to the screen, I know I’ve found some good $*** and start blogging.

Often, I’m wrong of course, and it’s not good $*** at all, but really bad $*** and ought to be a candidate for a “worst of the blogosphere” award. So? It still keeps the voices in my head mollified…

😉

Maybeso. Not confirmed. Keep an open mind on this, but cautious optimism seems warranted since even Reuters notes the possibility. heh

If true, it won’t end the terrorist attacks on civilians in Iraq, but it will put a dent in them-again, if this proves out.

UPDATE (Monday): Nope. New news says probably NOT. More as things unfold, but this was just a lil premature, looks like.

OTOH, maybe for Christmas Santa will put a Zarqawi in America’s stocking. heh. (I’d rather he deliver some spine and stones to Republican’t Congresscritters, but bagging Zarqawi looks to be more possible… )

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