Month: July 2007

From one of my Live Journal friends

He posted “In the immediate aftermath of the Glasgow Airport attack, the driver of the SUV was running around inside the terminal building, on fire and fighting with the Police. My fellow countrymen decided this ‘jist wisnae right’ and proceeded to give the guy a ‘good kicking’ (even though he was on fire!).”

I had to translate this for my wife
” Yo’re no hitting the polis mate , these no chance, so I ran straight down, any member of the public would at the same time would have done the exact same as me, we all ran towards the guy, we all tried to get a kick in at him, get a boot, just subdue the guy”

Illegal Immgration in Prince William County

The immigration system is broken in the US. Last week the Washington Post ran an article talking about a peaceful protest by those who had been been waiting many years for visa numbers to become available so they can move to the next stage and finally get a green card.

Then this week Prince William County County in Virginia approved a resolution denying county services to illegal immigrants and ordering police to take a more vigorous approach in checking immigration status. The only problem is the USCIS is slow and primarily paper based, so there is no easy way to verify immigration status. Even if you are US Citizen and never had to deal with the immigration services look at this list of acceptable forms of proof of citizenship in Fredrick Country Maryland. The vitalchek.com website lists over 400 agencies it can supply a birth certificate for. With all these variations do you really think it will be possible for the average traffic cop in Prince William county to quickly verify citizenship?

Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided Swift, a meat processing plants in December 06 and arrested 1,300 undocumented employees. The employees had been run through the federal employment verification system but the system can’t detect stolen social security numbers and birth certificates.

The more that states crackdown on illegal immigration with out a working federal citizenship verification scheme the more risk that citizens or legal aliens will be stopped and held by mistake. Just look at the Security Theatre we have to endure in the name of anti-terrorism. Think about the documentation you might have to carry in the future just to proves you are a US citizen.

China in the news

Maybe it is that I am trying to learn Mandarin, or maybe it is that I am married to someone who was born in China but it seems like China is in the news alot this week.

You might have read about the obvious stuff like tainted food or polution problems in china. Then something comes along and just makes you go waoh. Reuters is reporting that nearly half of the pregnant teens in China’s financial hub, Shanghai, met their partners on the Internet. That just makes me wonder, computers are that common in china that teens are using them for dating, then I think surely they if they find a mate online they can lookup how babies and made and how not to get pregnant.