American Warmonger

Scott Peterson Found Guilty!

Finally, the Scott Peterson trial has come to an end. The jury has found him guilty in the first degree. After all of the hype they have finally come to the conclusion that he done did the deed. The only thing left for the media to rant and slobber over is whether he'll get the death penalty or not. Considering the location of the trial it is doubtful that this will come about. More than likely he will get life without parole.

Now that it's over here's my one and only rant on the subject:

How in the hell does a crap salesman (yes, he sold fertilizer) murdering his wife and dumping the body in a lake make national news? Why the hell does he get special attention? Was he John Kerry or George Bush's fertilizer salesman? I could see them needing one with the ammount they flung around this election season. Unfortunately, he was none of this. He was some asshat that was cheating on his wife and ended up killing her. He was a no name with a pretty face. Is this what we're coming to? Is this going to be the next round of reality shows? CBS presents - The most cutting edge reality show ever: Congenial Killers! Come on, I know you're thinking the same thing as me: You really don't care how this thing went as long as you didn't have to hear about it anymore. One crap salesman down, two more to go; Where's Carl Rove and Mary Beth Cahill?

Rant part 2:
I'm going to throw my death penalty views in here because, well, it could happen to the turd. I believe that Scott Peterson should not be visiting Arafat in hell anytime soon. All evidence convicting him was circumstantial. Granted, there was a huge pile of circumstantial evidence but there still could have been a way, a remote way, that it might not have been him. Do we really want to kill an innocent man? People in America are sent to death row every year that are not guilty of the crime they were charged with. Innocent people have been killed. There is no justification for this. It's just plain wrong. I'm not advocating getting rid of the death penalty though. I'm advocating making it harder to sentence someone to death. I would like to see something like: "murder in the first degree", and "abso-friggin-lutely guilty of murder".

I would even go so far as to streamline the wait for those that had video documentation or other equally damning evidence. There's no reason we should have to wait 20 years to take someone out of this world that desperately needs it. The thing that gets in the way most of the time is the appeals process. Even if there was a signed confession, murder weapon, videotape, DNA evidence, and 50 witnesses they still get to appeal their case. I don't want to see that part go away because it sometimes helps those that are innocent go free but we should really fast track the ones that really need killin'. They should even be able to wave their right to appeals and we could take them out of this world the next day. I really don't want my tax dollars spent on some convict we know killed someone egregiously to just sit in jail sucking up our hard earned money. Put them down, they deserve it.

It's about Friggin' Time!

Yasser Arafat is dead. I called him dead last week here. He's been dead for a week. Don't let anyone tell you different. You can keep a headless man on life support but that doesn't mean he's alive. I find it funny how they made sure to keep him on life support for a week. The theories as to why they would do this are:

1.
According to Islamic law, he needs to be sent to hell...er...planted within a rather short period of time after his death. No one would take him. They didn't want to put him in Palestine and Israel told them to pack sand so they finally had to settle on the Gaza Strip. I was willing to suggest that he take Jim Morison's plot in France and we can take Jim back stateside. That way Americans would have no reason to go to France unless it was to spit on something, like Arafat's grave.

2.
Everyone was trying to figure out where he stashed all of his money. It is understood that Mr. Tablecloth-for-a-hat was worth around 2 Billion or so. His wife, who hasn't seen him in ages, has been living off her inheritance in France and would like to cash in her chips as the heir to everything. I'm sure the rest of the PLO would like a share of it as well. My guess is that one of the major topics of discussion was how to funnel everything out of his Swiss bank account before they pulled the plug. This is only my speculation though and all of the money he was holding for the Palestinian people will be distributed back into their government structure....right? Let me say this again...around 2 Billion, with a "B".

3.
The question on everyone's mind is who will be taking over and what will happen to the PLO? They've been running around like chickens with their heads cut off hoping beyond hope that Are-ya-fat will have a lucid moment, wake up and name them the next dictator. Well, this didn't happen and all of the lemmings had to make up their own minds for a change. The most obvious choice was made. Mahmud Abbas, the leader of the Fatah organization that has challenged Arafat for the throne was unilaterally chosen to head the PLO. The Fatah organization has gone to Farouk Khadoumi the long time foreign minister that was an outspoken critic of the Oslo peace accord. He was thought to be the eventual successor to Arafat by some. Many people consider this a great decision. Unless he's assassinated, like often happens in the west bank, Abbas will more than likely be a strong supporter of peace negotiations in the near future.

I really should not be happy about anyone's death but I am happy about what Arafat's death may bring. Abbas has done great things in the past and would have probably done more if he wasn't stifled by Yessir. He was one of the major aides in Oslo and publicly calls for an end to the Palestinian resistance movement with frequency. This is not a guarantee of peace on the West Bank but it is definitely looking good. It's about Friggin' time!

Happy Donut day!

I've been unable to find the original POW remembrance about today but I'll try to retell it to the best of my ability.

Many years ago, in a place called Vietnam, there was an American prisoner of war camp. Life at such camp was brutal with almost daily beatings and interrogations. It was a hard life but most people survived by the little things that they could pull over on their captors. One such event was the American national holiday, donut day. Occasionally at the POW camp the captors would treat their prisoners to a Vietnamese semi-sweet bread that resembled a donut. After one of the standard interrogations the prisoner came back not dejected but barely stifling roucous laughter. He had managed to convince the Viet Cong that today, the 10th of November was a great American holiday. He had convinced them it was going to be donut day. Two weeks or so went by before the 10th and sure enough, the Viet Cong had brought the inmates each a donut. They had succeeded, they had convinced the Viet Cong to celebrate the fictional holiday of Donut Day! Just another fine example of American injenuity in the face of adversity.

Why is this so important? There is no donut day but the story is true. The Viet Cong did celebrate donut day on the 10th of November. So what would be such a great success if it wasn't for just another date? For those of you who don't know today is the Marine Corps' birthday! The young marine had convinced his captors to celebrate the Marine Corps birthday!

Happy 229th birthday Marine Corps!!!

So What's The Deal With All The Cats?

Everybody else is taking pictures of stinking cats. So the question is: If everyone was jumping off a bridge would you?..Yeah, probably.

...and here's a cute photoshop my grandma sent me. The way things are going I might have to start a family blog in addition to this one:

NEW BLOGGER ALERT!

Kristian, a Navy buddy of both Radio Cyborg and I has his first post up. Unless someone knows of anyone else I'm claiming him as The first "Post-Election" blogger to the sphere. Please welcome him aboard.

I alomst forgot. His blog is: Second Hand Hate Speech

La' Migra'!

Liberal Warrior has boldly gone where no politician has dared to go: Immigration Reform

Since no one covers this I've got absolutely no idea where I should stick this...please no comment. Since this started on the Left I'll add some text to the Right.

So, the problem as Liberal Warrior sees it is simple enough to solve with the three things we see on the surface: residency for those aliens already here, migrant worker visas and tightening up the border. I wish it were that easy but I don’t think it is. If it were it would have been done years ago. I'm not saying that these are the wrong three things to be looking at. I'm saying that they're the tip of the iceberg.

The INS (Immigration and Nationalization Service) has been traditionally one of the slowest and ridiculous branches of the government we have. Go down to your local INS office and try to get something done on your lunch hour. Unless you've got all of your paperwork completed and bribed your way to the head of the line you will not make it in time.

The painful slowness doesn't end there. Imagine you need to do something other than get a simple visa. Imagine you need to file your paperwork for permanent residency. Your one time, two hour long wait has now turned into at least three separate two hour long waits and potentially a three hour long interview after the year and a half you've waited for them to complete your paperwork.

If it sounds like I have some personal vestment in this waste of agency you're right. My wife is a Korean national. The two years from entry in country to permanent resident status was my own. It was not three visits with an interview, it was six. Three of those times were to get the proper paperwork (still with a two hour wait) because they didn't understand what a PDF was. Fortunately, our interview only took 30 minutes to an hour. Eventually she wants to get her citizenship but if we have to deal with those knuckleheads again I don't know if she'll ever be sworn in.

The reason that politicians don't bring up immigration is because the entire system needs to be completely redone from the top down. Let me explain in detail:

To their credit, they have made filing and printing most of your paperwork much easier to do. Much of their paperwork is now both online and has e-file. However, everything sent to them via e-file still has to be printed out and ferreted around to their paper laden desks. Hearken back, if you will, to the newsy days when your inbox was actually a wooden box and not sponsored by Microsoft Outlook. This is where they still sit. It is still done by pen and ink, not pixels. The solution to this is quite simple to anyone smart enough to have heard of a digital signature. Take away the paper and make their processes electronic.

Now what does this have to do with aliens? How does that help terror at home? Remember this: many of the terrorists involved with the actions of 9/11 were already on an international watch list for terror. The slow and inefficient paper filing of the INS allowed them to live in this country unadulterated for years. There was and is no digital database for all of the INS paperwork. It is still put on pieces of paper and stuffed in one of many filing cabinets to collect dust. With digital filing and processing they could create an instantly accessible database nationally or even internationally.

I know a little bit of work has been done with this but it only catches a few people, like Cat Stephens. Some have said the system they have is nearly impossible to keep updated and improbable to catch anyone with. Knowing that Cat or Allah or whatever his alias is this week, donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Hamas is good enough for me. Keep him in Europe where they sympathize with moonbats. The system is flawed and does need improvements, vast improvements. Oracle has a good product that could easily be used to database everything in the INS. They could even tie it in with Social Security. For those out there that believe this is an impossible task ask yourself how credit card companies do it. If MasterCard can find you when you miss a payment then why can't the INS if you stayed late on your visa? They're dragging their feet don't let them fool you.

Now that I've gotten that piece off my chest let me address the three aforementioned proposals:

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At 8 to 12 million aliens there is absolutely no way to send them all back to where they came from. Much of our land was once their land. L.A. stands for Los Angeles, the city of Angels. It was named by the locals and not the cowboys that took over and sent them all to Mexico. There was a war about it and unless we want to declare war on L.A. I think we need to take the suggested approach and streamline a system for undocumented workers.

Here is my approach for doing this:

We need to have a moratorium for undocumented workers in America. All those in the country without paperwork would have a set amount of time in which to find a job and file paperwork for moratorium status. They would not be provided full citizenship but would be protected as a migrant worker residing in the United States. I would give a period of three months in which to find a job and file paperwork as a migrant worker. Anyone unable to comply with this would be subject to immediate deportation. If we have to rent busses or semi-trucks for one mass drop then that's what we'll have to do. They will have been given their golden opportunity and if they choose to ignore it they can suffer the consequences.

Those that have filed paperwork (or e-filed, preferably) would be given the opportunity to file for citizenship in two years time of continuous work with no break in employment greater than four months in total unpaid unemployment. I know the influx of 8 to 12 million filers would be considered daunting to the current INS but again, if the go digital and streamline their aged systems it could be just slightly better than absolute chaos. The standard citizenship procedures would apply including the test and interview but those with an employer's recommendation would get priority in paperwork processing. Hopefully, that would assist in prioritizing processing and additionally aid in reducing fraud.

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What about the people crossing our borders everyday to find work? They do the jobs we don't want to do. They do the jobs that our kids don't even want to do. They pick our cabbages, strawberries, blueberries, and tomatoes. They do all this because it's a better life than they had before. The people who employ them know they're paying them slave wages. They give them no medical support and are not above beating them because they know they won't say anything for fear of being deported. My above solution will help those that are already here but does nothing for those who flood the borders every day.

Something California has tried to do now and again is create a migrant worker visa. These are people that would cross the border in the morning, work in our fields and go back to Mexico in the evening. Every time this proposition has hit the table it has been shot down by people who don't understand it. They are afraid that it will mean people will lose their jobs and those not losing their jobs would get paid less due to the foreign competition. What I propose is that in order to a position to be filled by a migrant worker it would need to be unemployable to the standard American. With the previous solution we may not have too many jobs available to fill but that will eventually change as those applying for citizenship gradually become more educated and thus retain more technical positions. It would only be used when citizens or migrant residents are unavailable or unwilling to take the jobs. It would also not be considered an "all or nothing" endeavor. If a farm needs 200 people to pick cabbage and half of those positions are filled with teenagers or migrant residents then the remaining 100 positions could be picked up by migrant workers.

This covers the problem of having jobs that no American or migrant resident would want but does little to quell the flow of illegal border traffic. The solution to this problem lies in making it so Mexicans do not need or want to cross the border looking for work. Something I have become more familiar with as of late are tariffs and import taxes. It appears that one of the things keeping poor countries poor are the taxes levied against them for import goods. If we were to reduce those taxes and tariffs against high migration counties, such as Mexico, we would increase the real Gross Domestic Product of that country and ultimately increase the yearly salary of workers in Mexico and other countries. With increased pay and better living conditions available through the greater GDP there will be less of a desire to cross the border to find work. This may seem very nuanced but it's really quite simple. If you can get them paid well in their own country they won't need to come infiltrate ours.

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The third and final suggestion (Yes, I've got an end to this thing.) was to get tough on the borders. If what I have suggested above does not completely correct the problem, which I doubt anything will completely, we need to enhance the border guards to reduce the flow of undocumented workers/illegal aliens. Something I noticed while living on the border of San Diego and Tijuana was that the only people allowed to touch an unauthorized border crosser was The Border Patrol. The police have absolutely no jurisdiction unless they try to break into your house or make an attempt to harm you. Simply jumping over your six foot tall fence and looking through your windows as they pass through is not enough to stir up the police. It reminds me of the separation between the CIA and the FBI. It's a wall that doesn't need to be there. The police should be able to assist in border issues and vice versa. If we need to make it illegal to cross the border without papers for the police to get involved then that's what we have to do. I understand that legitimate police work takes precedence over border issues but I'm sure there could be some assistance in both directions.

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You can shoot all of this down if you want but at least give me the common courtesy of providing an alternate solution. It won't work man! Your idea sucks! is not a proper response. If you've got a better way say so. I'm not the mad scientist that knows everything. Input is greatly encouraged. Since the politicians won't touch this with a ten-foot pole it's up to us to make these things up. Who knows, maybe we can propose some sort of joint referendum to congress?

Cross-Posted at The Left Right Debate Here.

Update on Children's Vote

Anybody remember the picture of my six year old son holding up his voter registration card? The Local newspaper fanally has something about it in this Sunday's paper. The following is their small but to the point article.

Bush won local children's vote

President Bush won not only the official vote in Virginia Tuesday, but the children of Hampton Roads also chose to grant him a second term.

Of the more than 46,000 young people who cast ballots alongside parents at polling places on Election Day, 57 percent supported Bush while 42 percent backed Democratic challenger Sen. John F. Kerry. The Constitution and Libertarian party candidates split the remaining votes.
Hundreds of volunteers staffed more than 250 polling places throughout the region as part of Kids Voting USA, a national program whose local chapters help children develop the habit of voting.

Winsome E. Sears may wish the children's votes counted. They gave her the nod in the 3rd District congressional race, though she lost the real election to incumbent Robert C. "Bobby" Scott.

In the 1st and 4th districts, children voted to return incumbent congressional Reps. Jo Ann Davis and J. Randy Forbes, respectively. In the 2nd, they opted for Thelma Drake.

I could make some comment about how Republicans teach their kids at a young age but that would be both stupid and wrong. The moral of this article is that we are the ones that teach our children how to do everything, even vote. If you want your children to make a change then teach them to make a change. Usually, not always, they turn out to be exactly what you put into them. If you speak slang and foul language then they will grow up to do the same thing. They may make their own future but it's up to us to show them the way.