I can’t decide whether I usually like, or usually don’t like Mr. Jones… but today, I like him.

I’d like him better if he’d start work every day by introducing a bill to build a wall/fence/moat/minefield/whatever on BOTH borders.

At least he calls it like it is (was)… an amnesty bill.

Congressman Walter B. Jones – Releases by DexteraNet

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Third District Representative Walter B. Jones (R-NC) today praised the defeat of Senate legislation that would have offered amnesty to virtually all of the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The Senate voted 53 – 46 today to prevent the advancement of the bill.

“I am pleased that the Senate has finally listened to the American people, who have made it clear that they do not support an immigration ‘compromise’ that does nothing more than compromise our laws and compromise our sovereignty,” Congressman Jones said. “I am especially grateful for the votes of Senators Dole and Burr, who helped defeat this amnesty bill.”

“Amnesty hurts vulnerable American workers, burdens American taxpayers, and rewards lawbreakers,” Jones continued. “The lessons of history are clear: If we give amnesty to millions who came here illegally, inevitably, millions more will follow suit.”

“The American people and the people of North Carolina are justifiably frustrated by this Congress’ inability to effectively secure our nation’s borders,” Jones said. “The illegal immigration crisis is causing higher taxes for social services, higher costs for health insurance, and it costs our public schools millions every year. It also threatens our national security, as our open borders provide an easy entry point for terrorists who wish to do us harm.”

“The only credible approach to solving the problem of illegal immigration is to put border security first,” Jones said. “It is absolutely critical that we regain control of our nation’s borders and strengthen immigration enforcement – without amnesty.”

So I just got done watching “Shooter” (thanks, NetFlix!), advertised to be the new “Bourne Identity”. Great cinematic drama, action packed and interesting from start to finish. I don’t want to spoil anything (yet!), so I’ll just say Marky-Mark (Mark Wahlberg) plays an ex Marine gunnery sergeant slash scout sniper gone survivalist, and pulls it off fairly well. Well, somewhat believably, at least. It was even a cute touch to put Marky-Mark in an Eagle’s jacket at one point in the movie.

If you’re looking for raw action with lots of political intrigue and bad guys who should be good guys, this can be a fun, if predictable, watch.

Now for some spoilers… stop reading now if you’ve not yet seen the movie and don’t want me to reveal important plot lines. (But come back after you’ve seen it and see if you agree!)

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It’s just too bad they didn’t leave it at “interesting” and “exciting”.

The movie is set in current times, throwing around well known political points like Iraq’s WMD’s, Abu-Ghraib, and the fighting in Africa. The bad guys, namely the ever so lovable Danny Glover (Hugo Chavez’ favorite America hating actor), are highly placed civilian contractors in the employ of the US government. Danny boy’s role is that of a former Army Colonel who orchestrates massacres for a fat wicked senator (played by Ned [Deliverance] Beatty); Danny tries to set up Marky to take the fall for the murder of an African Bishop disguised as an attempt to kill the President. Twisted, but it all fits together nicely…

Then, if you think about it just a little, you realize the movie is depicting many of the evil schemes that assholes like Chavez, CNN, the NY Times, the political left, and other notable conspiracy theorists of the day accuse our government of perpetrating on a daily basis. Conveniently putting recognizable faces on the conspiracies makes them memorable… and since the vast majority of the public take their cues (and learn the news) from actors and pop-stars, this bullshit becomes truth in their minds.

Nice work, Hollywood. It’s so evil and insidious that I almost can’t believe how effective it is and will become.

I see through it – but I don’t have much confidence in my fellow citizen to do the same. I have no idea how to fight an idea that is planted and nurtured in a willfully ignorant public that refuses to even take the time to consider the issues and vote their conscience once every few years. Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but the 21st century’s control mechanisms are far closer to those described by George Orwell than anything dreamed up by ancient biblical story-tellers. And Hollywood rakes in BILLIONS every year.

Welcome to the new world.

There aren’t many people whose prosecutions I’d celebrate, but Mike Nifong is definitely one of them. Not just because he’s such an attention whore, but more because of the way he riled up the racist groups in defense of a liar.

Now I want to see apologies from such racists as Louis Farakhan, and the black panthers. Yeah, I know that won’t happen, but it’s nice to dream.

Disbarred Duke prosecutor’s future dim – Yahoo! News

The five-day ethics trial ended Nifong’s three-decade legal career, which he spent entirely as a prosecutor in Durham County. He was generally viewed as an honest lawyer before taking over the case of a woman who told police she was raped at a March 2006 lacrosse team party where she was hired to perform as a stripper.

Aware that DNA evidence had identified genetic material from several men — but no members of the lacrosse team — in the accuser’s underwear and body, and that police were unable to place one of the players at the scene, Nifong still sought and won indictments against Seligmann and Finnerty in April 2006.

I’m still amazed at the effectiveness of the anti-spam security tools in place here. Akismet is the most “proud” of the lot, and rightfully so…

“Akismet has caught 2,000 spam for you since you first installed it.

You have no spam currently in the queue. Must be your lucky day. ”

The daily numbers are still way down, as compared to before the “King of Spam” was tossed in the slammer. Not a coincidence, I think.

Seriously… this guy is pro-American, hard on illegal immigration, and has the recent experience of soundly beating a communist party female candidate. Exactly what we need in 2008.

France gets tough on illegal immigration, setting quotas for arrests, expulsions – Europe – BostonHerald.com

Sarkozy, who was elected May 6, pledged during his campaign to create a ministry of immigration and national identity to rein in the flow of migrants and ensure they are integrated into French society. Riots in French housing projects in 2005 were largely driven by anger among children of immigrants at persistent discrimination and a feeling of alienation from mainstream society.

“The French Republic will be extremely firm. It will ensure laws are applied,” Fillon said, adding: “Naturally, these laws must be applied with the greatest humanity.”

Many saw Sarkozy’s proposal as a nod to the electorate on the extreme right, which long has made fighting immigration one of its main causes.

“Generosity is not opening wide the borders without thought for how people will integrate, how they will live, how they will subsist,” Fillon said.

Right… that’s called national suicide.

Hortefeux, in his meeting with security officials, also insisted on the need to develop a system of paying illegal immigrants to voluntarily return home, setting the number of paid departures at 2,500 for this year _ a 25 percent increase from 2006.

Those volunteering to leave, as part of a program started in late 2005, are given a fixed sum of money, normally $4,700 per couple, with $1,350 each for the first three children.

Brilliant!

Why did this criminal get re-elected? Probably for the same reasons that the city of New Orleans is still dysfunctional and broken after nearly two years of recovery operations. Don’t blame FEMA or George W. Bush… blame a culture of laziness and dependency. This culture doesn’t see an idiot like William Jefferson as a criminal, simply as an opportunist… kinda like Donald Trump.

This joker needs to be convicted and locked up… and squeezed enough to start talking about his congressional cohorts.

Jury Indicts Jefferson in Bribery Probe

WASHINGTON (AP) – Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long- running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa.

The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Va., Monday is 94 pages long and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years. He is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Jefferson is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official.

Almost two years ago, in August 2005, investigators raided Jefferson’s home in Louisiana and found $90,000 in cash stuffed into a box in his freezer.

Jefferson, 63, whose Louisiana district includes New Orleans, has said little about the case publicly but has maintained his innocence. He was re-elected last year despite the looming investigation.

I was just reminded of a conversation I listed to on the Jerry Doyle show the other day regarding the ex-President’s wife’s plan to create a forced (pre?)preschool program for four-year-olds. The talking head dope woman Jerry had on the show referred to the good in this program because “longitudinal studies” had shown that kids formed a large part of their social makeup at that age. The “logic” being they had to learn to be “responsible citizens” in a government run institution rather than at home with their parents.

Well, great, talking head bimbo. You’ve confirmed the reason for Billary’s plan… obviously the liberal, public-education indoctrination can be made more effective if we can just get the kids into the brain-washing stations sooner! What’s next? Straight from the womb to the indoctrination center? I read that book… it didn’t paint a pretty picture.

I was listening to the podcast, so there was no way for me to try to call in and point out this little factoid (Jerry, you blew it on that one!); but it seemed obvious to me that the “educational specialist” was absolutely right, just not providing the rest of the story.

And she used the term “longitudinal study” a few times too many. Of course, she was trying to lend authority to her statements, but by the definition I see, she was a few decades short on data.

Edit: Wow… I just did a google search on the phrase “mandatory preschool“. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d think the indoctrination was already well underway.

OK, I’m not… but it is.

Another Edit: I think I found out where the aforementioned “guest” gets her information… California’s “First5“, who also use the term “longitudinal study” in their materials. Of course they combine the term with the word “recent”, which really boggles my mind.

Let me begin by stating that I’m old enough that my fast and aggressive driving days are behind me. In fact, I’ve always been a fairly safe and defensive driver in traffic, only “letting go” when on the open road with few or no others in sight.

Today on my way to the commissary, a black Saturn rolls up behind me, swings into the left lane, and accelerates past. I was doing the obligatory speed limit plus five (normal and acceptable for this area), so the other driver had to be cruising quite a bit over that. As she showed me her rear bumper, I chuckled as I read her green sticker: “Power to the Peaceful“. My first thought was “Peace to the Powerful” would be more appropriate for this military community.

Then I considered the irony of this apparent “peacenik” driving like a 19-year old Marine on his way to see his girl for the first time after a six-month pump.

Apparently her world-view does not reflect her rules for personal behavior. I bet she plans to vote for Hillary.

Note: She was driving fast, and somewhat aggressively, but not with such urgency as to appear there was some actual emergency… don’t bother to point out she might be on the way to the hospital (she was headed out of town, away from the hospital). In fact, the direction she was headed is entirely rural for twenty miles or more.

Wordpress has added a pile of new features, and as I’ve just discovered, no longer works with a number of plugins I had been using. Part of this was expected – the better plugins are now obsolete, as Wordpress has the same functionality built in now. Some will need upgrading, and I’ll get to that soon. In the meantime, this layout will do.

Sorry for the mess!

I had an “anonymous” call registered on my phone today… the sort I normally ignore. I listened to the message before deleting it – it claimed to be from my credit-card issuing bank – and promptly forgot about it. When I got home, I had an email from the same bank. That one I read… and called the number.

I was asked about a couple of recent purchases (today and yesterday) from vendors I had never heard of. I told the nice fellow I had not made those purchases… and inquired about the last few I did make. He read me the list from the past 30 days, and we found three MORE false charges. Lovely.

The card was immediately canceled and a new one is being mailed to me. All of the false charges have been removed, and will be investigated. I also let them know about the only vendor I’ve dealt with recently that is “new” to me… I’ll hold off naming them until I hear more regarding the investigation. I will say it’s a company I only found because of a “too good to be true” deal on 120mm fans: free after rebate.

I have no idea if the company in question is at fault, either through a security leak, an unscrupulous employee, or outright criminal activity. I will say that in over ten years of dealing with credit cards online, I have never had a problem of this sort. Ever. I’m generally careful to the point of paranoia, with active virus scanning, spyware monitoring, root-kit checking, and both hardware and software firewalls. Everything is patched with all applicable security updates. Does that mean there’s nothing here? Well, nothing common… and I don’t hang out in places I’m likely to acquire anything “uncommon”.

So unless one of the major businesses I regularly deal with have been compromised (and that’s always a possibility), then the likely answer is this new, small company that was supposedly just trying to drum up some business is at fault – intentionally or otherwise. I’ll be contacting them immediately to let them know of my suspicions, and to expect a call from MC’s fraud detection / security department.

On the positive side: I have to commend the service that caught this activity. The charges were all to companies that seemed to be normal for my buying habits (computer related components, primarily). Granted they didn’t catch the first couple, but they did catch it within days, and took immediate action once they did. While I was a bit bothered by the bank representative’s poor command of the English language, it wasn’t so bad as to keep us from dealing with the issue, and he was very polite and helpful.

Will this change my mind regarding online shopping? Probably not – although it will make me wary of small, “new” online businesses, which is a shame. I am a definite proponent of small business, and anything that makes me not want to look to them for occasional purchases means I can’t or won’t support them as much as I’d like. That’s a shame.