COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas from the EB


18 comments:

  1. Cops In Scottsdale Ask For Citizenship Proof ...

    ...illegals 'self deport' as woes mount

    PHOENIX (AP) - Police in suburban Scottsdale have begun routinely asking for proof of citizenship from every suspect they arrest and turning those who are in this country illegally over to federal immigration officials.

    The procedure was started Oct. 15, a result of the September killing of Phoenix police officer Nick Erfle by an illegal immigrant, Erik Jovani Martinez.

    Scottsdale police had arrested Martinez on a misdemeanor charge 16 months earlier but they released him then because they didn't know he was an illegal immigrant who had been twice deported.

    Erfle's killing "caused us to look at what were asking suspects," Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said. "If we arrest someone and then find that we called ICE (Customs and Immigration Enforcement) and they put a hold on them, then we know they have been deported and are back again."
    ---
    Seems a little more than anecdotal that the first to go would be the last to be a criminal problem:
    Those concerned about the law/their work.

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  2. jeeze, smacks forehead--

    1) Catty Shack snack--shrimp and tuna flavor
    2) Smarty Catnip
    3) Blow Up Kitty Shelter-self inflating
    4) Kitty Scratch Pad
    5) Battery powered Catnip Bird that peeps and jumsps
    and
    6) Bird Tweating Wand with Tassle on end for playing with the cat.

    Shows who counts around this house.

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  3. AlBobAl,
    You could provide the sources of that Cat Exotica.
    My Cat needs a playmate.
    ...but then we'd have two cats.

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  4. Your previous peeping in the sack posts rate #1 in Ahoha Doug's Years Best Posts List.

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  5. Merry Christmas to you Doug. Heading out for a drive here. Got to spend some carbon credits!

    She got all that stuff from WalMart of course.

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  6. Great, we can both support an American Institution.
    ...so to speak.
    Merry Christmas to BobAl, and All!

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  7. Thanks, Deuce, and Whit, for giving a bunch of old reprobates a place to hang out - and for some Great, thought-provoking Posts.

    Let's all remember to take a minute to offer up a Prayer for the Troops in Iraq, and Afghanistan, tomorrow. And, have a Great Christmas. All of you old farts. :)

    All the Best

    Rufus

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  8. Thanks Ruf, it is a two way street.

    May I say, "This thing of ours", has been a lot of fun.

    An expanding life is a life where we can take our experiences and help make them relevant to the present with a possible lesson for the future. That we can do so with this fraternity of strangers is a unique experience in the long chain of human history.

    When we were kids, we would receive a merciless attack from a brother or sister for doing or saying something stupid. It was done so within the natural bonds and back-handed tough love of family life. Some of that is here. Onward and upward.

    Merry Christmas to one and all.

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  9. Yep, doug's Scottsdale story jives with what I expected from the illegals

    MOVING WITHIN THE UNITED STATES

    While some illegal immigrants are simply self deporting, others are moving within the United States to avoid federal immigration raids and pro-enforcement measures passed by a patchwork of state and local authorities.

    Among them are undocumented immigrants in Marshalltown, Iowa, where Mexicans and Central Americans workers at a Swift & Co meatpacking plant were arrested during coordinated immigration raids across six states a year ago that netted hundreds of employees.

    Moses Garcia, a U.S. citizen who came from Mexico 18 years ago and knew many of the families affected by the 2006 raid through his church and real estate work, said most of the workers have left to other states, not back to Mexico.

    "They feel like they are not welcome here," Garcia said. "They go to Minnesota, Atlanta, Nebraska, California."

    In Arizona, where some specially trained sheriff's deputies already enforce immigration laws and a new state law sanctioning businesses hiring undocumented workers is due to come in to effect January 1, many illegal immigrants are eyeing a move to states they see as less hostile.

    Among them is day laborer Fernando Gutierrez who trekked illegally into the desert state 18 months ago from Mexico, and is now thinking of joining a cousin working in Oregon in the Pacific northwest.

    "Everyone lives in fear of the police stopping you for some minor infraction and then asking for your papers," Gutierrez said as he touted for work in the chill morning air at a Phoenix day labor site.

    "I want to get as far away from here as possible."


    Papers?
    We never needed no stinking papers!

    Moving to Cal-e-fornia.
    Which is fine by me, I do not go there often.

    Merry Christmas to all
    each and evey one!

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  10. NyTimes Has a Video on the Front Page on the Anbar Awakening:
    The USA Officer paints an optimistic outcome.
    Some Iraqis predict the Sunni/Shia Conflict predicted by 'Rat.
    Can always hope we know more about Iraq than Iraqis, right?
    I mean, hope DOES spring eternal!

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  11. Soon there will be free healthcare for all "Californians", brought to all by that same Governator that gave that tremendous CONSERVATIVE speech at the Convention.
    Words and Deeds.

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  12. Free healthcare? Wow, the best we can hope for from Hillary or Obama is health insurance for everyone, but it would still be accounts payable.

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  13. All I did was read what the leaders of Iraq were saying, doug.

    Nothing all to hard about that.

    Then giving those folk some respect, that they'd be telling the truth about what they were going to do.

    Then what the US military puts out, mix the pieces together.

    It's worked out about ...
    ... every time.

    The biggest news of the last month, that the Iraqi said that this is the last renewal of the UN occupation mandate. While some of the hardline Shia called for that, last year, this time Malaki and the the UN Ambassador made public statements to that effect.

    They won't turn back from it, or they'll get killed.

    It's good bye time, to close out Team43's term. How it's spun, that's the only issue left. Whether we work out a "stay behind" force or not.

    If the US is willing to pay and stay out of the way, they may let US stay in Fallujah or one of the other mega-bases.
    Stage management between now and November is the important thing, stuff that Team43 has never been really good at, but they have pulled a chestnut or two out of the fires, before.

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  14. The time table for withdrawal will reach through the 2009 Iraqi elections, November, I think.

    We'll be down to around 65,000 or 75,000 by then, if we maintain the proposed brigade a month timetable.

    Which is about all the normal logistic capacity seems to be able to handle.

    Then it's rush the rest out, or settle into a couple of those bases we built.

    But the Civil War will fire up after the elections, when the Shia are still in control of everything, and the Sunni Awakening Councils will not disarm.

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  15. “The LORD bless you and keep you;

    The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you;

    The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)

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  16. Just north of the Utah/Arizona line is Monument Valley

    In our Lutheran way, we always sing Silent Night, along with the candle lighting...love's pure light. Radiant beams from thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace...

    Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

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