“Breaking dramatically from the House’s get-tough prescription for illegal immigration, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Monday to place the nation’s 11 million-plus illegal immigrants on a path to eventual citizenship.” — mercurynews.com

The House recently passed HR 4437 which does the following:

• makes illegal immigration a felony (allowing local law enforcement to have teeth against the problem)
• creates a fine of up to $50,000 against businesses employing illegal aliens (reducing the economic advantage to underpaid workers)
• deports illegal caught in the US (the most logical solution to people in the country illegally – putting them back out of it)

The Senate, however, is apparently afraid of the large protest over the weekend (immigration protest) and sought to appease the Illegal Immigrant Activists. As a side note: it definitely says something about the current state of illegal immigrants in our country when they can come out in public arenas and protest the strengthening enforcement against their illegal activities. That’d be like thieves marching for fewer cops…

The Senate bill that came out of commitee allows the following:

• illegals to stay in the country legally for 3 years if the pay a $1000 bribe – oh – I mean fine.
• after 3 years they must return home or file more paperwork and stay another 3 years legally.
• after that 3 years they can apply for permanent citizenship since they patiently waited at the “back of the immigration line” for 6 years. Never mind that they were able to live and work here legally during their “wait” in line.

But ask anyone and they will vehemently deny this is amnesty. Why? Focus groups have told them that “amnesty” – as a word – is something the American people against. Because surely the masses couldn’t be against amnesty in principal… that would be mean. And were not mean here in America.

This is a topic that will probably rage for the next few weeks as the Senate debates what will make the final bill that will then have to be reconciled with the House bill to create law. Please note that I’m all for legal immigration. I just don’t see how rewarding people that broke the law will reduce the number of law breakers in the future.

That’s right it’s been 3 years since we started the war in Iraq. You will of course hear 4 years in the news because that sounds longer and technically we have started the 4th year of our presence there. What you won’t hear as much any more is our causalty rate. Why? Because it’s going down and mentioning that would be too close to good news. The causalty rate in Iraq has been around 2 deaths per day most months with a few months hitting an average 3 per day. This year, however, the causalty rate has dropped to about 1 per day. Of course here in America we value all human life (so we claim) and so 1 death is 1 too many, but let’s put the war in perspective.

Leading Causes Of Death In America

*rounded to the nearest thousand – most data was from the year 2002
** deaths due to unnecessary surgery,medication errors, hospital errors, infections in hospitals, and negative effects of drugs (http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm)

Not to deminish the loss of our soldiers but by the numbers the Iraq War death toll has been blown way out of purportion. We should be out running or handing out yellow bands instead of having a coronary (pun intended) every time an IED goes off in Iraq… Unfortunately the combination of Anti-Bush sentiment and old hippies longing for their glory days of sex, drugs and Vietnam — have clouded the national debate on the important issue of Iraq.

Oh and if are a part of the magority of Americans (according to a recent AP poll) that considers Abortion Murder… you would have a new number one killer for our chart at a rate of 1,290,000 per year or 3534 per day. About the total of the top two leading causes of death in America combined.

First created as a novelty shirt. The “Stop Snitchin(g)” shirts gained mass popularity after being featured in rap videos. But the effect of the hip hop culture extends beyond simply wearing these shirts: it’s actually reduced snitching. Talk about being a slave to fashion. Certain courts have even banned wearing the shirts in the courtroom due to their effect on witnesses.

"Angered by a Supreme Court ruling that gave local governments more power to seize people's homes for economic development, a group of activists is trying to get one of the court's justices evicted from his own home." – APTo fully understand the impact of this recent Supreme Court ruling let's review: Eminent Domain is the government's ability to seize property at market value for "the public good". Now historically this has been used for things like roads. You would never be able to create in Interstate for everyone's use if a single home owner in the path of the new highway could say 'nah, I don't feel like selling'. This makes sense and seems reasonable to most people. What the Supreme Court ruled recently was this: tax revenues go to the public good (in theory)… so if a developer is going to build something worth more than your home, that would create higher property taxes for the government, which makes it 'ok' to take someone's home and give it to a developer so tax revenues can go up "for the public good".

The problem with this is that just about anyone's home could be developed into something more expenive and therefore create higher property tax revenues. Which means almost anyone's home can be seized by the government if someone wants to build something else there. I guess the Supreme Court missed those property rights in the 5th & 14th Ammendments of the Consitution… Now what these activists have done is taken the point home to the Justices that ruled for the governement and against the home owner. They have gotten on the ballot in David Souter's home town. The issue? Weither or not to seize his home to build a small hotel. This would meet all the necessary requirements to increase tax revenues and justify the use of Eminent Domain to seize his land. I personally think this is GREAT! I mean can he really complain? He was the one that created this new law (yeah Judges can do that these days – no legislative body required) by "finding" it in the Consitution. Will it pass? Probably not, but it would be hilarious if it did. That's the double edged sword of democracy: take away someone's rights and it can take away your own.

• Activists Seek To Evit Souter
• Hotel Souter

“BAGHDAD, Iraq – Twelve car bombs exploded around Iraq on Sunday, including eight in Baghdad that detonated within a three-hour window, as insurgents continued their attacks in the new year… killed no one.” – AP12 cars, 0 people. Seriously, isn’t this getting to the point where we just start laughing at these guys instead of trying to make them seem scary enough for the news? Iraqis are far more likely to be killed while driving their car then if it happens to blow up.

I mean REALLY. This could have been the story right here in the US last night: “Police were out in force last night, but unable to stop the violence as explosions when off in major cities around the country…” For those scratching your heads: The Police were out for the all the DUIs on New Years… Explosions that don’t hurt anyone — we call those “fireworks”. Here. But in Iraq they are a reason to pull out the troops and beg the Jihadists for forgiveness. You know, lest they aim their bottle rockets in our direction.

• AP Link