If You Mean No, Why Not Say No?
Paul Ryan was asked by Neil Cavuto if he might run for president. He answered as follows:
“I want to see how this field develops. I think other people are going to be getting in the race. I was hoping Mitch Daniels would be getting in the race; he obviously didn’t do that.”
That doesn’t sound like “No”, does it?
Sizeable Majorities Favor Targeting Employers of Illegals
Janet Napolitano, with whom I seldom agree on anything, once made a wise observation about efforts to shut down the border to illegal crossings; she said, “Show me a ten-foot fence, and I’ll show you people with eleven-foot ladders.”
As long as there are employers willing to hire illegals and there are desperately poor people willing to endure the hardships and dangers of crossing the Arizona desert to find those employers, no fence or other impediment will stop them. The solution to illegal immigration is to make it extremely dangerous to knowingly hire illegals.
Most Americans recognize this fact, even if their government doesn’t, which is why it was so satisfying to see Arizona’s law against employment of illegals upheld recently. According to Rasmussen, strong majorities favor such crackdowns.
… 61% of Likely U.S. Voters favor a law in their state that would shut down companies that knowingly and repeatedly hire illegal immigrants. Just 21% oppose such a law …
In addition 82% think that companies should be required to use the government’s E-Verify system (which is part of the Arizona law).
Mae Klong Market, Thailand
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3WF1ukNAH0[/youtube]
Sphexish
It is commonplace to make the observation that repeatedly performing the same action and expecting different results is a sign of insanity. In fact, this is so common a statement that it deserves a word of its own. I have decided to perform an important public service by suggesting “sphexish” (sphex is classical Greek for wasp).
From a weekly newsletter, World Wide Words:
When such a wasp returns to its burrow with a paralysed cricket to feed its grubs, it will leave it at the entrance while it checks inside that all is well. It then comes out again and drags its prey inside. This gave a naturalist with a cruel streak an idea for a bit of behavioural research. He moved the cricket a little way away while the wasp was in its burrow. When the [wasp] surfaced and found its cricket was missing, it searched for it and returned it to the entrance to its burrow. It then repeated its search of the inside. No matter how many times the cricket was moved, the wasp repeated the same steps robotically without working out what was going on.
Douglas Hofstadter recounted the story in one of his Metamagical Themas columns in Scientific American in 1982 and coined “sphexish” for this unthinking deterministic or pre-programmed behaviour, in which the wasp was at the mercy of its instincts and environment. In a book derived from his columns, Hofstadter later suggested that humans might likewise exhibit such robotic behavior …
Quickly Noted
Apparently Money Isn’t Vital to Happiness. Heck, Food Isn’t Even Important: North Korea is the second-happiest country in the world, according to researchers. Well, it probably ought to be noted that that’s ‘according to North Korean researchers.’ No word on why China is happier. Passed on to Weekend Miscellany by MWS.
The Law Is an Ass: An interesting side story on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent doings is that he is not legally liable for child support in the case. “Schwarzenegger fathered a child with Mildred Patty Baena, who was married to Rogelio Baena at the time. Under California law, Schwarzenegger wouldn’t be obligated to pay a dime in child support – but deceived husband Rogelio Baena would be.” It should be noted that Schwarzegger tried unsuccessfully to change this law.
Add your miscellany in the comments. No Weiner/Wiener jokes, however. If a known cheap-shot artist like me can resist the temptation, so can you.
June 4th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
I’d rather talk about Paul Revere’s ride and what people think they know about it.
I know I learned something form Sarah Palin.
Strange, she says she’s touring to put the focus on the foundations of this country and what went in to making it great…and I end up learning history I never got in school. (public school, I’m a victim)
So ring the bells and fire the shots. We have to warn the British Regulars we are armed and free and we are staying that way!
Woot!
June 4th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2011/06/palin-gives-media-a-history-lesson-revere-warned-british-and-they-retreated.html
The media and the Left are celebrating as they believe they’e shown-up Sarah Palin. Oops! Turns out she’s correct. They appear to be taking their history from Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride”, which wasn’t written until 1860, almost 100 years after the event.
Here’s a more elaborate telling by a historian, which spells it out rather clearly.
Revere and Dawes then headed for Concord and came across Doctor Prescott who then joined them. They decided to alarm every house along the way.
Just outside of the town of Lincoln, they were confronted by 4 Regulars at another road block. They tried unsuccessfully to run their horses through them. Prescott, who was familiar with the terrain, jumped a stone wall and escaped. Revere and Dawes tried to escape and shortly into the chase they were confronted by 6 more regulars on horseback. Revere was surrounded and taken prisoner. Dawes got away as they were taking Revere into custody.
The British officers began to interrogate Revere, whereupon Revere astonished his captors by telling them more than they even knew about their own mission. (HA!) He also told them that he had been warning the countryside of the British plan and that their lives were at risk if they remained in the vicinity of Lexington because there would soon be 500 men there ready to fight. Revere, of course, was bluffing.
The Regulars had Revere remount his horse and they headed toward Lexington Green, when suddenly, they heard a gunshot! Revere told the British officer that the shot was a signal “to alarm the country!”. Now the British troops were getting very nervous ….
A few minutes later, they were all startled to hear the heavy crash of an entire volley of musketry from the direction of Lexington’s meeting house and then the Lexington town bell began clanging rapidly! Jonathan Loring, a Lexington resident captured earlier, turned to his captors and shouted “The bell’s a’ ringing! The town’s alarmed, and you’re all dead men!”
The British officers then talked urgently among themselves and decided to release their captives so as they would not slow their retreat.
June 4th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Wow, that market is NUTS!
I can just imagine the lawsuits that would be flung back and forth when, inevitably, someone died as a result of the train going six inches from the people.
On the other hand, our laws are NUTS, too, for allowing such lawsuits.
June 4th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Speaking of Paul Revere, she really sounds pretty bad in that exchange:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS4C7bvHv2w
Almost as bad as this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
June 4th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Bob,
You missed the toss in question at the end of that North Korean study. Buddy Roemer leads over there by 27 points. Apparently his decision to cap donations at $100 has lead many North Koreans to believe that Buddy Roemer knows lots of people who own $100.
June 4th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Matt: I hadn’t heard about Roemer capping donations, but then I haven’t paid much attention to him.
Why would anyone give him any money at all? I can see three reasons for giving a candidate money:
1) He might win and you want to buy some favors.
2) You believe in him ideologically. I doubt that anyone knows what Roemer’s ideology is, or whether he has one.
3) He’s a member of the family.
The third group is presumably limited, and the other two don’t apply to Roemer, so I doubt that he’s giving up many fund-raising opportunities.
If he had more friends in congress, he might be able to get a quick change in citizenship laws to capitalize on his impressive NK support.
June 4th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Bob,
Buddy is going to get rid of special interests. Nobody is going to own him.
Besides, he knows none of his relatives are going to give him more than a hundred bucks anyway, so why not make a virtue out of necessary?