EckerNet.Com

DAMN IT!!!

I lost again….

Three times in a row I’ve been amongst the finalist for the Rock Solid in the Blogosphere award and three times I’ve lost. How many times has the award been offered?? Well, I’ll tell you….three times. This is a damn conspiracy I tell you.

Aliens came down, assasinated JFK, then gave secret alien technology to the Bush family, with which they tried to assasinate Reagan, that failed so they waited a couple years to ascend the throne and then for reasons unknown concentrated all their powers on preventing me from winning this award.

Damn it.

*sigh*

Ok…well congrats to Learned Foot for winning. I guess I do owe him a debt of gratitude for freeing me from the clutches of the MAWB Squad. For that I am grateful. Plus he lives like half a block from me so things could get ugly. So congrats Learned Foot. Although we all know the ONLY reason you got this is as a peace offering to end the war betwen KAR and the Nihilist.

I’m beginning to think I’m mailing Sisyphus’ bribe money to the wrong address.

*** Attention ***

DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM MARCH 31st 23:59 pm (GMT) UNTIL 12:01am (GMT) APRIL 2nd.

It’s that time again! As many of you know, each year the Internet must be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean it. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead e-mail and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites, allows for a better working and faster Internet.

This year, the cleaning process will take place from 23:59 pm (GMT) on March 31st until 00:01 am (GMT) on April 2nd. During that 24-hour period, five powerful Internet-crawling robots situated around the world will search the Internet and delete any data that they find.

In order to protect your valuable data from deletion we ask that you do the following:

1. Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their Internet connections.
2. Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the Internet.
3. Disconnect all disks and hard drives from any connections to the Internet.
4. Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any way.

We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet users, and we apologize. However, we are certain that any inconveniences will be more than made up for by the increased speed and efficiency of the Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic flotsam and jetsam.

We thank you for your cooperation.

Fu Ling Yu
Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff Main Branch,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sysops and others: Since the last Internet cleaning, the number of Internet users has grown dramatically. Please assist us in alerting the public of the upcoming Internet cleaning by posting this message where your users will be able to read it.

Please pass this message on to other sysops and Internet users as well.

Thank you.

I’ve been advised by one of my readers that I am beating this immigration issue to death. And they are probably right, but I do so because it’s important. However, I do occasionally listen to my readers so I will take it under advisement.

So tonite, instead of writing up something on illegal immigration I will refer you all to a excellent post by John Hawkins entitled “Answering 13 Frequently Asked Questions About Illegal Immigration“. If you want to familiarize yourself with the basics on this issue, this is an excellent post.

Enjoy.

The old inevitability ploy is often trotted out in immigration debates: It is not possible to either keep out illegal immigrants or to expel the ones already here.

If you mean stopping every single illegal immigrant from getting in or expelling every single illegal immigrant who is already here, that may well be true. But does the fact that we cannot prevent every single murder cause us to stop enforcing the laws against murder?

-Thomas Sowell

Dear Senator,

Among conservatives there appears to be a bit of consternation over the idea that it is the Republican Senators that appear to be waffling on illegal immigration. You see, for many conservatives this is a huge issue. Make no mistake it is an issue that will have an impact on the 2006/2008 elections.

To many of us that pay the bills, man the phones, and and generally campaign for you, it seems inconceivable that in a Republican controlled Senate, there would be serious consideration for a bill that grants amnesty to the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants in our country…illegally. The key word there is illegal, which has taken on new life as “undocumented workers”, as if our laws were simply a case of bad grammer. Much like the term “amnesty”, which is how your base refers to any bill that grants legal status to illegal immigrants already in the country.

In fact, considering the overwhelming opposition there is among conservatives (and the general voting public) to any bill resembling that recently proposed by the Judiciary Committee, it is puzzling why it is being considered at all. I can’t imagine that the move could be a political one. Any sudden surge in Hispanic population would certainly not be likely to vote Republican. So it’s hard to believe that you would consciously be voting yourself out of a job.

However, make no mistake, that is what’s happening. This amnesty bill is very good way to discourage your Republican base from showing up in November. It puzzles me why anyone who is appointed to represent their constituents would do the exact opposite of what their residents want, especially when what they are trying to do is also bad for the country as a whole.

There is no “need” for illegal immigrants, as even the most basic understanding of economics will demonstrate. To grant legal status on illegal immigrants can only serve to encourage others to invade our country, as we’ve demonstrated they will suffer no consequences. We already tried this amnesty thing back in 1986. I believe we were all promised “never again” back then. Why should I believe that it will go any better this time around?

I implore you Senator, to please respect the wishes of the majority of Americans, rather than the corrupt government of Mexico and the thousands of immigrants who make their first act on American soil an illegal one. Please support a bill, such as those passed by the House or proposed by Bill Frist, that protects our borders without capitulating to lawbreakers.

Thank you. I look forward to your response and monitoring your eventual vote.

Sincerely,

Kevin Ecker
http://www.eckernet.com

[In addition to being posted here, this letter has been sent to all Republican Senators via email. If I get anything beyond a form letter blowing me off, I'll post it here as appropriate.]

The Bush administration is pushing a program to legalize “guest workers.” But what is a guest? Someone you have invited. People who force their way into your home without your permission are called gate crashers.

- Thomas Sowell

The Rankings Are As Follows:
Triple “I Whine Like A Child” A : 3
Aelfheld : 2
Dan S : 1
Sola-Man : 1
Mall Diva : 1
Harvey : 1
NightWriter : 1

For this contest you get to make up your own answers!! That’s right…just pretend you’re a real life journalist and just make shit up. Post answers in the comments. They will be judged on creativity, plausibility and humor.

Question : What is this “thing” on it’s way to do?

Previous Contests

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

Thomas Sowell would definitely have to be among one of my favorite writers. He’s always spot on with the issues, with goobers of evidence and common sense to back it all up.

So I couldn’t help but smile when I read an article on Illegal Immigration by Sowell recently that hit upon a point I made a few days earlier. Although, predictably, he did it much better and with much more force than I’m able to.

How often have we heard that illegal immigrants “take jobs that Americans will not do”? What is missing in this argument is what is crucial in any economic argument: price.

Americans will not take many jobs at their current pay levels — and those pay levels will not rise so long as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs.

If Mexican journalists were flooding into the United States and taking jobs as reporters and editors at half the pay being earned by American reporters and editors, maybe people in the media would understand why the argument about “taking jobs that Americans don’t want” is such nonsense.

Another variation on the same theme is that we “need” the millions of illegal aliens already in the United States. “Need” is another word that blithely ignores prices.

If jet planes were on sale for a thousand dollars each, I would probably “need” a couple of them — an extra one to fly when the first one needed repair or maintenance. But since these planes cost millions of dollars, I don’t even “need” one.

There is no fixed amount of “need,” independently of prices, whether with planes or workers.

None of the rhetoric and sophistry that we hear about immigration deals with the plain and ugly reality: Politicians are afraid of losing the Hispanic vote and businesses want cheap labor.

Amen.

When it really comes down to it, just read his whole article….the mans a genius.

I’ve wanted to win Hugh Hewitt’s Crosley Solo Blog Contest for awhile now. But because of some horrible commercials playing on 1280 AM - The Patriot I’ve been boycotting the station for awhile now. And since one of the requirements of the contest is you blog about some topic you heard Hugh ranting about, that makes it a bit difficult since webcasts at work are fragile at best. Alas, my Crosley Solo Radio has remained unwon.

So imagine my joy when generalissimo announced yet another Photoshop contest to promote Hugh Hewitt’s new book. Of course, I can’t pass up a good chance at :
A) Free stuff
2) Free Blog plugs
C) World Domination
NOTE : Still trying to figure out how to work “C” into the plan.

Nevertheless, I have some surefire winners here, so the rest of you don’t need to bother trying. But I’ll appreciate your vote when the time comes!

Apparently Chad the Elder fancies himself quite a sports analyst. To be fair, I’ll join him in laughing at Hugh Hewitt, Mark Yost and Sisyphus for their laughable atttempts at predicting the outcome of the NCAA hockey tournament. However, as even he will admit his own record is a paltry 7-5 which nets him a pitiful two correct picks out of the Frozen Four.

HA! Amateur.

As evidence of that I offer my own 9-3 record so far. Also, my picks, I might point out, were at least as good and mostly better than all of ESPN’s supposed hockey “experts”. And in my own defense, I might add that in two of my three incorrect picks I had pointed out that an upset was very possible. Really my only real failure so far has been giving the Goofers far too much credit. Something I didn’t imagine was possible for an SCSU grad.

Sorry Elder, but I’m going to have to steal your crown as the MOBs best hockey handicapper. However, if it makes you feel better I’ve picked the same two teams for the final game, so chances are you haven’t picked those wrong as well. Better luck next year.

NOTE : And before it has to be pointed out to me… Yes, frequent commenter spurringirl had better picks than the Elder as well….must be something in the water over here at EckerNet.Com.