EckerNet.Com

When I went to school, we were taught about our system of government. I remember it well. Three branches of government, each with Checks & Balances keeping the peace. Each had their responsibilities and roles. The Legislative branch made the laws. The Judicial branch interpreted the laws. And the Executive branch enforced the laws.

Well, either President Bush’s school taught differently or else the game has changed. The Bush administration just recently announced that they will not seek funding for the “Exit” portion of the Entry-Exit program, United States-Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US VISIT).

This is the system which was designed to track the entry and exit of foreign visitors to the United States. If you don’t track all persons as they leave the country, you have no idea who among visiting students, travelers and workers have overstayed their visas and become illegal aliens.

The fact that we have never tracked this is the reason that an estimated 5 million or so former visitors continue to live in this country as illegal aliens. The necessity of a “check-out” system was recognized by Congress in its 1996 legislation. But first Pres. Clinton and now Pres. Bush have refused to implement it.

These are pre-existing laws on the books that the Bush administration is refusing to enforce, and has been their entire administration. They are refusing to follow their legal responsibilities to enforce the law. It is unfortunate that they have chosen to hijack our immigration system for their own purposes, will of the people be damned.

President Bush, you once stated “You’re either with us, or against us“. At the time you directed that towards other nations. Now the people of the United States direct it at you. Are you with us, or against us?

[H/T Numbers USA for the heads up]

Property values in the St. Cloud area started plummeting today, analysts are unable to trace the source of the problem.

In other, news it’s official. “15-minute rule”-abuse and all-around crazy-lady Cindy Sheehan will be in St. Cloud next month.

St. Cloud State University is hosting 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, who will be on campus Jan. 31 for a presentation in Stewart Hall.

Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which has helped women plant more than 30 million trees across Kenya in an effort aimed at conservation and improving the area’s quality of life.

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan will speak that same evening at Ritsche Auditorium.

She has been an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq since her son was killed more than two years ago while fighting in Sadr City.

Sheehan is scheduled to speak at 6 p.m. in Ritsche Auditorium, and Maathai is scheduled to speak at 7:30 p.m. in Stewart Hall.

Maathai was awarded the Peace Prize for her contributions to sustainable development, democracy and peace. She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate, the first woman to chair the University of Nairobi Department of Veterinary Anatomy and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Who wants to bet that she spends less than 10% of her time discussing anything about Africa and/or women’s issues, and about 98% of it slamming Bush and the War on Terror.

Has it been fifteen minutes YET?!

Everyone (and by everyone I mean Minnesotans in the south metro) remain calm! All is well. I Authorities have decided confirmed that the stuff you are seeing fall outside your window right now is in fact snow.

It poses no danger to you nor your kids. In fact kids should be encouraged to play with the stuff. Teenagers are encouraged to throw it at each other. Adults are encouraged to shovel it.

The world is not ending and there is no reason for sacrifice of virgin maidens and/or small woodland creatures, unless you’re into that sorta thing. In that case, please stick to the woodland creatures, it would be a shame to lose the former of the two.

Further forecasts call for an 98% chance of weather forecasters and newscaster hyping this as if Armageddon itself was at our doorsteps. Beware of shitty drivers getting even shittier as they realize they have forgotten how to drive in the stuff even though we get it every damn year.

This concludes our use of the EckerNet Broadcast System. Had this been an actual emergency you wouldn’t have seen a post, since I would be busy gathering my ammo and loading my rifles.

LOL, guess what’s up amongst the loony left at the Daily Kos??? Their own affirmative action

But the reason why I’m writing this diary is to pose a question in regard to his results. If, out of 3,807 Kossacks surveyed, 82% of ‘us’ self-reported as white, 4.2% as black, 4.5% hispanic, 4% asian, 1.1% native american, and 0.08% were hawaiian/pacific islander - well, my question is: why is the DKos community, at least statiscally, so ‘white’? What are we doing wrong, and what can we do about it?

If this is supposed to be the most influential (whatever that means) progressive blog on the web, why is our site 82% white, compared to 69% of the US population? Do we need our own sort of ‘affirmative action’? More thoughts below the fold . . .

Sure there are snarky comments to be made but I can’t help appreciate the irony. Here is a group that claims to be for racial equality. And if there is one place in the world where people can be judged on their merit rather than the color of their skin, it’s the internet. I’d like to thank the Daily Kos for proving that racism still lives….at least on their side of the aisle.

[via Right Wing News]

One of the best parts of switching hosts, besides the obvious benefits is that by necessity all the clutter and junk that builds up on a server after several versions of a website get left behind and everything is clean and fresh and doesn’t require the “sniff-test”.

I say one of the best, because I’ve already figured out what the best part is. The best part is I hide a php script in the website to catch the instances where people got errors from my site or ended up in the wrong place. Mostly to catch any links that might be broken. As an added side-benefit I’m also getting to see all the spam-bots that are confused by the fact that my old comment scripts are no longer there and they can’t leave piles of spam everywhere. Without exception I’m seeing 800-1200 of those EVERY DAY. And it makes me giggle like a school girl every time.

People who don’t like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn’t have such funny beliefs

My first attempt at a MOB-wide paintball game resulted in Blog Wars I : The Phantom Ecker. Since then I have received alot of positive feedback and assurances that they are in again for next year. Probably the only negative feedback I've gotten is Andy's jealousy about my ammo pack and the extreme number of cockleburrs.

So I thought I'd all let you know that planning has already begun for Blog Wars II : Attack of the Cockleburr. This time it'll be in the spring. Definitely before it gets too warm and hopefully before the cockleburrs are in bloom. I figure that fall equals election season and is therefore just too damn busy for most people.

The real reason for this post though is to warn you all. You see after getting the MVP title I've been feeling a little pressure to defend my title next year. Since I've had my current equipment for a few years now I figure it's time to invest in some new technology. I put my staff on it, and this is what they came up with.

That's right….a paintballing tank. A full recall of it's trial runs can be found here. So be warned everyone. The Ecker division of the MN Militia is already working on perfecting their Blitzkrieg tactics. I hope to have my own paintballing Luftwaffe off the ground (pun sorta intended) by Blog Wars III : Revenge of the Chickenhawks.

It’s not often I do simple plugs of other people’s posts, so that means you should pay attention to this one.

DR. SANITY’S PRACTICAL GUIDE TO VICTIMHOOD

It’s exactly what it sounds like, a tongue-in-cheek guide to victimhood, how to obtain victim status, how to keep it and how to exploit it.

An excellent post on exactly what is wrong with most everything you see on the news these days.

Check it out.

It’s not uncommon for Navarrette to put quite a spin on reality in his columns on immigration, but sometimes the density reaches gravitational proportions. In an article partly consisting of condemnation towards the utter lack of immigration enforcement on employers (with which I agree), there is this gem

The worry used to be that illegal immigrants were stealing welfare. Then it was jobs. Now, we’re told, they’re stealing people’s identities.

[...]

Why spin this as a crackdown on identity theft? That has a sinister ring to it, as if illegal immigrants were using stolen credit cards and withdrawing money from ATMs. More than likely, the extent of it was that people were using Social Security numbers that didn’t belong to them so they could work at dirty jobs that Americans wouldn’t do — just as they have for generations, before the phrase “identity theft” entered the national lexicon.

First of all, it’s all three. Stolen welfare, jobs and identity. Reality hasn’t changed. You’ve just been spinning different parts of it…which leads me to your next paragraph.

Why spin this as identity theft. Well probably because IT IS. People using SS numbers that don’t belong to them IS identity theft. Just because they aren’t raiding ATMs doesn’t mean the victims of the identity theft aren’t being harmed. Imagine the IRS showing up at your door telling you owe more in taxes because according to records, you’ve also been working at a meat-packing plant in Texas

A woman claiming to be Theresa Sanchez provided Swift with a Social Security card and Colorado I.D. on April 8, 2005. The FTC shows Sanchez actually lives in Texas and filed a complaint after she got a letter from the IRS. The letter said the agency was holding her $5,400 refund because she had failed to report $120,000 in wages since 1996. Sanchez told ICE she had never lived in Colorado. The FTC said someone used her information for jobs, college and to receive unemployment benefits.

Suddenly simply raiding an ATM doesn’t sound as bad does it??

Oh and jobs that Americans won’t do?? Cut the bullshit Navarette, you’re not that smooth. Illegal immigrants don’t count for a majority of any industry with which they are usually associated except prison inmates. And in that field they appear to be especially well-skilled, one only has to take a glance at the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List or any of their Featured Fugitives Lists for that.

Try again Navarette…again.

Ok, so unless you live in a cave you’ve heard that Time selected their Person of the Year. They picked me….and millions like me. Basically anyone that has heard of the internet is the Person of the Year. That’s right you are that special…just like everyone else.

Now understandably, lots and lots of people have ridiculed this choice. And perhaps rightly so.

I however, applaud it. Not because it partly pays tribute to blogs but because it’s such a fitting, although probably accidental, tribute to this culture we’ve created. In these days where even competitive games on the playground are blamed for self-esteem problems, it’s perhaps very appropriate to name everyone the Person of the Year, lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Let’s all gather in our Time Magazine sponsored group hug and enjoy that fact that we’re all winners. At least until someone rubs enough braincells together to realize that if everyone is a winner, everyone is also a loser.

Congrats Time magazine, you almost certainly accidentally demonstrated what is wrong with this politically correct society of ours.