I care for kids, families, the sick and the elderly, working class, middle class, and every American. To end poverty and advance the American Dream, I am Libertarian Girl.
Sonia Nazario won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her series of articles chronicling the attempts of a teenager from Honduras, Enrique, to reach his mother in the United States. She later turned the articles into a book which was made into an HBO movie.
Enrique experienced far more problems getting through Mexico than he did once in the United States. What do the Mexicans think of Central American immigrants?
Chiapas is fed up with Central American immigrants, says Hugo Angeles Cruz, a professor and migration expert at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur in Tapachula. They are poorer than Mexicans, and they are seen as backward and ignorant. People think they bring disease, prostitution and crime and take away jobs. Some cannot be trusted. People in Chiapas talk of being robbed by migrants with guns and knives. They tell of an older woman who welcomed an immigrant into her home and was beaten to death with an iron pipe.
Boys like Enrique are called “stinking undocumented.” They are cursed, taunted. Dogs are set upon them. Barefoot children throw rocks at them. Some use slingshots. “Go to work.” “Get out! Get out!”
Some migrants say Mexicans exploit illegals for a fraction of the going wage, which is 50 pesos, or about $5, a day.
Except for children throwing rocks and slingshots, does this all sound familiar?
Residents of the state of Veracruz are kind to illegal immigrants from Central America, but those by the border aren’t very accommodating.
He cannot beg 100 pesos. People in Nuevo Laredo won’t give. Mexicans along the border, he notices, are quick to proclaim their right to immigrate to the United States. “Jesus was an immigrant,” he hears them say. But most won’t give Central Americans food, money or jobs.
A friend recently began having attacks where he couldn’t breathe, and his doctor prescribed him an asthma inhaler. Asthma inhalers aren’t something you think much about if you don’t have asthma, but the government thinks about them. Not how they’re saving lives, but how they’re causing the depletion of the ozone layer (never mind that Air Force One and its associated entourage of jets probably causes more ozone depletion in one day than America’s entire population of asthma sufferers).
Imagine that! Many doctors and the government insist they work just as well, but asthma sufferers such as Megan McArdle disagree.
ETA: A reader points out to me that it was not necessarily the American government mandating this change- it was actually an international treaty that America signed along with many other countries which forced the switchover to non-CFC inhalers. This is even more of a reason why many of the international treaties we agree to are completely worthless for what they’re meant for and should be avoided. The consequences are simply not adequately studied ahead of time, and are different than the intentions.
… For $48,000, down from $2 million two years ago and equivalent to the drop “from about the price of a luxury sedan to, well, the price of a slightly less luxurious nice car.”
Thus, we have a perfect example of the free market at work.
If the government had gotten involved to “usher the technology along,” the price certainly would have increased UP from $2 million, and the technology would still be in research stages and unavailable to the general public, probably on the basis of “consumer protection.”
“I once worked on a chicken farm. Actually ‘farm’ is far too gentle a word for the way these chickens were raised, and ‘factory’ sounds too clinical. This was the seventh circle of chicken hell, a clucking, stinking, filthy production line with just one aim: to produce the maximum quantity of edible meat, as fast and as cheaply as possible, regardless of quality, cruelty or hygiene.”
“As swine flu spreads, and fear spreads faster, it is worth remembering that this, and other animal-to-human viruses, are partly man-made, the outcome of our hunger for cheap meat, the result of treating animals as if they were mere raw material to be exploited in any way that increases output and profits.
There is a tendency to see a flu outbreak, like the plagues of old, as an unstoppable natural event, a scourge visited on Man from above. But there is nothing natural about this form of disease: indeed, it stems from an abuse of nature.
Vast modern pig farms, like the huge poultry plants across the globe, are ideal incubators of disease, and many scientists believe that viral mutation can be directly linked to intensive modern agricultural techniques. With enfeebled animals packed into confined spaces, pathogens spread easily, creating new and virulent strains that may be passed on to humans. When dense populations of factory-farmed animals exist alongside crowded human habitations, the potential for disaster is vastly greater.”
The results are disturbing anyway, because the real effect could be that scientists are less likely to criticize something they know or suspect is wrong in fear of harming their careers:
Once polywater was considered a failure, not only were those who had written in its favor punished, but those who had written against it were punished just as strongly! If this is a typical outcome, we can conclude that academic incentives are to just ignore contrarian claims that you do not believe will become mainstream. Try to refute a contrarian claim, and even if you succeed you will be treated just like its defenders.
Arlen Specter is the least likable type of politican– the one who switches positions based strictly on polling and whimsy (most of Congress does this in some form, but not as blatantly).
In addition to his long list of other embarrassing blunders (claiming the Military Commissions Act was one of the worst laws to ever be proposed before Congress and unconstitutional, then voting for it is one low point), we now have this: Specter proposing a law banning party changes by Senators after Jim Jeffords turned independent in 2001. As we all know, Specter switched parties on Tuesday after polls showed he had no hope of winning the Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary next year.
In vitro meat is certainly the wave of the future and solves a host of problems (environmental and health-wise), since our current system is simply unsustainable for our planet (along with our arteries and waistlines). The group working towards bringing cultured meat to fruition is a nonprofit called New Harvest, and I wish them all the best with their work.
