Interesting Items - Sept 26 Come visit us at our new web site: www.interestingitems.org Leave your thoughts, comments and opinions. We look forward to hearing from you. Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday Sept 26, 2011 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Tuition 2. Fence 3. Fifth 4. Science 5. Inhalers 6. Benefits 1. Tuition. One of the significant arguments against the candidacy of Texas Governor Rick Perry is the notion of in-state tuition for children of illegals. It has been mischaracterized by both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. In a 1982 opinion in Plyler v. Doe, the SCOTUS struck down Texas state law denying public education to illegals. In the same opinion, they also struck down an attempt by one school district to charge illegals $1,000 tuition. This opinion was what opened the doors of public schools nationwide to millions of illegals. It was a 5-4 decision and did not provide any funding. The Texas legislature in 2001 passed a bill that would allow in-state tuition for children of illegals. There were only four votes against it in both houses of the legislature. At the time of passage, before the tsunami of illegals hit the US in the 2000s, it was entirely non-controversial. Governor Perry signed the legislation. If he had vetoed it, the override would have been quick and blunt. The legislation allows for in-state tuition to state colleges if the kid graduated from public school, have been in the state for at least three years, and have signed an affidavit stating they are applying for permanent residence. Note that anyone who moves to Texas and lives in state for a single year is then eligible for in-state tuition. Interestingly enough, the Texas law appears to be at odds with federal legislation passed in 1996 prohibiting states from allowing illegals to pay in-state tuition at their public institutions. It appears Texas was perfectly willing to tell the feds to pound sand but not ready to do the same to the SCOTUS. Perry’s political opponents are painting this legislation as proof he is soft on illegal immigration. Yet he just sent the Obama administration a bill for nearly $400 million for reimbursement of state resources spent patrolling the border. You don’t spend that sort of money, time and effort in an attempt to control the border unless you are serious about controlling the entry of illegals into the state. Texas is doing what the feds refuse to do. 2. Fence. Former US Senator Rick Santorum blasted away at Perry Thursday night at the debate for refusing to build a fence along the Texas – Mexico border. The exchange between the two was pretty heated. In this, Santorum was wrong. Why? The border between Texas and Mexico is marked by a 1,200 long river called the Rio Grande . It winds through the southern boundary of a national park – Big Bend National Park , and a large reservoir north of Del Rio – Amistad. Where do you propose building the fence? Middle of the river? On the Mexican side of the border? On the Texas side of the river? You don’t, and really can’t build a fence in the middle of a river. If you try to build it on the Mexican side, you have to either militarily take the land or buy it from Mexico . If you build it on the Texas side, you cede control of the entire river to Mexico . There are better ways to control and patrol the border if it is a river. Fences work wonderfully when they are on dry land. In picking this fight, Santorum showed a remarkable lack of common sense and an appalling Washington-esque one size fits all world view that denies and dismisses local expertise. 3. Fifth. A pair of executives from Solyndra was in Washington DC Friday testifying before the House on the Solyndra financial collapse. Like all good mobsters or union thugs, they both repeatedly took the Fifth Amendment protection against self incrimination and refused to answer any questions. It appears that the FBI raid into Solyndra was an (In)Justice Department attempt to keep house investigators from seeing any of Solyndra’s records, e-mails or internal papers. This cover-up will not end well for either Holder or the FBI. As of this writing, it appears that Solyndra’s officers planned to take the company to an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and then immediately cash out their shares just before the entire house of cards collapsed. It looks like they committed massive fraud on their investors and the American taxpayer and are now being protected by their Friends in High Places. 4. Science. Last week we got yet another example of the difference between climate science in which the notion of manmade global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions is settled science by consensus, and actual physics, where a single experimental result may change everything. A paper out of the European CERN OPERA experiment published last week reported observations of particles called neutrinos traveling faster than light. As we understand the physics today, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so these observations are a big deal. The physicists reported the observations, and unlike the manmade global warming crowd, threw both their data and their experiment open to the entire community to look at. There is a heck of an argument under way with all the expected arm waving and chair throwing. The results may be real. They may not. But the process of finding it out will be public and loud. Climate science does not do this. They hide behind lawyers, destroy data, diddle the peer review process, slow-roll Freedom of Information Act requests for data and e-mails, and refuse to allow anyone to see the code of their computer models. Congratulations to those working at CERN as they demonstrate that the scientific method is not yet dead. 5. Inhalers. In the latest round of their war against American health and welfare, the EPA banned over the counter inhalers last week on the grounds that the small quantities of CFCs would harm the environment. Asthma sufferers will now have to switch over to more expensive and very likely less effective prescription inhalers. Mark Hemmingway, writing in The Weekly Standard Friday pointed to a 2009 Meagan McArdle column in The Atlantic that points out that every single time the feds ban some consumer product, the replacement is always worse. These include, but are not limited to: phosphates in detergents; low flow toilets; front load washers; front load dryers; CFCs for incandescent light bulbs; and today, the asthma inhaler. Every single one of these changes has been due to some notion of environmental friendliness and energy efficiency. And the replacement has always been more expensive and less capable than what industry came up with via the marketplace. You can read the entire column here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/04/why-dont-we-have-more-green-products/7283/ 6. Benefits. The leftist social engineers infesting the Alaska courts system struck again last week with release of an opinion that same sex couples were entitled to the same senior citizen and disabled veteran property tax exemptions as married couples. The opinion was signed a week ago and released by the local ACLU Monday. As with all social engineering opinions out of Alaskan courts recently, this one came without the action of the legislature. It also discriminates against opposite sex couples living together claiming the same exemptions. It is long past time to impeach and remove from office a few (or a lot of) judges.
More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: Our Home Page http://interestingitems.org/ Archives can be found at http://home.gci.net/~agimarc The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/ MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com Subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/ -- To join RichsRants, send email to: [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en
