Here is a good example of why I don't like Ron Paul and why I think Ron Paul is anti-immigration.

He has sponsored a bill this year called "Social Security for Americans Only Act of 2007." It prevents any wages earned by people who are not American Citizens after the end of this year from being included in any calculation of any future social security payments made to them. It has two primary impacts on immigrants:

1. Taxes that immigrants pay into the social security system before they become citizens, such as while they are living in the United States on visas, or green cards, are essentially forfeited. The US Government takes that money but does not pay any benefit on it.

2. The US has reciprocity agreements with a number of countries so that people who live some of their life in one country and some of their life in another country can access social security upon retirement based on their payments into both programs. This rule would end those agreements for everyone except people like me who have been dual citizens from a young age.

My father lived about a third of his working life in Canada, a third as a US immigrant on visas, and a third of his working life in the US as a citizen. We could not have immigrated to the United States if such a rule were in place in the 1980's, as the financial impact on his ability to retire would have been prohibitive. If such a rule is made retroactive, as many in this movement would like to see, it will have a huge financial impact on my family, because my mother's future social security earnings will be substantially reduced. It may result in her moving back to Canada.

This isn't anti-illegal immigration. It is anti-immigration. It is not fueled by genuine fiscal libertarianism or any concept of fairness, as it involves taking taxes from people without offering benefits and marooning American Citizens who live abroad by undercutting reciprocity agreements. Its fueled by the "blame the Mexicans" xenophobic scapegoating that became popular just as soon as people realized that there wasn't going to be an emotionally fulfilling military victory in Iraq.

I will not support this. This hurts me and my family.

H.R. 190: Social Security for Americans Only Act of 2007 (GovTrack.us)

It's just before noon on a Thursday morning as I saunter down pit row at Daytona International Speedway and slide into the supportive sport bucket seat of a 2008 Porsche 911 GT2. I fiddle a bit with the seat and steering column adjustments until I'm comfortable, then double-check that my seatbelt is secured. It's hot and humid, but that's not why I'm perspiring - this cold sweat is a sign that my body's survival instincts are on edge, and for good reason. Fortunately, I've received personalized instruction from a quartet of legendary drivers and a complete technical briefing courtesy of Porsche Motorsports engineers, and there's little left to be learned without actually driving the car. I depress the heavily-weighted clutch pedal, muscle the short-throw shifter into 1st gear, bring the revs up, and...

Pinch Us: Autoblog drives the 2008 Porsche GT2 - Autoblog

On Sunday afternoon, Grove is unleashing a scathing critique of the nation's biomedical establishment. In a speech at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, he challenges big pharma companies, many of which haven't had an important new compound approved in ages, and academic researchers who are content with getting NIH grants and publishing research papers with little regard to whether their work leads to something that can alleviate disease, to change their ways.

One suspects he has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.

Intels Andy Grove roasts the biomedical industry

We posted a significant update to MemeStreams today. There are two primary aspects. The first is that posting is now much more free reigned. You can reply to your own posts. You can reply multiple times. You can post the same url to your blog multiple times. If you do the later, it will not result in the repeated promotion of that url on the main page.

The other aspect is anti-spam. New user registration is now open again. New users will not show up on the main page or in the "recent posters" section of the weblogs page. They are relegated to the "new users" section of the weblogs page until one of the admins blesses them, or someone who already has a good reputation recommends a link from them. So, those of you who can, please watch the new users for interesting people who you might want to bring into the fold.

This is a big update so please, as always, let us know if anything is not working properly.

"Since September 11, 2001, the United States has experienced a 17 percent decline in overseas travel, costing America 94 billion dollars in lost visitor spending, nearly 200,000 jobs and 16 billion dollars in lost tax revenue," the Discover America advocacy campaign said in a statement.

AFP: 'Unwelcoming' US sees sharp fall in visitors since 9/11

If you're into LED Throwies, you might like this:

This lightwriting project is the work of LICHTFAKTOR; on their MySpace page, they cite explanatory text from another blog, "colourlovers":

A number of graffiti artists have been tagging everything thought to be impossible without being caught. Well — it’s actually not illegal for them. They’re not using paint. As it turns out, time-lapse photography isn’t just for blooming flowers, skyscapes, or brake lights anymore. Termed Light Graffiti, tag artists are taking their colour to an all new level.

Using an exposure of about ten-to-thirty seconds and a tripod for best results, Light Graffiti artists start at the first click. Glowsticks, flashlights, reflectors, and even torches have been used as mediums to create all sorts of designs and tags, as the artist becomes a ghost of a blur, if visible at all.

Any person, place, or thing can become a central piece of the art. Because all it really takes is less than a minute, light tagging phone booth can be just as easy as something in the privacy of home, though staying home is certainly less fun. Some ‘hardcore’ taggers are set on Light Graffiti not actually being graffiti because it doesn’t have a physical presence, but after seeing photos of it, it’s not too different from tagging a building and having it covered or removed the next day.

See if you can make some yourself. The general rule of Light Graffiti seems to be experimentation and play, so, if your first ‘tag’ isn’t brilliance, keep at it.

Here is "Star Wars vs. Star Trek":

energie in motion

Someone sees something, so he says something. The person he says it to -- a policeman, a security guard, a flight attendant -- now faces a choice: ignore or escalate. Even though he may believe that it's a false alarm, it's not in his best interests to dismiss the threat. If he's wrong, it'll cost him his career. But if he escalates, he'll be praised for "doing his job" and the cost will be borne by others. So he escalates. And the person he escalates to also escalates, in a series of CYA decisions. And before we're done, innocent people have been arrested, airports have been evacuated, and hundreds of police hours have been wasted.

How LED signs become a national emergency. Probably one of the most accurate things Schneier has written on anti-terrorism security. There are some interesting links from this article, including a campaign urging people to report suspicions of child abuse that simply shows a man holding hands with a child along with the text "It doesn't feel right when I see them together" and a phone number.

Schneier on Security: The War on the Unexpected

The Protector, which comes mounted with a 7.62mm machine gun, wasn’t originally intended for anti-piracy operations. But according to BAE Systems spokesperson Stephanie Moncada, the robot could easily fill that role. “Down the line, it could potentially be modified for commercial use as well,” she says. Instead of being deployed by a warship to intercept and possibly fire on an incoming vessel, a non-lethal variant of the Protector could be used to simply investigate a potential threat.

Armed autonomous boats.

Robot Boats Hunt Pirates - Navy - Unmanned Surface Vessels - Protector - Popular Mechanics

By Wendy Seltzer

Doc’s post and the impending comments deadline for the next iteration of ICANN’s never-ending WHOIS saga finally pushed me to write up my thoughts on the latest iteration of ICANN debate.

Its interesting that this has cropped up again. It seems that European and Canadian privacy laws have begun to have an impact on the cabal of intellectual property interests and assorted supporting elements who aren't thinking hard enough about the issue who together have foisted Whois requirements on the Internet. I have written extensively and perhaps angrily about this issue in the past. I'm less concerned about the issue than I was in the past because the proxy services exist, and the need to handle subpoenas does provide some economic justification for them. However, there are better ways to handle this problem by far, and whats frustrating to me is the sheer amount of technical and situational ignorance that has been exhibited by people participating in this debate. I have never read an argument for the policies that exist that didn't fall to very simple critical thinking, and yet so many people insist on holding on to these deeply authoritarian ideas.

U: Predictably, ICANN upheld the status quo.

WHOIS Redux: Demand Privacy in Domain Name Registration

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Industrial Memetics will have a booth at BlogWorldExpo next week in Las Vegas. If you are near the area come by and pay us a visit!

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