Immigration, power efficiency, dehydration, and other matters

Mail 701 Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Gingrich on Immigration

Newt’s local commission immigration amnesty proposal is fairly daft. The problem is that some jurisdictions will grant amnesty to practically everyone (hello, Berkeley) and there’s no real practical way to keep immigrants from moving to friendlier jurisdictions, nor is there any practical way to keep them there once they’re amnestied.

Adam Greenwood

Which is to say that the United States is no longer capable of self-government? Perhaps so, or perhaps commissions consisting of retired police and military officers? I confess I don’t know. I see your point, but how did we avoid such matters with Selective Service? Surely there were Selective Service boards more willing to give deferments, and there were no laws against moving to those neighborhoods. But things were different in many ways then.

I would note that some restrictions can easily be placed on what we can, for lack of a better term, call Green Card Boards or GCB. Any felony conviction would require the decision be made at a far higher level than the local board. Residency of fewer than ten years would simply remove that applicant from the local board’s jurisdiction. And so forth.

The purpose here is to prevent needless litigation and prevent absurdities. It is still the case that you will find few Javerts in these United States, who would expel a 25 year resident never accused much less convicted of any crime, and who was thoroughly integrated into the community and the nation. Since it will cost thousands of dollars per illegal to track them down and expel them (even if there are not large legal fees as well), surely there is some answer other than to set computerized hounds loose whose job is to expel anyone not here legally. I am not sure what that is, nor do I think Mr. Gingrich has been given any gift of enlightenment. Yet it remains a real question: once you secure the borders, what comes next? We can eliminate the obvious, those accused of crimes – don’t bother to prosecute them, send them to the border, as was done, for example, some 25 years ago when some burglars tried to break into our neighbors house and were caught in the act. They were conducted to the border: cheaper all around. Of course with porous borders that may not be much of a solution, but once the borders are under better control it’s a great deal cheaper to the state, the county, and the city. Or so I thought at the time.

Newt has the habit of speculating in public about matters like this. It’s not optimum politics and were I his political advisor I would certainly advise him not to bring such matters up in public debates; yes, they need discussion and thought, but think them through among friends before going public with them. But then that’s the advice Newt would give to any candidate.

With matters of such federal importance it may be necessary to place restrictions on the principle of subsidiarity, but I am convinced that transparency and subsidiarity – in other words self government at local level whenever possible – is the best way to preserve freedom. I will agree that we have tended toward creating a professional political class that is rapidly becoming a Nomenklatura, an American New Class, that rules without much limitation.

Immigration Problem ~

Hi Jerry,

The debate I seem to hear most often is an argument about two extreme alternatives for the approximately 11 million illegal immigrants we already have. The arguments swing from "amnesty" to force marches to the border. Both extremes have consequences that I don’t think the general population would tolerate. Amnesty will just increase the amount of immigrants trying to get in on the window of opportunity. Forced deportation will generate too many heart wrenching stories of those affected (i.e. kids) that had no input into the decisions made by their parents. These stories would make any deportation program a short-term effort in terms of popular support and we’d find ourselves not being able to finish the job begun or even make significant progress.

I think a "Pay-to-Stay" system would be as good a compromise as we could get in our current political environment. Those discovered to be illegal through district commissions such as Newt started to suggest could pay an annual fine to help support their stay here until they get "legalized" through the normal process. This way, the immigration institutions could focus their resources (i.e. personnel and jail space) on deporting those who we really need to go such as criminals or those who continue their ways and try to avoid these fines. (Note: I also like the idea of using the IRS to go after people violating our laws instead of trying to squeeze more money out of citizens). There is no reason to insist that the "maximum penalty" of deportation must always be applied. As well, it would minimize the heart-wrenching stories that undermine enforcement efforts over time.

A guest worker program could also be considered for agricultural workers to fill in gaps for those who ordinarily would not earn enough to cover such fines. As an incentive, acquiring a useful degree or military service could exempt them from such fines to encourage useful contributions to the country.

All this would not preclude securing our borders as a separate step. I think for the most part that would get substantial bi-partisan support as a standalone effort rather than as part of a "comprehensive" reform.

V/R

Nathan Stiltner

Clearly the goal ought to be deportation of all those who are here for entitlements and have no interest in paying their share. Often it’s cheaper to deport someone than to convict them of minor crimes. That saves both the costs of crime and punishment, and quite often considerable amounts in entitlements.

Another goal ought to be the retention of those who actually add value to the society, and aren’t just consumers of taxes.

One can’t really apply those goals to citizens, but it seems reasonable to be selective regarding those who are not citizens.

Regarding military service, I think we can all have general agreement that, say, twenty years service with an honorable discharge is more than enough to qualify one for citizenship along with a pension. We can debate how many fewer years are needed to ‘earn’ citizenship, but surely we can all agree on that much? (Or of course there is the question of honorable discharge due to service related disabilities. Alas, that opens the shell shock can of worms, and no, I don’t want to get into that debate just now.)

England sinks another notch lower

SUBJ: You can’t make this stuff up

"You can’t buy that lime… it could be classed as a weapon: Shock for

chef shopping at Asda"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063954/Asda-tell-chef-You-buy-lime–classed-weapon.html

I wonder if there will ever again be an England.

Cordially,

John

As you say, you can’t make this stuff up. Or can you? What do they do about vinegar? And I presume that no one has his own swimming pool? The more I think on this the more I suspect a store scanner programmer with a wicked sense of humor.

dehydration & rehydration

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Regarding dehydration, could the doctors have been using the word in a technical sense with a different meaning from the general one? A personal experience from about 15 years ago to make this point.

About that long ago I went with my late father to attend a family function in Bombay. There he got a bad attack of indigestion (change of tolerated bacteria probably) and later actually collapsed in public.

A cousin who is a doctor was there and diagnosed his condition as acute dehydration and treated him with an oral rehydration regime.

I remember him saying that acute dehydration results in the body losing salts and sugar as well as water and drinking water after an serious attack of ‘lose motion’ sometimes just made the liquid/salts balance worse.

A packet of "over the shelf" rehydration powder was procured and mixed with the water my father was given. He was back to normal in a few hours.

Yours

Ramesh Nayar

PS The powder was a mixture of salts and glucose with lime extract to mask the taste in a sealed foil cover. It tasted awful.

I thought of this after I posted the note in View, and of course it’s true: I can even see why forbidding the claim that water prevents dehydration might make a certain amount of sense if one is trying to avoid lawsuits. You can’t assume common sense.

It is certainly the case that drinking too much water can flush the system of electrolytes. Every hikemaster must be taught this, as must directors of campuses in remote places: I know, because having been both, I have had to be aware of it. Hikers who drink too much water can collapse. It’s not likely, but it can happen, and it is important to replace electrolytes when one sweats profusely.

It’s even worse if one has a disorder that causes diarrhea. Montezuma’s Revenge as an example: it can be fatal if one does not drink enough liquids. The problem is that if you give only water, eventually the lack of electrolytes will cause the victim to pass out. At that point it becomes very dangerous because how to you rehydrate? The usual solution is Gatorade, or some other drink that contains electrolytes. Even soda pop is preferable to just plain water in those cases.

So perhaps this is what the commission meant? Dehydration literally means lack of water, but in fact lack of electrolytes is what becomes the great danger, and both water and electrolytes must be replaced as they are lost to sweating or diarrhea.

Pepper Spray and Tactics

Jerry:

I agree that the command officer at UC Davis should be ordered to take a class in strategy and tactics. Even if he had one, or dozens, during his training. I suspect any training he had is obsolete if it’s more than a couple of years old. In particular, police need to take the Internet into account at all times. Assume anything they do is being recorded for later posting on You-Tube.

In Fandom, we have a saying along the lines of, "never put anything in a fanzine you don’t want on the front page of the newspaper." In business, it’s morphed into "never put anything in an e-mail you don’t want read aloud in court." Now it’s "never do anything you don’t want going viral on the Internet."

Tactics must take into account not only how to handle the sort of hostile situations police have dealt with since ever, but how to handle the fact that whatever they do is subject to being reduced to a thirty-second clip, carefully stripped of all context by someone who doesn’t like them.

If it means police officers wearing those webcams that look like Bluetooth earpieces, well, they’re $150 according to Popular Science.

………….Karl

It has certainly proven to be the wrong decision on many levels.

Fluoride shuttle increases storage capacity: Researchers develop new concept for rechargeable batteries

Jerry,

Interesting article on a new battery technology.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111021125521.htm

I think this new battery technology just might give electric vehicles comparable range to gasoline cars. The energy density still is not comparable to gasoline, but when the total system mass including fuel/battery, engine, transmission, drivelines and axels is considered, the electric car might become competitive.

Jim Crawford

Indeed interesting. One the biggest problems with intermittent energy sources like wind and ground based solar is the immense cost and inefficiency of power storage. The electric car starts with the disadvantage that the generation system is inefficient, then the transmission system, then the storage; whereas the internal combustion engine has only the original power conversion inefficiency. If electric power is cheap enough – say in places with lots of hydro-electric power, or nuclear (whose costs are more related to safety systems than to the actual power generation costs) – electric cars compete nicely. Regenerative braking can convert a reasonable fraction of kinetic energy back into stored power; storage efficiencies become very important in that cycle.

Saving the planet

Hello Jerry,

Apparently, when you are a government astronomer involved in the

crucial work of ‘saving the planet’, you are excused from all the

little nit-picky bureaucratic hassles, such as reporting outside

income and such, that lesser govvies have to endure. Or be

terminated and/or jailed.

For example: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens- growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/

Bob Ludwick

But if your mission is saving the planet, surely you ought not be hobbled with regulatory impediments…

Jefferson and the pendulum as unit of measure

By a strange coincidence I had just been reading Jefferson’s letter to Dr. Robert Patterson this morning regarding this subject, and the basic measure that Jefferson suggested was a half-period of 1 second, which is 0.994 m (which he described as longer than our yard and less than the ell). A pendulum with a period of 1 second would be slightly less than 10 inches in length (L = (T/(2 * pi)) ** 2 * g).

Lon McWrightman

This will have to do for tonight. I continue to get more interesting mail than I can publish and comment.