Overnight Open Thread (6-23-2013)

The Amnesty Bill Just Gets Better and Better

And by better I mean shittier. Reid is calling for a cloture vote tomorrow despite the last minute addition of the 1200-page Corker-Hoeven amendment. So we can be almost certain that no human being has actually read the complete bill that they're about to vote on.

Oh and don't expect any illegal to be deported after this bill is passed. Ever.

The bill is otherwise riddled with clauses that would help illegals avoid removal, get into the country to begin with, seek "provisional" status, apply for naturalization, ask stays of judgment, and game the system in general.  One of the words appearing most often in the bill is "waiver," closely followed by "appeals," "stays," "reviews" and "exceptions" : A thicket of legalisms that could  and undoubtedly would  be used to thwart enforcement.

It's of course unlikely that a Spanish-speaking immigrant who walks across the border from Mexico would know anything of these legal complexities, but the drafters have foreseen that problem also.  The bill sets up a fund, amounting to $50 million (with more money to be added as needed), to represent illegals in every phase of the process - seeking provisional immigration status, filing appeals, blocking efforts at deportation, obtaining naturalization, and so on.

And if you disagree with all this, then you're worse than Hitler you're rejecting Reagan's vision. At least according to Peter Wehner:

My second observation is that many of the most ferocious critics of immigration reform claim they are the sons and daughters of the Reagan Revolution, the true of heirs of Reagan. But they are-in both policy and tone-most un-Reagan like.

As this post documents, Reagan himself not only signed legislation granting amnesty to three million illegal immigrants in exchange for relatively weak enforcement measures; he never demonized illegal immigrants. In 1977, for example, Reagan criticized "the illegal alien fuss" and said illegal aliens may "actually [be] doing work our own people won't do."

...Ronald Reagan's views on immigration, legal and illegal, were connected to a broader vision and conception of America. The fact is that this capacious, generous and hopeful outlook has been replaced by rhetoric that is, from some quarters at least, jagged edged and sends a signal to Hispanics: We don't really want you; and we don't much like you.

There are so many fallacies in Wehner's article that I'll just summarize the top 5.

• Opposing illegal immigration != opposing all immigration
• We've learned a lot the hard way in the 27 years since the 1986 amnesty - the 2013 Reagan would likely feel quite differently than the 1986 or 1977 Reagan
• There was A LOT more illegal immigration after the 1986 amnesty.
• Illegal immigration is low right now because of the economy - that won't last forever.
• Legalized illegal immigrants and their legal kin aren't going to vote for the GOP - didn't happen in 1986 and won't happen now.

Hollywood Is Going Broke

And that's a good thing. Even their last cash cow, DVD sales, are being eaten up by streaming.

"The DVD business represented fifty percent of their profits," [20th Century Fox executive Peter Chernin] went on. "Fifty percent. The decline of that business means their entire profit could come down between forty and fifty percent for new movies."

For those of you like me who are not good at math, let me make Peter's statement even simpler. If a studio's margin of profit was only 10 percent in the Old Abnormal, now with the collapsing DVD market that profit margin was hovering around 6 percent. The loss of profit on those little silver discs had nearly halved our profit margin.

...This was mind-boggling to me, and I've been in the business for thirty years. Peter continued as I absorbed the depths and roots of what I was starting to think of as the Great Contraction. "Which means if nothing else changed, they would all be losing money. That's how serious the DVD downturn is. At best, it could cut their profit in half for new movies."

Meanwhile Cracked sees the writing on the wall as well: 4 Ways Hollywood Is Completely Imploding

Why We're Better off Euthanizing Child Molesters

A registered sex offender, released from jail less than a month ago, has been arrested and charged with murder in the death of an 8-year-old Florida girl abducted while shopping with her mother on Friday night.

The body of Charish Perriwinkle was found in front of Highlands Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida on Saturday morning after a frantic search.

And the perp, Donald James Smith, has a long rap sheet full of child molestation. And these are just the things that we know he did.

Williams declined to answer reporters' questions about how Charish died or what Smith did in the hours between his disappearance with the girl and his arrest, saying that the investigation remains open.

Smith has been a registered sex offender since a 1993 conviction in Duval County for attempted kidnapping and selling obscene materials.

Previous arrests that date as far back as 1977 when Department of Corrections records show he was convicted of indecent assault on a child under the age of 16.

Prison records also show that Smith went to prison again in 1992 for attempted kidnapping. Court documents show he was convicted of that charge in addition to two counts of showing obscene material to a minor.

Why One Cop Carries 145 Rounds of Ammo With Him Every Day

Sergeant Timothy Gramins fired 43 rounds at an assailant shooting at him and hit him 14 times with 6 shots in supposedly fatal locations. But the shooter just kept on coming.

[He heard an alert] that a male black driving a two-door white car had robbed a bank at gunpoint in another suburb 11 miles north and had fled... Unknown at the time, the suspect, a 37-year-old alleged Gangster Disciple, had vowed that he would kill a police officer if he got stopped.

...He was scarcely up to highway speed when he spotted a lone male black driver in a white Pontiac Bonneville and pulled alongside him. "He gave me 'the Look,' that oh-crap-there's-the-police look, and I knew he was the guy," Gramins said... The next thing he knew, bullets were flying. "That was four years ago," Gramins said. "Yet it could be ten seconds ago."

With Gramins following close behind, siren blaring and lights flashing, the Bonneville zigzagged through traffic and around corners into a quite pocket of single-family homes a few blocks from the exit. Then a few yards from where a 10-year-old boy was skateboarding on a driveway, the suspect abruptly squealed to a stop.

"He bailed out and ran headlong at me with a 9 mm Smith in his hand while I was still in my car," Gramins said.

Former Facebook Security Chief Now Works for NSA

Well I'm sure this will work out well.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Whine

In which a woman gets what she wanted and still complains about it.

Now, on the downslope of parenting, I have misgivings about my decision to stay home. While I don't know any parent who regrets time spent with their kids, especially kids who have moved on to their own lives - and I include myself among them - in hindsight, my decision seems flawed. Although I am fully aware that being a SAHM was certainly a luxury, staring at an empty nest and very diminished prospects of employment, I have real remorse.

Her regrets include:

I let down those [feminists] who went before me. In some cosmic way I feel that I let down a generation of women who made it possible to dream big,

I used my driver's license far more than my degrees.I felt like I was shortchanging myself and those who educated, trained and believed in me by doing this.

My kids think I did nothing. They saw me cooking, cleaning, driving, volunteering and even writing, but they know what a "job" looks like and they don't think I had one.

I slipped into a more traditional marriage.  In every way, my husband sees me as his equal, but in the years that I have been home, our partnership has developed a faint 1950's whiff.

So you had to make trade-offs, didn't get everything you ever wanted, and don't always get recognition for all your work? Well baby welcome to every single man's life.

What's It Like Being Nerve Gassed

Not fun. And somewhat similar to black widow bites which are also nerve agents.

Muscarinic effects from nerve agents include miosis [constriction of the pupils of the eyes], bradycardia [slowed heartbeat], diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, diaphoresis [excessive sweating], bronchial secretions [fluid in the lungs], and bronchial constriction [lung tightening]. A dimming of vision occurs with the miosis.

Nicotinic effects include tachycardia [fast heartbeat] and muscle twitching which progresses to muscle paralysis. The toxidrome [poisoning syndrome] depends of the route of absorption. When dermally absorbed [through the skin] muscle twitching occurs first. With inhalation exposure, breathing difficulties are seen first.

The onset of symptoms with inhalation exposure is within 5 minutes.

The Secret Life of teh Kitteh

Steve Martin Touring with Edie Brickell

They released an album together this April.

Weekly AoSHQ Commenter Standings

Top 10 commenters:
1 [855 comments] 'Esteban10077@sven10077' [120.04 posts/day]
2 [562 comments] 'Vic'
3 [463 comments] 'Tobacco Road'
4 [451 comments] 'AllenG (Dedicated Tenther)'
5 [446 comments] 'Anna Puma (+SmuD)'
6 [404 comments] 'Niedermeyer's Dead Horse'
7 [393 comments] 'EC'
8 [382 comments] 'J.J. Sefton'
9 [301 comments] 'garrett'
10 [283 comments] 'Flatbush Joe'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [54 names] 'Cicero (@cicero)' [7.58 unique names/day]
2 [49 names] 'Islamic Rage Boy'
3 [45 names] 'Romeo13'
4 [42 names] 'The Political Hat'
5 [41 names] 'Adam'
6 [29 names] 'Dang'
7 [26 names] 'logprof'
8 [26 names] 'Brandon In Baton Rouge'
9 [25 names] 'The Third Horseman Of The Apocalypse'
10 [22 names] 'Dack Thrombosis'

The group. Yeah.

Where it's at - the Twitter

Tonight's post brought to you by Super Moon:

Note that the Moon God does not demand sacrifices - but it'd be nice.

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posted by Maetenloch at 10:10 PM

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