PorcFest 2008

The Free State Project's 2008 Porcupine Festival will be held from June 9 to June 15, at Gunstock Mountain Resort in Gilford.

Fines for hiring immigrants increased

The federal administration has increased the fines on employers who hire illegal immigrants. This action is described as "the administration's latest attempt to clamp down on the flow of unauthorized workers into jobs." The maximum penalty for hiring an unauthorized worker will be $3200. There have been numerous protests from businesses.

The anti-immigrant movement claims that illegal immigrants are lazy bums who don't want to get jobs, just to collect government benefits. But when they applaud actions like this, they show that they don't believe it, and that the burden of supporting the unemployed isn't their concern. Their real concern is that these immigrants want to work and are often willing to accept lower pay than native Americans (I'm using the phrase correctly here, not in the PC sense). They want to kick out those Spanish-speaking foreigners from hotels, restaurants, and farms. The result, to the extent that they're successful, is more unemployed immigrants collecting government benefits, and higher prices or less service where they used to work.

Globe: Inflation occurs in spite of inflation

This headline appeared in yesterday's Boston Globe and on Boston.com:

Soaring prices threaten economy
Inflation can undo antirecession effort

The "antirecession effort" consists of lowering interest rates and giving out more federal money while running a growing deficit. That is to say, pouring more currency into the economy without any more value. That is to say, inflation supposedly "undoes" inflation.

Rising prices aren't inflation; they are its consequence. The headline is like saying that overeating can "undo" a person's "anti-hunger effort." The article's author isn't ignorant of history; he writes:

The Fed faced such a dilemma in the 1970s, when policy makers kept interest rates low in the face of soaring energy prices and a struggling economy. The United States settled into a period of stagnant economic growth and double-digit inflation, which gave rise to the term "stagflation."

The implication is that pouring cheap money into the economy is supposed to result in greater wealth, but by some mysterious process in the 1970's it failed to do so; it was "stagflation," instead of the wealth-causing inflation we're supposed to have. Richard Nixon imposed a draconian and unconstitutional wage-price freeze, apparently in the belief that if people were forbidden to acknowledge inflation, it would cease to exist.

The United States has gone through years of spending more money than it has. We're now living with the consequences. China is sitting on a pile of dollars which it could unleash at any time. The dollar has plunged relative to other currencies. Prices are going up. There's nothing mysterious about this, except to people who think that it isn't getting hotter as long as you don't look at the thermometer.

Absurdity from the Heritage Foundation

For at least a decade the Heritage Foundation has been pestering me with its junk mail. Their latest piece of trash is a typical rigged poll, full of loaded questions and with a request for money at the end. These are common for organizations of many different persuasions, being designed to let them publish intentionally biased poll results and bring in some money.

But this one had an extra feature. It included a demand that I sign and return the "ballot" even if I don't care to participate in their fraud.

Suit yourselves, Heritage. You provided the business reply envelope, so I can waste a little of your money. You are getting it back, with a succinct statement about what I think of your scheme and demands.

Oh, I was supposed to return it unopened and signed if I didn't answer the questions? Sorry. Not.

Mail fraud?

Yesterday I got a postcard which practically screams mail fraud. The return address reads: "Warranty Notification Dept., 235 Jungermann Road 103, Saint Peters, MO 63376." The text reads:

*** Important ***
FINAL NOTICE
This notice is to inform you that your factory warranty has expired, or may be about to expire depending on your current mileage. Immediate action is required to safeguard yourself from the severe repair costs associated with electrical and mechanical failures.
MUST CALL WITHIN 72 HOURS
PLEASE HAVE EXACT MILES AND VIN#
*** 1-800-854-4937 ***

Now I have no proof that this is fraudulent. Perhaps the well-known Japanese company that made my car has some legitimate reason for not putting its name on warranty notifications and is very bad about sending them out at the proper time. But I think I'll take this card to the post office anyway. (Update: I have done that. The postal clerk in Nashua tried to convince me to just throw it away, but I wasn't letting them save the effort.)

The phone number is also mentioned in one of the comments here.

Amtrak institutes baggage searches

In the continuing campaign to take away all privacy, Amtrak is introducing random screening of baggage, starting with trains on the Boston-Washington route. This is not a response to any specific threat. Passengers who are boarding the randomly selected train will be randomly pulled out of line and their baggage checked with a swab; if it shows a positive reading for possible explosives, their bags will be opened for a search. Passengers can refuse a screening; they will be denied boarding and their tickets will be refunded.

This is useless as a security measure. Anyone planning to bomb a train can simply turn back on seeing the screening line and try again another day, or he can set off the bomb in the line. In a bizarre piece of illogic, the AP article quotes Tim Connors, director of the Center for Policing Terrorism at the Manhattan Institute, as saying, "A random approach is actually more effective than a constant one." If this is true, why doesn't the TSA just let everyone onto every other plane with no checks, just to frustrate the plans of terrorists who had planned on going through a security line?

The use of similar screenings on the MBTA has shown that the claim that they don't cause delays is false. People get delayed; when false positives occur, they're subjected to searches and possibly to overreactions by train cops. At least the MBTA cops, unlike the Amtrak ones, don't carry automatic weapons.

Among the listed concerns which supposedly motivate the searches are train bombings in Russia in the past few years. These were the acts of radicals seeking independence for Chechnya. Does Homeland Security seriously expect us to believe that Chechen separatists are going to come after our trains?

There have been no terrorist attacks on trains in the US. The government simply wants us to believe that we're in a terrible, imminent danger which justifies taking away all our rights while letting government officials and their friends break any laws they find inconvenient.

None of these criticisms are mentioned in the AP article, which simply feeds us government propaganda straight.

Related posts on other blogs:

• Irregular Times
• A stitch in haste
• TSA-ing Amtrak

A post-Boskone thought

If an intelligent, peaceful race from another planet came to visit Earth, what would they find most shocking about humans? Perhaps this: that the rulers of a nation can forcibly drag people away from their homes and families, treat them demeaningly in camps, and give them weapons -- and the people thus abused won't turn their arms on their outgunned, outnumbered rulers, but rather will fight for them.