In other news...

[Markdoc]

The "refugee crisis" similar to the American situation with Mexico. Mexico is not a safe or secure place to live, and has spent most of the last decade on the brink of a civil war between the government and the cartels (who are fighting both the government and each other, but still want to make Mexico a virtual narcostate). I can understand why folks would need to get out, at least for a while. But the response of the typical American politicial has been virtual paranoia. They scream about Mexicans "taking our jobs!" without ever specifying just what jobs they are supposedly taking, getting onto social programs where the workers in reality don't let them in, and so forth. It's a pattern that has been repeating in American politics for at least two hundred years -- the other used to be the Irish, then the Chinese, then the Jews.... In every case the paranoids have been shown in time to be dead wrong, and this looks no different.

 

 

Unfortunately in the EU, you have populists making the same arguments, with the added edge that the refugees are mostly muslims. It doesn’t help that much of the current immigration crisis is actually two problems. One is ordinary old illegal immigration – similar to the situation in the US you name: mostly people trying to sneak into Europe in search of a better life. This is a problem, but it’s a manageable problem – and the numbers of illegal immigrants in the EU is about the same order of magnitude as that in the US. We’re talking about maybe 12-18 million people in total, with a couple of hundred slipping through the borders every year. Illegal immigrants at least try to keep their heads down, find work, etc. There are a lot of social problems (crime, poverty, etc) but society can deal with these, because they are slow-fuse issues. You have some time to make adjustments.

 

But what’s happening now is that illegal immigration is being overlaid with refugees.

 

It’s actually hard to get your head around the scale of this problem. The US, for example also takes refugees – last year they took about 14,000 and there is a hard cap of 70,000 a year. In Europe right now, those kinds of numbers are arriving every week and there are an estimated 12 million refugees trying to reach Europe right now. That’s like every illegal immigrant to the US over the last 50 years all trying to arrive at once. And unlike ordinary illegal immigrants, refugees are entitled to claim asylum by international law, are entitled to have their case heard and to have support while that’s done. The system, quite literally, cannot handle that number of asylum seekers, and the cost is going to be astronomical. In addition, war refugees have always been a problem to integrate, because they often arrive with little to nothing, often have severe trauma, and often have links to the fighting back home that can lead to internal conflict. Plus, of course, many of them are less motivated to integrate – they didn’t come to Europe because they wanted to, but because they had to flee their homes.

 

As an example of that, I learned Danish with a guy who had been a sociologist and professor in Iran. That’s not a popular profession in Iran under the Mullahs and he got out just ahead of a warrant for his arrest. He ended up in Denmark, and after hearings on his status, was granted asylum, though that took several years. Once granted asylum (and residence) but without Danish and without recognized professional qualifications, he had no chance of a professorship. He spent several years on welfare and when I met him, he was working as a postman. The depth of his bitterness was astounding. He hated almost everything about Denmark and he hated the Danes – even though they had taken him in, given him food, clothing, money and shelter. What he really wanted was his old life back, and he hated Denmark and Europe because it couldn’t give him that. Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands or even millions of cases and you see the problem. Most refugees will adjust, but many won’t.

 

Politicians here are freaking out and populists are having a field day, because everybody recognizes that there is no good answer to this at all. We’re likely to end up with border fences and camps with barbed wire to keep the refugees in, even though almost nobody wants that, simply because no one can come up with better answers.

 

cheers, Mark

[Cancer]

Politicians here are freaking out and populists are having a field day, because everybody recognizes that there is no good answer to this at all. We’re likely to end up with border fences and camps with barbed wire to keep the refugees in, even though almost nobody wants that, simply because no one can come up with better answers.

Unfortunately, this sounds eerily like some of the accounts I have read about the less-than-enthusiastic responses to the expulsion of the Jews by the Nazis in the 1930s.

[Old Man]

Humans freaking out about other humans who look or sound slightly different.  Again.  Smh.

[Cygnia]

 

A Lakewood Couple Put a Go-Pro on Their German Shepard and Took Her to the Puppy Plunge

 

[tkdguy]

New hominid found in South Africa

[Hermit]

The Bloods and Crypts are going to war, so the citizens are saved!!!

wait... it doesn't really work that way does it?

 

Al Queda declares war on ISIS?

[tkdguy]

The real losers will be the unlucky folks caught in between.

[Hermit]

The real losers will be the unlucky folks caught in between.

Yup.

 

And all this talk of our government maybe 'playing them against each other' makes my eye twitch. Our track record at games like that playing out like that without bad consequences for us down the line is not great IIRC

[Hermit]

As for the  refugees flooding Europe. The United States needs to pick up ten thousand immediately, drop them at places in our country that normally hire illegal immigrants, and observe the rising social experiment with intense scrutiny. It maybe the corporations can garner a better brand of serf from this crisis than their usual methods. True, it may have expenses, but in the long run it could allow our great Corpocracy even more decades of ignoring safety regulations, paying far too little for far too many hours, and dodging other expenses. 

 

Or we could do it because while yes, there are risks, there are also people hurting really bad and even if 1% of them are asshats, that's no reason for leaving others trapped in what some would see as a hellish war zone

 

...nah

Let's do it for Big Agro Corps!

[gewing]

As for the  refugees flooding Europe. The United States needs to pick up ten thousand immediately, drop them at places in our country that normally hire illegal immigrants, and observe the rising social experiment with intense scrutiny. It maybe the corporations can garner a better brand of serf from this crisis than their usual methods. True, it may have expenses, but in the long run it could allow our great Corpocracy even more decades of ignoring safety regulations, paying far too little for far too many hours, and dodging other expenses. 

 

Or we could do it because while yes, there are risks, there are also people hurting really bad and even if 1% of them are asshats, that's no reason for leaving others trapped in what some would see as a hellish war zone

 

...nah

Let's do it for Big Agro Corps!

I am tempted to get snarky(okay -er) about why do SOME groups get acceptance despite problematic minorities, but I will drop it here. 

[BoneDaddy]

Yup.

 

And all this talk of our government maybe 'playing them against each other' makes my eye twitch. Our track record at games like that playing out like that without bad consequences for us down the line is not great IIRC

All they need is much bigger guns.  We'll supply them with huge guns and they'll surely only use them on each other, and whoever wins will be our allies happily ever after.  Right?

[Markdoc]

Unfortunately, this sounds eerily like some of the accounts I have read about the less-than-enthusiastic responses to the expulsion of the Jews by the Nazis in the 1930s.

 

That parallel hasn't escaped the media or the politicians over here either. Why do you think Germany has stepped up to the bat, to take by far the largest number? They're saying they'll accept 800,000 refugees. The US and the UK have grudgingly said they'll take 10,000 each, with many other countries even further down the list.

 

But there's another interesting parallel to the 1930s - private citizens are forming refugee support groups, offering food, money legal help, even accomodation in their homes. By themselves, they won't be enough, but they are already having a wider effect by helping shame the politicians.

 

cheers, Mark

[Hermit]

Yeah, it's a fascinating situation (As well as a terrible crisis) to watch. Fingers are pointing every which way, some of them with more cause than others. Why aren't Saudi Arabia and other wealthier middle east nations taking in more refugees? The Hungarian government said 'Hell to the no" and yet their citizens have donated baby carriers, food and water etc on their own some with notes saying they're ashamed of their government? Other  governments have said they'll take several only to have protests from some small pockets of citizens etc. 

 

The refugees, I imagine, will want to stay together a great deal, which will feed fears by the citizens in their host nations about them never assimilating properly, and of course, that's major fodder for the 'assimilation is not evil, you stupid hippies' vs 'Yes it is, multiculturalism rocks you fascists!' discourse 

[wcw43921]

Tennessee Mom Wages Campaign Against Pornographic Science Book

[Enforcer84]

Tennessee Mom Wages Campaign Against Pornographic Science Book

Of course she does.

[Enforcer84]

I will generally be the first to condemn the banks. But this time, I come to praise one. I don't llike the "remember 9/11" tag as political pandering, but we do remember it.

 

Bank that lost 66 employees to the attacks on 9/11 have funded college tuition for 54 of their children.

[Hermit]

Tennessee Mom Wages Campaign Against Pornographic Science Book

 

Oy.

 

What lady, you couldn't be a native of Arkansas? Living In Alabama or something? NOOOO... you have to be a Tennessean 

[Enforcer84]

Oy.

 

What lady, you couldn't be a native of Arkansas? Living In Alabama or something? NOOOO... you have to be a Tennessean 

That's ok, we had a Judge in Oregon who refuses to do marriages now so he doesn't have do preside over same sex marriages. And apparently he has a painting of hitler in the courtroom. 

[Hermit]

That's ok, we had a Judge in Oregon who refuses to do marriages now so he doesn't have do preside over same sex marriages. And apparently he has a painting of hitler in the courtroom. 

 

 

Sympathies. Some folks you really wish they were from another planet

[Lawnmower Boy]

All they need is much bigger guns.  We'll supply them with huge guns and they'll surely only use them on each other, and whoever wins will be our allies happily ever after.  Right?

 

This is dumb and you should feel bad. The solution isn't bigger guns. It's high-techier guns. With autonomous, network-targeting, decentred, disruptive game-changing Internet of Things iAwesomeness.

[Old Man]

This is dumb and you should feel bad. The solution isn't bigger guns. It's high-techier guns. With autonomous, network-targeting, decentred, disruptive game-changing Internet of Things iAwesomeness.

And most importantly, open-ended government contracts.

[CaptnStrawberry]

Death - the export business that keeps on giving.

[Lawnmower Boy]

And most importantly, open-ended government contracts.

Cost-plus! Cost-plus! Cost-plus! It's the battle cry of a new religion. 

[tkdguy]

Serena Williams upset in US Open semifinals.

 

http://www.usopen.org/en_US/news/articles/2015-09-11/veni_vidi_vinci_italian_shocks_serena.html?promo=right_rail

[Cygnia]

http://news.yahoo.com/man-charged-plot-bomb-sept-11-memorial-missouri-124325499.html