From the WaPo:
"The [immigration] legislation faces a make-or-break vote this morning when senators will decide whether to cut off debate and move to a final vote tomorrow. If it does not get the 60 votes necessary, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has said he will pull the bill, all but dashing hopes for any meaningful legislation this year."
The LA Times reported:
But the most ambitious attempt to overhaul immigration laws in two decades suffered a major setback late Wednesday when lawmakers approved an amendment that the bill's backers and the administration said would undermine its effectiveness. The measure targeted the bill's work-site enforcement section, removing all provisions that required so-called "Real ID" driver's licenses — tamper-proof, secure identification that does not yet exist, but that the bill's backers consider essential to cracking down on illegal hiring.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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Something interesting in Slate.com today re Mexicans doing jobs Americans won’t do:
The Shock of the New
What the history of the electric dynamo teaches about the future of the computer.
By Tim Harford
Posted Saturday, June 9, 2007, at 6:18 AM ET
Electric light bulbs were available in 1879
… Eventually, businesses figured out that factories could be completely redesigned on a single floor. Production lines were arranged to enable the smooth flow of materials around the factory. Most importantly, each worker could have his or her own little electric motor, starting it or stopping it at will. The improvements weren't just architectural but social: Once the technology allowed workers to make more decisions, they needed more training and different contracts to encourage them to take responsibility.
David showed that World War I, which led to immigration controls* and choked off the supply of cheap but untrained immigrant workers, was one of the spurs to make these changes. U.S. productivity growth eventually leapt in the 1920s, four decades after the commercialization of electricity. Productivity growth rates in U.S. manufacturing in the 1920s were more than 5 percent per year, a rate that makes the "new economy" look laughable, at least for now. …
http://www.slate.com/id/2167909/fr/flyout
* Note: It's odd to say that WWI was the cause of immigration restriction.
Steve,
The bill just died a few minutes ago.
The vote for ending debate just failed - 46 to 53. It appears that many of the senators who voted for cloture on Tuesday either got cold feet, or voted simply to add more time for debate.
In any case, this bill is dead for at least this year, likely until after the presidential election next year.
I don't expect to see any action on immigration until 2009.
Well, we may not of gotten enforcement, but we've kept hope alive! 53 against cloture. We win!
The public was so much against this that the Senate telephone system collapsed according to Senator Sessions.
Cloture fails! We win!! Yeehah!!!
As you are no doubt aware, several bills such as the immigration bill have come into existance and been voted on with minimal time for public debate. This has all been within the current legislature (110). The reason for this is the fact that the democrats have maintained the senority system in congress. This means that bills are crafted in back room sessions with Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, and Henry Waxman; with little debate and public input.
You will remember that the first thing the republicans did when they took majority in both house in 1994 was to eliminate their senority system.
I believe a useful thing is to contact democratic representatives and senators (if you live in a democratic district) and urge them to reconsider and abolish their senority system. Couch the discussion in traditional democratic language such as restoring the democrats as the "party of the people", etc. A senority system where bills are crafted in back rooms is hardly the hallmark of the party that is supposed to be accoutable to the people.
From CNN: _Immigration bill suffers crushing defeat_
I'm pretty sure they had an identical headline when this bill was last "crushingly defeated." I might word it a little differently, "America enjoys crushing victory" but I'll agree with CNN's version, if not exactly its spirit.
Senor the presidente El Busho prefered to quote one of his ear-whisperers to this effect:
_Legal immigration is one of the top concerns of the American people, and Congress' failure to act on it is a disappointment_
Oy. I thought "terrorism" was a top concern. If you substitute the words, you realize that he was planning on INCREASING both legal immigration and terrorism all along. He's not a liar: We're just stupid.
Its gone down. A majority voted against it.
According to MSNBC:
The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.
The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.
I found this Ted Kennedy quote on another blog. Thought you might all find it interesting. This is regarding the original 1965 immigration bill that opened the floodgates:
From http://www.cis.org/articles/1995/back395.html
[quote follows]
Senate immigration subcommittee chairman Edward Kennedy (D-MA.) reassured his colleagues and the nation with the following:
"First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same ... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset ... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia ... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think."
Sen. Kennedy concluded by saying,
"The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 1-3.)
We are today in an analogous position similar to the old line tall brick factories in the 1880-1930 era. The potential of technology has exceeded the current use, but the human capital is so cheap there is no incentive to revise production methods.
For example, using current CNC equipment, it's possible to make custom musical instruments, shotguns, skis, ski poles, or any of dozens of other items for which production items will do but for which custom fabrication-traditionally by high priced hand labor- provides a level of increased user satisfaction. No new hardware needs to be built: all that's needed are the creation of "build rules", some fancy HTML scripts, and a set of rule variable to G-code routines. Most of which are available in open source code.
There's no reason why every guitar player can't have a guitar, especially solidbody electrics, with a custom scale length, nut width, radius at nut, radius at bridge, and fret width and heights, along of course with neck contour.
Shotguns could be stocked with custom length of pull, comb height, and castoff.
And any item painted with basecoat/clearcoat urethane paints-which is everything these days, most notably cars-could be ordered in any Pantone shade desired with a simple four part CMYK sprayhead. That's already been demonstrated. You should be able to order your Acura in Desert Poopsand with MM Burial Dress Seafoam Green trim and Lake Placid Purple roof if you want.
Despite the ease of doing so, and the comments for years of the eventual inevitability of this, no one is implementing it. Why not? They don't have to: consumers buy the generic stuff as it is, so why change?
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