From Reader KiloDelta:
“Anything that is moving in the mountains of western North Carolina right now has an IC engine under the hood.”
Fact check: TRUE.
From Reader KiloDelta:
“Anything that is moving in the mountains of western North Carolina right now has an IC engine under the hood.”
Fact check: TRUE.
When it comes to immigration policy, there are a few options available to you as the host country if the floodgates have been opened too far and the influx starts to threaten the fabric of the settled society.
You can strain the influx of future immigration — not putting stress on — by tightening the restrictions, or setting higher standards for what constitutes an “acceptable” immigrant. Many countries have done this in the past, whether the sieve was academic (minimum education standards such as eighth-grade-, twelfth-grade- or even graduate levels), skills (tradespeople or industry-savvy applicants such as carpenters, steelworkers, forestry specialists or computer programmers), and finally financial: people who have been successful in their home countries and raised their standard of living to the point where their arrival into the host country will not require financial assistance from the government or charity organizations and may in fact become employment creators. (One more is military service for younger men and perhaps women, too, but this approach is fraught with potential problems, which is why the .dotmil generally has fairly strict standards for foreign recruits, or else has a savage, no-nonsense approach to assimilation like the French Foreign Legion.)
When a nation like the Netherlands decides to apply tighter standards or even close entry altogether, you have to realize that even for the famously-tolerant Dutch, immigration has put too much of a stress on their society, both financial and more especially to their culture. Which is what is happening over there:
Prime Minister Dick Schoof has promised to take a tougher line against illegal immigration. The Dutch four-party cabinet has pledged to establish ‘the strictest asylum regime ever known’ to curb immigration.”
The surge in the number of immigrants seeking asylum in the Netherlands, estimated at around 40,000 a year, has put severe pressure on public services from housing to healthcare, fueling growing concerns about the country’s ability to manage the influx.
The ruling coalition in the Netherlands, which includes Geert Wilders-led Freedom Party, has taken a tough stance on immigration. The party is known for its controlled immigration stances, and has been one of the key drivers behind proposals to tighten asylum laws in the country.
Measures on the table include limiting applications for international protection, speeding up deportations and restricting family reunification for refugees under much stricter conditions.
The Dutch government, by the way, is not doing this voluntarily. Whereas the neo-socialist political parties had pretty much universal control of the polity in the past, the election of hardliners like the party of Geert Wilders has changed the political landscape, and government ministers now say things like “a clear mandate from the voters” when framing a tougher immigration policy.
The depth of feeling on this topic is that the Dutch, always the most quiescent of members of the European Union, are now stating quite bluntly that in order for them to enact these new immigration controls, they have to have control of their own borders — ditto the Germans, by the way — but the Dutch are even showing open willingness to leave the EU altogether if such control is denied them.
Note too that the Dutch government is framing this issue purely in terms of financial necessity, and are not touching the issue of non-assimilation. But the Dutch, always cosmopolitan a nation, are undoubtedly looking northward to see what the (also famously-tolerant) Swedes are doing:
Sweden’s migration policy is undergoing a paradigm shift. The Government is intensifying its efforts to reduce… the number of migrants coming irregularly to Sweden. Labour immigration fraud and abuses must be stopped and the ‘shadow society’ combated. Sweden will continue to have dignified reception standards, and those who have no grounds for protection or other legal right to stay in Sweden must be expelled.
And that’s not a news organization speaking: it’s from the Swedish government itself.
By “shadow society” they mean Muslim enclaves, who insist on setting up their own little state-within-a-state pretty much wherever they arrive, and whose establishment was made easy by Sweden’s traditional tolerance. Ditto the many crime organizations and drug cartels, who up until now have had it relatively easy.
Well, it appears that this tolerance has reached its limits, and because the Swedes prefer orderliness over chaos, they’re prepared to do what has to be done: reduce the influx, and expel the unwanted (being Swedes, they’ll pay these assholes over $30,000 each to leave, which gives you an idea of how much the unwanted immigrants are costing the government in terms of aid and policing).
It is in this light that we should look homeward, and think about Donald Trump’s promise that upon election, we’ll see the largest domestic deportation in history.
Let’s hope, and hope still more that when he reaches the Oval Office, this promise doesn’t suffer the fate of that “big, beautiful wall” from his last presidential campaign.
Here’s some news that cheered me up over the weekend:
A girls’ field hockey team from Dighton-Rehoboth (D-R) Regional High School in Massachusetts has forfeited a planned game on September 17th because their opponent, Somerset-Berkley, has a male on their team.
Dighton-Rehoboth cited its new policy, approved on June 25, that allows players and/or coaches to opt out of competitions if the opposing team includes a member of the opposite sex.
And they’re aware of the consequences:
“We understand this forfeit will impact our chances for a league championship and possibly playoff eligibility, but we remain hopeful that other schools consider following suit to achieve safety and promote fair competition for female athletes.”
I actually know a lot about this topic.
You see, back in high school I played for the 1st XI hockey team for most of my time there — I was reasonably skilled but the fastest runner on the team, and speed made up for a lot of shortcomings.
Just for the hell of it, the coach arranged for a match against two girls’ high schools on consecutive Sundays, played on our field. Both were considered top in the field, perennial competitors for the girls’ area championship. We, in contrast, were no more than mediocre (we only had forty-odd boys to draw from, as most of the school played rugby).
So we approached the first match with some trepidation, because of course we’d never played against girls.
After the first five minutes we realized that our opposition was hopelessly outclassed. We were faster, more skilled and more game-savvy, and we scored three goals in the space of a few minutes. Thereafter we decided that we would only run backwards, and the flow of goals slowed to only a couple by half-time.
At that point, the respective coaches decided to split us up, five each of either gender per side (the goalies were irrelevant).
Only then did everyone start enjoying themselves, but even then we boys had a tacit agreement to slow down and make most of our passes to the girls (“to” not “at”, you bad people) rather than just playing to win.
And it was great fun. But make no mistake, there was absolutely no comparison between the sexes. Had we boys not altered the format and played like we were playing one of our bitter rivals, there’s no telling how badly we would have beaten the girls.
So I can tell you that having even one boy playing on a girl’s team is going to make a huge difference, especially if that boy plays aggressively, like the boy in the linked article did. (Shame on him, by the way. Even at my advanced age, I’d love to play against him and show him what real –but quite legal — aggression is like when you have it inflicted on you*.)
Some things cannot be changed, no matter how many “valid” arguments are made in favor of the change.
And good for the folks at Dighton-Rehoboth for acknowledging that fact.
*That’s a tale for another time, but someone remind me to tell the story of Kim And The Beauty Queen some day.
Unfortunately, while the March of Progress continues apace (more and more goblins getting wasted), the details of the Tampa and Tucson Righteous Shootings are sketchy, so I can’t gloat, simply rejoice.
I must make one comment, though. When police are called to the scene of a would-be home invasion, find an actual room-temperature home invader, and their only comment is: “Yup, I thought it might be him,” then I don’t want to read any crap about charges filed against the home defender.
I have to tell y’all, in perusing the comments to this post from yesterday I noticed an awful lot of experience, commonsense and wisdom therein.
There was also snarling hostility towards Corporate America, but I would expect no less from my Reader demographic.
Well done, everybody. More like that, please.