Attention illegals - Free education available, please hurry!

I often get a “whatever” look from friends and family when I go off on a political rant for whatever reason. Usually my wife half pretends to give a flip about what I am ranting about, but I know she thinks I get worked up for nothing, same for my sister in law…until today.

A little background, my sister in law (we will call her Kim), is recently remarried and will be moving with her new husband to Lewisville, TX next month. She has an awesome 4-year old son who has stayed at home with mom the whole time (no daycare). Kim called Lewisville Schools to inquire about their pre-K program – thinking that now is a good time to get my nephew acclimated with other kids and get a jump on structured learning.

That’s the background - here is the outrage. The representative for the school district said that of course they have a pre-K program and that my nephew would be welcomed there as long as he fit into one of the following categories:

- Needs help with English (i.e. are his parents illegal immigrants)
- Homeless
- Parents in the active duty military
- Economically disadvantaged

Lets think about that for a second. The one redeeming quality to their completely absurd guidelines is that they are providing assistance to families who are fighting for our freedom on a daily basis – no further discussion needed on that point.

But here is a prime example of what is wrong with the education system in general and illegal immigration specifically. The nanny welfare state has been too busy spending the tax money of hard working citizens on people who are not paying a dime – in particular on people who are here illegally and are not paying a dime. I have compassion for the single mom or dad who works his tale off and still needs to get little Johnny or Susie in to pre-K. I have compassion for the mom who has seen their family’s income go down because dad was called up to fight and needs help. But I have zero compassion for Pedro who has come to this country (with his 8 kids) illegally and now demands that I have to educate his children while mine get to sit at home. I get to spend $150 week on private school in order to provide an early learning environment while Pedro sends his to school for free!

The solution: stop providing the incentives that keep the stream of illegal aliens coming - like free education, free health care, no threat of deportation, etc. Once this stream is significantly reduced – meaning those true “immigrants” who are here legally and are now paying their share of taxes – can we start allowing them access to our subsidized programs.

We can’t deport all 12 million illegal aliens – not possible. So part of me can see the need to educate the ones that are here now (helps break the cycle of poverty). But it makes no sense to keep the floodgates open and to keep telling those not wanting to go through the normal process of legal immigration to “come on over – get your free health care and free schooling”. While my sister in law and her new husband work and pay taxes, just to get the opportunity to send my nephew to private school to learn what Pedro Jr. gets to learn for free.

Disclaimer: The name Pedro was used to represent the 10-12 million illegal aliens currently estimated to be in this country (most of which are from Latin America). It is in no way meant to be exclusionary to those who may be named Jose, Felipe, Juanita or Jesus. Please see my early posts on illegal immigration before calling me racist.

Today's entry

I joined The Circus last night for the first time in a long while. I thought it was a pretty good show, and as always, Richard saved some political stuff for me to discuss. And true to form, I think equal airtime was given to both sides – thank you Richard for the invite.

Deborah Orin is reporting in the NY Post today that Valerie “I’m a secret operative” Plame gave $325 to the anti-Bush fund raising concert last year starring Bruce Springsteen. Orin states:

“It's the first revelation that Plame participated in anti-Bush political activity while working for the CIA.
The $372 donation to the anti-Bush group America Coming Together, first reported by Time magazine's Web site, was made in Plame's married name of Valerie E. Wilson and covered two tickets.
The Federal Election Commission record lists her occupation as "retired" even though she's still a CIA staffer. Under employer it says: "N.A."

I don’t really make too much of this, just thought it was interesting. Next time you see or read about an ex-CIA/Justice Official/etc. give their expert opinion on something, don’t automatically assume that their opinion is without bias just because they served in some particular role. Federal employees are just like everyone else, they form political opinions and vote just like you and me. We can only hope that their political leanings don’t get in the way of their job.

A downtown grocer - why didnt I think of that?!

A new grocery store opened up recently in downtown Dallas – and by downtown, I mean directly in the heart of the CBD…and by new, I mean the first of its kind. This is good for downtown, and will help comfort those residents who have already ventured back into the CBD and will likely lure in the next wave. But there is just one problem…they STOLE MY IDEA!!

Three years ago while going through grad school I worked on a project with two other classmates. The development project was for a downtown grocery/bar/café to be located in the middle of downtown (sound familiar). The area was just starting to see the first wave of new residents and the closest grocery store was located on Lemon and McKinney Ave. – not very close and not easy to get to.

My group did it all from costing the job, researching demographics and running IRR calculations. I recall getting an A on the project and thinking to myself - self, why don’t you actually do this deal. Then self responded, “because I’m poor”!

Oh well. Good luck to whoever it was who stole the brilliant idea. The similarities are way to close to have been purely a coincidence.

I'm back! Thank you..hold your applause

I’m back. Back from a much-needed vacation, only to be so backed up with work from missing over a week, that I now feel like I need another vacation. I gotta hand it to the French and their 30 hour work week. In fact, I think that may be the answer to a trivia question: Name one redeeming value to living in France? What is, the 30-hour workweek?

There has been a lot going on in the news lately so lets play news quick-hits, shall we.

Karl Rove did not take the initiative to seek out a reporter who would run with a story about Valerie Plame. He responded to an email from the Time reporter and cautioned him about going forward with the Wilson story on Niger/Yellowcake/Sadaam. Too bad Time didn’t head his warning. As the 9/11 Commission proved, Wilson lied about who sent him, lied about briefing the Vice President and lied about issuing any type of written report of his trip. For more on his lies check the GOP site.

The NHL has ended their version of the Cold War and agreed to terms. I remember reading that under no circumstances would the players union agreed to a salary cap. Guess what? There will be a 53% salary cap for the next 6 years. Unions in general played a very important role many, many years ago. The union has now outlived its usefulness in America.

It appears that George Bush and Tony Blair are to blame for the recent London terrorist attacks. Oh, you didn’t know that?! It says so right there in The Guardian. Need more confirmation, just check out any BBC report that comes out. Why is it that the BBC refuses to use the word terrorist? The first reports from the BBC on the London attacks described it as a terrorist act. However, the reports that ran later that day scrubbed the word terrorist and replaced it with the word “bombers”. Evidentially, they changed this because viewers/readers didn’t understand why the BBC refused to label the terrorist in Iraq as such (instead call them militants), but were quick to label the attackers in London as terrorist. So, what does the BBC do? They sugar coat all acts of violence perpetrated by people intent on killing innocent civilians (what you and I call TERRORIST) by calling them “militants” or “bombers” or “mean people”. Political correctness lives on in Great Britain. BBC responds by saying this: Link

Keeping an up to date blog takes lots of time. I have $0.02 to offer on most any and all current events, but sure don’t have the time to put them into words and post on a daily basis. I do have a new blog that I started reading recently: Black Five – The Paratrooper of Love. This is one of the better Military Blogs out there. I have added him to my Links on the left.