Micheal Bloomberg, you sir are an ignorant ass. Where do you get off showing up on my television this morning telling me that our illegal immigration problems are my fault because I want to pay as little as possible for the products and services I buy? To the best of my knowledge I haven’t violated any laws by doing so. But the companies who hire illegals so they can pay them less that the federally mandated minimum wage have. And those same workers who have entered our country without permission and without following our established immigration procedures have also violated our laws. And yet you’re going to show up in my living room, on my television and tell me that by exercising fiscal responsibility and violating none of our laws, I have caused our illegal immigration problems? Really?

Then I ask you, Mr. Bloomberg, based on your assertion, just what do you suggest I do about it? Buy instead the most expensive products and services available instead of the cheapest? I think not. Or perhaps you expect me to research companies myself to determine who is hiring illegals and not buy from them? But that would just be taking it upon myself to economically enforce our country’s laws which leads me to wonder, why even have the law in place then. Or a government to enforce it.

I guess at least though your comments this morning have revealed some common ground on this issue. Addressing our illegal immigration problem will require enforcing our own laws. You seem to think that I and the rest of the citizens of the United States should do so while we believe that it is the government’s responsibility. Well that’s a difference of opinion that’s easy to address. I ask you to recall who hires whom here Mr. Bloomberg.

I had thought the issue at hand was illegal immigration, but nearly every article mentioning the new AZ law linked on Google News drops the illegal part and frames the debate around immigration. I am completely in favor of Arizona or any other state taking steps to combat illegal immigration and at the same time I am all for immigration. I don't care if they decide to start giving out citizenships just for the asking. I've been around this country a little and believe that we've got the room and the natural resources to provide a decent life for however many people want to come here. By all means, welcome everyone and give out Social Security numbers like Halloween candy and get them paying taxes.
And that right there is my issue. You wanna live here and get your piece of the American pie? Fine. Should be plenty to go around, provided everyone pitches in on the baking. If you aren't pitching in then I'm all in favor of hunting you down and shipping you out because if we don't, then there wont be enough pie to go around.

[sarcasm]
Was going through some archived emails today and was reminded that I once had a facebook account way back when. Never did anything with it and finally deleted it to stop the user x has added you as their friend emails. As I recall all these people wanting to be so friendly were pretty young women who for a small fee (payable by credit card) would tell me where they post their "personal" pictures. I don't think facebook liked them very much because several times I saw their accounts get suspended before I even had a chance to thank them for their kind and generous offer.
Haven't gotten any invites from these nice young ladies since starting a new facebook account recently. Wonder where they all went?
[/sarcasm]

So anyway, I am on the facebook now and if anyone is caring, I can be found under me. Brett Stroup cogsoc@verizon.net. That is all.

Deleted my Twitter account today. It's a shame because I was getting rather accustomed to having it as outlet to vent. Even had deal with withdrawal of a sort. i.e, I really wanted to post some tweets about why I deleted my account.
Anyway, I learned today that while Twitter claims that the Trending Topics list is the top 10 topics currently being talked about on Twitter, what it really is are the popular topics that Twitter ALLOWS to be in the Trending Topics. It seems that Twitter will block topics from appearing in the Trending Topics list pretty much at their discretion.
There isn't anything preventing them from doing this, it just rubs me the wrong way that they do it secretly. As mentioned above, Twitter describes the Trending Topics list as "The top 10 topics currently being talked about on Twitter". No mention that the list is censored or of what criteria they use for censoring topics.
I only became aware of the manipulation after seeing a topic that caught my interest suddenly disappear and it had been either #2 or #3 when I saw it. Doing a search for Twitter Censorship on Google brought up several other instances of topics that were known to have been heavily tweeted about but made no, or very short, appearances on the Trending Topics list.
There were also several justifications for why Twitter would censor the list, none of which are of any concern to me. If they want to censor the list, fine. Just be upfront about it. Don't lead us to believe that it is a snapshot of the free flow of thoughts and ideas currently floating around Twitter when it isn't.