Immigration Policy for the Average Guy

Given the items in the Senate Immigration plan, as well as the President’s proposal, it’s no surprise that I oppose just about everything they want.

I can’t stop them from wrecking the country, but while they’re doing it, maybe there is something useful they could slip into their immigration bill that a regular guy could get behind.

To that end, I give you the HB-10 Visa Program.   Formulated by me, the HB-10 seeks to attract the type of immigrants that guys would like to bring into our country, namely, really hot women.

Tens.

In spite of the current economic carnage being inflicted on our country, it still beats most other places so people from all over the world still want to come here.  We should take advantage of that by opening up a visa program that seeks out the most beautiful women in the world to come to the United States.  Here is how I envision it would work:

The basic requirements should be women between 18-26 years old who think they are hot enough to make the cut.  Applicants should submit a visa application plus a small portfolio.  For government purposes no more than ten photos, with at least three being head shots.  ICE could set up a committee whose job it would be to go through the applicant packets to determine if they are in fact tens.  As an aside, I volunteer to serve my country by being part of this committee.

If the committee decides that the applicant is in fact a 10, they are offered a visa.  Easy right?  And I think this type of visa program offers several advantages over the government’s current schemes.

Opportunities for the uneducated:  Since the current trend in immigration is for accepting those with no job skills other than domestic or manual labor, and in fact is downright hostile to those with technical skills that would actually benefit the economy like the tiny amount allowed under the H-1B program, then if you can’t beat them, join them.  The HB-10 program would have no educational or English language requirements.  No one is interested in what they are saying anyway.

Economic Benefit:  Genuine 10’s are an economic benefit to any country that snags them.  Because they are tens, they won’t have to work so they won’t be stealing jobs from hard working Americans.  However since they will be probably be snagged by some rich guy as soon as they get off the plane at JKF, they will be high income consumers, as they spend their days walking around using their boyfriends credit cards to buy shoes, clothes, and jewelry.   And of course, they won’t be a burden on our social services.  They are tens after all, so there will always be a guy to take care of them.  It’s the ultimate stimulus plan!

Beautification:  Frankly, the country would just look better with more hot women in it.  Since America has been taking in ugly people for centuries, maybe the sights of our cities and towns could be improved with better looking women in them.

Foreign Competition:  There are countries all over the world, particularly in population giants like China and India, which face adverse sex ratios in their populations.  There are not enough marriageable women for the marriageable men.  With MRI’s and sex selection abortions becoming more common throughout the third world, the sex ratio imbalance is likely to continue.  Therefore, we need to get in on the ground floor in this chick race by trying to snag as many of the cream of the crop as we can.  I would like to bring in so many 10’s that eventually  they are reduced to dating nerds.

You want to make America great again?  I can’t think of an easier way to do it.

GI Jane Finally Gets Her Chance

I suppose it’s an indication of how jaded I’ve become at each new Obama initiative that I barely turned my head to the television when the news blared that outgoing Secretary of Defense Panetta announced that combat positions would now be open to women.

I get it.  Women are “already on the front lines.”  The face of warfare has changed, and after over a decade of war, we’ve been fighting without a distinctive front.  Women have been in the line of fire from snipers and IED’s from the beginning.  All this change in policy is amounts to a de facto acknowledgement of what has been going on in Iraq and Afghanistan for years.

But still…

I should preface this by saying that during my many years in the military, I served with women in all matter of positions, both as subordinates and supervisors, and there was no job in the units I served in that a woman couldn’t do.  But those units were not combat arms units.

It’s one thing to be in a war zone, and it’s another to open up combat arms positions to women.  Those jobs are extremely physically demanding.  How physically demanding?  Demanding enough that two female officers who attempted to go through the Marine Corps Infantry Course both dropped out.  It’s no shame to drop out of a course like that.  It’s demanding enough that the course loses 25% of its male candidates, but it doesn’t bode well as a proof of concept that women are capable of making through that course and others like it.  If this was a project that would work on the merits we would have seen women in the NFL years ago.

The physical realities of maintaining a high performance in a combat zone, were well detailed in a much spoken about article in the Marine Corps Gazette last July by Marine Corps Captain Katie Petronio.  The article, titled “Get Over It!  We Are Not Created Equal,” got the ball rolling in the military.  The article, which I highly recommend, is Captain Petronio’s personal experience while deployed in Afghanistan, and the physically debilitating toll that the experience took on her body.  Her argument is that the cost to the services of dealing with the long term physical deterioration of females put in those grueling situations isn’t cost effective or the best use of resources.

And she’s just talking about women who can make the physical standards.  I’m more worried about the women who will have the standards adjusted to allow them to make it.  Yes I know, Panetta and JCS Chairman Dempsey said that wouldn’t happen, but I just don’t believe it.  Contrary to common opinion, The Department of Defense isn’t a conservative organization.  Following  O’Sullivan’s Law (any organization that is not explicitly conservative will become liberal over time), the military is about as liberal in direction as the private company I work for, with its constant profiles on diversity and emails celebrated it’s perfect score by the Human Rights Campaign on LGBT issues.  The Pentagon would like to get a perfect score on LGBT issues too, but first you have to walk, not run, so they are going for gender equity.

Currently the services are reevaluating their Physical Fitness Standards as well as the physical fitness standards for each Military Occupational Specialty to justify what standards should be required for each military job.  I’m pretty sure the standards will be tweaked until the Pentagon can get what they consider the right number of women into combat arms jobs.

Think that I’m wrong and the Pentagon would never purposefully degrade the nation’s military capabilities for some fuzzy affirmative action goal?

In November 2009, I wrote about the aftermath of the terrorist attack at Ft.  Hood committed by MAJ Hasan.  At the time, Army Chief of Staff General George Casy said on Meet The Press, “Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.” 

So yes, an Army General is saying that it’s better that 13 soldiers were killed then trying to scrutinize terrorists in the ranks.  Such an organization will make sure that their shiny new women-in-combat policy succeeds.  And they won’t worry about combat readiness or people’s lives to make sure it does.  Any Colonel who dares say publicly otherwise will never see General.

Sometimes the military’s can do spirit can make incredible things happen.  Sometimes it can make stupid things happen.  I’m pretty sure I know in the years ahead which one this is.

Condi Rice’s Long Game

I’ll admit to being a bit surprised to discover that Condoleezza Rice, in addition to appearing on Face the Nation yesterday, has also become a CBS Contributor.  Or, as wizened host Bob Schieffer said, “And joining us now, well, everybody knows Condoleezza Rice was President Bush’s Secretary of State, but I am very pleased to announce she has a new job. As of today, she is joining CBS News as a contributor.“  Call me crazy, but the first thing I thought of on hearing that was that she’s planning to run for President in 2016.

After leaving The Bush White House, Condi gave little indication that she was interested in politics again, even though the subject has come up in various interviews.  She showed zero interest in being John McCain’s running mate, a job that might have been hers for the asking.  Instead she seemed satisfied in her job as professor at Stanford.  But successful, ambitious people don’t stay content forever.  Something happened to make her interested in the public sphere again.

Last June at a Romney fundraising retreat, Rice gave a speech that was extremely well received, garnering her a standing ovation and lots of cash for the Romney campaign.  In fact it was to all accounts such a good speech that it put Rice on the Romney VP list.

So this is just my speculation, but I would think for Condi, becoming a CBS Contributor gets her back in the public eye, gives her a platform to criticize the Obama administration, and gives her a chance to gauge whether there would be an interest in Condi 2016 or not.  Given how shattered the Republican Party is right now, it’s up for grabs for someone who wants to try to pick up the pieces and try to form a winning coalition.  Right now, that field is wide open.

On the eve of President Obama’s public inauguration, It would certainly be hitting the ground early.  She may think having a woman on the GOP ticket will take some of the air out of the Hillary Clinton tire.  Given that they were both Secretaries of State, it would be an interesting race.   Or my speculation could be totally incorrect.  But I’ll be watching her and see what she does.

My Netflix Review: Iron Sky

I had been waiting for this movie for years, ever since the initial trailer hit the internet:

So I was delighted to see it pop into Netflix last week.  It seemed to have all of the classic B movie elements, Nazis, a ridiculous premise, and did I mention Nazis?  Who wouldn’t want to see a comedy like that?  Well that was the purpose of the trailer.  Not to promote a movie already made, but to obtain financing for a movie the producers wanted to make.  Using crowd funding, the producers wanted to close the gap between what they were able to raise from normal studio methods and what they needed to complete the film.  Crowd funding may well be a strong future method of financing films as the internet makes it possible to connect potential investors by dangling a trailer of what you have in mind for a film.

And crowd funding did work, helping the producers close the financial gap and make their movie.  So the movie was released worldwide and…bombed, earning just over 8 million dollars worldwide.  Not that great for a movie that had such internet interest prior to being released.  Hopefully the movie’s investors didn’t have any retirement plans tied to their investment in this movie paying off.

But what about the movie itself?  Is it the Good, the Bad, or the Ugly?  If you put much stock into Rotten Tomatoes it rated a 37% on the Tomatometer.  However, it is a B movie about Nazis on the moon, so we’re talking about grading on the curve here.

The basic plot of the movie is that in the near future, an American moon expedition to the dark side of the moon comes across a secret Nazi moon base, hidden since the end of World War II and working to reverse the results of the war.  One of the American astronauts, or should I say the Black American astronaut is captured.  Realizing that the astronauts Iphone has more computing power than the Nazi’s World War II era  computers, the space Nazi’s send a mission to Earth to collect more Iphones to provide the computing power needed to operate their ultimate weapon.  Along for the ride is the supposedly brainwashed American Astronaut, and stowaway “Earthologist” Renate Richter (Julia Dietze).  Antics ensue when the Nazi’s hit New York and besides an Apple Store, they discover new motivations for their mission.

Plus, a space battle.

However here is my take:

First the good:  The movies tone was just about right.  It was playful, with a hint of comedy.  Not enough to really consider it an actual comedy, but in this case, the premise is the comedy.  Although I have to admit the parody of the Downfall parody meme placed in the film gave me a laugh out loud moment.  The movie is well casted, with the starring role of Renate by Julia Dietze showing perhaps the most delightful, beguiling Nazi to appear on the silver screen.   She outshines Udo Kier, who as the Führer is the biggest star in the film.  The special effects, although not spectacular, were sufficient for the film and the production and costuming was excellent.  Little was updated in the basic Nazi uniforms, which have proven a perennial fascist costuming favorite for over 60 years.  The set design was strictly 1940’s U-Boot.  Even the Nazi’s anti gravity flying saucers had a retro feel to them.

The bad:  As a Finnish-German-Australian production, I’m not sure how they know how to present black people.   Christopher Kirby, playing astronaut James Washington, as one of the main stars of the film, was given little to do other than stand around being black.  In fact his character wasn’t even an astronaut but a male model sent to space as a publicity stunt.  As a consequence, the character is presented as if the last time the makers of the film saw a black guy in a film was in a 1970’s Blaxploitation film.

Or any Chris Tucker movie.

I’m not saying it was a degrading or racist portrayal; I mean, the character didn’t say “feets don’t fail me now” or anything like that, but it was way stereotypie.

Also, I wasn’t a fan of the film’s Anti-Americanism.  In fact, reading some of the tweets on this movie, it seems like for most of the fans who really liked the film, the anti-Americanism was the best part of the film.  Start with a Palin-esque President; in fact you might as well call her President Palin.  The moon based Nazis who come to earth to collect Apple products end up with the President’s campaign manager, who integrates the newcomers National Socialist ideology into a winning campaign strategy.  Combine that with the US’s secret moon agenda and you quickly figure out who the real Nazi’s are:  Yep, it’s the Americans.  In fact at the end of the movie, even the Nazi’s get at least a partial redemption and sympathy from the audience. Thanks partly to Julia Dietze‘s ability to portray her character as the protagonist with nothing but good intentions, compared to the American indiscriminate targeting of women and children.  No sympathy for the Americans though.  They are the films real bad guys.

However, if you hate America, or can just handle heavy doses of anti-Americanism, I would recommend you see this movie.  First, if you really, really like B movies, this is definitely one.  And secondly, it’s about Nazi’s.  And they’re on the moon!  It’s kind of hard to mess that up.

Fiscal Cliff Hangover

Although we called it the fiscal cliff, I always imagined it as more of a fiscal log flume, in which as we slowly go over the edge we hold our arms out, feel our stomach drop, then scream until we hit the end, with water splashing all over us.  Whee!  That was a blast!  Want to go again?  But we can talk about the debt ceiling later.

As deals go, it wasn’t a terrible one, particularly since the House Republicans had no cards to play, as I had pointed out previously.   What the House Republicans had was the total unpredictability of how they were going to vote on the deal.  Boehner didn’t even bother to whip the House body (easy now, I’m talking about getting a count of yes votes before the actual vote and politic to change some no’s to yeses).  He basically blew on his dice and was probably surprised that the House voted yes.

On the negative side, there were no spending cuts and not all of the tax cuts, particularly for the “rich”  were carried over, as I predicted two weeks ago.  So for all of the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, among conservatives of all types, we got as good of a deal as we were ever going to get; and easy to predict if you assumed that President Obama really would have liked to have taken us over the cliff, or if you prefer, log flume.  He would have been laughing all the way to the bottom.

On the positive side (yes there is one), the Bush tax cuts for those making under $450,000 for couples are now permanent.  So we don’t have to go through the end of the year farce of renewing these “temporary” cuts.  Same thing for the AMT tax.  They were fixed and made permanent.  The AMT fix, like the Medicare “doc fix” was an end of year ritual that couldn’t be resolved permanently.  Why you may ask?  Because any permanent fix would reflect in the CBO’s deficit and debt estimates for the years going forward.  Fixing the AMT for any one year was considered a cost for that particular year, but the CBO would base their estimates by current law, which would have the AMT not being fixed for the next year and every year afterwards.  Fixing the AMT for one year is a cost of 92 billion dollars.  A permanent fix it for the next ten years costs almost a trillion dollars.  From a purely crass, political position, having the costs of a permanent fix to the AMT and Bush income tax cuts accrued under the Obama administration ( two items that Republicans wanted to do but could never find the money for):

Priceless.

However all is not well in conservative talk radio land.  I made it a point to listen to what I think was a fair cross section of conservative radio for their take on all things fiscal cliffdom, and I must say, it was a muddled mess of incoherence.  They’ve been off their game since the election in my opinion really dropped the ball on the issues related to the fiscal cliff.  To summarize:

Rush:  No last name needed, you know who I mean.  Agreed with me (or is it I with him?) that Obama wanted to go over the cliff.  However he still wanted to oppose any deal that didn’t have the full Bush tax cuts and spending cuts.  And he regarded the deal that cut taxes as one that raised taxes; simply because not all the Bush cuts were included.  The practical result of his stonewalling any deal without the full Bush cuts?  All the tax cuts would have vanished.   Great job Rush!

Neal Boortz:  This odd combination of Paleo-Conservatism and Libertarianism also opposed any deal, however he thought that the Democratic Senate didn’t want to go over the cliff and would prevail upon Obama to accept all the Bush tax cuts rather than let them all expire.  Considering that after the failed vote on Plan B, The Republican House went home for Christmas, and ultimately didn’t vote on the deal until New Years Day, I would say events didn’t prove him correct.

Mark Levin:  Although I only caught his show once during the fiscal cliff debacle, Levin is being credited with organizing a call in campaign that helped bring about the defeat of Plan B.  Considering that from a conservative position Plan B was a better deal than the deal we actually got, I would have to say that turned out to not be a good move.

Sean Hannity:  Hannity has managed to have it both ways.  Before Christmas, he held the Rush position; that Obama wanted to go over the cliff and to oppose any compromise that didn’t have the full Bush tax cuts and spending cuts.  Post House vote, he is equivocating on whether Obama wanted to go over the cliff.  Too late to be even more wrong.

I think talk radio got it wrong on this one.  The deal wasn’t great, but it could have been so much worse considering that for the Democrats, going over the cliff was as close to a political dream situation as they could have hoped for, with Republicans being forced to bear all of the political costs.  I think conservatives should move on to the debt deal, a situation in which they have a bit more leverage.  That’s a situation guaranteed to generate several scowling Obama photos.