Baghdad Burning (but in the rear-view mirror)

Riverbend and her family safely made it out of Iraq and into Syria. If you haven't been reading her years-long account of life in Baghdad, do yourself a favor and go there now.

Anti-Illegal Immigrant Resolution

Early this morning, Prince William County's Board of Supervisors unanoumously to approve an anti-illegal immigration resolution. It's been mainstream news here. My county is going to be the bow-wave of sister resolutions being considered by many other counties surrounding Washington.

Here's a summary from the Washington Post newspaper:

Prince William County supervisors early this morning voted to move forward with a nationally watched plan to crack down on illegal immigrants by increasing local police enforcement and restricting certain public services.

The measures approved yesterday improve cooperation with
federal immigration authorities and direct police to check the immigration status of anyone accused of breaking the law if the officer suspects that person is an illegal immigrant. They also would deny certain county services to illegal immigrants, including drug counseling, some elderly services, and business
licenses.

The county's plan to deny services has evolved since it
was first proposed. Services such as access to schools and emergency medical care are federally protected, and illegal immigrants are already ineligible for benefits such as Medicare and food stamps.

Instead, Prince William has pinpointed a more limited set of services and benefits, including substance abuse counseling, homeless assistance and in-home care and other county programs for the elderly. County officials said they are not sure how many illegal immigrants are taking advantage of these programs or how much money would be saved by curbing them.

Now, I'm not a fan of illegal immigrants being coddled in our country at the expense of the legal citenzry, but I have some doubts about anything good coming out of this particular set of restrictions. The reasoning appears to be: if we don't help illegal immigrant drug addicts and don't provide elder care to illegal immigrants, we'll solve the illegal immigrant problem? I'm sure that can't be the rationale, but I didn't attend the hearing to get the background. Seems to me that this might save a few bucks, sure, but is it worth it to deny those specific humanitarian services?

I support stiff fines for the employers of illegal immigrants and a standardized National ID card. But that's another blog from this hard-pressed liberal.

Brain-Eating Amoebas (or, Thanks Australia!)

Yahoo headline today, "6 die from brain-eating amoeba in lakes" caught my eye. I'm eternally fascinated in all things that eat brains...a childhood phobio I suppose. Excerpt:

A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die…. It's killed six boys and young men this year…and health officials are predicting more cases in the future.

"This is definitely something we need to track," said a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Wow, you think?)

According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s.

Find Your Candidate

This was interesting. An old work colleague sent me this little quiz. You answer a few questions (11 of them) and it spits out a "here's the candidate most closely aligned with your views" answer. I was pretty surprised. You may be surprised, too.

http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460


In other news, I heard on NPR today that Radiohead new marketing strategy complete eliminates the record labels. You can preorder a semi-traditional CD for a nominal fee. or you can pre-register to download the music on 10 Oct. Your payment for the downloaded version of the album is "?"...meaning, they're leaving that part up to you. Interesting.