Toadlick Games

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Portman Fisking

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Nothing (NOTHING) fries my bacon worse than the handling of immigration by our elites.  Nothing destroys the character of a nation faster and depresses wages worse than what they’re doing right now.  The fact that they need to make what they’re doing even worse is bad governance on steroids.

I can understand some lefties to an extent since many of them hate America and would love to import people until it is properly destroyed.  However, even with lefties I’m puzzled since it would seem like they would want to defend the big government that they purport to love instead of saddling it with higher costs while further endangering the environment that they (supposedly) seek to conserve. 

In the case of the Republicans, idiocy abounds from every corner of their ill thought out plans:

  1. Hispanics will vote for us… (No, they won’t, ever)
  2. Chamber of Commerce loves it… (Way to refute the idea that you’re the ‘party of rich elites’ by siding with rich elites over the lower classes).
  3. We need ‘talented immigrants’…(Because your native countrymen are too stupid?  Beyond that, using their current methods, for every ounce of gold they get they’re going through ten tons of sand; what’s the point?)

With the passage out of the Senate committee of their ‘reform’ bill (that’s actually nothing of the sort) I messaged the people in Congress that represent me (well, supposedly…).  The law was bad enough to begin with, but then Orin Hatch found that he could only support it if it sold out the middle class via H1-B in addition to low skilled labor.  Rob Portman (RINO-OH) replied back with a nauseous, vapid spool of text that I feel must be picked apart:

Our immigration system is broken and is in need of reform.

And what exactly is broken about it? In Portman’s mind, I’m guessing what is broken is that we have any immigration system at all. What’s actually broken is that laws go unenforced while the ones that are enforced do things like set Islamic terrorists up with free school/food/housing, etc.

America is a nation of immigrants, and immigrants have enriched our great country.

This is feel-good nonsense and revisionism. America is a nation of settlers, and immigration has been a mixed bag. To the extent that it has been a success, the fools in Washington aren’t making any effort to figure out what worked and what didn’t.

We are also a nation of laws, and those laws must be enforced. It is the federal government’s duty to enforce our immigration laws at the border and in the interior, to stop illegal entry of those who seek to harm us.

And? Well? Is the Federal government incapable of performing this or is it just unwilling. How will a new law solve this?

We need effective immigration regulations that will uphold our laws while continuing to bestow the privilege of American citizenship to those who pursue it through legal means.

How allowing people who have gamed the system to jump ahead of those who are playing by the rules is supposed to make sense then I don’t know. It seems like at a minimum that a nation would favor immigrants who, you know, trouble themselves to not break the law as a matter of course.

We must never forget that the United States owes its solid foundation to the hard work of generations of legal immigrants. We are strengthened by being a nation of immigrants. This means that we should keep the doors of America open to those who come legally and enrich our society and contribute to our economic prosperity.

I doubt that even made sense to the person who wrote it. Proof for your assertion? None needed when it’s PC boilerplate.

We should continue to welcome innovative entrepreneurs and skilled workers, as these men and women fuel our nation’s economy by creating jobs, and promoting new technologies and ideas here in the United States.

In other words: have fun getting your wage diluted Mr. Sandmich, we don’t like you anyway.  How about an American economy fueled by Americans?  Is that too much to ask for?

Sports Improvements

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The Pro Bowl has been in the news continuously for ways to make the spectacle watchable.  This article puts forward the idea of a draft to draw interest.  I’ve heard different variations, but the one that sounded the most interesting was when the top vote getters in the AFC and NFC draw from a pool of pro bowlers irrespective of conference.  Commentators also put out the idea of putting serious money on the line.  The amount of money is unknown, but I would imagine that the amount would keep increasing until the players actually played.

Even then though, it’s unknown how many players would risk their career for a one time payout.  I’m sure there would be a few, but it would be hard to get a whole team to gel around the idea (let alone two).  The idea of switching to flag football has also been brought up as an idea to minimize injuries and encourage more spirited play.  An even more interesting idea that was batted around was that a game shouldn’t be played at all.  Instead, since being selected is an individual achievement, a series of challenges would be set out that all the players would compete in, such as throwing accuracy/distance, kicking accuracy, etc.  This might prove interesting in seeing what linebackers have the ‘stuff’ to pull off even a fifteen yard field goal.

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On the sports radio show they had a guy on who was decrying the designated hitter rule and predicted it’s inevitable demise.  I got to thinking about football though and the fact that players don’t play ‘both sides of the ball’.  Before continuing, I should point out that even for football that the idea of having players play ‘both sides’ has been put out as an idea to improve game safety as teams would favor long-term speed and endurance (cardio) over refrigerator sized players who need oxygen after every two plays.  But anyway, point being that in football they want players who can excel at individual positions on offense or defense.  In sports like soccer or rugby, the best ball handlers also have to try and be the best defensive players as well, which keeps players from being a true master of any one aspect of the game.

The designator hitter rule would seem to be an acknowledgment of this fact, but still, baseball can be boring (face it).  Might it make sense to allow for roster expansions so that teams can field whatever offense they feel gives them the best advantage?  I previously defended the DH because of the poor batting quality of pitchers, but catchers, generally, aren’t too much better and often bat at towards the bottom of the order.  As another example, it probably wouldn’t boggle the mind to come by strong first basemen who can’t hit.  Some 60/40 batting rotation of DHs and (probably) outfielders may only kick off an arms race where defenders get better and better along with the batting, but if football is any guide, defense can’t keep up.

Remastered Trek

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[2020 addendum: Season three of the original series is crap, there’s maybe only two episodes of the lot that are salvageable.  It’s interesting since none other than Jon Poderhetz (sp) had pointed this out when it’s obvious, by looking at the credits, that the season was ruined by women and Jews.]

My doctor buddy related how he was envious of my acquisition of the DVDs  of the remastered three seasons of the original Star Trek series.  I thought that he was being funny (it’s just Star Trek!), but I have to say that there’s something to it.

I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of watching something as an adult which we enjoyed as a kid only to be embarrassed on some level that nostalgia fogged your mind as to the poor quality of the original product.  However, with these remastered episodes, it’s like someone went back in time and made the show, not as it was, but how you remember it.  As well, I’m not sure where they found the prints, but the original show was barely ‘standard definition’, but most of the shots on this disk set look like they were filmed yesterday and polished with some 60s era styling (it’s only noticeable because every episode seems to have a short shot or two which was obviously beyond salvage).