White Guilt

On a recent post by Araminta, my attention was caught by this:

why we may have more of a problem with assimilation than younger democracies.

and this:

with goodwill and determination on both sides

These quotes raise a number of questions. What is this ‘problem with assimilation? Historically the United Kingdom, more specifically, England, has ‘assimilated’ immigrants from all sorts of cultures. When groups of people have been at need, the UK has opened its doors, if not entirely its arms, and invited them in – the last such (large) group I can think of being the Ugandan Asians chucked out by Idi Amin. That group of people ‘assimilated’ without too much trouble – yes, some of them suffered discrimination in some cases, but they sucked it up and got on with it. What is the problem with assimilation?

Whacko of the week

Step forward Mr Justice Mitting.

“satisfied that Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the United Kingdom and that…it is conducive to the public good that he should be deported.”

“No open assurances were given by the Pakistani authorities” and as a result they could not find there was a “sufficient safeguard against prohibited ill-treatment of any of the appellants.”

Al-Qaeda-operative-cannot-be-deported-court-rules.

So, this guy who was going to blow people up is now to be supported by taxes taken from those same people.

Where do you go when you give up?

Quotes of the month

POLK COUNTY FLORIDA SHERIFF GRADY JUDD

An illegal alien in Polk County Florida who got pulled over in a routine traffic stop ended up ‘executing’ the deputy who stopped him. The deputy was shot eight times, including once behind his right ear at close range. Another deputy was wounded and a police dog killed. A state-wide manhunt ensued.

The murderer was found hiding in a wooded area and as soon as he took a shot at the SWAT team, officers opened fire on him. They hit the guy 68 times.

Naturally, the liberal media went nuts and asked why they had to shoot the poor undocumented immigrant 68 times. Sheriff Grady Judd told the Orlando Sentinel: ‘Because that’s all the ammunition we had.’

Now, is that just about the all-time greatest answer or what!

The Coroner also reported that the illegal alien died of natural causes. When asked by a reporter how that could be since there were 68 bullet wounds in his body, he simply replied “When you are shot 68 times you are naturally gonna die.”

!Vegas, Vegas, y mas Vegas!

For some reason I go to Vegas at least 3 times a year. Mainly because its easy to get some friends and my father to go, so I can spend time with cool people. Also, hotels are cheap, people watching is awesome, and the streets are knee-deep in beer and food… I talk about Vegas quite a bit to my “co-workers” and so a trip was planned for the beginning of this month, and about half of my company (7 people) ended up in Vegas simultaneously.

The first night I got a call from the CEO who has the CTO and all but one other worker at the airport trying to get a cab. The call goes something like this; Continue reading “!Vegas, Vegas, y mas Vegas!”

goodreads

So I got an invite from goodreads.com via a friend. When I still lived in the US I would exchange books with this guy on a regular basis. I was pretty much travelling every week, often internationally which meant long haul flights. You can only handle so much in-flight entertainment and you can only fly so many times before you hit the mother of all delays, so I would never travel with less than three books, replenishing my supplies at the airport bookshop. Over one month, that’s a lot of books. Although my friend didn’t travel as much, he had a lot of free time and was also an avid reader. We would typically exchange 20 books at a time. Goodreads seemed a perfect opportunity to reflect on what had been read
Continue reading “goodreads”

Oh what a difference…

Oh, what a difference twenty years makes. Scanning through the finance section on the Telegraph website a piece by Edmund Conway caught my attention. The article, in short, detailed the difficulties the United States would have in financing its debts — particularly since the US bonds tend to have a fairly short maturation — 4.4 years to be exact. This is where the juicy irony comes in… Late in the Bush Administration and now, during the Obama administration, the United States has managed to spend its way into such a hole that it would take generations to pay off. The lion’s share of this, the debts accrued in late 2008 and Obama’s incontinent spending on anything under the sun in 2009 will come due in the period of late 2012-2013. Twenty years before this the Soviet Union collapsed in on itself. The United States will, at that point, be even more reliant on foreign sources for its oil. As the Middle East is rapidly drying-up much of this oil will be Russian. Since the United States doesn’t have two farthings to rub together it will rely increasingly on surplus-states like, say, Russia. to finance its deficits — especially with Mr Hope-and-Change’s  spending plans. It is not that I am overly sympathetic to Russia — Russia is Russia and has its place in the world but is certainly not the most kind or just of lands. It just strikes me that, not too long after the United States poked its finger in Russia’s eye at every opportunity — just a few short years after the American establishment mocked Russia and its travails that the United States would, itself, be prostrate.