News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Jamaicans love akee. It is said to be delicious.
Don’t look for it in the supermarket, though. The Food and Drug Administration bans its importation. The fruit that can cause coma or death if eaten before fully ripe.
And the seeds of the akee are always poisonous.
The scientific name, blighia sapida, honors Captain William Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. Bligh brought the plant to Jamaica from Africa as food for slaves.
Lincoln Washington Descendants — There are no living direct descendants of either Abraham Lincoln or George Washington.
The last undisputed descendant of Honest Abe was his great-grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckworth who had three marriages which produced one son but (cough) during a divorce and after his vasectomy. Beckworth denied the paternity and this was upheld by the courts. Beckworth died in 1985 at the age of 81.
While G.W. had two step children from Martha’s first marriage, he never had any of his own as smallpox likely rendered him sterile.
Feds Finally Tackle Birth Tourism Criminals
By Joe Guzzardi
As the old saying goes, half a loaf is better than none. Today’s subject isn’t bread baking but rather the recent and long overdue Homeland Security Investigations’ action against 19 California-based Chinese nationals for birth tourism operations. HSI’s action followed up on its 2015 sweep that uncovered several illicit goings-on that included criminal offenses at maternity hotels that centered on women who paid as much as $80,000 for the privilege of giving birth to a U.S. citizen child.
By violating immigration laws and committing other crimes involving conspiracy, visa fraud, income tax fraud and money laundering, the unscrupulous birth tourism proprietors raked in tens of millions of dollars over the years. One of the operators, Dongyuan Li, faced the seizure of her $2.1 million Irving, Calif., home, six luxury vehicles and more than $1 million from bank accounts, as well as many gold bars and coins. According to the ICE press release, Li “received $3 million in international wire transfers from China in just two years.”
According to the indictments, birth hotel owners advised their clients to lie on their visa applications, a crime, and to hide their pregnancies from airport Customs and Border Protection officials. The end game for the foreign-born mothers is to secure U.S. citizenship for their children through the current misinterpretation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
Although no court has ruled on the 14th Amendment as it applies to U.S.-born children whose mothers are not American citizens, those children born on U.S. soil are granted automatic citizenship, a practice known as jus soli.Constitutionalists argue that since the foreign-born mother isn’t “under the jurisdiction thereof…” (the U.S. government), citizenship should be conferred only on children whose parents are citizens, known as jus sanguinis.
Birth tourism hurts Americans in multiple ways. Later in their lives, the newly minted citizens will have unfettered access to jobs, Social Security and other affirmative benefits. The birth tourism industry is big business. Estimates for the annual births related to the tourist scam range between 40,000 and 60,000 annually. Birth tourism spawns population-busting chain migration since the anchor babies, once they turn 21, can sponsor their parents for permanent residency. Then, in turn, the parents will eventually sponsor their non-nuclear family members. In 2016, the U.S. admitted more than 300,000 people through chain migration.
As welcome as the HSI action is, the best hope is that it will send a warning shot over the operators’ heads, and possibly deter other global foreign nationals from signing up for birth tourism packages. It would be more effective, however, if the State Department announced that it will no longer issue travel visas to obviously pregnant women. Then, pregnant women who ignore the State Department’s warning should be turned away at their port of entry.
Since this is the first federal intervention into the sleazy, criminal birth tourism businesses that’s been thriving for more than a decade, the question is what took so long. The query is especially significant because the preferred destination for many wealthy pregnant Russians is Florida Trump properties. Although the Trump Organization doesn’t profit from the subleased condominiums that the Russians rent at up to $85,000, it’s inconceivable that President Trump, who railed against chain migration, is unaware of birth tourism on his Florida property.
Joseph Macias, Special Agent in Charge of HSI Los Angeles, said that “America’s way of life is not for sale,” and promised to aggressively target “those who would make a mockery of our laws and our values to benefit and enrich themselves.” HSI has a long row to hoe. Dozens of birth tourism scams are still thriving, although perhaps less brazenly.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Cape Horn, the very tip of South America where the Atlantic meets Pacific and what clipper ships braved in days of yore, is not named for the pointy things on the heads of bulls and bisons but for the town of Hoorn in Holland.
That was the home of navigator and merchant Willem Cornelisz Schouten, who was part of an enterprise in 1615 to find a route to the Pacific not controlled by the Dutch East India Company.
Yes Anthony, it was Schouten not Sir Francis Drake who made the discovery.
World Can Fit In Texas But Don’t Try It
By Jack McKerrigan
“If every member of the United States lived in an area with the population density of Brooklyn, New York, all 327 million of us could fit into New Hampshire,” wrote Jennifer Wright in a recent article in Harper’s Bazaar. (The current U.S. population actually is 330 million.)
Similar nonsensical pieces have made similar claims – everyone could fit in Texas or the Grand Canyon. These statements are so naïve they leave me practically speechless. Are the authors of these comments, including Bazaar’sWright, who has the seemingly impressive-sounding title of “Political Editor at Large,” so incapable of conceptualizing what actually is required to maintain human life? Besides the physical space that one occupies, vastly larger amounts of space are required to support life! Anyone who believes that the entire U.S. population could live in New Hampshire must never leave New York City and believe everything they eat and use is made by fairies off planet.
According to a 1998 study by Mathis Wackernagel and J. David Yount, of the total space on Earth, 71 percent is ocean, 16 percent is biologically productive land and 13 percent is desert, ice caps and barren land. However, the amount of available biologically productive land would drop dramatically if the availability of energy significantly decreased. Energy is needed to move water to otherwise uninhabitable areas (Los Angeles), pump water from the ground (Ogallala Aquifer) and make the water suitable for human consumption. In addition, energy is required to heat (New Hampshire) and cool (Phoenix) homes and transport food supplies to less temperate climates.
According to the same Wackernagel/Yount study, the space required to support a lifestyle is called an ecological footprint. The ecological footprint (which varies by location) does not include just the space where you are actually living, but includes everything for a steady supply of the basic requirements for life, including energy for warmth and mobility; wood for housing, furniture and paper; materials for clothing and products; food and water, and ecological sinks for waste absorption and other nonconsumptive life support activities. There should also be included in the footprint space for biodiversity preservation. According to this study, the average 1998 U.S. citizen style of life required 21 acres of biological productive space (BPS) per person.
There were only approximately 19 acres of BPS per person available in the U.S., according to the study. That means there was only sufficient space for approximately 91.5 percent of the U.S. population to live the lifestyle of the average U.S. citizen in 1998.
Since 1998 the population of the United States has increased 19.5 percent which means that only approximately 73.7 percent of the current U.S. population can currently live what was previously thought as the average citizen’s style of life in 1998. If every person on Earth in 1998 had the U.S. lifestyle requiring 21 acres of BPS per person, it would have required an area the size of six Earths, and for the current world population, eight Earths.
Since Texas is much larger than New Hampshire (and approximately 25 percent of New Hampshire consists of the White Mountains which are uninhabitable), let’s limit our calculations to how much BPS Texas acreage would be available to each individual on Earth.
To do this, we calculate the number of acres in Texas every person on Earth would receive if we divided the total acres in Texas by current total world population.
This calculation yields .02 acres, or approximately 960 square feet (the size of a small apartment), per every person on Earth. It should be noted that this is total acres, not BPS Texas acres per person. Estimates range that up to half of Texas is uninhabitable, but if we just exclude the 12 percent of Texas which is desert to calculate the Texas BPS acres, it would reduce the space to 844 square feet per person, and this space includes no space for biodiversity. The ecological footprint of the average Japanese, who are some of the most efficient people ecologically in the world, is approximately 441,000 square feet, or approximately 522 times the size of the calculated Texas BPS acres.
Accordingly, the argument that we could put all families in the world in the state of Texas is true, but as we can see from the footprint needed in Japan all of these people would be dead within a week from starvation, lack of water or poisoned from no waste disposal.
And in New Hampshire, they’d just be put out of their misery sooner.
Jack McKerrigan spent 10 years with an international consulting firm where he worked with companies on five continents while living on three. His clients were large international companies and local governments. He has held senior finance positions for two Fortune 500 companies and was the CFO for four public companies.
The oldest known valentine was from Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife, Bonne. Charles wrote it while imprisoned in the Tower of London after being captured at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
It reads:
My very gentle Valentine,
Since for me you were born too soon,
And I for you was born too late.
God forgives him who has estranged
Me from you for the whole year.
I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine.
Charles never saw Bonne again. She died about 10 years before he gained his freedom in 1440.
Pysanky Workshop At HMB Church –Pysanky, which is the ancient art of Ukrainian Egg Decorating, will be taught at a four-hour workshop, Saturday, March 7 at Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081.
Cost is $20 and covers all materials. Seating is limited. To reserve a spot call 610-544-1215 by March 1 or email HBMChurch@verizon.net.
Plaid vs Tartan? So that pushy salesman is wearing a plaid suit? Probably be more accurate to refer to it as tartan as the Scots used”plaid” to refer to the mantle (or covering garment) and tartan to refer to the pattern.
Wolf Expresses Half Right Ideas
By Leo Knepper
With all of the chaos of the Iowa Caucuses, the Senate wrapping up its impeachment proceedings, and the State of the Union address, you might have missed Governor Wolf’s budget address last week. The budget address is similar to the State of the Union; it is mostly a piece of political theater.
In the speech, the Governor lays out the administration’s policy vision for the next year. Governor Wolf’s budget addresses have primarily contained the same bad ideas and half-truths every year. This year was no exception. The Governor is still insisting that the natural gas industry isn’t paying their “fair share.” It’s worth noting that the impact fee paid by the natural gas industry will likely generate close to $200 million in 2020, a decrease from 2019’s record-breaking numbers (due to lower natural gas prices). Governor Wolf also wants to reduce school choice options, increase the minimum wage, and increase public assistance in covering the cost of childcare. Ironically, raising minimum wage costs will have a ripple effect and make childcare even more expensive, and that would probably require even higher levels of public assistance.
In the midst of all of the terrible ideas, Governor Wolf did touch on two policy requests that he got at least half-right. First, Wolf suggested that Pennsylvania lower its corporate net income (CNI) tax rate. The Commonwealth has the second-highest CNI in the country, and it is often cited as a reason why businesses don’t locate or expand in Pennsylvania. He paired the tax rate reduction with some complicated changes to the tax code, called combined reporting that will make it more burdensome for businesses to file their taxes and end up increasing their tax bills in the state.
He requested the combined reporting change to make up for “lost revenue” from the lower tax rate. A better way to pay for the reduction in the tax rate is to eliminate the corporate welfare and targeted tax breaks offered by the Commonwealth to politically connected firms. This would create a level playing field and improve the overall business environment. Over time, a better climate would encourage new businesses and business expansion, and that would generate even more revenue for the treasury.
The Governor’s other good idea was tapping into the $250 million Race Horse Development Fund. The fund, replenished annually, is derived from Pennsylvania’s casinos and subsidizes the horse racing industry. One notable beneficiary was the multi-billionaire, Vice-President of the United Arab Emirates. There are quite a few other items that should have priority over subsidizing the sport of kings.
Governor Wolf is proposing to use the funds from the Race Horse Development Fund to create grants for students attending Pennsylvania’s state universities. Decreasing the cost of education is laudable, but a complete overhaul of the state’s universities would accomplish the same goal. And, while we’re at it, the universities should probably look at what percentage of the students’ tuition is going to education versus what is spent on administration and empire-building through the construction of new buildings, etc.
The House and Senate will be conducting budget hearings for the next couple of months. We will be sure to keep our readers informed of any notable developments.
Mr. Knepper is executive director of Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania.
Media Bias Real And Dangerous — We found these interesting questions and observations on the World Wide Web and thought we’d cue you in.
What happens when 90% of the media is controlled/owned by (6) corporations?
What happens when those same corporations are operated and controlled by a political ideology?
What happens when the news is no longer free from bias?
What happens when the news is no longer reliable and independent?
What happens when the news is no longer trustworthy?
What happens when the news simply becomes an extension/arm of a political party?
Fact becomes fiction?
Fiction becomes fact?
When does news become propaganda?
Identity creation?
How does the average person, who is under constant financial stress (by design), find time to research and discern fact v fiction?
Majority of people more prone to believe someone in power sitting behind a big brand ‘news’ name?
Do people [human psyche] tend to follow the ‘majority/mainstream viewpoint’ in fear of being isolated and/or shunned?
‘Mainstream’ is used for a reason [dominate trend in opinion].
[If majority of people believe ‘x’ then ‘x’ must be validated / true]
Why do ‘mainstream’ media heads, within different orgs, always use the same keywords and/or catch phrases?
Coordinated? By who? Outside entity providing instructions?
Do they count on the fact that people [human psyche] are more prone to believe something if heard over-and-over again by different ‘trusted’ sources?
Do ‘echo chamber’ tactics provide validation / credibility to the topic/point being discussed?
Threat to intellectual freedom?
Would control over[of] these institutions/organizations allow for the mass control of a populations viewpoint re: a desired topic?
Read again – digest.
Would control over[of] these institutions/organizations allow for the mass control of a populations viewpoint re: a desired topic?
Logical thinking.
Why, after the election of 2016, did [D]’s and media corps jumpstart a [coordinated & planned] divisive blitz intended to create falsehoods re: illegitimacy of election, character assassination of POTUS through sexism, racism, every other ‘ism’?
Pre/post 2016 election?
Why were violent [masked] terror orgs such as Antifa immediately created/funded?
Why were these orgs tasked w/ immediate intimidation/shut down of any pro-POTUS rally[s] and/or events?
Why were marches immediately organized to counter and silence pro-POTUS rally[s] and/or events?
Why were marches immediately organized which divided people into sex/gender, race, [ism]?
When you control the levers of news dissemination, you control the narrative.
Control of the narrative = power
When you are blind, what do you see?
They want you divided.
Divided by religion.
Divided by sex.
Divided by political affiliation.
Divided by class.
When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those ‘different’ from you, not those responsible [controllers].
Divided you are weak.
Divided you pose no threat to their control.
When ‘non-dogmatic’ information becomes FREE & TRANSPARENT it becomes a threat to those who attempt to control the narrative and/or stable [livestock kept – sheep].
When you are awake, you stand on the outside of the stable (‘group-think’ collective), and have ‘free thought’.
“Free thought” is a philosophical viewpoint which holds that positions regarding truth should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma.
THIS REPRESENTS A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
