There is a significant difference if the camera is hidden. When I see someone else on my street corner, I know that I am being watched. It makes me less likely to A) commit a crime B) talk to myself C) have sex with my girlfriend on the steps or D) pick my nose.
I think that having hidden cameras in a public space is not an illegal thing, but certainly a rude one. The middle of a field in a national forest is certainly a public place, but there is an expectation of privacy if no one is there.
Some people have suggested the idea of combining reusable vehicles with mass drivers. You know, launch a reusable vehicle out of a mass driver, etc...
I feel this is completely backwards.
Instead, I think you would get much more bang for your buck by putting a mass launcher on a reusable vehicle. Ablation at mach 30 is not such a big issue at 100,000 ft, and we already know how to build reusable vehicles (airplanes) which can go that high. If we had mountains that high, firing a mass launcher off the mountain would be an optimal solution, but since we don't, lets use airplanes.
There are many different kinds of mass launchers, and not all require expensive electronics. My favorite is the light gas gun. It is certainly possible to build a gas gun which can fire a small particle at mach 30, if the particle is small enough. Air resistance, even at an extreme height, determines an effective minimum size per particle. So these parameters determine what the minimum investment is. However, unlike rockets, each time you send something up, your capital investment remains on earth (in the plane).
Of course, this can only be used for cargo. People can't be fired out of 5 mm holes at thousands of gees. At least, not cleanly. But when you have $5/kg bulk matter transport to LOE, who cares that it is expensive to get a few astronauts up there?
There is always a difference between used and new prices. The same site you mentioned has a few generators for sale for ~$100/kW. However, none below $400. However, I am sure you can find some, if you are trying to find a used/surplus one. There are a few on Ebay as I am posting this. Good luck!
You are correct in that electric generators are a "mature" technology. I've always been of the opinion that there is no such thing as a "mature" technology, only a stagnant one, but until I come up with a cheaper electric motor design, I'm only talking out my ass. With current designs and copper prices, electric motors are about as cheap as they are going to get. However, they are still more expensive than IC engines for any human size+ power scale. Better magnets are going to help, but I think the diesel engine is still improving faster than the dynamo.
My point earlier was that just because something is made of electronics, does not mean that it will be cheap. There is no Moore's Law in power electronics. Ever buy a 30 kW diode? Not cheap. I work for a company that makes little electronic boxes that sell for $22,500. Nuclear Instrumentation is also not cheap, but for different reasons. Electronics have become much better at handling information in our modern age, but for many other things, they are slightly better versions of what we had in the sixties.
I think the reason people have become so complacent about electricity supplies is that we have had it so good for so long. People rely upon it because they can. Not buying a generator to keep the gas pumps running was a good financial bet for 20+ years, and probably will be for the next 20+ years.
Re:Priorities: Electrons Before Silicon
on
Spray-On Computers
·
· Score: 1
And then try pricing 1 kw electric motors. I think you might be surprised at how much they cost (new). If you are really interested in making a generator for under $400, try using a lawnmotor engine with a used pump AC motor. I'd give more advice, but I'm in a hurry. Best advice, get a friend to help you who is an electrician!
The idea of having a huge deposit required to get a patent is a Bad Thing. I doubt that my old company would have paid for my first patent, and I certainly couldn't have afforded to apply for my currently pending one, which I had to pay for myself. Maybe ~you~ can afford $10^5, but I can't. Loan officers aren't very good judges of what makes a good patent ("what's a deconvolution?").
Also note that if you reward a patent examiner $10,000 for each rejected patent, none will get through. I can reject patents all day for $10,000 a pop.
However, I can see where you are going with it. It would be helpful to have an incentive for patent examiners to award only proper patents. Currently, it is very easy to get a bad patent awarded. All it really takes is time, some money, and persistence. I know a guy who got a ridiculous patent (of the "perpetual motion" type) by effectively browbeating the patent office and not giving up. Of course, what do we care if someone gets a patent on something that doesn't work? We don't. But it shouldn't have been awarded, according to patent office policy. There are a hundered thousand examples of bad patents which shouldn't have been awarded, and everyone knows it. So what do we do to stop it?
1) Get Congress to stop using the USPTO as a money machine. Let them keep the money they receive to hire new patent examiners; four years is too long to wait for a patent!
2) Provide incentives towards granting proper patents. When a patent is overturned in court, assign a penalty (what that penalty should be, I leave to heads wiser than mine). I think that having the current incentive to process more patents quickly is a good thing, it just needs to be counterbalanced by a quality factor. Good old Quality vs. Quantity.
Abstract A process for transferring energy from electron shells into nuclear excitation, NEET, has offered the promise for modulating nuclear properties at accessible levels of power. It had been proven recently by exciting a nuclear level of 197Au with synchrotron radiation, but measured couplings were far below theoretical objectives. Reported here is an extension of that approach for excitation to 178Hfm2 isomeric nuclei. Isomeric targets were irradiated with X-rays in the beamline BL01B1 at the synchrotron radiation source SPring-8. Energies were tuned from 9 to 13 keV. In this range an excitation branch attributed to NEET was found to have a probability of 0.002 relative to L-shell photoionization. The resulting emission of exoergic gamma-photons was observed from the target at a rate approaching the theoretical maximum.
The full article is available online from EDP, but it is a pay site.
It appears there is still some controversy about those results: controversy Controversy is usually a good thing in science. It often means that there is an effect we don't entirely understand. In other words: There is a cool new effect, we don't entirely understand!!!
Judging from the difference in results coming from sources of differing bandwidth, it would appear that is an important factor. Which makes sense since this is essentially a resonance process.
There is an excellent recent article on this subject, including information about melting of the Arctic Ocean ice and the Younger Dryas etc. in the latest issue of Physics Today
Does anyone here know how to use any of the existing (new or old) RF protocols to send and receive a signal which is oversampled (in the time domain)? I have a hack I am working on, which I'd love to use one of these protocols for, since equipment is so nice and cheap. Is there something equivalent to the AT command set for them, or is everything too automated?
Any information or links would be greatly appreciated.
Why, if they are working in the US, live in the US, and want to be US citizens, shouldn't they become US citizens? Why make it hard? I mean, if someone wants to join your team, why make it hard for them? Why would I rather have that great programmer down the hall owe his allegiance to Russia rather than the US? Especially when in his heart, he wants to be an American?
Perhaps making a person wait ten years is our way of weeding out the uncommited. Kind of like a fraternity hazing.
There are not a finite number of jobs out there, any more than there are a finite number of skills. If we had no immigration since the revolutionary war, we would probably have a population of about 30 million. Do you think that each person, man, woman and child, in the US would then have 4+ jobs? I don't think so.
Can you please explain to me what is different between this generation of immigrants and the preceding ones, other than the fact that immigration is no longer easy? I don't remember hearing how all the doctors and lawyers in Europe moved to the US in the 1800's. It's strange how everyone's grandpa was a hardworking immigrant who lived for his children but the illegal immigrant cleaning out your motel room is a poor uneducated slob. I don't see any difference in the immigrants, but the pasage of time has cloaked us from the exact same attitude people had about the Irish, Italians, etc.
We are certainly not the country with the highest per capita income. However, try finding a country our size which has a comparable per capita income. Germany and Japan are the closest matches, and we essentially exported our economic and political system to them. In effect, we immigrated them! (In Soviet Russia... oh wait, wrong country!) We could probably do the same thing to Mexico, but it would take a war. Shhh, don't tell Bush!
If you think our concentration of wealth is extreme, you should try South America. A millionare there is a very very rich person.
If immigration is so legal, then why do I have friends who are *fucking nuclear physicists* who have to wait years to become US citizens? If becoming a US citizen was a cheap and easy process, you wouldn't see much if any illegal immigration.
If you have a problem with a drain from social programs, give them an exemption. Most illegal immigrants come here for the jobs, not the welfare. If they want welfare, they are much better going to France, anyways.
What you don't seem to realize is that every engineer, scientist, doctor, etc. who was born and educated here had parents or grandparents who came to this country, usually as poor immigrants exactly like the ones who are trying to come over now. They didn't become what they did because of something in the water. They came to a society where you can work your ass off and your kids will have a better life than you did, no matter how poor you are. That has been America's promise, and is the reason people want to come here.
I think our fundamental disconnect is that you think that everyone who comes to America wants to leech off the system. What you don't realize is that we are doing a very good job of denying citizenship to exactly the kind of people who we want to come here.
You'd deny your own great-grandparents citizenship.
You are correct that just because the native americans were here before the Europeans came, that does not mean they were here from the beginning of time. However, since immigration to these shores has seriously harmed them, I would have to say that they would not be hypocritical to want to refuse immigration.
However, historically immigration has helped the US. So you think times have changed? In what way? Please be specific. I am listening, and you are welcome to change my mind. But do try using logic. Note that killing indians, having slavery, etc. were things which were good for some people and bad for others. We usually stopped doing those things for moral reasons. Can you please tell me the moral reason for stopping immigration?
Please inform me as to what the values are behind your value statement.
Alas, she was dating my friend the sales-clone. She wanted to marry him, he ran like hell. I think that may have helped her decision to go back to Brazil. Oh, well, one less hottie in North America...:(
While its a good thing for us male nerds, I think its a real shame that the easiest way for girls from other countries to get here is to have to marry a US citizen. I say let them come here, then marry us on their own terms. It's too bad I hold marriage rather sacred or I would definitely take advantage of the situation... Ya lyooblyoo krasivih Russiskih jenshin!
Thank you for standing on your soapbox, AC. I only wish that anti-immigrant opinion on/. was not so strong that you felt the need to post as AC.
[my soapbox] I think that the main reason most/.ers feel so anti-immigrant has to do with the fact that we are in an economic downturn, and a lot of them are in fear for their jobs. I can understand that. But it doesn't excuse it. It is hypocritical and ignores the lessons of history. Hypocritical unless ones own ancestry is 100% Native American (My ancestors have only been here since 1620, so I realize my family are newcomers). Ignores the lessons of history because immigration has been shown to cause long-term economic improvements, despite short-term economic costs. This is not true only in the case of the US.
I don't want to hear about boo-hoo too much cheap competition. It's funny how many libertarians and republicans are against immigration. You can't consistently be for free trade and against immigration.
I'm a physicist. Most of my compatriots are foriegn born. All that competition is obviously hurting us: the average PhD industrial physicist makes over $100,000. The biggest challenge we currently face? Physicists getting stuck in other countries because the INS is basically being an asshole. Imagine getting around after 9/11 when your name is "Muhammad" and your profession is "Nuclear Scientist". Nope, no searches at the airport on ~that~ guy.
The basic problem is one of fear vs opportunity and long-term interest vs short-term interest. We can ~invest~ in immigration, or we can choose not to. But we know what got us to where we are today. Too many people moving in willing to work for peanuts? That's just another way of saying "too many idle hands, in need of capital and leadership". Instead of bitching about corporate dominance, use your skills, start your own business and 0wnZ0r them! Or sit around and bitch while I hire them. And watch while I 0wnz0r you. [/my soapbox]
Economics is not a zero sum game. If a dime made by an immigrant is one less dime made by a native, how do you explain the fact that the US, the country made up of immigrants, is also the richest? It's not natural resources, the Russians have us beat hands down on that.
Immigration is a source of American wealth. It is not charity. It is more like a seed which matures in a few generations. People were saying the same things about the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Poles that today they say about the Mexicans, Phillipinos, and Guatemalans. The process is the same, and trying to stop it is trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
Yes, we have laws, and everyone should follow them.
This becomes infinitely easier when we have good laws.
I doubt it was against the law to come to this country, get a job, and follow the laws like a regular person when your ancestors came here. Try doing that now. And having all those immigrants come here before really hurt this country, didn't it? Or are Mexicans really that different from the Italians and Irish?
"If the person can't be bothered to go through the immigration process"
Try going through the immigration process next time you have a few decades to spare. I know a few people who have been waiting for INS to finish letting them become citizens for MORE THAN TEN YEARS. Becoming a US citizen is almost as hard as becoming a Roman citizen once was (they had to spend 25 years fighting in the legions).
I agree. I have a good friend from Romania. He has been here since he was 12. Both his parents are naturalized citizens. He has grown up, gone to college, worked for IBM. He's ~still~ a Romanian citizen. Not for lack of trying to be a US citizen - after all, this is his home. If he were ever deported "home", I'm not sure if he speaks the language well enough to get by. Why should it be so hard for him to get his citizenship?
I also know a beautful Brazilian woman (is there any other kind?) who recently had to move back to Brazil. Because of 9/11 stuff, INS would only issue her six week passes in the US, between which she had to return to her country of origin. She had to give up a highly succesful career as an architect here in the US because she couldn't afford 9 round-trip plane tickets to Brazil a year.
When are your fellow Republicans going to put up a sign at the border saying "Sorry, folks. We don't want to be the U.S. anymore! Try China".
Slashdot Mirror
There is a significant difference if the camera is hidden. When I see someone else on my street corner, I know that I am being watched. It makes me less likely to A) commit a crime B) talk to myself C) have sex with my girlfriend on the steps or D) pick my nose.
I think that having hidden cameras in a public space is not an illegal thing, but certainly a rude one. The middle of a field in a national forest is certainly a public place, but there is an expectation of privacy if no one is there.
Some people have suggested the idea of combining reusable vehicles with mass drivers. You know, launch a reusable vehicle out of a mass driver, etc...
I feel this is completely backwards.
Instead, I think you would get much more bang for your buck by putting a mass launcher on a reusable vehicle. Ablation at mach 30 is not such a big issue at 100,000 ft, and we already know how to build reusable vehicles (airplanes) which can go that high. If we had mountains that high, firing a mass launcher off the mountain would be an optimal solution, but since we don't, lets use airplanes.
There are many different kinds of mass launchers, and not all require expensive electronics. My favorite is the light gas gun. It is certainly possible to build a gas gun which can fire a small particle at mach 30, if the particle is small enough. Air resistance, even at an extreme height, determines an effective minimum size per particle. So these parameters determine what the minimum investment is. However, unlike rockets, each time you send something up, your capital investment remains on earth (in the plane).
Of course, this can only be used for cargo. People can't be fired out of 5 mm holes at thousands of gees. At least, not cleanly. But when you have $5/kg bulk matter transport to LOE, who cares that it is expensive to get a few astronauts up there?
There is always a difference between used and new prices. The same site you mentioned has a few generators for sale for ~$100/kW. However, none below $400. However, I am sure you can find some, if you are trying to find a used/surplus one. There are a few on Ebay as I am posting this. Good luck!
You are correct in that electric generators are a "mature" technology. I've always been of the opinion that there is no such thing as a "mature" technology, only a stagnant one, but until I come up with a cheaper electric motor design, I'm only talking out my ass. With current designs and copper prices, electric motors are about as cheap as they are going to get. However, they are still more expensive than IC engines for any human size+ power scale. Better magnets are going to help, but I think the diesel engine is still improving faster than the dynamo.
My point earlier was that just because something is made of electronics, does not mean that it will be cheap. There is no Moore's Law in power electronics. Ever buy a 30 kW diode? Not cheap. I work for a company that makes little electronic boxes that sell for $22,500. Nuclear Instrumentation is also not cheap, but for different reasons. Electronics have become much better at handling information in our modern age, but for many other things, they are slightly better versions of what we had in the sixties.
I think the reason people have become so complacent about electricity supplies is that we have had it so good for so long. People rely upon it because they can. Not buying a generator to keep the gas pumps running was a good financial bet for 20+ years, and probably will be for the next 20+ years.
"gee, electronics ... how expensive can that be?"
You must be a software guy/gal.
Try reading this faq first
And then try pricing 1 kw electric motors. I think you might be surprised at how much they cost (new). If you are really interested in making a generator for under $400, try using a lawnmotor engine with a used pump AC motor. I'd give more advice, but I'm in a hurry. Best advice, get a friend to help you who is an electrician!
The idea of having a huge deposit required to get a patent is a Bad Thing. I doubt that my old company would have paid for my first patent, and I certainly couldn't have afforded to apply for my currently pending one, which I had to pay for myself. Maybe ~you~ can afford $10^5, but I can't. Loan officers aren't very good judges of what makes a good patent ("what's a deconvolution?").
;)
Also note that if you reward a patent examiner $10,000 for each rejected patent, none will get through. I can reject patents all day for $10,000 a pop.
However, I can see where you are going with it. It would be helpful to have an incentive for patent examiners to award only proper patents. Currently, it is very easy to get a bad patent awarded. All it really takes is time, some money, and persistence. I know a guy who got a ridiculous patent (of the "perpetual motion" type) by effectively browbeating the patent office and not giving up. Of course, what do we care if someone gets a patent on something that doesn't work? We don't. But it shouldn't have been awarded, according to patent office policy. There are a hundered thousand examples of bad patents which shouldn't have been awarded, and everyone knows it. So what do we do to stop it?
1) Get Congress to stop using the USPTO as a money machine. Let them keep the money they receive to hire new patent examiners; four years is too long to wait for a patent!
2) Provide incentives towards granting proper patents. When a patent is overturned in court, assign a penalty (what that penalty should be, I leave to heads wiser than mine). I think that having the current incentive to process more patents quickly is a good thing, it just needs to be counterbalanced by a quality factor. Good old Quality vs. Quantity.
3) Hire more patent examiners!
4) ???
5) Patent!
it is here
Its in the Slashback section. The guys name is Peter Lynds.
Cheers,
krysith
v. augur, augured, auguring, augurs
1. To predict, especially from signs or omens; foretell. See Synonyms at foretell.
Auger (your spelling) means a drill, or to drill.
No Prob! ;)
I've tried to find the actual text online, but no luck so far. I have a dead-tree version, so that's how I found out about it myself.
"BTW, the polish play in wich the name "robot" was coined..."
I believe you are referring to the Czech play "R.U.R." (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Capek.
A brief summary (Note the use of a slashdot post in the biblio links!)
please
Actually, I found the "Europhys. Lett. 57, 677 (2002)" made it seem so scientific.
Link to Abstract
Abstract
A process for transferring energy from electron shells into nuclear excitation, NEET, has offered the promise for modulating nuclear properties at accessible levels of power. It had been proven recently by exciting a nuclear level of 197Au with synchrotron radiation, but measured couplings were far below theoretical objectives. Reported here is an extension of that approach for excitation to 178Hfm2 isomeric nuclei. Isomeric targets were irradiated with X-rays in the beamline BL01B1 at the synchrotron radiation source SPring-8. Energies were tuned from 9 to 13 keV. In this range an excitation branch attributed to NEET was found to have a probability of 0.002 relative to L-shell photoionization. The resulting emission of exoergic gamma-photons was observed from the target at a rate approaching the theoretical maximum.
The full article is available online from EDP, but it is a pay site.
It appears there is still some controversy about those results:
controversy
Controversy is usually a good thing in science. It often means that there is an effect we don't entirely understand. In other words: There is a cool new effect, we don't entirely understand!!!
Judging from the difference in results coming from sources of differing bandwidth, it would appear that is an important factor. Which makes sense since this is essentially a resonance process.
There is an excellent recent article on this subject, including information about melting of the Arctic Ocean ice and the Younger Dryas etc. in the latest issue of Physics Today
Question:
Does anyone here know how to use any of the existing (new or old) RF protocols to send and receive a signal which is oversampled (in the time domain)?
I have a hack I am working on, which I'd love to use one of these protocols for, since equipment is so nice and cheap. Is there something equivalent to the AT command set for them, or is everything too automated?
Any information or links would be greatly appreciated.
Oh, I know. I work with many.
Why, if they are working in the US, live in the US, and want to be US citizens, shouldn't they become US citizens? Why make it hard? I mean, if someone wants to join your team, why make it hard for them? Why would I rather have that great programmer down the hall owe his allegiance to Russia rather than the US? Especially when in his heart, he wants to be an American?
Perhaps making a person wait ten years is our way of weeding out the uncommited. Kind of like a fraternity hazing.
There are not a finite number of jobs out there, any more than there are a finite number of skills. If we had no immigration since the revolutionary war, we would probably have a population of about 30 million. Do you think that each person, man, woman and child, in the US would then have 4+ jobs? I don't think so.
Can you please explain to me what is different between this generation of immigrants and the preceding ones, other than the fact that immigration is no longer easy? I don't remember hearing how all the doctors and lawyers in Europe moved to the US in the 1800's. It's strange how everyone's grandpa was a hardworking immigrant who lived for his children but the illegal immigrant cleaning out your motel room is a poor uneducated slob. I don't see any difference in the immigrants, but the pasage of time has cloaked us from the exact same attitude people had about the Irish, Italians, etc.
We are certainly not the country with the highest per capita income. However, try finding a country our size which has a comparable per capita income. Germany and Japan are the closest matches, and we essentially exported our economic and political system to them. In effect, we immigrated them! (In Soviet Russia... oh wait, wrong country!) We could probably do the same thing to Mexico, but it would take a war. Shhh, don't tell Bush!
If you think our concentration of wealth is extreme, you should try South America. A millionare there is a very very rich person.
If immigration is so legal, then why do I have friends who are *fucking nuclear physicists* who have to wait years to become US citizens? If becoming a US citizen was a cheap and easy process, you wouldn't see much if any illegal immigration.
If you have a problem with a drain from social programs, give them an exemption. Most illegal immigrants come here for the jobs, not the welfare. If they want welfare, they are much better going to France, anyways.
What you don't seem to realize is that every engineer, scientist, doctor, etc. who was born and educated here had parents or grandparents who came to this country, usually as poor immigrants exactly like the ones who are trying to come over now. They didn't become what they did because of something in the water. They came to a society where you can work your ass off and your kids will have a better life than you did, no matter how poor you are. That has been America's promise, and is the reason people want to come here.
I think our fundamental disconnect is that you think that everyone who comes to America wants to leech off the system. What you don't realize is that we are doing a very good job of denying citizenship to exactly the kind of people who we want to come here.
You'd deny your own great-grandparents citizenship.
Well, I see I have your attention.
You are correct that just because the native americans were here before the Europeans came, that does not mean they were here from the beginning of time. However, since immigration to these shores has seriously harmed them, I would have to say that they would not be hypocritical to want to refuse immigration.
However, historically immigration has helped the US. So you think times have changed? In what way? Please be specific. I am listening, and you are welcome to change my mind. But do try using logic. Note that killing indians, having slavery, etc. were things which were good for some people and bad for others. We usually stopped doing those things for moral reasons. Can you please tell me the moral reason for stopping immigration?
Please inform me as to what the values are behind your value statement.
Alas, she was dating my friend the sales-clone. She wanted to marry him, he ran like hell. I think that may have helped her decision to go back to Brazil. Oh, well, one less hottie in North America... :(
While its a good thing for us male nerds, I think its a real shame that the easiest way for girls from other countries to get here is to have to marry a US citizen. I say let them come here, then marry us on their own terms. It's too bad I hold marriage rather sacred or I would definitely take advantage of the situation...
Ya lyooblyoo krasivih Russiskih jenshin!
Thank you for standing on your soapbox, AC. I only wish that anti-immigrant opinion on /. was not so strong that you felt the need to post as AC.
/.ers feel so anti-immigrant has to do with the fact that we are in an economic downturn, and a lot of them are in fear for their jobs. I can understand that. But it doesn't excuse it. It is hypocritical and ignores the lessons of history. Hypocritical unless ones own ancestry is 100% Native American (My ancestors have only been here since 1620, so I realize my family are newcomers). Ignores the lessons of history because immigration has been shown to cause long-term economic improvements, despite short-term economic costs. This is not true only in the case of the US.
[my soapbox]
I think that the main reason most
I don't want to hear about boo-hoo too much cheap competition. It's funny how many libertarians and republicans are against immigration. You can't consistently be for free trade and against immigration.
I'm a physicist. Most of my compatriots are foriegn born. All that competition is obviously hurting us: the average PhD industrial physicist makes over $100,000. The biggest challenge we currently face? Physicists getting stuck in other countries because the INS is basically being an asshole. Imagine getting around after 9/11 when your name is "Muhammad" and your profession is "Nuclear Scientist". Nope, no searches at the airport on ~that~ guy.
The basic problem is one of fear vs opportunity and long-term interest vs short-term interest. We can ~invest~ in immigration, or we can choose not to. But we know what got us to where we are today. Too many people moving in willing to work for peanuts? That's just another way of saying "too many idle hands, in need of capital and leadership". Instead of bitching about corporate dominance, use your skills, start your own business and 0wnZ0r them! Or sit around and bitch while I hire them. And watch while I 0wnz0r you.
[/my soapbox]
Economics is not a zero sum game. If a dime made by an immigrant is one less dime made by a native, how do you explain the fact that the US, the country made up of immigrants, is also the richest? It's not natural resources, the Russians have us beat hands down on that.
Immigration is a source of American wealth. It is not charity. It is more like a seed which matures in a few generations. People were saying the same things about the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Poles that today they say about the Mexicans, Phillipinos, and Guatemalans. The process is the same, and trying to stop it is trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
Yes, we have laws, and everyone should follow them.
This becomes infinitely easier when we have good laws.
I doubt it was against the law to come to this country, get a job, and follow the laws like a regular person when your ancestors came here. Try doing that now. And having all those immigrants come here before really hurt this country, didn't it? Or are Mexicans really that different from the Italians and Irish?
(Oh, oh! I know, it's 'cause they're CATHOLIC!)
"If the person can't be bothered to go through the immigration process"
Try going through the immigration process next time you have a few decades to spare. I know a few people who have been waiting for INS to finish letting them become citizens for MORE THAN TEN YEARS. Becoming a US citizen is almost as hard as becoming a Roman citizen once was (they had to spend 25 years fighting in the legions).
I agree. I have a good friend from Romania. He has been here since he was 12. Both his parents are naturalized citizens. He has grown up, gone to college, worked for IBM. He's ~still~ a Romanian citizen. Not for lack of trying to be a US citizen - after all, this is his home. If he were ever deported "home", I'm not sure if he speaks the language well enough to get by. Why should it be so hard for him to get his citizenship?
I also know a beautful Brazilian woman (is there any other kind?) who recently had to move back to Brazil. Because of 9/11 stuff, INS would only issue her six week passes in the US, between which she had to return to her country of origin. She had to give up a highly succesful career as an architect here in the US because she couldn't afford 9 round-trip plane tickets to Brazil a year.
When are your fellow Republicans going to put up a sign at the border saying "Sorry, folks. We don't want to be the U.S. anymore! Try China".
Ok, I have a question or two for you:
The population of the US in the 1790 census was 3,893,874.
The current US population is somewhere around 280 million.
Are there less than 4 million jobs in the US?
Where did all those jobs come from?