Birthright citizenship

I'm going to make an unpopular confession: I love birthright citizenship. Yes, I've heard the stories that America just adopted it to get around the Dred Scott ruling, which held that black people could not be citizens of the US. I don't know if that's true. But I still love the idea: a child born in America is automatically a citizen of America. This prevents us from having a permanent class of "guest workers", the way they do in Europe and the Middle East.

I'm also not bothered by the fact that some women from other countries, ranging from the Latin American countries to China, visit the U.S. just to give birth. For all of the discussion of "anchor babies" that you hear, you'd think that having a child born in the U.S. confers an automatic right to stay to the parents. But it does not, as anyone who actually cared (a group apparently not including either President Trump or President Obama) would know. It seems to me that the bigger problem isn't the child being born here and having the option to come here at 18, but rather the lack of attention paid to visa-overstayers and other U.S. residents who do not have legal residency in the U.S. (and generally aren't even trying to get it).

I'm bringing up this point for two reasons: 1) there is a movement to eliminate birthright citizenship, which seems un-American to me (and hopefully continues to fail to gain more traction); and 2) Chinese citizens have found a new way to gain birthright citizenship for their newborn babies, by visiting the resort of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. A Wall St. Journal article today (Dec. 22, 2017) discusses this trend, because Chinese citizens can go to Saipan (a gambling haven, which generates 70+% of its income from tourism) without a visa, and as the Northern Mariana Islands are a U.S. territory, babies born there acquire U.S. birthright citizenship. Births to Chinese citizens in Saipan have grown from 8 in 2009 to 472 in 2016.

Obviously, the U.S. couldn't accommodate all of China. But 500 babies -- or even 1,500 babies -- is a far cry from "all of China". And these tourists can actually afford to pay for the birth, unlike the Americans who would like to switch to socialized medicine, paid for by the government. As I learned from numerous friends in Canada, including doctors, the customer service value of the healthcare service you get in Canada equals the amount you paid for it. There just isn't any incentive to do more than the bare minimum. And I still think it's great that so many people from the rest of the world want their children to have the chance to come here to live.

Maybe we could let the parents of these babies stay in the U.S. by trading them for some of the malcontents currently in the U.S.?

Review of old international posts

One thing reading back through my old posts makes clear is that U.S. foreign policy never recovered from its scrambled start during the Obama administration. Egypt did not turn out to be a success story. Ultimately, the U.S. had to support an overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government that was elected after the revolt against the Mubarak government.

Ostensible NATO ally Turkey has become an outsider within NATO for its strong anti-Israeli positions, which have caused continuing rifts between it and the US. Despite Kemal Ataturk's attempts to make certain that Turkey would remain a secular country in the future (the real origin of the term "Deep State", a term which is often falsely applied to the American federal bureaucracy), current Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to remake Turkey into a new Ottoman Empire, which includes some collusion with Russia against NATO -- a situation which Erdoğan has used to portray himself as a Muslim hero against the European infidels.
See, e.g., NATO went "crazy" over Russia deal, says Erdogan

I've made the non-novel argument before in other platforms that "all politics is local", but there are certain leaders (perhaps we should call them "little Napoleons"?) who try to design policies to appeal beyond their own country. Usually such leaders have dictatorial control within their country, so they don't really need to worry about domestic insurrections -- or even domestic opposition.

Two people in that situation are Erdoğan and Russian "president" Vladimir Putin, and they both see themselves as regional leaders at the very least. But the point of this post is to note that the opportunities for regional leadership that these tyrants want to exploit opened up because the U.S. abdicated such leadership roles under Obama. Most of Obama's supporters thought that was a correct decision. The rest of us should feel fortunate that Obama's clique no longer has operating control of the U.S., even if we aren't thrilled about who does.

Hello again

As is obvious, this blog has been inactive for six years, since the time when Blogger basically throw the Althouse blog off this platform. But I wouldn't even remember that if I hadn't blogged about it then.

In the interim, I've been more active on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. But each of those platforms are seriously limited in the ability to discuss complex ideas. And, truth be told, there aren't many simple ideas that need public discussion. The current recitation of jargon over net neutrality, with virtually no comprehension of the underlying ideas (pro or con) reminded me of that once again.

At the same time, I heard a very intelligent person try to simplify another complicated issue last week, treating it as if opposition to his position was infantile. As usual, there isn't any simple, 140-character-or-less refutation, because the entire issue can only be discussed that simplistically if you take the view that the other side has nothing to say for it. But, with the possible exception of Donald Trump's inability to tell the truth (which isn't, in and of itself, a political issue), political issues aren't that simplistic.

With that in mind, I decided to restart this blog. At some time, I'll probably discuss events of the past six-and-a-half years. Or I may not. But, whatever I type, I hope will stick around longer than the average social media post. And we'll be back to discuss net neutrality. starting with the amazing growth of fiber-optic networks in the US, shortly.

The Sperminator

That's what pundits are calling Arnold Schwarzenegger, movie star and former governor of California, after it came out this week that he'd fathered a 14-year-old boy with his family's housekeeper -- apparently born the same week that his "legitimate" son Christopher was born. The boy's mother apparently slept with Arnold lots of times under his wife's nose -- and in his and his wife's bed, too. And she continued to work for the family until this year; it's now unclear whether she quit or was fired by Arnold to keep his wife from seeing how much the boy looked like him.

Frankly, I don't think marital betrayal gets much cruder than this. Yes, his wife's uncles (JFK and RFK) were world-class womanizers, but even they weren't so low as to sleep with a household worker with whom their wife was friendly. (That didn't stop her cousin Michael Kennedy, who supposedly had an affair with the teenaged babysitter, but he died in a skiing accident shortly after that was revealed, in a sort of poetic justice.) This rates right up there with his wife's Uncle Teddy killing Mary Jo Kopechne. Even though Maria Shriver is divorcing him and his kids are contemplating changing their last names from Schwarzenegger to Shriver, Arnold still hasn't earned full entry into the Kennedy Crime Family until he snuffs someone.

Back in the 1980s, "Hans and Franz" (Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon) used to do a Schwarzenegger parody where they wanted to "pump ... you up." If they were going to do it today, perhaps they would be more accurate and tell the women in the audience that they want to "knock ... you up."

Ugh. Woody Allen has a new companion in the list of all-time Hollywood sleazebags.

Is Google Melting Down?

The Blogger service, which hosts this blog, has always been accessible for the little bit of blogging that I want to do. However, I've always been aware that, if I were ever to become a serious blogger, I'd have to find a different service, because you always get what you pay for in a free service.

Ann Althouse, a law professor at Wisconsin, is finding that out the hard way right now. Althouse's blog was probably the most popular destination on all of Blooger, and certainly one of the best sources for following the contretemps in Wisconsin politics this year. But Blogger has removed her blog -- the whole blog. To add insult to injury, Google representatives have been mocking her as she has been trying to have the blog restored. All in all, Google has suddenly been revealed as a very unsavory cxompany with which to be doing business.

Open the floodgates, and let's get away before they come for us next!

Expect to see Althouse re-emerege shortly on somewhere like Pajamas Media. Meanwhile, it's time for all the rest of us who use Google for any key applications and have taken advantage of its free service for years to find a more reliable alternative.

Egypt

If Obama can claim any foreign policy successes at this point, Egypt would probably be his best bet.

Not sure Lara Logan would agree, though.

The Libya Disaster

Does anyone think there is an easy way forward in Libya? Anyone? Bueller?

America's principles would call for us to support the rebels trying to overthrow the crazed Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. But most Democrats threw out those principles when they called America's battle to remove the crazed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein "immoral" and "a war crime." And now the Democrats are running the country.

In a replay of Jimmy Carter, circa 1979, look for America to be slow to help people who like us and quick to support rebels who don't like us.

Of course, because Obama's groupies were made up of the same loony lefties who claimed that we went into Iraq simply to steal its oil, a blatant falsehood perpetrated by unserious people (such as Obama himself), look for the soaring price of oil to fail to trigger any alarms in the White House. Except that now those groupies worship the One, the Only, the Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama . . . and he's certain to be a one-termer if he doesn't do something about the soaring cost. What will he do?

Vote "present", of course.

Lindsay's nail polish

Hard to believe that Lindsay Lohan would paint a profane message on her fingernail before going into a court hearing that would determine whether she was sent to jail. It's obvious that she has no sense at all and a sense of entitlement as big as California. I hate to feel sorry for a sleazy rich actress, but (to borrow a movie line) "[s]he don't have one brain in [her] poor old head."

Now come the Alps

The Tour de France heads into the Alps beginning tomorrow, and both of the next two legs finish at ski stations after uphill runs. If RadioShack is going to make use of its powerful team, those two stages would be a good place to start.

I still can't believe that there are four U.S. teams in the race.

James Lebron?

So I keep reading these stories about some bozo named James Lebron, who wants to spend the next few years living the high life in South Beach. Why is that news?

OK, OK, I kid. I know who LeBron James is. But I still don't understand why all news had to stop for him to announce his NBA vacation plans. I saw him in this year's playoffs, and he was clearly thinking "vacation" even before the Cavaliers were eliminated.

He does gain a huge monetary edge by picking Miami as his new NBA home, since Florida doesn't have any income tax. But I have to think that he went to Miami so that the pressure on him would ramp down, since some of the pressure would be transferred to Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. Boy, was he wrong.

Dinner Bell Mel dies

Mel Turpin, the former Cleveland Cavaliers center nicknamed "Dinner Bell Mel" during his disappointing (and ofter overweight) NBA career, committed suicide. After his NBA career, in which he was the 6th player chosen in the draft (what we would today refer to as a "lottery pick"), he ended up as a security guard.

Lord only knows what role all of the abuse that he received as a pro played in his decision. All I know is that, growing up in Cleveland, I can't remember anyone who had to take more abuse from the home fans, not even the Cavs' infamous owner Ted Stepien (nicknamed "Stupien" by fans, but not by the media, who needed to keep on his good side until after he sold the team to the Gund brothers).

Heat wave

Holland-Dozier-Holland have nothing on Boston over the last week. It officially hit 100 yesterday, although it was 103 in Lexington.

I'm amazed that businesses were allowed to open, considering the demand on the power grid for air conditioning. Then again, in Texas, this would be a cool spell.

Birthday

My younger daughter turned 13 yesterday. Now I have two teenaged girls in the house. As the old saying goes, time flies.

World Cup novice winner

Through Sunday, only seven different countries have won the FIFA World Cup (what we Americans would call the world championship of soccer, even though it's technically called "association football") in its 18 competitions. Four are from Europe (Italy, 4 times; Germany, 3; England, 1; France, 1), and three are from South America (Brazil, 5; Uruguay, 2; Argentina, 2). More interestingly, no European team has ever won outside of Europe (in 8 such Cups), and only one non-European team has ever won in Europe (Brazil, 1958 in Sweden, in 10 such Cups).

That will all change Sunday, July 11, when two European non-winners (the Netherlands and Spain) face off for this year's Cup in South Africa.

This isn't the place for me to discuss how I bleed orange (OK, not really, but the Dutch will know what I mean). Instead, I want to discuss whether the shift of worldwide power away from Europe has stopped.

FIFA has been consistently reducing the number of European sides in the Cup, supposedly in recognition of the growing strength of non-European nations. This year, only 6 European sides survived the first round and made the final 16, which was supposed to be a sign of parity. More problematic for the Europeans was that all of those teams faced other European teams in the round of 16, meaning that no more than 3 European clubs could make the final 8. But all three of those clubs then made the final 4, and two of them made the final 2, and they knocked off every one of the former South American winners along the way (Netherlands took out Brazil and Uruguay; Germany took out Argentina). Four years before, in Germany, when European teams took every spot in the final 4, most of us thought it was a fluke tied to the continent hosting the tournament. But two straight Cups of European success argues for more than a fluke -- it augurs a power shift.

We'll see just how far the power in soccer has shifted in 2014, when Brazil hosts the Cup for the first time since 1950. Meanwhile, we can say conclusively that Africa clearly didn't deserve its six spots in the Cup, and also that the U.S. team really shot itself in the foot by losing to Ghana, the only African team to (marginally) survive the first round.

Tour de France

We're now four days into the Tour de France, and the bike race has resembled demolition derby over the last three of them. Day 1 was a short prologue, unsurprisingly won by Fabian Cancellara, a Swiss time trial specialist and reigning Olympic and world champion in the time trial nicknamed "Spartacus" for his strength. More interestingly, Lance Armstrong managed to finish fourth, just slightly ahead of Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer, both of whom defeated him decisively in last year's final time trial.

One of the interesting things about the Tour this year is that there are four American-based teams competing in it. Last year there were two American teams, Garmin and HTC-Columbia, although the Kazakhstani team Astana, which included Armstrong and Leipheimer and was managed by former US Postal Service/Discovery Channel manager Johann Bruyneel, was a de facto American team at the time.

This year, Garmin and HTC-Columbia are back. Eight of the nine riders from Astana last year, with the lone exception of Contador, moved to the new American team RadioShack. The fourth American team is BMC Racing Team, which is owned by the legendary (in the U.S., at least) Jim Ochowitz, the former cyclist who led the legendary 7-Eleven Cycling Team, which became the first U.S. team in the Tour de France in 1986 and once featured a young Lance Armstrong.

However, the abundance of American teams hasn't created a surge in American riders. There are only eight Americans among the 36 riders on these teams, and one of the teams, HTC-Columbia, doesn't include any Americans. Garmin has three (Christian Vande Velde, David Zabriskie, Tyler Farrar), two of whom used to ride for USPS; RadioShack also has three (Armstrong, Leipheimer, Chris Horner), two of whom also used to ride for USPS; BMC has two (George Hincapie, Brent Bookwalter), one of whom also used to ride for USPS. In other words, of the eight Americans in the Tour, five of them date back to the USPS team, which was replaced by Discovery Channel at the end of 2004. That doesn't say much for young American cycling talent.

RadioShack is also a fascinating team talent-wise. There are five riders on the team who are potential team leaders -- Armstrong, Leipheimer, Janez Brajkovic (Slovenia), Andreas Kloeden (Germany) and Horner -- and only four "true" domesticques -- Yaroslav Popovych (Ukraine), Gregory Rast (Switzerland), Sergio Paulinho (Portugal) and Dmitriy Muravyev (Kazakhstan). In part, that may have accounted for the team's chaos on the cobbles today, as Popovych had to help Armstrong after he flatted, and the team's other contenders were on their own (including with their own flat problems).

But the fact that Saxo Bank was able to establish a break and time gap when Frank Schleck of that team broke his collarbone is a sort of good news-bad news scenario for the team. This is very early in the race for Andy Schleck to lose his brother, the champion of the Tour of Switzerland and a strong contender in his own right. Last year, the big break of the race came when Andy and Frank broke away with Astana teammates Contador and Kloeden ... and then Contador foolishly dropped Kloeden to knock him off the podium. There won't be a repeat of that this year.

And Thomas Frei's revelations about EPO microdosing probably mean that this year's Tour will be the cleanest yet in terms of doping. Frei also revealed something that I've assumed was obvious, although the Wall Street Journal, for one, hasn't caught on, with its gullible and foolish parroting of Floyd Landis claiming that Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel organized team-wide doping: the riders dope on their own, without their teams knowing.

That's why there is such a wall of silence -- a doping rider who tells the truth about doping is just hurting other riders (generally ones who helped him learn how to dope), not the team that dropped him. It's exactly the same as it was during the past decade in baseball and track.

But inevitably, this raises the question: did Lance Armstrong do something not permitted by the rules during his string of Tour victories? Well, obviously, he did. Why else would he have been involved with the EPO/blood transfusing Dr. Ferrari? He may have used EPO in 1999, and he may have received blood transfusions through 2004, when he broke off relations with Dr. Ferrari. But I doubt that we'll ever know for sure. One thing that I do know is that Landis' story about a fake bus breakdown id obviously false. Why? Because the bus driver would have sold the story to L'Equipe for a fortune long before now. It's not possible for a "conspiracy of silence" to extend to these non-riders, because their reward for telling is so disproportionate to the risk.

Basically, any stories that involve people other than Armstrong and perhaps Hincapie participating in Armstrong's doping program seem inherently phony. You'd think a business publication would recognize that.