Capitalist Hogwash Concerning SB1070

I've never heard of Alex Nowrasteh before today and I've only heard in passing of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  But the headline in his June 28th FoxNews.com opinion article, "Arizona Declares War on on Capitalism", certainly caught my eye.

A summary of his dissertation is as follows: Illegal immigrants don't commit a disproportionately high rate of crime and Arizona is simply punishing businesses. He then cites US Bureau of Justice Statistics to show that from 2006 to 2008 both violent and property crimes dropped significantly. 

Mr. Nowrasteh doesn't bother to mention that in that time frame (specifically, 2007) Arizona passed the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which requires that all employers use the Federal e-Verify system (admittedly a flawed system) and that any employer that knowingly hires undocumented workers will face a 10-day suspension of their business license on the first offense and permanent suspension of their business license on any subsequent violations.

It is believed by many in Arizona that the drop in crime can be at least partially attributed to the enforcement of this act, which went into effect on January 1, 2008, because of a sudden migration of undocumented persons away from Arizona (to Texas, I am told. Sorry, Texas).

Mr. Nowrasteh then goes on to say that SB 1070 and the Legal Arizona Workers Act essentially turns every business and employer into an immigration agent of the state.  Well... in a word, Yes.  There is precedence for this.  Every business that sells goods or services to consumers are expected to collect local, state and federal sales taxes.  Every business that hires employees (as opposed to contract workers) must withhold federal taxes from employee paychecks and forward that money to the IRS.  Every business must conform to OSHA, Dept. of Labor, or Dept. of Sanitation requirements.  Every business must conform to equal employment opportunity regulations to prevent discrimination.  Every business must pay a wage not less than the federally mandated minimum wage.  So, Mr. Nowrasteh's point is somewhat muted by the fact that businesses are already conforming to a myriad of laws, rules and regulations being mandated from all levels of government.

What Mr. Nowrasteh does not point out is that any undocumented worker must provide some form of identification in order to be employed. That's what e-Verify is all about.  So of course, any illegal immigrant that is using bogus identification is causing material harm to a legal U.S. citizen.  That illegal immigrant can cause irreparable damage to credit ratings and worse, legal history. 

Mr. Nowrasteh makes the claim that many of the people that illegally migrate to the United States do so because they have no chance of doing so legally.  Really?  It may be hard, yes. It may cost money, yes.  But have "no chance of doing so legally"?  Please, Mr. Nowrasteh, would you mind submitting any kind of example or proof to support this statement. What utter hogwash.

I believe that Mr. Nowrasteh's underlying motive for this article is exposed in this one sentence buried deep in the midst of this article: "Now, businesses are going to be further punished when they do what naturally comes to them: lowering costs and passing those savings onto consumers."  Yup, if you run a business that is caught hiring illegal immigrants and paying them sub-minimum wage or worse, under the table in order to avoid federal tax withholding collection, then you are going to be punished.  Mr. Nowrasteh's capitalist world of minimized costs at all costs is creating and perpetuating a permanent serf-class in this country. Is that really what America is all about in your world, Mr. Nowrasteh?  Laborers who are viewed as two-legged mules, to be fed and watered occassionally, but who ought not to expect any joy in life? 

If Americans want a high standard of living (high pay), then they have to expect that they will have to pay for that standard when buying goods and services from domestic businesses.  I take pride in the fact that many of the companies that I do business with aren't the cheapest, but that every time I make a purchase, I'm helping their employees to live the "good" life.

Kevin Costner, Actor and Environmentalist Entrepreneur

British Petroleum has been largely "stymied" for 52 days with a oil spill disaster of immense proportions. Some estimate that the amount of crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico may actually be 100,000 barrels, or five and one-half million gallons per day.  I think this is a highly pessimistic value, but even one-tenth of that is far too much.

While BP has spent nearly two months either trying to stifle, plug or siphon the gusher results appear to be disappointing. On June 5 they claimed to capture 640,000 gallons and yet the "spill cam" looked like most of the oil was escaping into the ocean.  BP is also employing clean-up crews to begin the labor-intensive process of cleaning decaying crude oil from the coast line of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Florida. CNN reporters have caught video images of many of their workers spending most of their time sipping water under pop-up tents instead of actually cleaning, so this effort is questionaable.

It may not be too facetious to say that God is doing his part. So far, the weather has kept the oil slick away from the dreaded "loop" current that would whisk the oil out of the Gulf around the Florida peninsula and north along the U.S. eastern seaboard.  But we can't count on that forever, especially with hurricane season's official start on June 1st. 

It's hard to tell what the hell the federal government has been doing. There is no question that Vice-admiral "Thad" Allen of the U.S. Coast Guard has been working hard monitoring the situation and coordinating efforts. In fact, he officially retired in May but he's still the operational commander. Kudos to him.

Congress, on the other hand, wants to criminally investigate BP. Good timing. BP's stock prices plummeted on that news. That removes money from BP's liquid assets that are going to be needed to pay for the repairs to the wellhead, cleanup effort as well as the loss of income from tens of thousands of Gulf residents who directly make their living from the sea.

President Obama is looking for whose "ass" to kick. Good for him.

With all this... up steps Kevin Costner, the star of the much-maligned movie "Waterwold", a forgettable movie.  In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 it occurred to his research scientist brother Dan Costner that there must be a way to separate oil and other fluids from water, as long as their specific gravity is different.  What they developed was a high-speed high-capacity centrifuge.  Since oil is lighter than water, when spun rapidly in a cylinder the water will pool around the outside off the cylinder while the oil will collect in the center of the fluid column. The oil is then pulled from the center while the water "spills" out of vents at the top of the center. Testing has shown that water heavily contaminated with Alaska crude was extracted with a better than 99% purity level.

He applied for a federal license from the U.S. Department of Energy in 1993 and the devices have been shown to work for nearly two-decades. Kevin Costner is a partner in the two companies that manufacture and sell these devices: Ocean Therapy Solutions (http://www.ots.org) and Costner Industries Nevada Corp (http://www.cincmfg.com). While these devices were designed with oil-spill cleanup in mind, they can be used for other purposes, such as water-contaminant removal.  Considering the magnitude of the Prince William Sound contamination, you would have thought that these things would be purchased by the federal government and/or the oil companies by the dozens. Mr. Costner has to date sunk nearly $26 million of his own money into this idea, and was quoted by the London Mail in 2007 as having lost $40 million in all the technologies that his companies have invented.  But for some reason, neither the U.S. federal government (especially MMS or DOE) or the oil industry seemed to be very interested in this technology.

Until now.


Mr. Costner is reported to have said that the ideal use would have been to immediately collect the oil/water from the gusher and process it. The largest unit that his company makes, a 2 1/2 ton stainless steel monster called the "V-20", can process 200 gallons per minute, or 12,000 gallons per hour. The other beautiful thing about his centrifuges is that they are chemical-free. That's right. No dispersants of any kind. Additionally, they are relatively mobile and easily installed on barges, sea platforms or ships.  Ten of these devices theoretically can process 2.8 million gallons of fluid per day.

Why the hell aren't these devices on every drilling rig and oil platform? Why is there no stockpile of these devices?

Having reviewed the information from the literature on their websites, I'm comfortable in stating that had these devices been in place, the Gulf Coast would have seen little to no contamination.

If one assumes that these centrifuges work as advertised and the video shown on OTS.org is not doctored, then the fact that the MMS did not insist that there be a stockpile of these devices, purchased by the oil industry and stored by the federal government as a hedge against disasters such as this should be the real criminal investigation.

Mr. Costner and his companies are the proof of what people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other so-called "right-wing wackos" have been braying: Private entrepreneurs will always be the provider of solutions to our problems.  Kevin Costner can apparently do what neither BP or the U.S. federal government cannot; turn oil back into water.

Boycotts work two ways.

My beloved wife and I had planned on going to Anaheim this October and spend a fun weekend at Disneyland.  I've been wanting to see the "Haunted House on Holiday" exhibition for the last couple of years and we finally seemed to able to arrange things so that we could go this fall.

Well, all of a sudden, California cities started making a fuss about Arizona's anti-illegal immigration enforcement laws, also known as "SB 1070", also known as "Arizona Safe Neighborhoods and Law Enforcement Act".  Cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and Berkeley (OK, Berkeley isn't a surprise, really) have indicated that they will boycott contracts with Arizona.

Clearly, they've not actually read the law (even though the total number of changes to existing Arizona state statutory laws account for only about 16 pages or reading).  Clearly, they've not yet seen that the law can only be enforced as part of a "contact by law enforcement officials" for other reasons and that questions can only be asked about immigration status if "reasonable suspicion" arises as part of that lawful contact.  They've also clearly not read the even more strongly worded amendment that specifically prohibits the use of race in evaluating "reasonable suspicion". 

OK, California. Have it your own way. But although your contracts with us are important to us, I know that tourism from out of state visitors is also important to you.  So let me point out a few things:

1. Rasmussen polls:
1. 53% in Pennsylvania favor passing legislation similar to AZ SB1070 in their state.
2. 57% in Texas support passing legislation similar to AZ SB1070 in their state.
3. 68% oppose boycotts of Arizona over SB1070.
4. 55% nationally favor immigration law similar to AZ SB1070 in their state.
2. Pew Research Center
1. Broad approval for New Arizona Immigration Law
1. 73% approve requiring people to produce documents verifying status. (86% of Republicans, 65% of Democrats, 75% of Independents)
2. 67% approve allowing police to detain anyone unable to verify status.
3. 59% approve the general provisions of SB1070.
3. Gallup Poll
1. Among those who have heard of the law, 51% favor and 39% oppose it.
4. MSNBC/Telemundo
1. 61% favor AZ SB1070, although only 31% of Latinos favored it.

So... if you look at these results, it's pretty simple: Nearly 2/3 of the nation disagrees with the city council rulings for San Diego, Los Angeles and Berkely (amongst others). And just as California wants to flex it's financial muscle (oh... wait... what financial muscle? Isn't CA like 21 billion in the hole?),  so can we who support AZ SB1070.

You remember that California vacation I alluded to earlier? Well, we're going to Jackson Hole, Wyoming instead.

Yes! The American Way! Sue Google Instead of Trusting Your Own Eyes!

I was wandering around the internet on Tuesday after Memorial Day when I came upon this article. Once again, I felt my blood rising to a boil as yet another American citizen, probably spurred on by a money-seeking ambulance chaser lawyer, tries to turn an irresponsible tragedy into a trip to the great American lottery.


Lauren Rosenberg, a California visitor to Park City, Utah, was struck by a vehicle while walking along State Route 224, which is a rural highway with no sidewalks. I have found no details of the incident to determine if Ms. Rosenberg was on or off the roadway when she was struck.

She is suing for damages, which is expected. However, she is suing Google because when she used the Google walking paths mobile phone application, the route suggestion did not warn her that pedestrian right-of-ways or sidewalks might not be present during all stages of her route.

So, when she arrived at State Route 224 instead of turning around or trying to find a safer route, she continues on in reckless disregard for her own safety.  Once again, a human being finds themselves victim to an unquestioning reliance upon technology, even when the manifest evidence before their eyes shows that such reliance is questionable at best and downright dangerous.

While drivers of motor vehicles have a responsibility to operate them in a safe manner, pedestrians are expected to stay out of the way of roadways which are not designed for foot traffic.  Her own eyes and wisdom should have warned her that State Route 224 was unsafe, but she willingly placed her own safety in jeopardy. She rolled the dice, and she lost.

I do not know the specifics of this incident. Was Ms. Rosenberg on the roadway when she was struck? Did Mr. Harwood, the vehicle's driver, maintain control and a safe lookout while he was driving?  Were there lapses in judgment or alertness on either or both parties?  Mr. Harwood stands at significant legal peril, but Google should be held blameless in this matter.  Users of Google maps, which is in my opinion an extraordinary tool of immense usefulness, should be expected to use discretion at all times.  Should Google maps present a suggested route that physical examination proves to be unsafe then by all means other routes should be considered. That's what being an adult is all about.