Reading Up On Aliens

I've just finished reading The Last Colony, the last volume of John Scalzi's Old Man's WarOld Man's War and the second was The Ghost Brigades. I strongly recommend the entire series if you are into science fiction. I'm actually a little upset that Scalzi has decided to retire these characters for a while. A lot of us are very interested in finding out how John and Jane live the rest of their lives. (Scalzi has a very interesting blog here. The blog has an entry that will be of particular interest to labor economists, summarizing the earnings history of a reasonably successful science fiction writer).

And, no, I have not yet read the entire draft of the Bush-Kennedy-McCain bill. I've scanned more than a few pages of the original draft. I honestly can't appreciate all the whereas's, clauses, and cross-references, but from what I've seen I'd rather be stuck in a room with a bunch of back issues of Econometrica than have to work my way through every page of that bill. (For the non-economist reader: this is equivalent to the joke that I'd rather be stuck in a dentist's chair....). Hugh Hewitt has performed an extremely valuable public service. He's actually read the bill and written some detailed commentaries about the content.

UPDATE: Here's another great link (via Drudge). Kris Kobach, a former Counsel to Attorney General Ashcroft, has compiled the list of Top 10 Worst Features of the bill for the Heritage Foundation. trilogy. The first book in the series was

Comments

[diana]

Believe it or not but the (lefty) NPR has been doing a bang-up job of covering this bill. Brian Lehrer, the (lefty) moderator of a morning show here in NYC (not sure if he is national) has devoted the entire week to focusing on the bill and his questioning has been scrupulously fair. He had a lawyer from the AFL-CIO on yesterday, a woman whose name I forget, who eviscerated the bill brutally. I'm confused; I had thought that the AFL-CIO was pro-amnesty...anyway, she was against it yesterday and framed her opposition most articulately & forcefully. I could hardly believe my ears: you are not supposed to say in public what she was saying. Lehrer was quite respectful of her. That was an even bigger shock.

Then she was followed by a rep from a service workers union, which had seceded from the AFL-CIO some time ago. In heavily accented (albeit fluent) English, he basically barked an open borders line, and defended the right of every uneducated person to come to the US. His line was that a strong back = skills. Which America needs more of, without end.

Maybe it was just me, but Lehrer questioned him sharply and skeptically.

Also, I just heard Charles Schumer criticizing the bill on national security grounds. Whatever it takes.

I don't think that this bill will have pro forma passage, as Steve Sailer appears to be indicating. I am usually a learned pessimist but this bill is a shot across the bow. I don't think it will pass.

[tiffany uk]

Before Solidworks added these features Pro-E had a lot of the same functions added to their ProDesktop product back a few years ago.

[abercrombie fitch uk]

Amazing. There are lots of computers, even more than students. The biology lab is also well equ ipped

[abercrombie]

This could probably have the refactoring tag added t it.

[tiffanyjewelry]

The maple trees, purples, liquor-saturated drunk red that are about to drip, drunk almost transparent. The past and drunk in this life, with Tiffany silver heart bracelet, I only wish for something that is the red leaves the maple leaf, lit the fire of your life cycle, light years.