YouTube: the original 13-minute short film of Bottle Rocket, directed by Wes Anderson
General
04
May 06
Untitled
Pickled corpse tumbles out of rum barrel “Thirsty Hungarians find surprising cause for drink’s ‘special taste’”
01
May 06
Importing poverty
Regardless of your personal feelings on the issues, there is an argument to be made that illegal immigration amounts to importing poverty, mostly by creating a foreign, low-wage underclass. Despite the political divide, business will be the major beneficiary of any immigration reform or lack thereof. We now live in a world where low-skill jobs need not be outsourced to take advantage of third-world coolie labor. Third-world labor now comes to our doorstep, at great risk, eager for exploitation. Ultimately, illegal immigration has the effect of keeping wages lower (largely a negative for the average American), but also of acting against inflation (positive). So, it’s really a mixed bag economically. Whatever the outcome of the current debate, the loser will be working class Americans and especially those who work for minimum wage. If there is no change in policy, poor Americans will continue competing against low-wage Mexicans who arrive in ever greater numbers. If illegal immigrants gain amnesty, 12 million immigrants will be thrust into the minimum wage realm and into the welcoming embrace of big business who needs cheap labor, but is too risk-averse to use illegal workers. The addition of 12 million minimum wage workers will drop wages for the bottom 25% of this country saving big business billions in payroll. From the business perspective, this is the perfect argument for a guest worker program, which would legalize illegal labor under the auspices of transitioning immigrants to citizenship while still allowing businesses to pay below minimum wages. The only real solution is to control immigration and to control how business uses immigrant labor. It is disheartening to see the political manipulation of otherwise well-meaning Americans who want their fellows to have the same opportunities they have, but this sentiment of brotherhood will come at no small expense to those who can least afford it. This is well understood by the non-hispanic poor (the african-american community seems solidly anti-illegal immigration) and not so well understood by middle class whites who have less to fear.
25
Apr 06
Untitled
Full-time freelancing: 10 more things in 360 days Some words of wisdom from a full-time freelancer.
The ultimate tax shelter: Owning your own business “The No. 1 way to reduce your taxes with a smile is to convert your personal expenditures into allowable deductions. It sounds tricky, but it may not be so difficult as you think.” Highly recommended.
24
Apr 06
Cool things you can do with Google Calendar
- Subscribe from iCal
Using iCal you can subscribe to anyone’s Google calendar. Just open up iCal then right-click the calendar pane on the left and select “Subscribe…” At the prompt, just paste in the link to the .ics file you would like to subscribe to. If you want to send someone an iCal (.ics) file link open up Google calendar and go to “Settings” then select the Calendars tab. Each of your calendars has Sharing settings that lists private and public links to your calendar. Send these to your friends and they can add you to their iCal. - Find or promote local events. Many people are starting to create public Google calendars to promote their events. A cursory search for “Dallas” turned up game schedules for the Mavericks and the Dallas Cowboys, as well as local concerts, and even event calendars for local churches and LARPers. If your group has something planned, add it to a public Google calendar.
- Organize your life. Calendaring is not new, but using an online calendar can help you keep track of all the different aspects of your life. Create separate calendars for work events, hobbies, family, birthdays, etc. Create a public family calendar you can use to schedule events and stay abreast of important family functions. Then just invite your family to the calendar as users.
24
Apr 06
Untitled
New, tougher copyright legislation in the works “Some highlights from the proposed legislation (which has the backing of the Bush administration) include a toughening of the DMCA which would make attempting to infringe on copyright illegal. In addition, no one would be allowed to “make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess” hardware or software that could be used to circumvent copy-protection mechanisms. That’s an expansion on the DMCA’s current language, which prohibits the distribution of tools such as DeCSS that can be used to bypass copy-protection schemes.”
19
Apr 06
Untitled
Save $200 in 2 minutes and have the worlds best writing pen Buy Mont Blanc refills for use in cheapo pens.
17
Apr 06
asides
Interesting graphic on church bodies within the US. It looks like the Baptists own the Southeast.
Will retiring boomers brake U.S. growth? “While economists have known for years that the coming retirement of the baby boomers would be a drain on the labor force, the Fed study suggests that the United States is already feeling the effects and the impact in the next decade may be much bigger than previously thought.”