Software Nerd

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Immigration Voice

Some months ago, I blogged about what I consider to be the real U.S. immigration problem: the way the U.S. restricts the immigration of doctors, engineers, and other well-educated professionals from immigrating to the U.S. While, many such people still want to make the U.S. home, I think that will change some decades from now, and today's policies will have contributed to the change.

I recently found a blog called "Immigration Voice", which describes its purpose thus:
Blog for Immigration Voice, striving to a) reform the broken employment-based Immigration System for the United States to maintain a competitive edge b) safeguard the interests of legal, English-speaking, skilled Global professionals waiting for their employment-based Green Cards
When will the Malkins, O'Reilly's and Lou Dobb's of the world speak up for these people, who spend years squeezed into the pipeline called legal immigration? I've lived in that pipe, and it was so unnecessary. How can anyone look at the stuff on this site and think that these people are somehow going to undermine America!

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Spanish-language Activism

Many U.S. businesses are spending more money on Spanish advertising. That got me wondering if think-tanks (like Heritage and AEI) and have Spanish-speaking spokesmen. It seems that think-tanks with such spokesmen would have a better chance of being booked on Spanish TV networks and radio-stations.

The idea is not to communicate in Spanish in order to appear more empathetic. Rather, those channels might be quicker to book a Spanish-speaker. Spanish language TV networks reach about 15% of U.S. households. Cable-delivered digital channels are available to over 80%. There are also some Spanish radio stations. This is coverage, not the actual number who watch; but, in some states, I assume the numbers could be considerable.

It would be great to see ARI present Objectivism's unique views to this audience, not just on immigration, but on a variety of other topics. I wonder if OAC has any up-and-coming intellectuals who are fluent in Spanish.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Presidential Candidate Grid

After seeing the presidential candidate grid Myrhaf linked to, I decided to make my own little grid, with only the two top-runners of each party.

Explanation:

1. Top right corner is the best possible candidate we can expect today: fairly secular, and fairy "free-market"

2. Center of the grid is the "average voter".

3. On economics, I think Guliani is the best, Obama the worst. Hillary may be a tiny bit worse than Romney (particularly with a Democratic legislature)

4. On religion, Romney will almost certainly mean a religious shift in the SCOTUS. Guliani might; though he isn't personally religous, he might make a deal with the God-wing. For all the Democrat kow-towing to Christianity, their base won't let them shift too far on abortion and religion.

5. And the winner is... either Hillary or Guiliani, depending on how one makes the religion/socialist trade-off.

6. Biggest unknown: whether Guliani will challenge the God-wing, or pragmatically do a deal with them.