Public Enquiry Project

A Modest Proposal by Bewildered Bonnie

bewildered bonnie says:

California recently voted against an initiative that would have forced companies with more than 50 employees to give them health insurance.  Thank God this job killer didn’t pass.  California’s economy has taken enough of a beating with the bursting of the dot com bubble and the endless flood of illegals streaming across our border.

This is going to sound crazy at first, but I think I have an incredible idea to solve two problems at once: slavery.  Hear me out… think how great slavery was to the economy of the United States for 250 years.  We wouldn’t be the country we are today if it weren’t for the free labor.  The abolition of slavery was great for the black people but it sent the Southern economy down the crapper.  So what did the Southern plantation owners come up with as a solution?  Sharecropping.  It was just like slavery only it wasn’t called slavery so it was okay.

We could do something like that now with the Mexicans.  President Bush has said numerous times he believes the Mexicans are coming here to work.  I think his guest worker plan is brilliant – at least we can keep tabs on them – but it doesn’t go quite far enough.  What if they could come here and work in the strawberry fields for room and board.  They’d be provided decent enough quarters… maybe like a big hotel where two families could share a room.  It could hold hundreds of them… and that’s hundreds of would-be criminals off the street!  They wouldn’t be actual property of the corporation that owns the strawberry field, but as long as they wanted to live on the land the corporations own, which happens to be the land the hotel is located on, they’d have to work for room and board and maybe a little spending money.  The same corporation could own the “company store”, so they would get most of that spending money back. And by issuing credit, they would ensure the illegal has to stay and work to pay off his or her debt.

Any illegal caught by immigration authorities isn’t deported so they can turn around and come right back… they’re sent to one of these work hotels.  That way only those Mexicans who really want to work will come here and those who are too lazy to work won’t come for fear they’ll be forced to work if they’re caught. 

How would we force them to work?  Naturally the socialist democrats in Congress would scream about human rights, so we’d have to pass laws that it’s illegal to whip the Mexicans.  But then if there are only, say, three enforcement officers for the entire country, they’d never get around to inspect many plantations, would they?  I think "attitude adjustment" might take on a whole new meaning!

See, it’s not actually slavery.  But for all intents and purposes, it would be.  The economic gains would be phenomenal.  I’d be able to have strawberry shortcake after every meal, they’d be so cheap!  And it would take out half the prison population so our tax dollars won’t have to support so many of them.  And it’d be good for the Mexican too…  life as a 21^st century American slave’s life is still better than a Mexican peasant’s brutish existence.

I think we could get it past the democrats because the corporations would pressure them to pass it.  I think it’d get past the Christian conservatives because the Bible completely approves of slavery.  I think it’d get past the radical blacks because it’s not happening to black people.  The only people who’d really make a stink would be the communist hippies and anti-war homosexual white left.  But then again, half a million of them marched in front of the Republican convention and no one gave a rat’s ass, so they’re hardly a force to be reckoned with.

The only part of my overall vision I don’t see happening is federally funded sterilization and abortion on the plantations.  There are enough of them flooding across the border without breeding more of them here.  But the Catholics would probably have a fit about that one.  We can’t have everything.

Of course I know my plan is completely and utterly never going to happen. I just thought I'd have a little fun taking the far right to one of its logical extremes.

Bonnie

Cheney in 2008!

Running turned humans into what they are today

Running turned humans into what they are today, U. of U. biologist says Marathoners: A new study says our physiology proves people gave up trees for running, but it can't explain why By Greg Lavine The Salt Lake Tribune Runners check watches before the start of the first Salt Lake City Marathon in April. University of Utah and Harvard scientists say the ability to run long distances made humans into what we look like today. (Al Hartmann/Tribune file photo) The thousands of runners who step up to the starting lines of marathons each year may be following in the footsteps of our earliest human ancestors. Scientists in Utah and Massachusetts suggest in a new study that the act of long-distance running made us into what we look like today. In a sense, humans were born - or at least evolved - to run. It remains unclear what motivated early humans to start running across the savannahs of Africa 2 million years ago, said University of Utah biologist Dennis Bramble, who along with Harvard University anthropologist Dan Lieberman authored the study that appears in today's edition of the journal Nature. Some possible explanations include running animal prey to exhaustion on the scorching plains or racing other creatures to reach freshly killed carcasses. The link between human evolution and endurance running intrigued Draper marathoner Dennis Simonaitis, who said the "universal challenge" of the sport helps drive him to run. And an arduous training regiment gets him to the finish line. "I've always thought we were not meant to do this," Simonaitis said, noting the body's incredible fuel requirements needed for long-distance running. Bramble agreed that people were not designed to dash 26 miles. But a review of fossil evidence and previous studies point to the idea that early humans were well-suited to run a few miles at a time. About 2 million years ago, early humans developed adaptations that set them further apart from their primate cousins. Changes in the lower leg and foot allowed efficient running, Bramble said. "If we had only walked, we would not look like the people we do today," Bramble said. "No amount of walking would do that." Lieberman said that developments like the Achilles tendon - which essentially acts as a spring - are only used in the act of running. Evolving features, such as longer legs and arched feet, also aided in running. One possible reason researchers have overlooked running is the fact that people are not exactly speed demons on the track, he said. "Your typical Chihuahua could probably outrun a human over short distances," said Lieberman, who runs a few miles a day. "We're pathetic sprinters." But take a longer view of running, and humans start looking better. Bramble first heard of this idea from a former graduate student, and current colleague, David Carrier, in the 1980s. Carrier looked at how humans regulate temperature while in motion, and thought that maybe people were made to run. Perhaps early humans ran animals to exhaustion. "I didn't buy it," Bramble said of Carrier's initial running claims. But the research started Bramble thinking. Why early humans ran stands as a lingering question. Lieberman said while it is possible people could have run down prey, it is a costly way to live. Lieberman and Bramble instead lean toward the idea that ancient humans living on the plains would look for signs of food, such as vultures circling above a carcass. Breaking into a trot would allow people to get to the food source faster to feast on meat, bone marrow and brain, he said. An early human, Australopithecus, had an ape-like appearance but could walk upright. These ancient ancestors, dating back to 4.5 million years ago, could also climb the trees of their forest homes. "This paper shows that Australopithecus was adapted for short distance walking and tree climbing, but early Homo [sapien] had a suite of changes in the body that were adapted to endurance running," said Henry McHenry, an anthropologist at the University of California, Davis, who was not part of the study. Bramble said humans gradually traded in their tree-climbing traits, like short legs and long arms, for the ability to run. "Our hope is that this will help us have a better understanding of human evolution," Bramble said.

I'm back from a business trip to Canada

Sleeplessly, I had to leave the morning after the election and couldn't get my internet connection to work in the hotel Delta Centre Ville in Montreal.

SHEEZ, my Canadian cousins (Mom is an Acadian from Nova Scotia) are totally wacked out by our glorious elections.  Everywhere I went, as soon as they found out I was an American I heard expressions of incredulity and outrage.  The entire Socialist world is angry and upset at us "stupid" Americans.

However, being half French Canadian and a certified lover of that delightful country, I found myself being much kinder than I would be with my American Lefty friends.

I took the position in my responses that they couldn't think any differently given that their news sources are so totally and completely slanted against Republicans and all other non-socialists. They are basically ignorant of how the US really works and how we are so much more successful than they are in every measurable way.

Because of our Republican Party we -

1 - have much better health care than they do,

2 - have 50% higher disposable income per capita on average than they do,

3 - have twice the living space per capita than they do,

4 - are much more entrepreneurial than they are

5 - and, most importantly, we are a much more high achieving population than the under-achievers in Canada and Socialist Europe.

Is there any wonder that the Socialist dominated media in America, Canada and Europe can't afford to tell the truth and thus condemn their readers to a life of ignorance, relative poverty and spiritual emptiness?

Pity the fools, for they are blind to reality.

Republican Red Sox fans must make team ownership apologize and here's how:

I can't believe how my joy at a Sox World Series has turned into gall at the support team ownership has given to John Kerry.

Like a majority of Sox fans I'm a Republican and I can't stand the idea of my money going to support John Kerry.

I COULDN'T EVEN BEAR TO WEAR MY SOX HAT TODAY.

So, here's my plan. I love the team and the players but I'm extremely angry at the team owners, therefore

I WILL NOT BUY ANY MORE LICENSED TEAM PARAPHERNALIA.

I want to hurt the owners, not the team. I will only buy unlicensed paraphernelia to show my support of the team and my iritation at the owners.

If the Red Sox item has an MLB holographic sticker on it DON'T BUY IT! Tell the merchant why you won't buy it and that you would like to be some unlicensed items.

Don't let the team owners use your money to support Kerry and his ilk.