The illegal immigration debate is all academic

Immigration (illegal and legal) has been on the news a lot lately. New bills are being introduced at Federal and State levels, it seems, every week.

The solutions introduced by these bills range from cold war era wall building to xenophobic, oppressive and inhumane to kumbaya-like let’s all have a hug type of programs.

The more viable solutions seem to have two things in common, more or less. They all suggest a guest worker program of some sorts either with amnesty for illegal immigrants currently in the country or not. All of them also suggest we shut down the flow of illegal immigrants by increasing border security.

All of that stuff is academic. Sure, a law or two might get passed, but there is absolutely no way they’ll get effectively enforced. Here’s why.

A guest worker program of some sort would sic millions of temporary guest worker applications onto the USCIS. The backlogs created by those applications would make the current backlogs dwarf in comparison. The processing of those applications will take forever. What would be the incentive for an illegal immigrant already in the country to apply for one, if the application processing time was 2 years, and there’s a chance it would be denied resulting in immediate deportation? The guest worker program would only be benefitial for people still outside of the United States and would do nothing or very little to address the problem of illegal immigrants already in the country.

Securing the US borders is another academic debate. Sounds like a great idea, but who’s paying for it? The current administration is more interested in spending their money on fighting the global war on terror/islamic radicalism/whatever than addressing domestic problems such as healthcare, social security, education, homeland security or disaster recovery. There’s a reason why groups like the Minutemen, however despicable they may be, exist.

Both of these initiatives will fail because of lack of resources. That’s a given considering the priorities of the current administration.

-TPP

Rot in jail, forever, spammer scum

Christopher “Rizzler” Smith is not the smartest cookie around, that’s for sure.

Rizler set up a fake pharmacy online, spammed like crazy to drum up business, got shut down by the FBI, ran to Dominican Republic after being released on bail, then came back to the United States, got arrested at the airport and has been in the slammer ever since.

While in jail this genius decides to use the jail phone to call an associate to arrange stalking and possibly harming witnesses in his coming trial. Who would’ve thunk the jail phones might be tapped. Apparently not him.

For this amazing achievement in spammer stupidity he’s likely to serve a very, very long prison sentence. The maximum sentence for jury tampering is life in prison.

Lube up, spammer scum.

More links to the story:
In-Forum
Spam Daily News

-TPP

IRS to allow selling your data

And just the other day I wrote about credit bureaus selling your data to everyone and their dogs.

Here we have the IRS suggesting relaxing the rules that tax preparers live by when they’re preparing your federal tax returns. The suggested change in rules would allow the tax preparers to sell data to data brokers, but also protect your data by allowing consumers to opt-out from sending your tax documents to be prepared offshore.

Wonderful rule change. Protectionism – yes, that very same thing George Bush said never works in his last State of the Union address, I guess the memo didn’t quite make it to IRS – and relaxed data privacy regulations in the same package.

I wish I could say I’m making this shit up.

-TPP

Privacy? There is no such thing.

The Realty Times article reveals how credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, Transunion) are selling your fresh mortgage application data within 24 hours of your you filing a mortgage application with a bank.

They’re selling the information to mortage lenders with your phone number, credit score, what kind of a mortgage you applied for and everything else they know about you. Equifax will probably also sell your email address with the data, too, considering they do e-pending for other clients as well.

There is no way for consumers to opt out and there is no way to know where your data ends up. Why would phishers and other criminals even bother with cracking when they could just pretend to be a mortgage lender and legally (!!!!!) buy your information for peanuts. The information would be much more uptodate, i.e. valuable as well. You bet the information is resold to anyone who pays for it. The possibilities for misuse are huge.

Some mortgage brokers are very upset about this practise, because the credit bureaus are basically selling their mortgage leads to their competitors. Some suggest the practise is a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Personally I say the data brokers should be shut down by law, but we know that’s never going to happen considering the way the US legislators work. At the very least the data brokers should be tightly regulated and completely permission based, meaning not one bit of your data transfers hands unless you specifically allowed it. This wild west mentality towards your financial and other information is exactly why we have the widespread phishing problem.

I’m in the process of applying for a mortgage at the moment. If I get unsolicited calls from mortgage brokers, after applying for one, that’ll be one interesting phonecall. Anyone with ideas how to most effectively f*** with anyone that calls me, leave a comment or send me an email.

-TPP

Sore losers

Sore losers are usually, well, losers in all senses of the word. Here’s a notable exception.

Annie Proulx, the author of the short story that inspired Brokeback Mountain, has written a pretty fantastic rant on how she thinks she wus robbed, ROBBED I TELL YA, at the Oscars.

Apparently she doesn’t think too highly of Crash winning the best picture award, and is calling it Trash in her rant.

Annie, my dear, you got pwned. I’m sure in your mind a love story about two cowboys is just wonderfully awesome and deserving of all possible awards, but, you know, some people disagree. Wonderful thing, opinions.

Get over it Annie.

-TPP