You can come and stay in my bunker if you like.

Would the bunker have room for the rest of the board? If so, I'm all for it-- I can't think of a group of people I'd rather ride out an apocalype with.

And in totally unrelated news, I've come across Aussie Rules football on Channel 98. This may be my new favorite sport, mostly because the uniforms are skimpy and the athletes are hot. Also, the referees wear funny hats.

Sweet merciful heavens, Megan. That is one fucked up site, and no mistake.

You can say that again!

[link]

Quick. Somebody get ita.

Wow. I always thought Tae Bo was evil, just not, you know, Evil evil.

Also, IME, the point about genuine refugees is that they are usually fairly attached to their homes, and tend to want to get back there asap.

That kind of assumes there are homes to return to. A lot of people will, rightly, never feel safe in former-Yugoslavia or Rwanda or ... again.

Of course people want to get out of their countries for hosts of different reasons. There can be short-term things -- war, famine, natural disaster, oppressive regime -- and they want to go home again straight after. Of course the war, famine, natural disaster or crappy regime, may also be long term things with no end in sight. So you'd probably be thinking long term or forever. Then there's just the poor and downtrodden -- the poor seething masses who got out of Europe in the 19th century and populated places like the States because there was space and freedom and opportunity they could never have at home.

And of course they were wanted at the receiving end as cheap labour or as bodies to settle great open empty spaces.And even if they were exploited, they had the hope that their children would have a better life and an education and generally they did. Some wanted to do some exploiting themselves if they had the chance.

Also, IME, the point about genuine refugees is that they are usually fairly attached to their homes, and tend to want to get back there asap.

That kind of assumes there are homes to return to.

Yes, sorry. I should have said "homelands".

Kassto - exactly. That's what I mean - there are thousands if not millions of reasons why people become immigrants, short or long-term. Yet the discussion around immigration is hopelessly reductive.

For a while, we had a cleaning lady who was from Croatia. She was terribly sentimental about the place, tears would spring to her eyes whenever she talked about it. But when she had to go back (and I do mean had to - once the war was over, she no longer had the right to stay in Germany), she didn't want to go. It's complicated.

America's population is holding steady; the difference is immigration, both legal and illegal.

Without discounting your statement, the US also has an unusually high birth rate for a developed nation.

But it is certainly true that most developed nations need immigration just to keep their populations steady (and to help mitigate the aging population crisis that's building as the Boomers start to retire). However, if that were the only way they proposed to address the issue, the immigration levels they would actually need are far in excess of current policies.

On the high end, special visa programs such as the U.S. uses for many foreign tech workers holds wages down by tying them to one employer. If they quit that employer they are deported, which lets the U.S. employer pay substantially less than U.S. market.

Incidentally, I'm in the US on such a visa. Though I don't believe I'm being paid less than market rates, it's a somewhat different circumstance.

And in totally unrelated news, I've come across Aussie Rules football on Channel 98. This may be my new favorite sport, mostly because the uniforms are skimpy and the athletes are hot. Also, the referees wear funny hats.

My favourite Aussie Rules moment came a couple of years ago, when an umpire forgot his position and took a mark himself. Then sent himself off.