John Burnett, an enterprising NPR reporter in San Antonio TX has just asked me if any VDARE.COM readers are involved with and would like to talk about the new wiki border parol service BlueServo, which allows volunteers to watch the border online. Looks really interesting, although of course opposed by the usual suspects. If you want to talk, email him.

From the WSJ, we can infer that the “virtual fence” along the border is actually failing:

A troubled $8 billion project to erect a “virtual fence” along the nation’s southwestern border has received a boost, with federal officials giving the go-ahead for Boeing Co. to resume work, and the economic-stimulus package providing new funding for it [$100 million, which might be the smallest dollar amount I've typed in a couple of weeks].

But the project’s government overseer said significant challenges remain. Mark Borkowski, executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative program, said the biggest may be tamping down public expectations that technology can solve the country’s illegal-immigration and border-security issues.

“We fell into a message that this technology was going to be a great, God-given gift to border security,” said Mr. Borkowski, who last October became the third official to head the project in as many years. “Now we need to do a better job of marketing what it will — and won’t — be producing.” He said the technology isn’t a panacea — it is meant only to be a tool for agents on the ground.

The government awarded the virtual-fence contract to Boeing in late 2006, in a project known as SBInet. The project aims to send real-time data on illegal crossings to border agents by integrating cameras, sensors, radar and mobile communications in a virtual fence along the Mexican border.

Technical hurdles have dogged the project ever since the concept of a virtual fence, designed by Boeing, was first tested on the ground. As a result, the government put the project on hold last year.

Early testing revealed problems ranging from radars that were tripped by rainfall to an inability to connect and integrate all of the system’s pieces. “It’s easy to think you can go buy off-the-shelf stuff and string it all together,” said Mr. Borkowski. “But the reality is there is a certain due diligence we ought to have put into that in the first place.”

Although many of the integration problems have been smoothed out, new problems emerged during later testing in New Mexico, Mr. Borkowski said. Software used to run the system is prone to crashing after extended periods of operation, he said. But he also said he thinks this can be fixed.

Despite the emergence of the additional issues, earlier this month the government allowed work on the project to resume.

If the problems are resolved soon, border patrol agents could start running the system and getting feeds on a regular basis by the end of the summer, Mr. Borkowski said.

C’mon, we don’t need a breakthrough in string theory, we need a fence. It’s not really that complicated. The Israelis built a non-virtual border fence that keeps out suicide bombers, who are, by definition, highly motivated.

Basically, the Bush Administration didn’t want a working border fence and the Obama Administration doesn’t either, so they both futz around with this bogus “virtual fence” as a distraction from finishing a real fence.

David Leonhardt writes in the NY Times:

In a speech in Phoenix [on Wednesday], a signature real estate boomtown gone bust, President Obama will explain his plan to reduce foreclosures. And the key to understanding that plan will be remembering that there are two different groups of homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure.

The first group is made up of people who cannot afford their mortgages and have fallen behind on their monthly payments. Many took out loans they were never going to be able to afford, while others have since lost their jobs. About three million households — and rising — fall into this category. Without help, they will lose their homes.

The second group is far larger. It is made up of the more than 10 million households that can afford their monthly payments but whose houses are worth less than what is owed on their mortgages. In real estate parlance, they are underwater. If they want to stay in their homes, they will have no trouble doing so. But some may choose to walk away voluntarily, rather than continue to make payments on an investment that may never pay off.

Scratch beneath the details of any housing bailout proposal, and the fundamental issue is whether it tries to help the second group or just the first.

Mr. Obama has evidently decided to focus on the first group, based on the previews of his speech that aides have offered.

So, let me see if I have this straight? Obama is going to throw money at the most hopeless cases, the people who never should have bought the house in the first place, many of whom are speculators and/or crooks who lied on their mortgage applications, but he won’t help out the larger number of people who are doing the right thing?

And it’s really not that hard to turn yourself into a hopeless case, especially if the government will pay you for doing so.

Further, a lot of deadbeats and potential deadbeats who look like hopeless cases based on their own individual incomes and assets have this thing called “relatives.” Over the last couple of decades, I’ve twice written moderately sizable checks to get relatives through credit crunches. It’s just what you do.

It is bad out there. As Ed Rubenstein just reported, the worst payroll slump in 34 years is even precipitating an substantial Hispanic exodus. Even worse, from the point of view intellectual vitality and dynamism (as all VDARE.com readers will agree) the Israelis are leaving:

Exodus to Israel Israelis Flood Back to Homeland Amid U.S. Economic Crisis By Dikla Kadosh The Jewish Journal February 12 2009

…the Israeli community is among those particularly affected by the economic crisis. A significant number are self-employed…many work in construction, home improvement, electricity, air conditioning real estate – fields which have been hardest hit.

All these jobs Americans won’t do…

But never fear! The organized Jewish Community is coming to the rescue!

Jews stepping up efforts on immigration issue by Eric Fingerhut JTA.org February 13 2009

Many major Jewish groups have signed on to two new initiatives in the past two weeks: a Jewish campaign aiming for “Progress by Pesach” on the immigration issue and the larger Interfaith Immigration Coalition working for the enactment of “humane and equitable” reform by the end of this year.

Melanie Nezer, senior director for U.S. programs and advocacy at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, said the key to success in immigration reform is for local activists to let local representatives know how important it is

Among their goals is to get Obama to issue an executive order or other directive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement curtailing the use of raids as a primary tool of immigration enforcement.

Visitors to the group’s Web site also can send a letter to the president and members of Congress

In essence, this crew demands a return to early GW laxity:

Jane Ramsey, executive director of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs in Chicago, says members of the coalition will be encouraged to publicize the online petition and letters at their activities and other Jewish community events.

The endlessly noisy Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism was of course involved:

Having struggled to adjust to societies that did not welcome our arrival, we understand many of the challenges faced by today’s immigrants.

As was Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, (How many of these tax-exempt Jewish advocacy groups are there? All this and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs too?)

“we must love the stranger because we were once strangers in the land of Egypt.”

This appears to be the Observant Jewish equivalent of the secular Jewish thing about the Statue of Liberty. These people want Amnesty and Open Borders and they do not care about the consequences to ordinary working Americans.

My poor friend The Kvetcher (Who do these Jews think they are) was virtually speechless this evening but Jenny, his wonderful correspondent, stepped into the breach:

They had Rep. Luis Gutierrez speaking at one of their press conferences apparently. Guitierrez’s file on opensecrets.org reveals that he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions, a large portion of which came from the financial/banking industry, immigration and corporate law firms, agribusinesses, and other interests that support open borders and oppose any effort to enforce our immigration law. Gutierrez is traveling around the country to speak out against E-Verify, the man hates American citizens and demands that our civil and human rights considerations be ignored.

VDARE.com readers will remember Luis Gutierrez.

All in all, as I said earlier, looks like more business for Kevin MacDonald.

E Mail

Melanie Nezer,

Jane Ramsey

Rabbi David Saperstein

and Rabbi Steve Gutow.

Ask them, if they do not care about their fellow Americans, do they not at least care about the suffering Israeli immigrants?

A NYT headline:

Signing Stimulus, Obama Doesn’t Rule Out More
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG 3:50 PM ET
As President Obama signed his recovery bill, an aide said that he had not ruled out a second stimulus package.

It’s like the “Elderly Tourette’s“-suffering Joe Biden character on Saturday Night Live who leans around Obama during a Presidential address to blurt out “Look, I know $819 billion sounds like a lot of money. But it’s just a tip of the iceberg.

You would think, all else being equal, that IQ would be the lowest at the center position in basketball, since there’s such a premium on height there that everything else is at a discount.

And yet, a surprising number of the top ten centers in NBA history (here’s Sports Illustrated’s list of the top 10 and here’s ESPN’s list) have seemed like pretty bright guys.

• David Robinson scored 1320 on the SAT (old style scoring, equivalent to the low 1400s today) and graduated from the Naval Academy with a degree in math.
• Kareem Abdul-Jabar scored, I believe, 1130 (old style).
  
• George Mikan, the NBA’s first superstar, was a successful lawyer after his playing days were over.
• Bill Walton attended Stanford Law School while out from the NBA with injuries.
• Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell always gave the impression in interviews of being sharp-witted men. Granted, my old impressions aren’t terribly trustworthy, but these two guys did a lot of interviews back in the day. Russell was frequently called upon by the media to serve as a Yoda-like hipster guru who could explain the great social changes of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Chamberlain was less popular with the press than Russell because he endorsed Nixon, but he always displayed a certain ornery independence.

For the other four in the consensus top 10 (Moses Malone, Shaq, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Patrick Ewing), I can’t think of any evidence for one way or another. My vague impression from living in Houston in the 1970s was that Moses Malone wasn’t considered the sharpest tool in drawer (but he could vacuum up offensive rebounds!)

As an aside, I’ll toss in the story of somebody who isn’t a top 10 center, but has had a long career despite playing very little basketball as a youth: Dikembe Mutumbo from the Congo. He got into Georgetown as a regular admittee to study diplomacy. Coach John Thompson just about had a heart attack when he saw this unknown 7′-2″ black guy walking across campus with a stack of books in his arms. That’s why Georgetown had its unwieldy Twin Towers formation with Mutumbo and Alonzo Mourning–nobody had recruited Mutumbo. He just showed up.

At other positions, you can pick out all-time greats who clearly had something going on upstairs, like Dave Bing, who became a successful steel mill owner. But, there seem to be more above average IQ types at center. At minimum they aren’t less common at center, even though you’d expect height to dominate all else most at that position.

It’s possible that hard-working book-smart guys do better at center than at other positions. Playing with your back to the basket is rather unnatural, and typically requires extensive coaching and drilling, whereas you can become a star guard or forward just by scrimmaging constantly.