Fourteen possible illegal aliens die in truck crash.

In the south of the State of Texas, a truck packed with up to 28 people ran off the road into the woods, crashing into trees, throwing people off the truck and killing 14 of them.

Police say that more than likely, they were illegals, as the truck had just crossed over from Mexico.

(Huh?  Since when did ICE let a truck packed with 28 illegals enter the US?)

Well, I guess they could have picked them up at the side of the road inside the US, but if coyotes had already gotten them past the border guard, why then pick them up?  This is probably more complicated then it seems at first.

If ever there was a poster picture for changing immigration law, this is it.  When people are desperate enough to not only risk their lives crossing the border through desert in the high summer in Texas, and then are willing to pack 28 people deep into a pickup truck that isn't designed to carry more then three people safely, there is a reason why.

All it takes is a guest worker program.  Specify that workers entering under this program are not allowed to apply for citizenship unless they return to their home country for six months or longer and apply for entry under the regular immigration program, if that is your big worry.  Hell, you can even lobby for a Constitutional amendment to not allow their kids to be American citizens if you are worried about that, too.  Even better, create another program as well, for Mexicans willing to live in Mexico and work across the border in Texas border towns.  Then you've got few worries about anchor babies, anyway.

But damn it, change the stupid law!  We can argue till the cows come home about the rules and regulations to govern such a program, but dang it, this kind of thing should shout out that it is needed, and needed badly.

Another thing the Republicans are wrong about.

The Gun Nuts Strike Again.

Let me first set the record straight.  I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment and also think that the SCOTUS was correct about individual ownership of firearms.

That said, what happened in Aurora, Colorado early this morning was a horrible thing, and has to be the furthest thing from any of the Founders' minds when they penned that Amendment.

The thing about this conundrum is that yes, the Founders did indeed intend to allow Americans to own firearms, and I think the right wingers are right that the purpose was to allow us to be able to resist an oppressive government.  After all, they'd just finished doing just that, and it had to be fresh on their minds, as many of them were strong opponents of strong central governments.  These facts are well documented.

But.

I also doubt that the Founders imagined anything like automatic weapons, machine guns, tanks, anti-aircraft missiles (or the aircraft they are designed to destroy) or any of the other weapons of mass destruction we have at our disposal today.  I'd like to think that they'd have rethought that amendment had they known.

But they did give us the wherewithal to amend that Amendment, in recognition that times change, people change and technology marches on.

And I think it is time to rethink the Second Amendment.  I don't pretend to know how, but something must be done.

And no, I don't think it was because our country is any less religious than in the past!

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury!

At the age of 91, Ray Bradbury has followed Robert Heinlein into the great Sci-Fi mag in the sky, where editors never screw with your book titles, smile and nod at the wisdom of your writing and the royalty checks are never late.

I read his books a bit later, somewhat after the early juvenile period of my reading life, was mesmerized by Fahrenheit 451, never quite got the Martian Chronicles, but enjoyed the Illustrated Man.

Go read the Washington Post's column by Alexandra Petri.  It is worth the read.