Good Morning RedStaters, aannnnddd – Thank God It’s Friday!  As I virtually stand here at the water cooler this morning I am actually enjoying a beautiful cool almost-Autumn morning here in Northern California, with a nice cup of coffee and the sound of roosters crowing in the barnyard.  A new and beautiful day, brought to us by our Lord.  Let’s remember to say thanks.

Illegal Immigrant Crime

You’ve been seeing some of this in the news as well, right?  Studies showing that crime rates are no worse in communities with more illegal immigrants than less.  Therefore, illegal immigration is not a problem.  And logic is apparently not a thing.

If we had NO ability to choose who select who comes in to reside in our country then the choice would be binary – more, or no more.  But of course we collectively do have a choice.  We can allow those who come in to self select, or we can have selection criteria and standards.  We can decide that we won’t de-prioritize the ones who will start the journey with illegal entrance, or decide that we will start with ones who will follow the legal processes.

Let’s apply the logic to hiring.  I am in charge of a team at a large company.  We are growing, and want to expand, so we hire.  Should we:

1. Let people self select.  Let’s post a note, maybe even at a bad spot in town, that says “if you want to collect a paycheck from X company – walk into the company’s main lobby”.  When they arrive we give them a badge, figure out where to send a check, and then show them what we’d like them to do.
2. Hire anybody who is currently employed in roles similar to what we need.
3. Conduct interviews, check track record, solicit recommendations of previous employers or coworkers, etc.

Any guesses what we do?  Any reason that option 3 is not all of the following?

1. the right action for our company stock and shareholders?
2. the right action given impacts on our current employees?
3. our legal right?
4. the moral choice?

The fallacy in the above immigration argument is that we don’t have a right to choose our fellow travelers and that we should settle for whatever our open-borders elite class lets happen.   Hogwash.

Some earlier looks at immigration here, here, and here.

Marriage/Anniversary

My wife and I just celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary (and shortly the 6th anniversary of our vow renewal).  What a blessing that my wife and marriage have been to me!  Depending on how long you’ve been around these parts you may have heard my personal stories on marriage.  Either way, if you are currently looking for encouragement to stay in and improve your marriage you can find my earlier articles here, here, and here.

Another Anniversary

Tomorrow will be the one-year anniversary of my writing for the Water Cooler.  Here is the first.  I didn’t miss a Friday for the first half of this, and have been pretty scarce here in the last quarter with conflicts on my end.  I am trying to figure out where to go from here.  What should I do more of?  Less of?  How could these be improved?

Thanks to streiff and earhartam for this opportunity, to the other Water Cooler authors for the example and standards, and to all of you who read them for your support and feedback.

Torpedo Engines

I somehow got from watching “Jack Ryan” on Prime to reading about torpedo engines on wikipedia.  Holy Smokes.  I’m always up for cool examples of engineering, and got my fill on this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_50_torpedo

The torpedo’s stored chemical energy propulsion system uses a small tank of sulfur hexafluoride gas, which is sprayed over a block of solid lithium, which generates enormous quantities of heat, which generates steam. The steam propels the torpedo in a closed Rankine cycle,[5] supplying power to a pump-jet. This propulsion system offers the very important deep-water performance advantage in that the combustion products—sulfur and lithium fluoride—occupy less volume than the reactants, so the torpedo does not have to force these out against increasing water pressure as it approaches a deep-diving submarine.

At least one of the torpedos I saw uses a swashplate engine – look at the animation here.

Closing

There’s a few thoughts to seed the discussion.  What’s on your mind?  God bless, and may you be blessed today and always!

My previous diaries, including Water Coolers and Reader Diaries can be found here.

Mike