Some thoughts on the latest immigration debates - a rant

I'm warning you this is my opinion, and a very strong one at that. So if you are easily offended, DON'T read this entry. Some people are probably going to be angry over my opinions, but this is MY blog so I'll post exactly what I want.

You've been forewarned.

I've always considered myself to have strong liberal views about most issues, but there are some things I am pretty conservative about. Immigration law is one of them.

Let's just say, I was forced to be late to work today because of protestors about the newly presented immigration laws and that just ticked me off to no end that I was stuck on the road for half an hour while all these protesting students blocked intersections walking down the street, and the police escorted them. I DO believe people have the right to stage protests about issues they feel strongly about, but have some consideration for others please!

Today is Day 2 of numerous walkouts at assorted Dallas area schools and businesses. I'll admit I never watch the news or read the paper because all the news is so depressing and I don't care to hear it for that reason. But I do remember hearing about the new laws being debated right now. This morning on my way to work though, I had no idea what was going on. I just knew I couldn't get to work because of over 200 students, I'm assuming most if not all Mexicans because of the flags they were all waving madly. My first thought? That today was a Mexican holiday they were all celebrating. So I came in to work asking what today was and that's when I realized what was going on.

The new laws, very briefly summarized, and not necessarily 100% accurate since as I already said, I don't watch the news or read the paper... There are suggestions to crack down on illegal aliens and make it a felony to be in our country illegally.

I say... DO IT!! Send them home! If they are here illegally, get them out of here! The more we let it happen, the more people will do it and they stronger impacts it will have on our country and the harder it will make for LEGAL immigrants and residents to get jobs, money, health care, or an education.

Why is it that so many people from other countries go on and on about how wonderful our country is and how they want so badly to live here but then they won't take steps to make their entry in to our country legal? So we're good enough to mooch off of, take advantage of, get free handouts from, but the US of A isn't good enough for them to become citizens or learn our language?!?

All of these illegal immigrants are taking tons and tons of jobs, getting free educations on OUR dime, free medical care, also on our dime, and collecting welfare, on our dime. I'm not against anyone getting a good education or good health care and I'm not against my taxes paying for that. What I AM against is all these illegal aliens taking advantage of us and our generosity so they can sneak more people in and take even more money and jobs from deserving CITIZENS! And then they don't even bother to learn our language so when we go shop in a store or frequent a business where these illegal aliens are working we can't understand a word they are saying because WE speak English!

If WE were to move to another country, we'd be doing it LEGALLY and we would make a concerted effort to ingratiate ourselves in to their society and we'd learn their language! Why is it we are respectful enough to do that but many illegal aliens entering our country are not? And then they have the nerve to be furious with us for wanting to enforce the laws they have admittedly broken without one shred of guilt over doing so?

Then those of us who are legal citizens who respect our country and our laws, and work hard for everything we have and do NOT demand free handouts as a matter of course have to suffer. We are forced to put up with it all AND pay our hard earned money to support all these people in our country illegally when we fought our damnedest for everything we have and value it all the more because we WORKED for it. It was handed to us on a silver platter. We don't ask for it to be given to us, we earn it.

So I am here to say I am fully supporting stronger immigration laws and proud of that fact! If all of these people think the USA is so wonderful to live in that they will break laws to get here, then they should take the final steps to become a legal resident like the rest of us. Or at least take the time to follow immigration laws and enter the states legally. And learn English! If they aren't willing to be here legally, then kick them back to the border!

I'm a bit behind...

I still owe a couple posts in here I havne't had time to add. I need to post all about swing dancing last weekend and my disastrous flight to Denver last week. I'm hoping to get to do those this week.

What kind of sports car are you?

You are a Mercedes SLK! You appreciate the finer things in life. You have a split personality - wild or conservative, depending on your mood.


Wherever you go, you like to travel first class. Luxury, style, and fun - who could ask for more?

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

wonder how old you are? This site will tell you!

Age Gauge
This will really make you feel old ... Put your birth date in the pop-up window after you click on the link below. What happens is pretty interesting. It's also amazing how quickly it computes!! Very cool. Send it on to all you think might like a bit of trivia! Click here: http://www.frontiernet.net/~cdm/age1.html

Here are my results:

You said your birthday is 3 / 16 / 1973
which means you are 33 years old and about:

56 years 4 months younger than Walter Cronkite, age 89
51 years 8 months younger than Nancy Reagan, age 84
48 years 9 months younger than George Herbert Bush, age 81
41 years 6 months younger than Barbara Walters, age 74
39 years 4 months younger than Larry King, age 72
33 years 1 month younger than Ted Koppel, age 66
29 years 8 months younger than Geraldo Rivera, age 62
26 years 8 months younger than George W. Bush, age 59
21 years 8 months younger than Jesse Ventura, age 54
17 years 5 months younger than Bill Gates, age 50
12 years 7 months younger than Cal Ripken Jr., age 45
6 years 9 months younger than Mike Tyson, age 39
2 years 8 months younger than Jennifer Lopez, age 35
2 years 9 months older than Tiger Woods, age 30
9 years 3 months older than Prince William, age 23

and that you were:

28 years old at the time of the 9-11 attack on America
26 years old on the first day of Y2K
24 years old when Princess Diana was killed in a car crash
22 years old at the time of Oklahoma City bombing
21 years old when O. J. Simpson was charged with murder
19 years old at the time of the 93 bombing of the World Trade Center
17 years old when Operation Desert Storm began
16 years old during the fall of the Berlin Wall
12 years old when the space shuttle Challenger exploded
10 years old when Apple introduced the Macintosh
10 years old during Sally Ride's travel in space
8 years old when Pres. Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr.
6 years old at the time the Iran hostage crisis began
3 years old on the U.S.'s bicentennial Fourth of July
a 1 year old when President Nixon left office

Kelley
Read my Blog

New review site! CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

Reviewer/Editor Love Romances

Reviewer The Best Reviews

Columnist Fresh Fiction

my birthday

Thanks everyone for all the cards and e-cards messages and everything. I got all of them. I also got bunches of phone calls from family and friends. Even several of the folks from my table at Thrive (my singles group) called me or e-mailed me. I was quite surprised at how many I got actually from everyone all over the place.

My day started just like always with me going to work. Mom called me in the morning to sing Happy Birthday, like she does every year I'm not at home with her. While I was on the phone with Mom at work, Debbie came in with a birthday cake she had bought for me. Amy text messaged me to say happy birthday too.

Then I proceeded to open all the e-cards that came flying in all morning.

Debbie and Lori took me to lunch at the Mongolian Grill (I love that place!) and then after lunch we dug in to the cake.

I left work a little early, just because.

Dad called me while I was heating up left overs for dinner (he was at the beach for the week) and told me happy birthday. He was so funny. He was out to dinner with his friend he was down there with when he called me. When he asked what I did for my birthday and I told him was going to go out to dinner but something came up so it fell through. He was saying he felt guilty that here he was out to dinner at the restaurant while talking to me and I wasn't eating out for mine since my plans fell through. LOL So he was asking what I was going to do instead.

Thursdays are our weekly gathering at Starbucks for some of us from Thrive so I headed over there for the evening too. That wasn't for my birthday either but it just worked out it fell on the right day.

While I was out, Tommy called me to say happy birthday and so did Amy, but I missed both since I couldn't hear my phone ringing since it gets so loud in Starbucks.

I didn't check my home phone when I got home last night (I have a bad habit of forgetting to do that) so I didn't realize I had about three messages there too. LOL As I was driving home from Starbucks, I was all disappointed thinking one friend in particular had forgotten my birthday. He's never forgotten it in the time we've known each other so I was sorta bummed. Well it turns out he was one of the people who called me last night that I missed not being home. So he didn't forget after all and I was glad. I called him back today and we talked a while. Jackie called me last night too but I missed her call as well and I didn't get to call her back today. So I have to do that tomorrow. :-)

The birthday continued in to today since that was when my gift form Mom and Dad arrived. Mom ordered it all from a catalog we both love, Creative Irish Gifts. I got, an angel corner hugger to hang on my front door, (she actually doesn't fit on my front door since there's not enough room between the door and the adjacent wall so she's hanging on my coat closet door instead, where she can still watch over my front door), an Irish faery figurine that I'll probably use as a Christmas ornament, a sterling silver watch where the band is made up of Celtic knots, a silver necklace that reminds me of a bolo tie from the design, having it be a long silver chain that is strung through a Triskelion (three sided Celtic knot) enhancer that you slide up and down to adjust the length, a silver claddaugh bracelet, and two stretch bracelets of gold and green beads.

My best gift though was a hand made one. Joey drew me a picture that Amy put in my birthday card. That will be going to work with me and getting a place of honor on my bulletin board. It's the first picture he's made for me so it's extra special. :-)

I called Mom today to tell her my package arrived and when I was talking to her she was telling me about when Joey and baby Tommy were dropped off for her to baby sit yesterday. When they arrived Mom asked Joey if he knew who's birthday it was and he said "Aunt Kelley's!" Then he went on to ask if I was going to have a birthday cake. He was SOOO worried I wasn't going to have one and that was the most important thing in the world to him for me on my birthday. So Mom told him that yes I had a cake from the ladies I worked with and he felt much better to know that. I thought that was so cute that he was so worried I wouldn't have a cake.

Also today several more birthday cards arrived so I continued my celebration in to today. And tomorrow is my book club's monthly tea, and it's a "March Birthday" tea since a couple of us have bdays this month so I get to continue the celebration in to tomorrow.

And that about wraps up the details of my birthday.

CK2S Kwips and Kritiques is now open!!!

GRAND OPENING!!
Welcome!

Welcome to the grand opening for CK2S Kwips and Kritiques! We are very excited about our new venture and we all hope you will enjoy our site enough to come back and visit often. This website will be updated at least monthly, around the 17th (give or take a day or two due to work schedules) though we're hoping to be able to do biweekly updates.

Before I do anything else I want to extend a huge thank you to my good friend Cindy for her help in designing the website. She did most of the work creating pages and was so patient and willing to answer my gazillion questions about web and graphics design. This is something I had absolutely no experience in and I'd have never been able to do this without her help. So THANK YOU Cindy for everything!

***We have several new reviews posted that CK2S K2 hopes you'll take the time to read. We are also getting the last few kinks worked out on our database system so you'll be seeing the results of that here very soon on the review page.

*** Check out our interviews page to find a link to our first interview with Erin Grady. Check back next month for an interview with my good friend Holly Jacobs. At this time we aren't taking interview requests. We don't want to end up being scheduled several months in advance so we are sticking to contacting authors to request interviews with them. This will more than likely change in the future but for now we decided this was the best route to go. We will be scheduling them as we can and as often as we are able.

***We have opened our Links page so please go take a look at what authors are featured there and please drop by their sites as well. We are more than willing to post author and publisher links free of charge. All we ask is that you please return the favor and select one of our banners from our Links to Us page if you are featured on our link page. If you are on the page and would like to be, please send your banner to Kelley and she will get it posted.

***We have updated our news page with some information from around the web. Please visit our News from the Web page to find out the latest.

Authors, are you interested in having your books reviewed here? If so please send requests to reviews@ck2skwipsandkritiques.com. We are still a very small site with only a few reviewers as of yet but we'll be happy to see if we have a volunteer for your books. We cannot promise every request sent to us will be filled since we are so small, but we will do as much as we can as fast as we can.

Our rating system:

5 Klovers - Excellent

4 Klovers - Good

3 Klovers - Average

2 Klovers - You may want to think about it first

1 Klover - Pass on this one

Are you interested in being a reviewer? We are looking for dedicated members to join our staff. We are a small site and have no grand plans for growing into something huge. We do however hope to get a strong reputation for quality reviews and to build good relationships with authors and publishers alike.

Some review experience is appreciated but not required. If you are interested in joining our staff, please submit a sample review to reviews@ck2skwipsandkritiques.com. We will read it and get back to you as soon as we can.

It's that time of year again...

for flowers!!!

Well here in TX anyhow. We've hit the 70s-80s now pretty steadily for the past few weeks so I decided it's time for my annual ATTEMPT to grow flowers. LOL I emphasize attempt because I've not had much luck the past couple years. If I don't have luck this year either I may just have to give up trying. Last year it got too hot and they all cooked, even watering every day. The year before that, there was too much rain and they all got flooded out. Third time's the charm I'm hoping.

So I headed out to the nursery today and bought lots of flowers for my big pots on the balcony. I got some hibiscus since I just LOVE those and up north it was useless to even try to grow them. This year I opted for some golden colored ones and some bright coral-red ones. I had some last year but they didn't do well. See above why. <sigh> I also got some petunias, in shades or purple,some I don't know what they are as they weren't marked, but they look like mini dahlias. The person at the nursery told me they are from the daisy family. Those were pink and white. I also got a c couple other kinds of daisies that grow tall, for the center of the pots of shorter plants. These are a pale, almost white purple, and a deeper purple. Then they had miniature roses I was assured would grow nicely in planters, though he said they wont bloom as nice again without lots of care. Those are pale peach and yellow. I wanted white since white roses are my absolute favorite flower in the world but they didn't have any. I may have to look somewhere else, just to have one. For borders in those pots I bought some alyssum.

Sounds like a lot but I have 6 huge planters and these should fill them all up nicely. Here's to hoping my green thumb finally manifests itself! LOL

Kelley
Read my blog
Coming soon! CK2S Kwips and Kritiques
Reviewer/Editor Love Romances
Reviewer The Best Reviews
Columnist Fresh Fiction

Wish me luck this week...

I'm taking my CHMM (Certified Hazardous Materials Manager) Overview class all week and my exam on Friday. I've been wanting to do this for a few years and just never got off my lazy butt and did anything about it. This year I finally did. It covers a TON of information, some things I've never worked with in my 8 years in environmental and some I've not dealt with in about three years. So I am REALLY hoping this class helps refresh my memory and fill in the blanks in my experience/knowledge.

What's funny is, the ENTIRE environmental office I work with is in Orlando for the annual "world wide" Army Reserve Environmental Conference. So while some of them are probably skipping at least half of the conference this week, I'll be busting my ass in Mesquite, TX for this exam. It was my choice though so I can't complain about missing out on the week of easy does it at the conference. Granted, I wish they had not scheduled it for the same week as my class, but I didn't find out when the conference was until literally the very next day after I paid my registration and signed up for the CHMM. So I am in class all day long, and then I even have homework at night, as well as some independent study things to do. I feel like I'm squeezing an entire semester's worth of a class into four days. But it will be worth it when I get my certification! I'm thinking positively!

So if it won't be too much trouble, please send lots of good luck my way and a few prayers if you are willing. I will greatly appreciate all of it. And I will be sure to post here in six weeks when I find out my grade! Yes we have to wait AT LEAST that long to find out if we passed.

Kelley

Read my blog
Coming soon! CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

Reviewer/Editor Love Romances

Reviewer The Best Reviews

Columnist Fresh Fiction