White Wolf Mine (update)
I reminded the general contractor yesterday that "winter is coming" even though it's mid-summer. You always have to keep in mind that summer won't last forever and I'm waiting to move into the hovel.
Feeding Detained Illegal Aliens
I reminded the general contractor yesterday that "winter is coming" even though it's mid-summer. You always have to keep in mind that summer won't last forever and I'm waiting to move into the hovel.
The drywall is complete, and the framers are finishing up last bits before the finish carpentry begins, kitchen cabinets are installed, etc. So things are moving forward toward a September 15 finish date.
Things have been very hectic with deaths in the family and so forth and business has also been insane for me. Combine the two and I don't get up to the mine as often as I'd like to. I can bolt into the desert for day trips in 122 degree heat, but my "winter is coming" philosophy does not effect the weather gods one bit. Ask LSP in Texas. They don't regard his fishing schedule at all.
While it's hot as the surface of the sun in the Phoenix valley, it's a balmy 85 at the mine. Sometimes it gets warmer in the high country but not often and not for long.
Feeding Detained Illegal Aliens
Illegal aliens facing deportation are unhappy with the meals that they are served. Ok, it's prison food, the same sort of meals that Fredd's Aunt Sally feeds the people she loves most in the world. It's sort of like basic Army chow. I was in the Navy and we ate better (not the t-bones and lobster that the Air Force eats, but better than the Army).
Aliens can self-deport and ask to be returned to their points of origin at any point in time. All they need to is ask. USGOV will ship them home (maybe with a box lunch to eat on the airplane?). If they don't like the prison food in the US, they can go back to beans, tortillas and rice. Nobody is keeping the people who entered the US illegally one day longer than they have to.
Elections in Pakistan
General elections are in progress in Pakistan. Voting began early on 25 July. Imran Khan’s Pakistani Movement for Justice (PTI) party is still considered the front runner.
There are reports of violent clashes between party workers. One person was killed and two were injured in one location. Several people were injured by gunfire at another location. In Quetta, an explosion killed 25 people and injured several dozen. The number of violent incidents continued to increase.
A summary of the election follows, from Pakistani newspapers.
-The Pakistani National Assembly contains 342 seats. From the total seats in the National Assembly, elections are held for 272 seats; 10 seats are reserved for religious minorities and 60 are reserved for women to be filled by proportional representation among parties with more than 5% of the vote.
- A single party needs to obtain at least 137 of the directly elected seats to form the government on its own. Otherwise the winner in a plurality must form a coalition government.
- A total of 3,459 candidates are contesting the 272 general seats in the National Assembly; 8,396 are running for 577 general seats in the four provincial assemblies – Sindh, Baluchistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provinces.
- Eligible voters can cast their ballots for two seats in each constituency: one for the National Assembly (the lower house of Parliament) and one for their Provincial Assembly (which runs their provincial government).
The election campaign has featured violence and animosity among candidates. This is an important election because the stakes are high.
One Pakistani commentator observed that the PTI’s electoral success would be significant. It would mean that a third party succeeded in breaking the hold on civilian government by the Sharif family and the Bhutto family.
The Sharif family is synonymous with the Punjabis, read Lahore. The Sindhis -read Karachi- are the base of the Bhuttos. Imran Khan represents the peoples west of the Indus River- read Peshawar and Quetta- plus Islamist parties. The traditional civilian power structure appears to be fracturing with the help of the Pakistan Army leadership.
There are several additional implications. If the PTI forms a government, it would mean that the Pakistan Army leadership had found a way to control the civilian government through elections, without resorting to a coup or an overtly military -backed administration. It also would mean that Islamic fundamentalist parties in the PTI will have gained more political clout than ever.