How was the immigration of Rahmanullah Lakanwal supposed to make Americans better off?

by philg

Suppose that Rahmanullah Lakanwal hadn’t shot and killed National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom nor shot Andrew Wolfe (currently in the hospital), as he recently did. How was admitting him and multiple family members to the U.S. under the Biden-Harris administration and granting him and his family permanent residence (asylum) under the current Trump administration supposed to make the typical American better off? We are informed that immigrants enrich us, but how specifically did Congress and federal bureaucrats envision that Rahmanullah Lakanwal was going to enrich us??

Separately, just a few hours after successful asylum-seeker Rahmanullah Lakanwal waged jihad in Washington, D.C., the United Nations reminded us that “Asylum is Life-Saving”:

The New York Times reminds us that the real victim here was Rahmanullah Lakanwal:

The same story makes it sound as though Rahmanullah Lakanwal loved marijuana and polygamy (“second wife”):

Mr. Lakanwal was part of that program and had resettled with his family in Washington State. … Muhammad, Mr. Lakanwal’s childhood friend, said he has last seen him a few weeks before the Taliban takeover in 2021, when Mr. Lakanwal came to Khost to marry his second wife. He had started smoking weed, Muhammad said, and ended up divorcing his new wife a few days after the wedding. Muhammed recalled that Mr. Lakanwal told him: “When he saw blood, bodies, and the wounded, he could not tolerate it, and it put a lot of pressure on his mind.”

Of course, there are quite a few U.S. states in which one can enjoy (“essential” during coronapanic) marijuana 24/7, but I’m not sure how Rahmanullah Lakanwal was going to earn enough to hang onto two female partners. I can’t find any story describing Rahmanullah Lakanwal as having a job.

Finally, let’s keep in mind that though Rahmanullah Lakanwal might end up with 100 U.S. citizen grandchildren (“with his family” implies that he came here with at least one wife and average total fertility rate in Afghanistan is around 5 (five children in a woman’s lifetime; not too many men become “pregnant people” in Afghanistan)) and Sarah Beckstrom’s genetics died with her, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that Sarah Beckstrom and her hypothetical descendants were “replaced” by Rahmanullah Lakanwal (still alive) and his actual descendants.

Related:

In case the UN tweet is memory-holed:

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Today is your chance to join the cognitive super-elite

by philg

Below, New York City’s intellectual elites admit that they’re not capable of setting an oven to 325, sticking a $20 supermarket special turkey in, and walking away for a few hours. These are the folks whose advice we’re supposed to follow on complex economic, scientific, medical, and political topics. Wall Street Journal:

If you picked up a 99 cent/lb. turkey at Costco (below, from Stuart, Florida) or an 84 cent/lb. turkey at Walmart and managed to get it into the oven that therefore makes you one of the cognitive super-elite.

How about the intellectual elites at Harvard and MIT? Maybe they are more capable than New York elites? The answer seems to be “Yes… at setting their houses on fire.” Recent email from the City of Cambridge:

My technique, which I hope won’t burn down our concrete house with tile roof:

  • steam roast at 275 for about one hour on maximum steam (to prevent the finished product from drying out)
  • roast at 325 with light steam until internal temperature hits 125 (another 45 minutes or so if it’s a small turkey)
  • roast at 400 with no steam to crisp the skin until internal temp hits 165

Here’s our oven: LG WSEP4727F. This doesn’t produce anywhere near as much steam as the KitchenAid range that we once had (plumbed to the sink), but I think the steam does help prevent dry-out and the oven has a much larger cavity for turkey roasting and all other purposes than, for example, Miele ovens that are 5X the cost and literally half the internal size. Unlike the KitchenAid, which ran flawlessly from 2015 through coronapanic in Maskachusetts, the LG’s steam pump failed after just one use. After months of phone calls (cue the person in India who asks, after being told the model number and that it is a wall oven, whether it is gas or electric) and multiple house calls we finally got the necessary parts replaced and the steam feature has worked ever since that replacement.

So… happy Thanksgiving to everyone, especially to the undocumented migrants who enrich us with their multicultural Thanksgiving traditions from around the world.

(I would be delighted to get comments from anyone who does any steam cooking today and hear what was done and how it worked out!)

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The undocumented have departed, but the number of jobs keeps going up

by philg

In Immigrants expand our economy, but millions of immigrants exiting the U.S. don’t shrink our economy we looked at a New York Times report, “Immigrant Population in U.S. Drops for the First Time in Decades”: “An analysis of census data by the Pew Research Center found that between January and June, the foreign-born population declined by nearly 1.5 million.” (An analysis of January-September data by CIS found a reduction of 2.3 million.)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the “Civilian noninstitutional population” is up by about 2% year-over-year (this is limited to those age 16+, which is why it isn’t the same as the 343 million official Census population estimate) and “Civilian labor force” is up by 1.5%. November news:

The rate of natural increase in the U.S. is only about 0.3% (too small for those who want the Ponzi scheme of infinite growth; excessive for those who care about the environment, traffic congestion, affordable housing, etc.). If the foreign-born population, which has been driving nearly all U.S. population growth, is shrinking, shouldn’t the number of people and the number of people in the labor force be going down or, at most, be flat?

A simple answer would be that the 1.5 million (or 2.3 million) reduction is only among noble undocumented enrichers and that we enjoyed enrichment by 3 million legal immigrants (family reunification, H-1B nonimmigrant immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, etc.). But that isn’t consistent with the Pew/NYT report cited above, which says that there has been in a reduction in the number of “foreign-born” residents of all categories. (The more complete CIS study also reports a “foreign-born” reduction.)

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Some progress toward Navajo/Chilean prices for our National Parks

by philg

Loyal readers may recall What if our National Parks charged Navajo prices? (2023)

$100 per person per day is the “Navajo rate” for what could reasonably be charged … the Chileans charge foreigners $35 per adult to visit their signature national park for one day. Even at Chilean prices it would seem that the NPS could easily be self-funded.

“Department of the Interior Announces Modernized, More Affordable National Park Access” (yesterday):

Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, the Annual Pass will cost $80 for U.S. residents and $250 for nonresidents, ensuring that American taxpayers who already support the National Park System receive the greatest benefit. Nonresidents without an annual pass will pay a $100 per person fee to enter 11 of the most visited national parks, in addition to the standard entrance fee.

Orwell fans will appreciate the contrast between headline (“more affordable”) and body (“$100 per person extra”). Also, nobody questions that “American taxpayers [SHOULD] already support the National Park System”. Why does a working class American who can’t afford the epic costs of airline tickets, rental car, hotels, etc. have to pay taxes to subsidize rich people from around the world who can afford the $1,200/day cost of a hotel-based family National Parks trip? (I estimated $1,000/day in 2023, but airline ticket, restaurant, and hotel prices have gone up significantly since then.) Separately, if the NPS funds itself via entry fees it won’t have to turn people away during the inevitable government shutdowns.

I can’t understand how the new park entry pricing system will work. Americans aren’t required to carry passports. Tens of millions of residents of the U.S. have no documents at all (22 million as of 2016, according to Yale). How is a gate agent at a National Park supposed to determine if a visitor is a U.S. resident? We’re informed that it is racist to demand ID for voting. Could a National Park demand to see a state-issued driver’s license or other ID before offering the “resident discount” rate? We’re informed by CNN that “Outdoor recreation has historically excluded people of color” and “racist laws and customs kept Black Americans out of these parks”. Surely our government wouldn’t want to intensify the racism inherent in the racist National Parks by demanding ID from visitors of color?

Loosely related, a couple of photos from the Schoodic Peninsula, an often forgotten piece of Acadia National Park. As with the core portion of Acadia, the land was donated to the American People. The Rockefellers donated the island land and Schoodic was donated anonymously in 2015. This reminds me to note the tragedy of Bill Gates giving all of his money to Africa, which doesn’t seem to help average Africans (every year that the Gates Foundation has operated in Africa, the number of needy Africans has increased; maybe some rich people in Africa have gotten richer?). If Gates had to sell the Microsoft stock and pay capital gains before shipping the proceeds to Africa, the tax revenue would easily fund an additional national park. Alternatively, if he spent his money on unspoiled U.S. land he would easily be able to create five new national parks.

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Open borders don’t lower wages, but sending migrants home will raise wages

by philg

Frontiers of Migranomics from one of our intellectual elites, a New Yorker writer:

We’ve been informed, as a matter of Scientific Fact, that low-skill immigration does not reduce wages for the American working class (contrary to Harvard economists’ analysis). Now the same Scientists are telling us that employers will be forced to pay higher wages, e.g., to apartment cleaners and roofers, if low-skill migrants are sent back to their home countries. More immigrants caused wages to rise (the undocumented built the current American economy) and, also, a reduction in immigrant supply would cause wages to rise.

This reminds me of Immigrants expand our economy, but millions of immigrants exiting the U.S. don’t shrink our economy.

Separately, I’ve refined my Is U.S. immigration policy a form of animal hoarding? post into a more succinct form (without even trying AI!):

The passion for low-skill immigration has the same rational basis as keeping 100 cats in a 2BR apartment: “Animal hoarding is an accumulation of animals that has overwhelmed a person’s ability to provide minimum standards of care. … Rescue hoarders believe they’re the only people that can adequately care for their animals.” The same people who say that the U.S. has a dire shortage of affordable housing and health care then say that the 70 million migrants we’ve welcomed in recent decades aren’t sufficient and we need to bring in more migrants.

My new standard response on X, featuring photos from Unlimited Car Wash in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, November 21, 2025:

Without 70 million immigrants and their children (another 50 million?) who will hand-wash and vacuum my Rolls-Royce for $21?

In case the Jill Filipovic tweet is memory-holed:

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Hand signals for Cybertruck in Maskachusetts

by philg

From a friend in Maskachusetts who owns a stainless steel monstrosity:

[college-age son] got middle finger in truck yesterday going through Boston tunnel, and today in Hanover. He has been doing Nazi salute back.

Meanwhile, at a strip mall here in Florida, an illustration of the size range of vehicles that Americans typically use to transport a single human:

Finally, my friend provided an update on Tesla’s full self-driving:

I use FSD more and more. [wife] wants me to pay for it for both cars. Thinks it makes [son] a safer driver.

(He has an old Tesla 3 and a new Cybertruck.)

If you thought that the Cybertruck wasn’t wide enough… (photo from a nearby neighborhood here in Jupiter, Florida)

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How about an AI math tutor that looks at paper and pencil?

by philg

The New York Times, which told us that closing schools for 18 months was the absolute best thing for children (keep them safe from a virus that was killing Americans at a median age of 82), now tells us that screens are bad… “The Screen That Ate Your Child’s Education”:

Many of these devices are provided by schools. You might think that these school-issued devices allow only a limited number of functions, like access to classroom Canvas pages and Google Docs. If you assumed that, you would be wrong.

Sylvie McNamara, a parent of a ninth grader in Washington, D.C., wrote in Washingtonian magazine that her son was spending every class period watching TV shows and playing games on his school-issued laptop. He often had no idea what topics his classes were covering. When she asked school administrators to restrict her son’s use of the laptop, they resisted, saying the device was integral to the curriculum.

In a survey of American teenagers by the nonprofit Common Sense Media, one-fourth admitted they had seen pornographic content during the school day. Almost half of that group saw it on a school-issued device. Students watching porn in class doesn’t just affect the students themselves — picture being a teenager in math class trying to concentrate on sine and cosine while sitting behind that display of flesh. It is disturbing on a number of levels.

(Teenagers are spending 80 percent of their in-class time watching porn and then just wasting the rest of the school day?)

Based on looking over the shoulders of our 4th and 6th graders, electronic math homework is the worst idea that I’ve seen. Each problem is multiple choice. The child can click on A. The software says “Wrong”. The child can then click on B. The software says “Wrong”. The child can then select C. The software says “Right” and proceeds to the next problem. Neither teacher nor parent is notified that the homework was apparently completed via guessing. Then the test comes along and the child who got 100% on homework might receive a grade of 25-40% because the test doesn’t allow for correction of wrong guesses.

What if an AI could work like a human math tutor? My dream is a household with cameras everywhere so that an artificial intelligence can tell me where to find scissors, tape, the coffee cup that I set down 15 minutes ago, etc. (see Why doesn’t ChatGPT tell us where to find items in our houses?). Given those already-installed cameras, an AI can watch a young scholar working on pencil and paper and say “That answer isn’t quite right”, then explain where the child went off track.

Optional enhancement: eye-safe laser pointer on a gimbal so that the robot can point to a place on the physical page while talking about what went wrong and what the learner should do.

The closest existing product to the above is Photomath, I think. You can give it a handwritten math problem and it explains how to solve it. I don’t think that is what most learners need, though. They already sat through the teacher telling them how to solve the same kind of problem (maybe while simultaneously streaming porn?). Also, instead of getting kids off the screen it forces kids onto the screen to use Photomath. The above-described system would be 100 percent audio-based from the learner’s point of view.

Should this be called “MathGPT”? Of course that name is already taken. The product seems to be a way to get learners to spend more time on screens:

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Replacement theory is false: Maskachusetts public schools edition

by philg

Boston Globe:

Massachusetts public school enrollment has long been stagnant, with international arrivals balancing out a low birth rate and high numbers of residents moving out of state.

Who benefits when public schools are jammed with undocumented migrants?

The drop in the number of students means less funding for the districts. State aid formulas provide every district with at least $150 per student, but some districts receive more than $17,000 per child on average because they serve a high number of children who require additional resources for being low-income and English learners, and do not have as much local revenue. Any cost savings from the reduced number of students tends to be far less than the amount of lost funding for those districts.

(i.e., the government workers are able to turn a profit on the migrants)

My question to ChatGPT:

Here’s a Boston Globe article that says “Massachusetts public school enrollment has long been stagnant, with international arrivals balancing out a low birth rate and high numbers of residents moving out of state.” Is this an example of native-born Americans being replaced by immigrants? https://archive.is/zbSbM

Answer:

That’s a thoughtful question. The short answer is: no, the Boston Globe article’s statement alone does not support the claim that native-born Americans are being “replaced” by immigrants. But it does reflect important demographic dynamics worth unpacking. Let’s go through what the article says, what it doesn’t, and how to interpret it.

What about Grok?

No, the quote from the Boston Globe article does not describe an example of native-born Americans being “replaced” by immigrants. Instead, it highlights a demographic balancing act in Massachusetts public school enrollment

The Great Replacement conspiracy theory remains #Scientifically proven false.

Related, a DHS.gov story about a 13-year-old detained after school:

On October 9, 2025, the Everett[, MA] Police Department arrested a 13-year-old alien from Brazil on dangerous weapons charges for allegedly possessing a firearm and a 5-7-inch knife.

The teen is mentioned 11 prior police complaints filed by Everett PD for a laundry list of criminal behavior, including ‘flash mob’ style shoplifting, consuming alcohol underage, breaking and entering, vandalism, theft, fighting and more.

The same student is featured as mostly peaceful by CNN… “Her 13-year-old son was arrested, then taken by ICE to a detention facility”:

“They didn’t give me any information,” said [Josiele] Berto[, speaking in Portuguese], who is from Brazil and along with her family have had a pending asylum application since arriving in the United States in 2021. “I asked where [Arthur Berto] was being taken, and they said they weren’t allowed to say.”

Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria said in a news conference a teenage boy – whom he declined to name because he is a juvenile – was arrested last week after Everett Police received a “credible tip” accusing him of making “a violent threat against another boy within our public school.”

Here’s the mischievous tyke who won’t be attending Maskachusetts public schools at least for the next few days:

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Audioengine HD4 desktop Bluetooth speaker review

by philg

I called in an airstrike on my own audio position by “upgrading” from a 10.5-year Windows 10 PC to a brand-new Windows 11 machine with 100% pimp ASUS ProArt Creator motherboard. If I’d spent half as much on a motherboard from ASR the machine would have had an optical S/PDIF audio output compatible with my old Nuforce Dia amp (mighty 18 watts) and Audioengine P4 passive speakers (both purchased in 2012 and worked without failures for 13 years). The cheap ASUS motherboards seem to have a header for S/PDIF even if there is no connector.

I decided to give the P4 speakers a vacation and purchased an Audioengine HD4 Bluetooth speaker system. They’re about the same size as the P4 speakers so I put them on the same stands. The result is less desktop clutter because the Nuforce Dia is gone. The Nuforce Dia’s power supply is gone (the HD4’s power supply is internal). One of two speaker wires is gone (the powered HD4 on the left still needs a speaker wire, included (with banana plugs!), to send the output of its power amp to its passive brother/sister/binary-resister on the right). The cable connecting the PC to the amp is gone. (Note that if you’re a serious audio nerd you might nonetheless need to reintroduce a USC-C cable from the PC to the Audioengine HD4; the digital-to-analog converter in the HD4 is capable of handling 96 kHZ/24 bits, but Bluetooth aptX HD is limited to 44 kHz/24 bits. One thing that is painful about my ASUS motherboard is that it doesn’t have any standard connector for a Bluetooth antenna. It has a proprietary pair of connectors for a combined WiFi/Bluetooth antenna that is huge and connected by a long ugly cable to the back of the PC. Given that my PC is hard-wired to the switch via a Cat 5 wire that the 2003 builder of this house thoughtfully included, I just need a small Bluetooth antenna that will live on the back of the motherboard. This apparently does not exist in the ASUS universe.

Setup took about 2 minutes. I powered the HD4 off and then on after 5 seconds to simulate a brief power failure. The Windows 11 machine reconnected automatically. Sound quality seems similar to what I was enjoying before. So… my stupidity in assuming that every modern motherboard would have an S/PDIF optical audio output resulted in the recovery of a bit of desktop space at a $329 cost (on sale from the usual $429 price).

Unlike Sonos, Texas-based Audioengine suggests via its photos that white people may purchase and use its products. Here’s a person at serious risk of “tech neck” unless the AI revolution renders the job obsolete.

The one thing that I don’t love about the speakers aesthetically, compared to the P4, is the metal strip across the front. I guess it would be pretty tough to design a wooden volume knob and a wooden headphone jack!

This photo shows the speakers with the Bluetooth antenna pointing up, which was completely unnecessary in my setup. It also shows the old-school RCA inputs and outputs. The RCA output can be used for a subwoofer. I don’t think that the HD4 has a crossover network and, therefore, the HD4 would keep getting driven at full range even with a subwoofer hooked up. Audioengine seems to include a low-pass filter in their subwoofers so that maybe it all works out, but I’m not gaming in the home office nor watching Hollywood action movies so I don’t think I will be trying out the subwoofer config.

Conclusion: this thing works, but it probably would have been smarter to buy a motherboard with S/PDIF optical out! Also probably smarter to buy a motherboard with a standard antenna connector to which a short Bluetooth antenna could be attached.

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Use normally dead/black televisions as virtual windows into interesting places via webcams?

by philg

Readers may recall my passion for doing something with the dead/black/huge televisions that are on many walls of our houses (the house that we bought in Florida actually came with six flat-screen TVs at no extra charge because the previous owners didn’t feel like demounting and moving them), e.g.,

I’m surprised that nobody has implemented a business idea that I proposed to entrepreneurial friends about 10 years ago: a streaming service that turns any television into a “virtual window”, but not a window onto the boring street where one actually lives. A subscriber could choose to be looking out at the Champs Elysée, at the crazy intersection in Shibuya (Tokyo), a lake/mountain view from a famous resort hotel, etc. Since all of my ideas are terrible, from a business point of view, the original concept was a cable TV channel. Cable companies offer roughly 50 music channels for ambient use. Why not 50 virtual windows as well?

High quality webcams have only gotten cheaper in the decade since I proposed this idea. Internet has become faster and more reliable. Why hasn’t this idea caught on?

There is a construction documentation company that branched out into this market a little and offers earthcamtv.com, which seems to be supported by low-rent ads rather than subscription. They have an Android TV app so I guess it would work on a Sony, TCL, or HiSense . I don’t think anyone would want this running continuously in his/her/zir/their house.

Here’s a newer twist on the idea: Immigration TV. This could have virtual windows into the countries that enrich us, e.g., Venezuela, Haiti, Colombia, India, Pakistan, etc. It could be sponsored by both the Democratic Party (channels that show how great life is in places that migrants claim are too dangerous to inhabit) and the Republicans (channels that show the crowded, dirty, and disorganized conditions that people in source countries have created for themselves).

As far as I know, all current TVs lack the interface required to be programmed to “wake up at 0900 and start up the Virtual Windows app” so it would be somewhat tedious to go around to every TV in the house every morning and configure this.

Samsung is still trying to sell people on its absurdly deficient The Frame system (requires an external box that nobody has a place to put except maybe if a house was built from scratch with The Frame in mind; they make a wireless version of the box, but of course everyone says that it doesn’t stay connected). Most humans are much more drawn to moving pictures than to still images, even still images of great art (art museums that are free still struggle to attract a wide audience). Why wouldn’t LG introduce The Window in which the television comes preloaded with the ability to show streams from curated webcams around the world?

Partial personal list of desired virtual windows:

  • One for each of the nicest Japanese gardens in Japan (that would be around 50 window choices?)
  • One for the bonsai collection with pond behind at Morikami Japanese garden in Palm Beach County, Florida (good for the Japanese winter months)
  • Ngorongoro Crater (Tanzania)
  • Churchill, Manitoba (polar bars)
  • Piazza San Marco, Venice (from a second-story window since nobody needs to see the pigeons up close)
  • Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara, Lisbon
  • Portofino South condo rooftop in West Palm Beach (looks out towards Mar-a-Lago so we can keep our envy levels appropriately high)
  • Miami waterfront skyscraper (any) looking out toward Biscayne Bay and Miami Beach (watch the cruise ships come and go)
  • Looking out on the main square of Santiago de Compostela to watch pilgrims who’ve completed their walks
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