In NY state, there's some pushback against Gov. Spitzer (D)'s plan to offer driver's licenses to the "undocumented":

John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary who served on the September 11 commission, called the governor's decree "absurd."

"It's a perfect formula for al Qaeda. They won't be able to resist it. They will be able to come to New York," he said. "It's going to become a magnet to lawbreakers because the surrounding states will adhere to the federal standards."

Critics say the credibility of a New York driver's license could be called into question in other states, because applicants would not be required to prove that they have a Social Security number.

The issue began in July 2006, when an appeals court ruled that the state could have wider latitude in issuing driver's licenses. Republican Gov. George E. Pataki decreed that immigrants would need to prove they were in the United States legally before getting licenses. During the gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Spitzer vowed to change that. With the Republican-led Senate adamantly opposed to any change, the governor bypassed the Legislature by issuing an executive order.

The plan is supposed to go into effect in December, but the Senate's Republican majority has pledged to override Mr. Spitzer's order in an emergency session Oct. 22.

The public is opposed to Mr. Spitzer's plan as well, a recent poll shows.

A Zogby survey of 718 likely voters in New York found that 65 percent of the state's voters are against the proposal. The poll, taken Oct. 11-15, showed that nearly half — 47 percent — of Democrats oppose the plan, compared with 92 percent of Republicans.

The Washington Times reports on some of the changes and challenges facing the IMF and World Back with the growth of the financial holdings of the PRC, Russia, and South Korea.

This morning and yesterday, the folks over at the Corner had a fierce debate about immigration. Highlights include Mark Krikorian saying that immigration is incompatible with modern society and John Podhoretz declaring that restrictions on immigration are really "tariffs." As Instapundit says, just keep scrolling.

Made in China: the steel of the US/Mexico border fence. (or at least some of the steel...)

Members of Congress are demanding an investigation of the contagious TB border-crosser and Homeland Security's/Center for Disease Control's response to the matter. Some reporters at the Washington Times are already hinting at that dreaded Washington specter: cover up.

CNN has a new poll up about racial attitudes toward immigration. Yglesias, Marshall, and others claim that this poll demonstrates that "blacks" are friendlier to ("illegal") immigration than "whites." However, there are a number of polls that would seem to put that claim in doubt. This Pew poll from 2006 shows some of the complexity--and limits--of attempting to assign "racial" approaches to immigration.

Rep. Pence (R-IN) has filed a "discharge petition" for his anti-"Fairness Doctrine" proposal. If this discharge petition is signed by a majority of House members, this measure may be brought to the House floor. Some reports indicate that Pence's office is hoping to get at least "20 or so" Democratic votes and all Republicans; if he can get those numbers, the petition will be successful.

WaPo has the details on a--sometimes contentious--meeting in Prince William County (VA) on local immigration measures. The governing board of PWC votes to move ahead to consider these measures.

The New York Times reports on some of the administration's attempt to increase the number of "guest workers."

David Crosby and the politicization of religion: An interesting moment in the (much-blogged) discussion between Crosby and Chris Matthews on the Iraq war. Crosby says about one of the aims of his "peace" concert:

Crosby: ...it's a call to America's churches to be a leader to their flock and to stick up for their flock. If the--if the--people in America are against the war, then the churches of America need to get in line and stand up for what we believe in.

So isn't Crosby saying that the opinion of various religious leaders should be driven only by public opinion? Even as Matthews and Nash seem to find it "odd" to pray for soldiers going into battle, Crosby seems to have no problem with religious officials engaging into political debates--and having their own approaches directed by popular political opinion.

The Washington Post reports on the diversity of new immigration laws being passed by various states. The story outlines three approaches to this diversity: alarm, support, or a (federalism-flavored) sense that this variety in state responses to immigration can allow the nation to test which laws might actually be the most effective:

Some observers are alarmed by the trend, calling the widely divergent laws further evidence of America's cultural divide and saying they could pose new hurdles in reaching a national consensus on immigration. Piecemeal policymaking is opening the door to a flurry of legal battles -- the Department of Homeland Security, for instance, is suing Illinois for banning businesses there from confirming an employee's legal status through the federal E-Verify database, which state officials have called flawed and unreliable.

Others argue that the inability to reach a national solution has left states no choice. Governors are grappling with cities and towns that, in the absence of a national or state policy, have taken it upon themselves to pass local immigration laws either protecting or cracking down on illegal immigrants. This has occasionally lead to radically different regulations within individual states.

Still others assert that the rush of state activism has created an unforeseen opportunity. By viewing states as laboratories and studying the successes and failures of their various policies, Americans may find useful information, even a road map, for developing a national strategy.

It also claims that Oklahoma's new immigration laws have begun to drive away the "undocumented":

Hispanic business groups, citing school enrollment losses and church parish figures, say the laws, which start going into effect later this year, have caused as many as 25,000 undocumented workers to flee the state in recent months. The loss is being decried by the Oklahoma State Home Builders Association.

"In major metro areas we are seeing people leave based on the perception that things are going to get bad for them and that this state doesn't want them here," said Mike Means, executive vice president of the association. "Now we're looking at a labor shortage. I've got builders who are being forced to slow down jobs because they don't have the crews. And it's not like these people are going back to Mexico. They're going to Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Arkansas, anywhere where the laws aren't against them."

Don't Ask: CA Gov. Schwarzenneger (R) has signed a measure that prohibits landlords from asking about the immigration status of their tenants. The AP reports. The bill in question in AB 976. The measure both prohibits cities and towns from requiring landlords to check the immigration status of individuals and forbids landlords from deciding to check immigration status of tenants on their own. The bill was passed in both the CA Assembly and Senate on basically party-line votes (with R's against). Is signing this another demonstration of a difference between Schwarzenegger and CA Republican legislators?

It seems as though the mayors of some Texas towns are suing to stop a border fence from being built on their lands.

A reader draws my attention to a line buried in Chertoff's response to the "no match" injunction:

Today's ruling is yet another reminder of why we need Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

I wonder what Kaus would think of that...if Chertoff is trying to "heighten the contradictions," he can't be too disappointed with this injunction: it shows just how "unworkable" the current tools for enforcement are!

Dean Baker doesn't like copyrights:

It's long past time for a little reality check. Copyright dates back to 16th century Venice. It was a mechanism for allowing writers to profit from their work by giving them a state-enforced monopoly. It has continued since that time, with the state-granted monopoly being extended both in scope and duration. Copyrights now cover music, movies, video games, and a wide range of other material. The duration has also been repeatedly extended so that copyrights in the United States now persist for 95 years after the death of the author.

While copyrights do provide an incentive for creative work, they are an extremely inefficient mechanism for this end. It is most efficient when items are sold at their marginal cost. Economists generally get infuriated about the economic distortions that are created when tariffs of 10 percent or 20 percent are placed on items like steel or clothes. In the case of copyrights, material that could otherwise be transferred at zero cost, instead commands prices of $15 for CDs, $30 for movies, and even higher prices for other items, entirely because of the government-granted monopoly. For this reason, the economic distortions created by copyright dwarf the economic damage caused by other forms of trade protection.

There are many other mechanisms for supporting creative work, such as university funding (most professors are expected to publish in addition to their teaching), foundation funding, or direct public support. It is easy to design alternative mechanisms to expand this pool of non-copyright funding, such as the Artistic Freedom Voucher, which would give each person a small tax credit to support creative work of their choosing.

With the entertainment industry getting increasingly out of control, it is important that we start to develop better alternatives to copyright. We need to think of how we should support creative work in the 21st century and not let the entertainment industry drag us back into the 16th century.

Of course, it seems to me that the irony of Baker's approach is that it would encourage a return to 16th-century policy: artists and writers would be even more dependent upon elite patrons for support. We would have traded the Medicis for national foundations. Granted, there's always been a role for the wealthy patron in the arts (the Medicis sponsored some pretty nice stuff), and plenty of productive authors are now based out of universities. It's one thing to complain about the "trade protection" "damage" of copyright and arguing that it distorts the "market," but are vast, institutional structures going to be that much more responsive to the "market"? One would have to wonder what would be more "distorting": having to pay an author some percentage of a book's price as a result of his or her labor in producing this book or having authors fill out grant proposal after grant proposal to apply for funding from some institution (and having this funding be determined by a coterie of people)?
Baker, it seems to me, wants to trade the protections of free-market commerce for the largesse of institutions. Even if we lay aside any ethical objections to the destruction of copyright in a society, his policy certainly raises some practical concerns about some of the implications of a dissolution of copyright.
Interestingly, Baker omits another way of raising revenue for creative work: advertising. Certainly, advertising helps fund a lot of magazines and newspapers, and I know a few blogs are able to pay the bills (at least partially) through ads.
(Not that I'm against "Open Source" work or anything like that [I'm not charging for this blog! (not that anyone would pay!--ed)]--but there is a difference between forced "Open Source" and that of the voluntary kind. And one can support forced "Open Source" policies even while acknowledging the drawbacks of these policies.)

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction to stop the Bush administration from enforcing its new "no match" policies. Chertoff says he's still hopeful:

The decision Wednesday was disappointing, said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, but wasn't more than a "bump in the road" in the agency's drive to vigorously enforce laws aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of the workforce.

The government will evaluate the "modest legal obstacles" presented by the judge, addressing them in litigation or outside court, as it examines its options and determines whether to appeal the decision, Chertoff said.

"I don't think there's anything in the judge's ruling that is insurmountable," Chertoff told The Associated Press by telephone. "The key is to move forward. We're committed to using every tool available to enforce our immigration laws."

Opponents of the measure are pleased with this result:

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security could not go ahead with their plan to send joint letters warning businesses they'll face penalties if they keep workers whose Social Security numbers don't match their names.

Breyer said the new work-site rule would likely impose hardships on businesses and their workers. Employers would incur new costs to comply with the regulation that the government hasn't evaluated, and innocent workers unable to correct mistakes in their records in the given time would lose their jobs, the judge wrote.

"The plaintiffs have demonstrated they will be irreparably harmed if DHS is permitted to enforce the new rule," Breyer wrote.

The so-called "no match" letters, including a Department of Homeland Security warning, were supposed to start going out in September but were held after labor groups and immigrant activists filed a federal lawsuit.

An amendment (H/T Malkin) proposed by Sen. Boxer (D-CA) would discourage the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau from enforcing immigration law during the time of the 2010 census. Some suspect that this amendment may be motivated by the fact that "undocumented immigrants" are counted in the US Census for purposes of Congressional representation.

ABC News has a poll up about US attitudes toward immigration. However, I think they might be misinterpreting a piece of data. The report on the poll claims:

most, 58 percent, favor a path to citizenship for those here now -- a program giving illegal immigrants the right to legal status if they pay a fine and meet other requirements.

However, the poll question (as released in the polling report) asks nothing about a "path to citizenship":

2. Would you support or oppose a program giving ILLEGAL immigrants now living
in the United States the right to live here LEGALLY if they pay a fine and meet
other requirements?

I thought a "path to citizenship" meant a path to citizenship--not a path to legal permanent residency. "Living here legally" need not imply citizenship.

An interesting WaPo story on sectarian negotiations and suspicions in Iraq. I might wonder, however, if, rather than being an alternative to national "reconciliation" (as this story implies), "streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services" might be a way of arriving at some potential reconciliation. It seems to me that one of the many lingering problems Iraqis face is a lack of trust in each other and a national government. Having an actually functioning national government might help build this trust that would seem so important for national reconciliation. It seems that an Iraqi parliament member would agree with this:

Humam Hamoudi, a prominent Shiite cleric and parliament member, said any future reconciliation would emerge naturally from an efficient, fair government, not through short-term political engineering among Sunnis and Shiites.

"Reconciliation should be a result and not a goal by itself," he said. "You should create the atmosphere for correct relationships, and not wave slogans that 'I want to reconcile with you.' "

Tension in Switzerland over immigration--and a political party's position on it.