BBC shilling for illegal immigration

I shouldn't be surprised at the BBC any more, but their article My life trapped in an American city was so egregious that I feel it deserves a thorough fisking.

My family and I migrated to Phoenix, Arizona, when I was eight years old. I'm now 22 and a student of engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso.
I'm not a criminal yet in a way I'm treated like one.

Well, your parents arranged to violate the immigration laws of the country in which you find yourself, so it's not surprising that the way you could be treated is analogous to the way that others who have broken the laws are treated. And I can't help but notice that you're not blaming your parents for this situation despite the fact that they explicitly arranged for it to happen.

El Paso has checkpoints around it where immigration officers ask for your documents, documents I obviously don't have. I can't leave the city or I risk deportation. Fortunately, my parents became US residents two years ago but, unfortunately, this isn't the case for my sisters, aged 25 and 18, and me.
When they got their papers they moved back to Phoenix in search of more job opportunities after four years of living here. But I risked putting my college education in jeopardy and getting deported if I crossed the checkpoint and was asked for my documents.

I also wonder whether your parents' immigration status would be jeopardized if USCIS found out that they were actively working to conceal other illegal immigrants - you and your sisters, specifically.

My parents visit me once every three or four months - because of work and other things they can't be here more often. But since they all moved I haven't seen my youngest sister. Her high school graduation was last month and I was unable to go even though everyone in the family was there. And I know neither one of my sisters will be able to attend mine.

On the other hand, you get a gratis US taxpayer funded high school education, and I can't help but notice a complete lack of gratitude for this.

I try not to complain since I'm the first of my parents' children to go to college. I feel very lucky. On the other hand, there are days when I'm just tired of it.
I feel like I don't have rights.

Well, you have all the regular rights of anyone within the United States, citizen or otherwise, as enumerated in the Constitution - in fact, a heck of a lot more than in Mexico. What you mean is, you don't have the right to be treated like a legal resident of the country - because you aren't. That's like me visiting Paris and complaining that I don't have the right to be treated like a French citizen. I'm not a French citizen, there's no prospect of me becoming one, and just because I'm touring the Eiffel Tower doesn't give me any rights to that status.

When they ask me "Why aren't you working? or "Why don't you drive?" I have to make them believe that I'm lazy. So they just stop asking. The truth is I'm unable to work or get a driving licence.
As soon as we crossed the border I had to assimilate myself. I learned English and as I was learning it as a child, our teachers would straight out say "Stop speaking Spanish. You're in America now". A few months later I would win spelling bees - compete against white people who only spoke English - and still win.

You've done a great job of learning the language: fantastic! Just curious: what did you learn about the laws of the country you're living in, and the need to respect them? Because that's also kinda important.

After the 2008 recession my dad, a civil engineer, couldn't find a job in Phoenix and we lost the house we had. So we had to go back to Mexico.
I had such a terrible time, it was probably the worst of my life. I was so Americanised that I didn't fit in. That's what they ask you to do to be accepted in the American culture. I had lost my Mexican identity. We were there for a year and a half before we came back.

Looking at your age (22 now) this looks like: left Mexico at age 8, returned to Mexico at age 12, came back to USA at age 13/14. Pardon me for scenting a certain amount of license with the truth here. At age 8 you'd be speaking fluent Mexican Spanish. After 4 years in the USA you'll certainly have an American accent, but you'll be immersed in an immigrant community and frequently hearing and speaking Spanish. The problem is, you didn't like being back in Mexico because it wasn't as nice as being in the USA - even with all the illegal immigration limitations you document so heavily.

I know so much history about this country, more than average US nationals, and I have so much respect for it seeing as I get myself involved in politics to help improve this country's current state. I involve myself more than citizens, people who should worry more about this nation given that it really is theirs.

I see. So you don't think that, for instance, politics in the USA should be reserved for those who are actually citizens and bear voting rights and responsibilities? In fact, by the sound of it, you consider yourself better informed and more responsible than they are? I can't imagine that generating any resentment at all.

It's difficult to dream in a country that, regardless of everything I've done, which is what most immigrants do, doesn't welcome you even if you've seen it as home for most of your life.

I've found the USA very welcoming to immigrants. But then, I came here by following the rules that the USA had laid down for immigrants. Almost as if Americans don't appreciate those trying to end-run around the rules that others are following. Go figure.

I understand that they have the right to choose to whom they grant citizenship. I just wish they would give me some sort of help. I've given up part of my culture, my roots, to be accepted here. I've already given some of me.
Why can't this country give something back?

What, like a free high school education? A community which is so attractive that you'd rather live there illegally than in your home country legally? Legal status for your older sister and parents? Yes, you've really been hard done over by the USA.

Three semesters from now, when I graduate, I may still be deported. And I may never see my sisters again until they can get papers, which by the looks of it will probably be in 12 more years.

You should go and talk to Indian or Chinese H1-B visa holders and ask them about their timelime to permanent resident (Green Card) status. They'd love to only have to wait 12 years. If you want to see your sisters again, you can always go to Mexico after you graduate. What you're actually saying is that you prefer the economic and educational benefits of living in the USA to seeing your sisters. That's a perfectly rational choice, but it's your choice, and it's a bit much to blame the USA for the situation that you can't have your cake and eat it.

You can't deny that this has affected me. This shouldn't be happening.

Right. Your parents shouldn't have repeatedly violated US immigration law in the first place to put you in this invidious position. And yet that doesn't seem to be your point, for some reason...

Pull your head out of your ass, girl. If you really want to stay in the USA, find an American citizen and marry them. I assume that's how your older sister got her residence status. It may be a sacrifice - you might already be in love with someone who's not a USA citizen - but you have to decide what's most important to you.

Redundant quotes in the news

Man scalped by grizzly bear says he's 'lucky' to be alive

OK, in what universe is he 'lucky' to be alive? Would anyone like to propose that the expected result of being scalped by a bear is anything but death? Anyone? Bueller?

He fought back, kicking the bear and punching its face. The bear released him and he ran inside. The bear had bit his abdomen and torn away part of his scalp and his ear, and he was bleeding profusely.
"There's a lot of blood I'm sure up and down the stairs," he said.
Without cell reception or a landline to call for help, Mr Carbery ran to his car as the bear chased him and drove himself to the nearest hospital.

While full of admiration for this gentleman's tenacity and instinct for self preservation (ignoring his questionable decision to approach a pair of grizzly bears without any kind of firearm, let alone one chambered in .700 Nitro express) I don't think we can ascribe his survival to anything other than sheer luck:

...the bear caught up with him at the door, picked him up by the skull and tossed him to the ground, he says.

If an anecdote in your life includes the words "picked me up by the skull", and you're recounting it, you're clearly luckier than the average.

On politeness, and abuses thereof

Coming out of the supermarket today, I was assailed in the foyer by a lady in her early 30s standing in front of a poster advertising some kind of pet shelter charity, asking me:

"Do you prefer dogs or cats?"

I'm normally quite a polite person, but this lady was clearly exploiting the polite human instinct to respond to a apparently innocuous question as a hook to draw me into some conversation about the terrible conditions dogs/cats would exist in were it not for the sterling work of this shelter. Once you try to exploit my politeness, darling, you lose all your rights to it.

"Depends: roasted, or stewed?" I replied, and strode out to the car park. A sharp intake of breath and "Oh!" from behind me suggested that I'd hit my mark.

I've had it with the attempted exploits on decent behaviour - politeness, courtesy, fear of giving offence - with the aim of using it to further a political or commercial agenda. I've seen enough of it to be able to recognise when someone's trying it on, and they can expect a withering contempt in response. If more of the public took this approach, it might just dissuade the offenders from this abusive anti-social dialogue.

(For the record, I'm a cat person. Wash in my own spit, the whole deal.)

How to kill Trusteer's Rapport stone dead

If you, like me, have had to wrangle with a slow and balky family member's Mac, you may have found the root cause of the slowness to be Rapport. This is an IBM-branded piece of "security" software, and has all the user friendliness and attention to performance and detail that we expect from Big Blue - to wit, f-all.

I therefore followed the comprehensive instructions on uninstalling Rapport which were fairly easy to step through and complete. Only problem - it didn't work. The rapportd daemon was still running, new programs were still very slow to start, and there was no apparent way forward.

Not dissuaded, I figured out how to drive a stake through its heart. Here's how.

Rapport start-up

Rapport installs a configuration in OS X launchd which ensures its daemon (rapportd) is started up for every user. The files in /Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchAgents are easy to remove, but the original files are in /System/Library/LaunchAgents and /System/Library/LaunchDaemons and you need to kill those to stop Rapport.

However, System Integrity Protection (SIP) on OS X El Capitan and later prevents you from deleting files under /System - even as root.

Given that, the following instructions will disable SIP on your Mac, remove the Rapport files, and re-enable SIP. You should be left with a Mac that is no longer burdened by Rapport.

Check whether Rapport is running

From a Terminal window, type
ps -eaf | grep -i rapport
If you see one or more lines mentioning rapportd then you have Rapport running and you should keep going; if not, your problems lie elsewhere.

Disable SIP

Reboot your machine, and hold down COMMAND+R as the machine restarts. This brings you into Recovery mode. From the menu bar, choose Utilities → Terminal to open up a Terminal window. Then type
csrutil disable
exit

Now reboot and hold down COMMAND+S as the machine restarts to enter single-user mode (a black background and white text).

Find and delete the Rapport files

You'll need to make your disk writeable, so enter the two commands (which should be suggested in the text displayed when you enter single user mode):
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /

Now
cd /System/Library/LaunchAgents
and look for the Rapport files:
ls *apport*
You can then remove them:
rm com.apple.RapportUI*
rm com.apple.rapport*

Then
cd ../LaunchDaemons
and look for the Rapport files there:
ls *apport*
You can then remove them too:
rm com.apple.rapportd*

Restore SIP

Rapport should now be dead, but you should re-enable SIP. Reboot and hold down COMMAND+R to go back to Recovery mode. From the menu bar, choose Utilities → Terminal to open up a Terminal window. Then type
csrutil enable
exit

Reboot, and you should be done. Open a Terminal window, type
ps -eaf | grep -i rapport
and verify that rapportd no longer appears.