Anchor Babies - These are the children, born in the United States to illegal immigrant  parents.  The newborns are given automatic citizenship in the United States.  The topic has gotten lots of debate recently, as it's been determined that as many as 1 in 6 children born in California are Anchor babies.   More to the point, the VAST majority of these babies are born in hospitals, for which their parents never pay a dime.  It's a HUGE draw for Mexicans to come to the US for their babies birth - simply because of this law. 

I'm even aware of individuals, here in the midwest, and not of hispanic heritage, that host pregnant relatives in the US just a few weeks before an anticipated birth.

Meg Whitman, gubernatorial candidate for California has an interesting idea.  She's proposing to change the law to allow anchor babies be given US citizenship, but ONLY AFTER they receive a high school diploma.  It's a great idea and promotes an educated citizenry.  
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James Cameron, the creator of AVATAR, believes firmly in the theories (still unproven) of Climate Change.  And he was tired of all the naysayers that questioned the theory, so much so that he laid down the challenge to debate the opposition.  In fact, he said he relished the opportunity to: "call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads."

Cameron approached three high profile skeptics (Ann McElhinney, Andrew Breitbart, and Marc Morano) to see if they would agree to a debate with Mr. Cameron and two other scientists.  In fact the debate, per Mr. Cameron, was to be held at the Aerday Environmental Conference in Aspen Colorado - this week.  It was hoped that the event would be broadcast on the internet and TV. 

Ms. McElhinney (one of the participants) reports what happened next: 

Everyone on our side agreed with their conditions. The debate was even listed on the AREDAY agenda.

But then as the debate approached James Cameron's side started changing the rules.

They wanted to change their team. We agreed.

They wanted to change the format to less of a debate—to "a roundtable". We agreed.

Then they wanted to ban our cameras from the debate. We could have access to their footage. We agreed.

Bizarrely, for a brief while, the worlds most successful film maker suggested that no cameras should be allowed-that sound only should be recorded. We agreed

Then finally James Cameron, who so publicly announced that he "wanted to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out," decided to ban the media from the shoot out.

He even wanted to ban the public. The debate/roundtable would only be open to those who attended the conference.

No media would be allowed and there would be no streaming on the internet.  No one would be allowed to record it in any way.

We all agreed to that.

And then, yesterday, just one day before the debate, his representatives sent an email that Mr. "shoot it out " Cameron no longer wanted to take part. The debate was canceled.


WHAT HAPPENED?  We'll likely never know.  But it raises serious concerns when environmental leaders like Al Gore and James Cameron want to talk at us about climate change, but never want to engage in a debate.  Their silence is deafening.